adventures in baking
Well, my instinct on the maple syrup cake turned out to be right. I’d thought, as I was mixing it up, “I should throw some cinnamon and spices in here,” but then I thought, nah, first time, I’ll follow the recipe. And it turned out to be a very nice, mild, very sweet cake with a texture and flavor like a spice cake someone hadn’t put the spices in. :) I also made the maple frosting recipe, which made a truly enormous amount of frosting that was very very sweet indeed. But I don’t think you can put anything else except maybe a vanilla frosting on a maple cake, because the cake itself really is very mild, so a, say, chocolate frosting, would totally overwhelm it. The recipe I used is here, if you want to give it a shot. It’s nice. It’s not exciting, but it’s nice.
I have for the first time made what I considered to be successful scalloped potatoes and ham. :) I didn’t over-parboil the potatoes, I sliced them the appropriate thinness, I made a nice white sauce which I did not forget to put garlic into, I chopped the ham into satisfyingly small bites, and I baked it just long enough to make the top all golden and crunchy and lovely. I forgot to put an onion in, but other than that I was very pleased with myself.
We’re having Thanksgiving on Sunday. No doubt there will be another Food Report then. :) Pies to make (and maybe fudge!), you know.
(x-posted from the essential kit)