FIESTA FOR TIFF & NOAH

It was finally time to celebrate their engagement with the family.  Chelsey planed a really fun Fiesta on the beach. Dave was chief chef, of course and made delicious  pork tacos, the best I have eaten by far.  The cake was my domain and keeping in the spirit of the evening I decided on a Tres Leches cake. I had made one before and it was a disaster. I occasionally pick up Fine Cooking magazine, as luck would have it I bought the current issue as my plane reading en route to Cannes and it featured a Tres Leches recipe. I know their recipes work so without a practice run I decided to go for it. Well I think my only mistake was not making 2! This is a really easy cake to bake and is perfect for entertaining as it is excellent baked the day before you need it, all you need to do on the day is add the whipped cream and some garnish, I used chocolate, was supposed to be curls, clearly need to work on that!

MOM, THIS COULD BE BEST BIRTHDAY CAKE YET....

Most of my friends know that I always do a chocolate cake for Joseph's birthday. For years I had been cheating and using a Duncan Hines mix!!!!! Shocker, I know.  It all started when I asked a friend and chef for a good chocolate cake recipe when Joseph was around 4, as I was finding that my English recipes didn't seem to work so well here, and truthfully, I hadn't baked too many chocolate cakes. The friend knew it was for a 4 year old's birthday party and said I was crazy to bother to bake one from scratch, and so the cake from a mix thing started.  I did always make my own Butter icing/frosting, honest!  A year ago I made a wonderful cake, recipe from Rosalind,  who had brought it to my birthday party earlier in the year. (I was sure I had posted it but it seems not!)  This cake was a labour of love for sure, but well worth it in my opinion, here is a pic, looks pretty similar, suppose it is my frosting style but it was much bigger and it was really delicious!

So, as the birthday drew nigh I asked Joseph if he would like me to repeat the cake this year and he said: 'No, let's go back to the one you used to make',  so disappointing, I LOVED last year's cake.  However, I really wanted to improve on the packet mix cake and looked for a recipe for traditional chocolate cake.  Turned to Cooks Illustrated, of course and there found an 'Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake' recipe that looked about right to me.  As I have said before, I cannot post a link, you need to subscribe to CI, most annoying.  I even followed the icing recipe, no brainer, it had lots of chocolate and butter so of course was yummy.  BINGO!  Joseph loved it, no fretting next year, I will know exactly what to do!

SUNDAY LUNCH DESSERT

Had a wonderful lunch, Ian's Mum, Beryl, was visiting from England. Julia was hosting in the kitchen we all covet! Julia cooked wonderful side of salmon, smothered with creme fraiche, lemon and a herb. I did Blueberry Buckle, a Cooks Illustrated recipe I had spotted a while back and finally tried. I was pretty pleased with it, it is very light and very fruity.
Shame you cannot get recipes from C I without a subscription, hoping they will get this figured out soon, in the meantime I hope the link works.
NOTE: I have made this a couple of times since, my tip is to err on the side of fewer blueberries. The cake has a lot of berries, which is one of the things that makes it great, but did not take much to tip it over the edge, does not make it better. Not a huge deal, just a little tip. Also, only did the whole pan prep the first time, subsequent times just sprayed the pan with 'Pan for baking' and it was fine, no need for all the lining the pan with parchment etc.

LEFTOVERS!

We had some Orange cake and cream but no compote, so here was Alan's 'leftovers' dessert a couple of days later. Luckily there was a Clementine in the fridge and he drizzled a little honey over it too.