Easter dinner went well, in spite of the torrential rain. Even Queen B and her children managed to make the drive in from the 'burbs. I hadn't seen the kids in quite a while, and they both had grown a couple of inches since the last time we got together. How time flies...
Anyway, the meal was great except . . . the cake I intended to make was an unqualified disaster. I must have misread my own cryptic, chicken-scratch notes on the recipe, because something went horribly wrong. I don't know if there was too much liquid or too little flour, but the center of the cake never did set, even though the edges were close to burning after more than an hour in the oven. I haven't had a cake failure like that in years. It was very humbling. I was disgusted with myself for the rest of the day (this was Saturday afternoon).
So I had to come up with a Plan B: luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand to make ice cream. If you don't have an ice cream machine, I highly recommend that you get one. Cuisinart makes one that only costs $50 and is ridiculously easy to use. I made a standard cooked French custard (I used Mark Bittman's recipe in "How to Cook Everything") and gussied it up with some cream cheese and seedless raspberry jam. When it was almost frozen, I dumped in a handful of fresh raspberries (they were supposed to decorate the cake) and let those get mixed in. For serving, I garnished the ice cream with more fresh raspberries and shaved white chocolate. It was a very elegant presentation that took very little effort. Everyone was very impressed with the ice cream, and I was pleased that I had managed to salvage things with a little quick thinking.
Anyway, the meal was great except . . . the cake I intended to make was an unqualified disaster. I must have misread my own cryptic, chicken-scratch notes on the recipe, because something went horribly wrong. I don't know if there was too much liquid or too little flour, but the center of the cake never did set, even though the edges were close to burning after more than an hour in the oven. I haven't had a cake failure like that in years. It was very humbling. I was disgusted with myself for the rest of the day (this was Saturday afternoon).
So I had to come up with a Plan B: luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand to make ice cream. If you don't have an ice cream machine, I highly recommend that you get one. Cuisinart makes one that only costs $50 and is ridiculously easy to use. I made a standard cooked French custard (I used Mark Bittman's recipe in "How to Cook Everything") and gussied it up with some cream cheese and seedless raspberry jam. When it was almost frozen, I dumped in a handful of fresh raspberries (they were supposed to decorate the cake) and let those get mixed in. For serving, I garnished the ice cream with more fresh raspberries and shaved white chocolate. It was a very elegant presentation that took very little effort. Everyone was very impressed with the ice cream, and I was pleased that I had managed to salvage things with a little quick thinking.
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