The stormy weather today gave us some extra cooking challenges today. We made dinner for six people, but due to the biblical weather conditions the power died during our prep and cooking time, and we remained without electricity for about an hour. Oh, and four inches of rain we got over the course of three hours caused the basement to flood. So I was down there holding a flash light an moving boxes and laundry to higher ground while Clark cooked upstairs by candlelight. Flippin' fabulous! I vote that our next house should be on stilts.



It was also too dangerous for the animals to remain in the yard, so we ran outside and brought our soaked, scared birds indoors. The chickens were happy to have a chance to get warm, but the ducks are always indignant about being handled and confined. "Quack! Quack! How dare you touch our royal personages! Quack! We shall have you peasants flogged! Bring us more broccoli! Quack!"



Luckily, we have plenty of emergency candles, a gas stove and a sense of adventure. I chose this crazy day to make my first sponge cake, ever, though I did make that decision before the power went out. Still, even with the power on I tried to make the cake as much by hand as possible, beating the egg yolks and the egg whites by hand. Actually, I only lasted through a total of ten minutes of vigorous hand beating before resorting to electromechanical help. My biceps were KILLING me. I need to get in better shape so I'll be ready to hand whip egg whites into meringue before the end of summer. Whee!



I used this recipe from tasteofcuba.com. I've eaten a lot of piece of tres leches, it's a popular cuban dessert, but I've never even seen someone else make it, let alone tried on my own. The cake base is a sponge cake drizzled in a mixture of evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and whipping cream, hence the 'tres leches'. The recipe also calls to top the cake with meringue, but I decided that was a little too much sugar for me, plus I was a little tired of whipping egg whites. Cakes should only take so much work before they're not worth it.



I was surprised, but the sponge cake came out with the right fluffiness and texture. The only problem was that I had a little trouble flipping it out of the pan for the drizzling step. It was pretty stuck in there, so I lost some chunks. Still, between six people we managed to eat 3/4 of the total. Yippie!

Labels: food, projects

posted by Alison 6/17/2009 11:10:00 PM : (1) comments : splink