Night #4 in the kitchen

Tonight it was flourless Kahlua chocolate cake with Kahlua chocolate icing, and the cheese ball for snack time tomorrow night.

The flourless chocolate cake went surprisingly well. I was a bit leery of this recipe because the last two times I made it, it failed to set up. It's basically a souffle` recipe, but this one is a bit odd, and you don't beat the egg whites separately. It does sink in some in the middle, but on the plus side, it has staying power a souffle` doesn't.

For the camp out, I have to have things that a) can be done all ahead of time; b) don't have to be served hot; and c) require no kitchen time for garnishing. Eric, who does the dinner, has to have the kitchen the whole day. It's a pretty tall order to do this and keep it creative. I don't want to fall back on doing the same things every time.

Anyway, so as relieved as I was that the cake set, I think I may have gotten it over-done now. I tasted a flake of it when I took the springform ring off, and it tasted a bit burnt. I hope it's OK. I don't have time for the cake to cool tonight, so I'll have to do the icing for it in the morning. Which means getting up early. Sigh. I already have a hard time sleeping before the camp out. And I never sleep well during. I'm going to be dead by the time this weekend is over. But it will be a lot of fun. It always is.

I started working on the cheese ball, but had to leave off because I ran out of shredded cheese to coat the outside with. I just put the filling to the side to "ball it up" later. When I got back from the store about 10:30, I was so tired, I forgot that you have to let the filling chill overnight before you roll and coat it. I turned out this mass of sticky cheese on the counter to roll it up, and my hands just sunk into it. I was wearing cheese gloves before I figured out what was wrong. I just stuck it all into a container shoved it in the fridge, and decided I could deal with it tomorrow.