A post in which I'm on track

And that's a very good thing. I was up early, so was able to go by the post office on the way in to the office to get my thank you card and Eve's birthday card in the mail. I'm planning to do the Mother's Day cards tonight. Ever notice how everything seems to come up at once?

Work continues to be a bottomless vortex of report hell.

Happy Cinco de Mayo! And down with the French! LOL I love Mexican food, and usually use today as an excuse to get me a heapin plate o something - usually nachos, even though they aren't really Mexican. But there just wasn't time today. Fortunately, one of the vendors brought in a fiesta luncheon for us and Anna fixed me a plate full of black beans, rice, seasoned cabbage, nacho cheese, and sour cream. I threw hot sauce all over it and grabbed a coupla tortillas and chowed! It sure did hit the spot. It's too bad the Mexicans can't celebrate today because of the Swine Flu. God bless them.

When I got off work today it had rained, and of course the South Carolinians had all gone nuts on the highway, so I just went to the break room and read for a bit. I decided to get my receipts together for LOCK. It's been one freakin grocery store week. I've spent a little over $86 on desserts. But the run ticket was $65 anyway, and they comp me for food, so I'm not too far in the hole.

When I got home I relaxed for a bit. Tonight was my easy night. I talked to a nice guy I met on line for a bit. Almost too long, but I really enjoyed talking to him.

Tonight I made the sponge cake for the tropical fruit trifle. I'll put it together later, and it's actually better if the cake is a bit stale so that works out great. I usually cheat and use a fallen pound cake or just a mix cake, but I found a recipe for a real British hot milk sponge cake. I fooled around with the recipe though, and almost screwed it up. It did rise. Not much, but more than I deserved after what I did to the batter.

***warning - cook talk, anyone else will be bored shitless***

Apparently a traditional sponge cake gets the leavening from beaten egg whites, like for an angel food cake. But for a hot milk sponge there is some baking powder in the recipe. I got the recipe from www.recipezaar.com, my all time favorite recipe place online. One of the commenters said that she whipped the egg whites, as for a traditional sponge, before she put the batter together. I can only think she never actually made this recipe. I whipped my egg whites, which rose beautifully. Then I followed the instructions, which said to beat the eggs with the sugar. Four egg yolks just don't have enough moisture to dissolve two cups of sugar. I ended up with a mass of grainy yellow paste. No to be dissuaded, I mixed it with the egg whites, but the sugar wouldn't dissolve properly a) because I couldn't whip the egg whites too hard now, lest I lose all my lift; and b) because the sugar was coated with egg yolk. It incorporated, but looked kind of like ice cream with swirls in it. Next I added the dry ingredients, and then the hot milk and butter. It went together, but the batter was about the consistency of pancake batter - pretty thin. It baked up OK. It didn't rise much. But that doesn't matter for a trifle. The main difficulty is that it will be hard to split the layers to put the jam in. But I'll figure something out. If worse comes to worst, I'll just sprinkle some brandy over the cake and call it a day.

*** end of detailed cooking stuff***

Of course that is the beauty of doing cake for a trifle. It makes no difference what it looks like. It tastes great, so I'm good. The undissolved sugar kind of crystallized on the outside of the cake, which made it sticky, but gave it a really nice little crispy kind of shell on the outside. Of course that will be lost in the body of the trifle. I'll whip the filling and put it all together on Saturday. I'm not brandying the fruit or anything, so the work on that one is done.

When I finished that and cleaned up the enormous mess I made in the kitchen I got to work on my glaze for the pineapple coconut cake. It turned out delish. Pineapple, butter, powdered sugar and some praline liqueur. A great way to gussy up a deceptively plain looking sheet cake. And all because I didn't want to throw out the pineapple juice.

By the time I got the kitchen cleaned up it was about 10 and I was ready for bed. Tomorrow night is the night I'm worried about . Working with chocolate is just something I haven't done that much of. And I've spent big bucks on all this chocolate, so I really want things to go right.

I guess we'll see.