+ some photos
After the success of Tancredi's birthday cake Sara's friend Alessandra requested another one for her son's 8th birthday a few days later. Knowing the cake is much easier to work with the say after its cooked I set aside time to make it ahead of time. In one of my city adventures I'd headed to an Asian shop to pick up the ingredients to make a curry as Tancredi requested. With my time here dwindling to a close it was decided that cake baking day would also be curry making night.
So in a momentary and unusual bit of time alone in the apartment I set out first with the cake and then once that was in the oven with the curry. Previously when Sara had been at the shops she'd called me up to check what meat I needed for the curry asking if chicken on the bone was okay. I pointed out that deboned would be better but she decided we could just cut it from the bones our selves. So whilst periodically checking on the cake of i definite cooking time I set out to debone 5 chicken thighs with the two bluntest knives ever. I should also point out that each was at least 20cm long and half the chicken thighs were frozen. Also I hate raw chicken.
By the time everyone made it home I was almost finished hacking the chicken, had potatoes boiling on the stove and the cake was almost done. Selene was super excited about the prospect of curry, not having eaten it since she was in Australia in 2011 every time someone asked what we were having with it I waved in her direction and asked her to explain it for me. Corrado kept insisting we were going to have something as a first plate and then curry second.
Remembering from last time that Sara's month couldn't handle spice I added about half the curry paste I would have normally and we had a very mild mussaman curry for dinner. I asked Selene (who asked Sara) to make the rice since we are lazy and have a rice cooker at home I've never learnt the proper amount of rice to add. Corrado was, as the Italians say, 'breaking my balls' about how I wanted the rice. Not only was I managing the curry and cake I also had some left over cookie dough defrosting to cook once the cake was done. Oh and there were 5 other people in the 45m² apartment. It's safe to say I did not appreciate his stopping me to ask how I wanted the rice, he was not in charge of the rice and I had already conveyed to Sara how it needed to be cooked. When he asked me about it I responded 'cooked' to which he started listing ways Italians cook rice as example of how I should have specified better. My rather short response was 'if i wanted it cooked like risotto I would have said' risotto' not cooked'. He seemed to leave me to it after that.
Everyone was pretty happy with the curry, though Selene complained it wasn't spicy enough, since there is still lost of paste left I explained to her how to make a second smaller and spicy sauce that people could add to their plate if they wanted. She seems pretty enthusiastic about cooking it again sometime so that's pretty cool.
The next day I had a lazy morning around the house before settling in to finish the cake around lunch time. After lunch Alessandra came over to borrow our oven to cook some party food and everything was going smoothly until at 10 to 5 she got a call from the person making a second cake to say that she'd dropped it. Eyes turned to me and I was asked if I could whip up another simple cake. I should point out the party was scheduled to start at 6.30. Glancing around the apartment to see what ingredients we had and taking on board the arm waving and explanation of a simple white cake I decided a pound cake would suffice. A did a quick google search and chose the first result (a taste.com recipe) without reading any others.
According to the rather waffley notes with the recipe it was apparently rather important the butter be at the right temperature and it be creamed with the sugar just so and the mix wasn't allowed to look curdled when you added the eggs. Considering i was doing all of the creaming with a hand mixer that would either break it jam every couple of minutes it's safe to say I disregarded most of the notes. Also when they insisted on the butter being at room temperature or else the whole thing be a catastrophe in don't think they had alpine room temperate in mind.
I eventually gave up on the hand blender and added the flour to a mix that was curdled. This whole time Corrado was muttering about how I shouldn't have been asked to make a second cake and they should have just bought a new one. After shoving the thing in the oven I retreated to my bed to escape people for the 50mins it took to cook. I as soon as the timer went off we rugged up and headed to the party, the cake cooling as we went! There were strict instructions to the person carrying the mud cake (Sara) that if they dropped it I'd kill them. We made it to the party without a drama, dropping off Tancredi's hired skis on the way.
I was quite pleased that within a few minutes of arrived I was given a glass of wine. After the stress of last minute cake making it was very welcome. Selene quickly grew bored of being surrounded by little kids and organised for me, her and Tancre to go down the road to the cinema and watch The Butler. We brought the cakes out and everyone was super impresses with how they looked. With the pound cake mostly cool I quickly covered it in icing sugar and stuck some candles in it. After singing happy birthday in both italian and English (who knows why) I was in charge of dishing out cake.
Everyone was super pleased with both despite the pound cake was still slightly warm in the middle. The party was held in a room of the ski school where Giacomo (the birthday boy) had been learning and most of the ski coaches pop in for a piece too. The three off us headed off to the film (that i'd already seen in Australia) leaving Corrado, Sara and the cakes at the mercy of 8 year old with party blower trumpets. I was surprised how much of the film Tancredi understood, there were only a few things, like him not recognising the Obama Biden logo, that he didn't get, and mostly because they were recent events and haddn't made it yet into history studies.
We saw Alessandra again the next day as we were picking up to leave and she was again super thankful for both my cakes. One cake would probably have been enough but only just. And I am told the extras were left at the ski school for their coaches party the next day.
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