See, about three weeks ago, my oven died. Just stopped working one night (the only night I didn't eat before going to scouts, and it was freezer night, so the oven was necessary)
And I had already told Deb that I wanted to bring dessert to her party.
So I put my thinking cap on.
(I had originally intended to make a white chocolate cheesecake, because it is much loved by Steve, and he often misses out when we do take it to parties, so he'd appreciate one of his own. But the dead oven nixed that idea.)
I decided on a choc ripple cake*, playing on the idea that we were going camping this weekend, with a limited kitchen available to us.
Then I re-read the instructions, realising I must have missed the part about photos-of-self-in-front-of-door-welcoming-guests. Not the easiest thing to do when the front door is very rarely shady enough not to be glary. (and I had a whole post of outtakes planned, too, because I took these photos myself.)
The kids loved getting to eat choc ripple cake for afternoon tea (it had to be eaten, we were going away the next day, remember)
I raced out to scouts after pulling the photos off my phone, with the intention of writing my post afterwards. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute, right? **
And then, disaster struck. It had been rainging for days. And we have a problem with rain in this house, it likes to come inside the front door. I was typing my blog post, chatting to Steve, when all of a sudden the power blew!
A mad dash to the kitchen, trying not to fall over the toys, to find the torch (which is kept in the cupboard above the toaster, and always returned there) and calm Riley down (who doesn't go to sleep early on daycare days), then listening to Steve muttering and grumbling as he headed out to the power board (it's still raining, remember)
Reset the safety switch. It blows. Reset the saftey switch. It blows. Turn all power points off upstairs. Reset the safety switch. It blows. Turn all power points off downstairs. Reset safety switch. Power is restored. So, something downstairs is blowing the saftey switch.
Remove all pre-prepared food for camping from downstair fridge. Turn off fridge. Turn off washing machine and dryer. Turn off tv. Turn off power. Plug fuse back in. Turn power on. Saftey switch blows. Decision was made to leave fuse out overnight. Power restored.
It wasnt until we returned upstairs and turned the computer back on that we realised the the modem/house phone/internet relied on those power points downstairs. And that I wasn't going to get my blog post written before we headed out in the morning. Because we hadn't done any packing for our trip, so it all needed to be done when we woke up.
* According to wikipedia, choc ripple cake is known as an icebox cake in America, and a Zebra cake in Britain.
Choc ripple biscuits are a hard, crispy biscuit with a ripple that is great for holding just the right amount of cream. To make my cake, I poured about 250ml of cream into a bowl, added about half a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste, and a drizzle of caster sugar, then whipped until soft peaks formed. (whipped cream is a make-it-to-taste kind of ingredient). Then I smeared cream on top of each biscuit, the best ratio is filled cracks but visible peaks, using the whole packet. Once all the biscuits were smeared, I stood them sideways, then covered the layers with the remaining cream. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours.
** The moral of the story is don't leave things to the last minute.
Oh deart, poor yoy. Well done on making this such an upbeat post when you could have moaned
ReplyDeleteWE missed you yesterday Cate....your cake looks scrummy...and love your picture welcoming us!
ReplyDeleteAlison xx
Not to worry, we were all stuffed yesterday and this is just the way to top off my night now. I am impressed that you got it up. Sounds like a very frustrating night. Hope the camping went well.
ReplyDelete