Dear Regular Readers & Those Not So Regular,
Welcome to this week’s edition of our newsletter and I hope it finds you in good health and reasonably high spirits rather than finding you high from drinking a reasonable amount of strong spirits.
It seems that certain parts of the world are entering into a 3rd wave of the Corona pandemic which is not good at all because it affects all of us in so many different and troubling ways. Unfortunately, throughout all of the chaos that exists in the world right now, the poor behaviour of others has constantly let those of us down that have tried and are still trying our level best to behave ourselves until we have received our Covid jabs. Patience, although it is supposed to be a virtue, is clearly not being practiced by a lot of governments or individuals in terms of waiting until the planet has been inoculated against the Corona virus before easing restrictions and getting back to some sort of normality. I understand almost everything has been negatively impacted by Covid, sadly lots of people have lost their lives, businesses have suffered terribly, some may never recover, but this stop and start approach in trying to get the world back up and running without inoculating all its inhabitants is just helping to prolong the problem and more people will inevitably lose their lives. Such an approach will end up causing much more long term damage than if the powers that be in our respective countries would perhaps have had the foresight to practice some much needed courage and patience at the very beginning of all this.
On top of all this, we have had the recent blood clot related controversy surrounding the AstraZeneca drug, which thankfully now seems to have settled down, but a lot of damage has been done due to the time that (in my opinion) has been wasted. A lot of people throughout the world were already hesitating to have a jab before this controversial story came out and I suspect even more will be hesitating now. Unfortunately, lots more people have lost their lives in certain countries because their respective governments decided, in their better judgement, to stop administering the AstraZeneca drug to its populations; however, in my opinion, they did this without exercising much judgement at all; they should have considered the whole situation way more carefully before acting as they did. The clock cannot be turned back as they say, what’s happened has happened and we are expected to move on, but in what direction? Even when we are given a direction to go in the people that have mapped it out for us are not very good at keeping on the roads that make up the map, the roads that we need to stay on to reach our destination. But who am I to question such authority because what do I know? What do any of us know and what can any of us do to change things? Not a lot, I think.
Now on to something completely different (and perhaps more interesting): I had a bash at making the chocolate cake that I mentioned I would be making last week and for the most part it came out well and tasted pretty good I think – I received a reasonable evaluation from the members of my family which is always praise in itself. However, as a bit of an avid cake maker this was the first time for me to follow a recipe that seemed very “Betty Crockerish” in the manner in which the cake was to be made. By putting all the dry ingredients into a bowl, mixing them together until well combined and then adding in an emulsion/solution of beaten eggs, vegetable oil, warm water, vanilla essence and buttermilk, I felt by the end of making the cake that I had just opened up a Betty Crocker cake mix packet, added in the wet ingredients, mixed it all together, popped the mixture into some greased baking tins and then into the oven for 45~50 minutes and that was that.
It was an easy cake to make and the result was reasonable, but I much prefer making cakes (Victoria type sponges) that rely on the fine art of creaming of fats and sugar together as a starting point and then the gently addition of eggs and dry ingredients (baking powder and flour) mixed together with a very light hand to create a light butter tasting sponge cake. I like the skill involved in making these types of cakes whereas with the chocolate cake I made there was no creaming of fats, I could have used an electrical mixer if I had wanted to, but I didn’t, I used a wooden spoon to bring the mixture together. The chocolate cake mixture was very thin and runny at the point of putting it into the buttered and floured cake tins I had prepared and I could not imagine such a texture creating a light sponge cake, but I was wrong, the cake rose and it came out quite light and fluffy. The cake called for frosting, but I decided not to make any, much to the disappointment of my family, as I just wanted to have a moist plain chocolate cake and that is exactly what was created.
As you can see in the pictures there is a red sauce that has been poured over the chocolate cake, this is fresh raspberry sauce and it’s quite easy to make, the only hard part about it is making sure you take out all the seeds which can take some time. To make the sauce I usually put about 3 or 4 cups of fresh raspberries (frozen ones work fine) into a pan together with either half a cup of medium dry white or red wine, a tablespoon full of fresh lemon, lime and orange juice and enough brown sugar to sweeten the sauce to the point of making it sweet but sour at the same time: I suppose tart would be the best descriptive word to use in this case. I bring the raspberries and other liquids to the boil and then let them simmer for 10 minutes or so to let them imbue their flavours; I then leave the mixture to cool down a bit in the pan. After about half an hour I pour the mixture into a big robust sieve I have and I separate the seeds from the mixture to make a nice smooth sauce. To separate he seeds I use a big metal spoon to press the mixture against the sides of the sieve which in turn allows the sauce to move through the sieve and into the bowl I rest my sieve on during this process and that’s all there is to it.
I plan on making some banana bread this weekend; I will try a new recipe that I have come across recently, so I’m looking forward to that: once again, I will share my culinary endeavors with you next week in the form of some pictures. Unfortunately, I have been unable to complete my knee story for you this week as I have had no time to work on the text; things are quite busy for me at this time of year workwise, but I’m hopeful that I will be able to conclude it next week. Until then, take care and keep safe.
