Sweet Things

There have been a few sweet things baked lately that haven't managed to make it to the blog so now is the time.

H'o'M and I were hosting our parents for dinner last week at our little beach house. Always a treat!
The main course wasn't made from the bible though - to be honest there aren't that many main meals left in the magazine ;-) We decided to cook a fail safe leg 'o' lamb instead. As is our wont, we mixed it up just a little by roasting it on the BBQ, as H'o'M is something of a whizz on his Weber ;-)

For dessert though I made Donna's 'pear and ricotta tarts'. They worked out a treat, as they are so easy. Just the thing for a dinner party really. Easy to prepare and quick to cook.
The general consensus though was that they needed a little more 'zing'. Perhaps I was a little stingy with the honey and cinnamon in the ricotta?!

Last night for dessert at 'the farm' I made the 'maple and date syrup cake'. Mmmmm, possibly the least said about this the better? ;-)

When I took the cake from the oven I let it rest for 10 minutes in the baking tin (as instructed) but when I turned it out onto the cooling rack, it wasn't cooked all the way through. The middle was still runny! Oh no, disaster!!!

I quickly shoved it back into the tin then back into the oven. Sadly I didn't cook it long enough again, so in the end it had to be cooked 3 times! Oops ;-)

Let me just say, I do have several excuses for such bad form ...

• the oven door didn't close properly
• there were too many dishes in the oven at once
• I didn't test it enough before removing from the oven
• the wind was in the wrong quarter
• my tux was at the cleaners
• the dog ate my homework

None of these excuses really work I guess, it was just a bad cake due to plain old cook's error! 

Needless to say after all that resting and re-cooking, the cake was a little tough. We decide it was nothing that some maple syrup and/or cream couldn't fix ;-)

While the oven was hot and I was on a roll, I decided to remake the 'spiced maple biscuits'. I had made these pre-blog and they were very successful. Everyone who tasted them enjoyed them a lot (see 'spiced maple biscuits'). This time though I made them much smaller as I felt last time they were too big to enjoy! Last time the recipe made 12 biscuits, this time I made about 30.

Another plus for the smaller biscuit is that when a smaller biscuit is eaten, one feels there is room for another, and another, and another! Sadly, as I was working on this theory, I've already eaten far too many today ;-)

Having just been to the farm I now have a wonderful supply of lemons, thyme, chard and parsley. I just have to come up with a recipe that uses them all.

Seriously, a lot of lemons ;-)