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igenlodeI think I just about managed to redirect this one to meet the prompt; as I'd feared, there aren't exactly many parts of that angst-filled interview to which 'concentration' as such is really relevant...
The bag in which I had frozen the plums turned out to have a pinhole leak in it, and distributed a sea of sticky plum juice all over the top shelf of the fridge (and the eggs, margarine, cheese and egg timer that were up there) in the process of thawing. Fortunately I didn't have any half-chopped vegetables on that shelf....
The cake wasn't really a success. I know I've done that recipe before, but when I transcribed it, did I *truly* mean a Swiss roll tin (9" x 13")? Because that's gigantic for a Swiss roll tin -- I had to use my largest roasting tin, and even that is only 10" x 12". And it produces a very shallow and unwieldily large cake (how am I meant to turn out a upsidedown cake that is larger than any plate in my possession?)
The result was that I didn't have sufficient plums to cover such a large area, not aided by the fact that because they had been frozen and then defrosted they didn't cut into two halves but just sort of splatted flat in their own diameter when you took out the stones -- thus halving the theoretical area coverage ;-p
The sourdough came to life overnight all right (or at least by this afternoon), but it then wouldn't rise after I put it on top of the plums, and after seven hours or so I got tired of waiting and decided to use the residual heat from cooking supper to bake the cake, in the hopes that it would balloon upwards when put into the warm oven. It didn't. I really ought to have left it overnight again... but during the time when it was sitting around in a cold room for far longer than it was scheduled to do, the sugar I'd sprinkled over the plums dissolved until the dough ended up sitting in a lake of yet more juice :-(
And when I did cook it and let it cool enough to reabsorb some of the juice, the finished cake turned out to be not only pretty solid and chewy, but also distinctly on the sour side. The dough had a whole four ounces of sugar in it, but of course the plums were more sour than the recipe expected -- my German recipe for Zwetschken suggests six tablespoons of sugar, and this one only uses two.
Still, I shall eat it (when I've managed to cut it up into pieces small enough to store). It would have been better made in a warmer kitchen, that's all. Moral: make plum cake in plum season ;-p
As she had suspected, Gaston would not hear of her humbling herself to the First Consul's wife. But sitting there in the narrow confines of his prison cell, every atom of her being focused on him, she became increasingly certain that he was evading her true concerns.
"If the plan for tomorrow should fail—" She brought the question back yet again, insistent. "Gaston, what is to happen? Will Bonaparte keep you imprisoned for years, perhaps?"
His hand tightened on hers in answer.
"The truth, Valentine, is that if I am not rescued, I shall undoubtedly be shot... as an— example."
The bag in which I had frozen the plums turned out to have a pinhole leak in it, and distributed a sea of sticky plum juice all over the top shelf of the fridge (and the eggs, margarine, cheese and egg timer that were up there) in the process of thawing. Fortunately I didn't have any half-chopped vegetables on that shelf....
The cake wasn't really a success. I know I've done that recipe before, but when I transcribed it, did I *truly* mean a Swiss roll tin (9" x 13")? Because that's gigantic for a Swiss roll tin -- I had to use my largest roasting tin, and even that is only 10" x 12". And it produces a very shallow and unwieldily large cake (how am I meant to turn out a upsidedown cake that is larger than any plate in my possession?)
The result was that I didn't have sufficient plums to cover such a large area, not aided by the fact that because they had been frozen and then defrosted they didn't cut into two halves but just sort of splatted flat in their own diameter when you took out the stones -- thus halving the theoretical area coverage ;-p
The sourdough came to life overnight all right (or at least by this afternoon), but it then wouldn't rise after I put it on top of the plums, and after seven hours or so I got tired of waiting and decided to use the residual heat from cooking supper to bake the cake, in the hopes that it would balloon upwards when put into the warm oven. It didn't. I really ought to have left it overnight again... but during the time when it was sitting around in a cold room for far longer than it was scheduled to do, the sugar I'd sprinkled over the plums dissolved until the dough ended up sitting in a lake of yet more juice :-(
And when I did cook it and let it cool enough to reabsorb some of the juice, the finished cake turned out to be not only pretty solid and chewy, but also distinctly on the sour side. The dough had a whole four ounces of sugar in it, but of course the plums were more sour than the recipe expected -- my German recipe for Zwetschken suggests six tablespoons of sugar, and this one only uses two.
Still, I shall eat it (when I've managed to cut it up into pieces small enough to store). It would have been better made in a warmer kitchen, that's all. Moral: make plum cake in plum season ;-p
