Stepan's been wanting me to write about my pathetic attempt at baking him a birthday cake. After the Shower on Sunday, while Stepan went to dinner at Double Dave's with the O'Reilly clan, I attempted to bake a chocolate roulade from my Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home. I'm not quite sure what I did wrong, but it certainly didn't end up looking nearly attractive as it did in the pictures. Stepan took pictures of my version - no doubt he'll be posting them sometime soon. Sunday night, I didn't think it tasted very good either...there was something about the texture of the cake that really put me off. However, after having set in the fridge overnight, the cake was much more palatable on Monday.
It is no small consolation to my cooking ego that the Strawberry Chocolate Truffle Pizza I made for our pot luck at work today was a raging success:-)
Posted by jfer at March 26, 2003 12:09 AMI'm so pleased you made my "pizza"--and that everyone liked it! Too bad the cake didn't turn out; it's always frustrating to spend time making something and then feel like you might as well not have bothered.
Posted by: Elizabeth on March 26, 2003 12:32 AMYes, the cake was disappointing, but I'm glad I attempted it. I think I know where I went wrong and will probably try again at some point.
If nothing else, the experience and result were entertaining :-)
Posted by: I on March 26, 2003 8:50 AMI think the cake tastes great. The visual aspects of it could improve a little, but I enjoy eating it. And so does Homer...
Posted by: stepan on March 26, 2003 11:28 AM...and I always thought chocolate was toxic to dogs.
Posted by: Theresa on March 28, 2003 10:34 AMChocolate is bad for dogs, Theresa...Stepan probably only gave Homer a small taste of it. Also, smaller dogs are more susceptible to bad reactions to chocolate than larger dogs.
We've taught Homer that if he sits in the kitchen with us, watching our every move, and looking extremely cute then we'll let him sample whatever it is we're cooking. We've been strong and haven't actually been letting him sample food while we're eating, so he doesn't beg at the table (thank God!), but we've found that we just can't resist sharing with him while we're actually preparing the meal.
Posted by: I on March 28, 2003 10:58 AMI didn't feed him the cake. Homer helped himself to crumbs that fell to the floor when I was trying to slice the, er, log. He didn't show any ill effects from that little bit.
Here's an interesting article about the toxicity of chocolate:
http://www.supervet.co.uk/dog/chocolate.html
Apparently it doesn't take all that much to be lethal, although a dog Homer's size could probably get away with eating a Sniker's bar (not that we would let him).