First year with the new kitchen, and we actually managed to get the turkey spot on (after missing the mark in opposite directions the previous two years), so Christmas dinner itself was an almost¹ complete success. Alas, the traditional Christmas Eve ox-tounge was possibly even more over-salted than the previous year despite additional soaking, so it looks like that's off the menu next time. Today was the equally traditional turkey and left-over-vegetable curry - something that has very little danger of going wrong.
To add some educational merit to this post, here's a recipe for you. A rather fine pudding henceforth to be known as Chocolate Chestnut Coronary² Cake:
8oz dark cooking chocolate
8oz unsalted butter
8oz caster sugar
8oz chestnut purée
4 large eggs
Preheat the oven to 170°C and line a deep 8" cake tin with baking paper. Cream the sugar with the egg yolks. Melt the chocolate and the butter, then sieve in the chestnut purée. Stir together, then add the sugar/egg mix and stir again. Whip up the egg whites to the soft peak stage and fold them into the mix. Pour into the cake tin and bake for 25-30 minutes until the top looks done but the cake still wobbles a little. Leave to cool in the tin for at least half an hour. Eat, enjoy, expire.
1) The "almost" part being due to the Mini Bagpuss Crackers (eight for a pound). These promised a hat, a motto and a sticker sheet in each one. After one cracker each, we had two hats, four mottos (one blank) and no sticker sheets. After the remaining four crackers, we just managed an additional two paper hats, a total of six mottoes³, and one solitary sticker sheet. Unimpressed.
2) I'm not aware of anyone suffering a coronary as a direct result of eating this cake, but proceed at your own risk.
3) On further examination, we discovered that all six were printed with the same joke, which I reproduce verbatim below for your amusement:
What's the difference between a railway shed and tree ?Not quite right, methinks...
One leaves.its shed and the other sheds its leaves.
