And now for a 'Low'

This is not a picture of anything I have created.





Scrolling back through my posts, I realise I am not living up to the title of my blog.

Lots of highs, and triumphs, and "you really ought to try" but not one failure. No moment of: "so, pizza anyone?"

It would be a lie to say that I 'regularly' have kitchen disasters. I do occasionally (once a month or so) have to 'rescue' something, and adapt it in some way or other to reduce whatever went wrong in an effort to increase my (and occasionally my guests) desire to eat whatever is about to be put in front of them/me.

A couple of Sunday's ago, I had a few friends over for dinner:

Entree

Mussels in tomato & saffron broth

Main

Roast beef w/ Yorkshire puddings

Dessert

Steamed chocolate pud

The first 2 courses were very easy, and a success.

The Dessert was an utter disaster.

I decided to follow this recipe, by Martha Stewart (yes, I know). I usually have success w/ her recipes.

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/steamed-chocolate-sponge-pudding

I also tried to make a vanilla ice-cream, something I am usually quite good at, to go with it.

You always hear about the quality of eggs, and how important it is. This was always a bit of a moot point to me, as I tended to buy a dozen fresh eggs before embarking on anything cooking related.

On this particular Sunday, I had 10 free-range eggs sitting in my egg store, that I had bought a little over a week prior. Still well within their use-by range.

To make ice-cream (and I will do a proper post about this soon) you basically warm milk & cream, pour it over egg yolks that have been whisked through w/ caster sugar, return to the heat & stir until thickened, of course being very careful to pull it off the stove before the entire thing congeals.

My mix would not thicken. Not only would it not thicken, it went directly from runny to congealed. It did not pass go, it did not form into a $200-collection-worthy, thickened glory of custard-ish yumminess.

It was a revolting, lumpy, yellow mess. This should have been my first sign that the eggs had grown resentful of sitting in my egg-hutch for the proceeding 10 days.

Nevertheless I persevered with the other part of dessert, the pudding itself.

I made it according to Martha's instructions, duly placing it in it's water-bath and gently putting the bowl of chocolate delight into the oven to cook whilst we enjoyed food parts 1 & 2 of the evening.

When removing it from the oven, I noticed that the pudding had not risen 1 inch. Possibly a rise of 3mm, but that is it. Also, it  wobbled in such a way that indicated an abundance of liquid below the just-set surface, and not the delicious, chocolate-sponge I longed for. 

Placing it forlornly on the counter, I headed back to my guest and sadly announced that "We won't be having any dessert". My friends, being lovely, not-hugely-into-cooking-but-Anth's-stuff-always-turns-out people declared that it could not be that bad. 

"It's liquid" I told them.

"We'll still eat it" they told me.

So the sad, chocolate mess was brought to table, and my friends reached into the bowl w/ their spoons, easily piercing the just-set top (which accounted for the 3mm rise), and slurping up the chocolate soup that lurked below. They assured me it was delicious.

Chocolate soup.

Sounds like it could almost be a bit sophisticated!