I started with running around the house picking up things and putting them down. It is amazing how things end up everywhere once you have touched them. Must say that John is better at this than I am and so I find the most unbelievable things in the most unlikely of places. Makes it more fun, so half a thank you for that.
After I wiped off most of the surfaces I vacuumed the floors. I applauded Ymir for being brave; sitting on the toilet staring down at the machine invading his private pooping place. It was then already time for lunch (almost, but I needed time to cook as well). My amazing lunch consisted of yesterdays chicken teriyaki and I cooked noodles. I made it perfect! I am such a great cook. (Thank you John for cooking!). I watched an episode of House and even though I finished eating halfway through I kind of needed that break.
As soon as the episode was done I was up and working again. Scrubbing the floor and doing the dishes. It took longer than expected. There was no rest after that! I went downstairs, brought the mail back up, went down again and walked fifteen minutes to Cold Storage. I tried to be quick but I could not find the breadcrumbs I needed for the cake I had planned to do. I asked for help and the guy led me away from the baking section to the snacks section. There he showed me breadcrumbs - only they were used for shrimps to fritter. I said thanks and as soon as he was out of sight I left. Went to pick out some whipping cream. While I stood there reading a package in Malay and tried to make sense of it he appeared out of nowhere with two choices. These were baking raspings, and even though I thanked him and picked one, I have no idea where he found them. No clue. Next time I will have to ask again.
Back home I saw that it was already five o'clock. John would be home soon and I had this idea of having the cake ready when he got there. So I opened the recipe and started mixing. When the cake was in the oven and would be in there for half an hour I started whipping. I have never done this manually before. It was not as expected. I whipped for so long and nothing happened. The time passed and it was almost time to take out the cake. The cream was still not whipped cream when the cake came out, luckily it needed to cool down before I could put it on anyway.
When the cream looked somewhat of what it should look like (actually, I did not have the strength to stir any longer) I put it in the fridge. This is the time John walks in through the door. I show him my amazing whipping skills and ask for his help to use the very sharp knife to slice the cake in two. I thought about two layers but decided in the end to just go with one. The cake looked a little too brown to be perfect but it was the first time I baked in a convection oven.
He then got "couch arrest" until I was done decorating. I put on the poorly made cream - realising we needed to buy a spatula since a spoon made it so much harder to get it even - and decorated with raspberries and the half-burnt crumbs stuck inside the cake pan. It looked good and I wish now that I had taken a photo. My brain was probably tired because it thought the cake needed more. The last decoration. I had nothing planned. I melted some chocolate. I had no idea how to get the thick chocolate onto the cake and so I used a spoon to drip it. It looked like tiny turds...
John kindly quit his game to sit by the table, listen to me sing for his twenty second birthday (he just turned twenty three but this cake was promised and a bit late) and then laughed as he saw what I had done. I have made quite a few cakes in my life and other things as well, but this was a low-point. What was even worse was that it did not taste very good. I was not upset, it was expected. New country, new ingredients, new oven and not owning the needed utensils.
We scraped of the good stuff - raspberries, cream, mashed bananas (that was the middle layer) and some of the chocolate - put it on the plate and ate it. I had saved some of the raspberries for John to eat alone since they were quite expensive and he really likes raspberries. Although, he did complain that there were no strawberries on it. Hmphf... well, maybe next time then!
Look at that chocolate! Poop or what?
Haha! Underbar tårta!
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