What We Ate

Oh boy, was it ever yummy! I spent yesterday afternoon in the kitchen, baking and simmering.

I made this cake, adapting it slightly by leaving out all of the white sugar, upping the spice quantities a little, adding a 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger, and baking it in a bundt pan. Oh, my, was it ever good! Often I am disappointed by from-scratch cakes, but this recipe is moist, and fluffy, just how a cake should be. And judging by how quickly it disappeared, I think everyone else liked it too.

I left out half of the sugar, because I planned to make my Penuche Icing, which is super-duper sweet.

Here's my recipe for the icing: put 1 cup (packed) of brown sugar, and 1 stick of butter in a small saucepan. Over medium-high heat, whisk the sugar and butter until completely melted together. Carefully pour in 1/4 cup heavy cream, and bring to a boil, whisking continuously. Remove from heat. Sift 2 cups of powdered sugar into a bowl (otherwise you will have lumpy icing). Pour the hot mixture into the bowl of powdered sugar and whisk briskly until well combined, but still liquid and hot. Pour immediately over still warm cake.

Once the cake was iced and cooling on my bin table, I got busy making chili. I have been using the same recipe as my go-to for almost 4 years now. It is so good, and unique because of the Indian spices used. If you decide to make it, please do go to the extra effort of making up a batch of garam masala- it gives the chili such a nice flavor, and people always comment (positively) when they try it for the first time. I often substitute dried beans for the canned, and almost always forget to put the vinegar and parsley in, and don't reserve any beans for topping. Otherwise, I follow the recipe pretty closely.

Finally, I baked a double batch of corn bread in my 12" cast iron skillet.

Both recipes, quite conveniently, come from the same issue of Cooking Light magazine (March 2007) and are on the same page. I would have given you links to their site, but they don't have the cornbread posted anymore, and I thought you might like to have them together too. So, hopefully I'm not breaking any laws by doing this, but here is a scan of my copy (which would be completely disentegrated by now if it weren't for top-loading sheet protectors!). Click on the image to see a larger version...

Don't leave out the Molasses Bourbon Butter... Oh, it is heavenly. I have always skipped it, being content with butter and honey, but with company coming, I decided to give it a try. I don't think I'll ever eat cornbread without it again.

Add a salad of mixed greens and you have a perfect meal.

Look at all of the happy people...