Vaniamarapricake

Yesterday I baked a cake and today I brought it to class. My cohort loved it and I enjoyed it very much also.

Jackie recently gave me a book, Tea-Time at the Inn, which contains recipes and tea party ideas from East Coast and Southern inns renowed for their tea services. It’s kind of a kitschy book–the “tea time” crowd is not exactly known for its chicness–but the recipes all sound scrumptious, and they’re all lovely things involving ingredients like puff pastry and strawberries and cream. Some day I will have to attempt the “best scone recipe in Britain,” but that may not happen anytime soon since the recipe yields 75 scones. (!) Even half that is way too many.

So for today’s class, I found a recipe for Vanilla Raisin Cake, made with loads of butter and cream cheese. It looked easy enough, but I thought raisins would be boring, so I kicked it up a notch and substituted chopped dried apricots instead. Which I soaked overnight in amaretto.

The cake was light and fluffy and squashy, and the apricots were moist and delicious. All in all a delightful cake.

I know I say this all the time, but my cohort is so cool. I got to class early today and only a few of us were there, and pretty soon everyone else showed up and instantly there was noise and talking and lots of uproarious laughter. We’re a party without a cause! I don’t know what kind of amazing chemistry we have that creates this kind of atmosphere, but I relish it so much. The only other group of people I know who get along so well is my family (including Jackie and Erik)–yet another reason to be grateful for the people in my life.

[This post was imported on 4/10/14 from my old blog at satsumabug.livejournal.com.]