so … I weighed out the ground almonds, the whole nuts (whizzed briefly in the food processor), the mixed tropical fruit, the sultanas, the blueberries and cranberries, the dried apricots. I rummaged in the back of the cupboard for Cointreau and Amaretto.
I beat 225g of butter with 225g of caster sugar and 1 tsp of Madagascan vanilla essence.
I added one egg.
then I added another egg … and *as I cracked it* I realised it was bad, but it was too late – it was on its way into the Kitchenaid. perlmonger heroically dealt with the revolting sugary sulphury mess, while I washed everything up.
then I found more butter, more sugar, more vanilla essence and started again. This time I did what I usually do – but inexplicably didn’t the time before – and broke the eggs into an intermediate container, but of course they were all fine.
the cake? Well, I’m not very happy with it to be honest. I think I might go and [whisper] buy one from Waitrose …
Yuk.
We used to get eggs from a local farm. It had chickens. It had sheds. It had NO stock rotation policy, or, at least, I think it *did* have one which didn’t allow for slow turnover. So despite the shed full of free-range hens laying fresh eggs every day, chances were you’d be sold a tray that were a month or more old. Never did find one remotely fresh and finally gave up on them after three weeks when the above happened to a six-egg omelette I was making. Egg number six of course.