More of my two worlds.

I was asked to replace a timber floor on a verandah, for some friends. The demolition is always fun and as expected, I uncovered old bottles and cans, a dead cat, a rat’s rest with a hundred empty snail shells, and not to mention spiders and cobwebs, that hadn’t seen daylight for fifty years. I replaced the bearers and joists and all I was waiting for, was my delivery of beautiful, jarrah floorboards.

It was also my mother in law’s eighty-seventh birthday and I said that I would make a cake. I decided on an Opera Gateaux, knowing that she would find it delicious. I had only made a boiled fruitcake before, but how hard could it be?  All you have to do, is follow a recipe.

I whisked the egg whites to firm peaks, then folded them into the cake mixture. After baking my sponge, it cooled and I carefully cut it into three thin layers. I boiled the butter cream for five minutes until it was thick and sticky, then whisked in the egg yolks until it was thick and cool. I was preparing the ganache; gently melting the chocolate, as the milk came to the boil. I was slowly combining the melted chocolate to the hot milk, when the phone rang….

“Hello, it’s Alan speaking” as I kept stirring.

“Yeah g’day mate, it’s Johno from the timber yard, I gotcha floorin’ here mate, where’d ya wannit?” announces my timber delivery courier.

“If you could wang it on the right side of the drive mate, just don’t ding the house with ya truck, then shut the gate after you, that’d be ace” I said in my building site voice, as I prepare to fold the cream into my chocolate mixture.

“No sweat knackers, too easy, is there anything else I need to do?” asks Johno

“Well I’m just making a ganache, for an Opera Gateaux and do you think I need to let the chocolate mixture cool down, before I fold the cream in, just in case it might curdle?” I ask

“Yer what? Building a garage for Nick Gato? Whatever….yer floorin’s dropped off mate….av a good one”

I think I only just got away with that one.

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