As discussed in yesterday’s post, I baked a cake. I decided on the Claudia Roden orange cake, but then found a recipe in a Jill Dupleix book with lemons instead of a third orange. I had no lemons, but I had limes, which I decided I’d use instead (I could’ve used another orange, but that would’ve been boring). I didn’t have enough ground almonds, so I made up the difference with walnuts.

I’ve read several times you shouldn’t mess around with recipes when you’re baking, so maybe I should’ve known better. Luckily I tasted the mixture before I baked it, so I knew beforehand it was as bitter as … something extremely bitter. I threw a whole lot of honey in there to sweeten it up, and it’s turned out okay. I think. Or maybe I’m just trying to convince myself. James ate a slice this morning and didn’t gag, I guess that’s the litmus test. Miss M on the other hand … let’s just say there was gagging.

A large part of today was spent retrospectively applying keywords to all my old posts, so I got to skim read nearly everything I’ve written since the inception of this site last year. Which is a lot. Some of the keywords are deliberately insane, so it’ll be interesting to see if anyone actually uses them.

Today I’m loving: grilled polenta with parmesan. I hadn’t made it for ages, and had forgotten how fabulous it can be.