About thirty or forty people turned up for the party, and they seemed to have a good time. By a Herculean effort, Mike and I managed to get the apartment clean and spiffy-looking for the occasion; we had lots of finger food up in the living room, and hamburgers/hot dogs/other grilled foods in the garden below. Lots of people admired the view from our living room, which I must admit is fantastic: you can see most of the bay and two bridges (the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge) from the window. It’s nice living on top of a hill.
For the occasion, I made two cakes from The Cake Bible: a lemon cheesecake and a chocolate oblivion truffle torte (ingredients: Valrhona chocolate, butter, eggs). The lemon cheesecake turned out fantastic – very creamy and light. The truffle torte was good too, albeit a trifle drier than I would have liked. Probably because I was using a high-cocoa-solids Valrhona; next time I’ll either try using Equatoriale 55% (a chocolate line designed towards making desserts and ganache fillings, rather than enrobing – high cocoa content vs. cocoa butter) or else add more butter. I rather like the idea of adding more butter.
At any rate, they were both very well-received, and we only have one slice left of each. We cooked all the hamburgers and about half the hot dogs, so all in all it turned out to be just the right amount of food. The strawberries were popular too, especially dipped in whipped cream (left over from frosting the cheesecake) or chocolate ganache (left over from glazing the torte). I can’t say I approved of dipping the chips into the chocolate ganache, though some people seemed to enjoy it. I feel some things simply should not be done with food. (Well, maybe I’ll try it next time.)
Tomorrow Lady Di (my sixteen-shaft loom) arrives. Yay!
Thank you for having us over. 🙂
-danny