success/failure (sort of)

Table is all set, a balance of shamrock, ivory, turquoise, and sunflower Fiestaware. Glasses are out for some pink wine to be poured. Nuts are there for snacking. The ribs? They came out of the oven from their first bake a while ago, and now they just await a sauce I threw together from ketchup, soy sauce, sriracha, molasses, vinegar, and I think that's it. It should be a good dinner with John and Bryan.

Should be.

Dinner, in fact, was. I had everything all set so there was minimal fussing in the kitchen, and I could even join Conrad and our guests on the balcony for a while before glazing the ribs, getting them back in the oven, and getting the veggies going (corn on the cob and salad). Finger bowls, even, finger bowls!
We ate, it was good.

And then came dessert.

Ah dessert, I am so out of practice. I tackled a new recipe that evening, and didn't quite get it right. See that?

That's a mango upside down cake. Doesn't look too moist and syrupy, though, I know. In fact, it looks rather like a coffee cake topped with streusel, and truthfully, that's how the upside down part turned out. It didn't stay soft and runny, getting soaked into the cake. Well, a little. Instead, it hardened into something of a candy (not too hard a candy, mind you), and I had to work at it to get the brown sugar mixture out of the pan after I turned out the cake. Once I had smeared it back on the cake top, it hardened a little further, and essentially became the streusel. I blame it on using too fine a shred of unsweetened coconut. Darn it.

Still, it tasted pretty fine with a dollop of whipped cream (stirred with a bit of yogurt for tang and coconut extract for scent). If I'd not told anyone, they'd never know.


But I can't lie to you, the three people in the world who read this blog. Sorry. Sort of a cake failure, but one that we devoured altogether easily in the end.