Sugar and Spice and all things Nice

I hope you like a good laugh! 

To explain. The church I go to has mid-week groups, usually in someone's house. This is a great way to meet people, and here in France, for me it is a chance to see French families at home. This happened with the church in England too, but of course the French do things slightly differently. 

The French like to eat. 

And eating together is very biblical. But I sense, rightly or wrongly, a little pride in the meal quality. Or it could be very ungenerous of me, since it is clear that the French prefer to make something to take, showing they made an effort, rather than bring something bought. 

Today is a meeting day, so yesterday I made an effort. 

I was really pleased to find some "yoghurt cake" recipes that were quoted as "very easy". They were in French, but still not too hard. I looked and found I had a lot of the ingredients;  flour, sugar, oil, and even yeast! I needed yoghurt and eggs, and some cocoa products;  and a lemon for the second recipe. 

With all this bought, I set about following the simple instructions. Mix all the ingredients together and bake. It really was not hard. I watched expecting the yeast to take effect but little in the way of rising happened. I reasoned it was yoghurt cake after all. 

Being cautious, and not wanting to take something that tasted bad, I had put a little mixture in a cup-cake at one side. This allowed me to sample my effort without cutting the cake. It tasted ok, even good! Encouraged, I set about making the other flavour too. At a little after bedtime, I had 2 offerings to take the next day. 

But I did wonder why the yeast had not worked. The recipe called for "levure chimique" and levure is yeast. I checked. Chimique is chemical. So I needed a sachet of "chemical yeast". Cleaver these French, yeast is usually living. I checked the whole phrase in Google;  chemical yeast. But French Wiki had a different slant;  baking powder! I pondered my options. Try again: not enough time. Buy something: preferably not. Take it and see if anyone suspects. It tasted ok so I thought I would try it! 

So tonight I turned the first one out. The top looked lovely but underneath it was uncooked! The cup cake was small enough to be ok, but without rising, the middle had failed to bake. Everyone would notice. 

So I have eaten at home and I will go for the meeting part of the evening advertised an hour later. Once I had a wife who made all this stuff look easy, but my easy recipe had failed and you are allowed to laugh. 

But next time I will get it right! 

Terence Westoby

terrywestoby@gmail.com

+33 6 75 91 87 71

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