quatre quarts

Bit of a dreary day here. Lots of time in front of the computer and then tea at dad's. He'd had the English Circle at his this evening and a couple of people had brought cake with them. Typical French cakes: dryish slabs with not much taste. I'm not talking about patisserie here (although a lot of that's pretty tasteless too), but cakes. They like them dry, with no icing or buttercream, and usually in the shape of our loaf cakes.

The cake I made Pierre for his birthday was an enigma to all the French people at his party -including Pierre! - they thought the fondant icing was pâte d'amandes (like our marzipan), and they didn't know what fondant icing or the buttercream was. My sister actually told me recently that her daughter said to her not to be making any more birthday cakes for her with buttercream icing because her wee friends don't like it!! It's so funny because we tend to add mountains of icing e.g. fondant, ganache, buttercream; loads of decorations e.g. hundreds and thousands, edible flowers, or sometimes fruit; and usually the cake is in at least 2 layers! Ah well, it's all about embracing each other's cultures and habits. I'll just have to get Pierre used to big, sugary cakes! Ha! :)

Still no sign of "amour" between Leo and Coquine, although he did mark his territory (and presumably his lady dog!) by peeing against the wall in our hall this evening. Thanks for that, Leo!!!!