FFWD Quarter-Quarts

Quarter-Quarts cake with peach preserves

I know it's January and we're supposed to be eating healthy, but this post is about two cakes (and a reasonably healthy soup).  In my defense: (1) about five years ago my New Year's resolution was to quit dieting.  It hasn't exactly worked - sometimes I'll briefly try a new diet - but I have definitely improved.  Call me pessimistic, but I just can't resolve to stop eating chocolate, or butter, or heavy cream, or pizza, when I know it won't last anyway.  So, this year I'm just trying to only eat while sitting down - something which is surprisingly hard for me.  (2) I didn't actually make both of these cakes in the same week.  I made the Quarter-Quarts cake last week, and Marie Helene's Apple cake this week.

I wasn't sure about the Quarter-Quarts cake, it sounded kind of boring.  It was very easy, though, and I already had all of the ingredients on hand.  I put it together while my M. Jacques Armagnac Chicken was in the oven, and slid the cake in as soon as the chicken came out.  When the cake was done, I put it on the drying rack and went back to the living room to watch football.  All of the sudden, the brown sugar popped into my head!  I had completely forgotten to put it on top of the cake before I slid it into the oven.  So much for the nice glaze.

Missing brown sugar topping

I hurried into the kitchen and put the brown sugar on.  For some reason I thought maybe if the cake was still warm enough the sugar would melt.  It didn't work at all.  Then, I thought maybe I could use the blow torch to melt the sugar.  That didn't work very well either!  It mainly burned and didn't really glaze, although it did add some interesting texture to the cake.  Luckily, because I was worried about the cake being dry, I already had a topping planned.  I made some peach freezer jam this summer and it didn't set up at all (still don't understand why!) but it does make a great topping for pancakes and was an excellent sauce for the cake.  All said, we definitely enjoyed this cake.  Paul, especially, really liked the simplicity.

Bruleeing the sugar didn't quite work

I did a much better job following the instructions for Marie-Helene's cake.  I had a lot of fun picking out four types of apples (Mcintosh, Granny Smith, Golden Delicious, and Fuji) and the cake was very easy to put together.  I put it together while simmering my citrus marmalade and brought it to our friends' house that night.  We loved this cake as well.  I liked that it was really all about the apples with very little cake, but the cake itself had a great flavor (from the rum!).

Apple cake and marmalade

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Garnishes

On Monday night I made the Vietnamese Spicy Chicken Noodle Soup for dinner.  It took a little bit long for a weeknight - probably about an hour - but it was very easy, and we both enjoyed it.  It has nice clean flavors and almost feels light (if you somehow block the can of coconut milk out of your head!).  Plus, I always think it's fun to put out a whole plate of garnishes!

Soup