A few days ago, I did what I had never done before - I made petit fours for forty guests at a wedding. I wouldn't have called them such, but apparently that is the posh term for them. I call them little bites of chocolate heaven. But who am I to judge? The grooms dithered, shyly (or is that slyly?) asked, and I was happy to do so. At least that's what I said. My wedding present to you. That was before I made them.
It was supposed to be an easy job. After all, I'd made them all before. At least once. Okay, one I hadn't made twice, and one I'd made often, a long time ago. But they weren't hard. All I needed were a few days, some easily-sourced ingredients, and a couple of coldish nights. Simple. That was before I made them.
I got off to a flying start. Mars Bar slice and Posh Rocky Road? Those I'd been making for Christmas for the last couple of years - and the filling of the Mars Bar slice is one of those things that I make when I'm feeling the need for something crunchy and chocolately - which is about once every couple of months. So no problems with Mars Bar slice.
It would have been nice to say the same for the rocky road. It started well: chop the turkish delight, the marshmallows, the macadamias. Break up the Green & Black's white chocolate and melt. Simple. I had a 100 percent success rate in chocolate melting. Not this time. For the very first time in my life, I burnt chocolate. This is not boasting. This is luck. There was a late evening rescue mission to Sainsbury's. The next two batches worked better, because I melted the chocolate the old-fashioned way - in a bain marie. Anyway, I was halfway there. And I had four days to go before the wedding - well, you don't want to do these things too early, do you?
Rumballs were next. No heat needed. No melted chocolate. Just a bunch of ingredients including crushed arrowroot biscuits. Which weren't at the local Sainsbury's, so I sent the Erstwhile and the Son to Tesco. They returned with my biscuits - and a television. I put this minor distraction behind me. Biscuits got crushed, rums got balled. I washed my hands so often that I could have been mistaken for an obsessive-compulsive. Still, here I was, Thursday night, and I had all day Friday and Saturday morning to go, and three of four were cooling nicely in the laundry.
Does anybody know just how many recipes exist for Cherry Ripe slice? I don't, but I found out I had at least six in my cookbooks alone. I discovered this when I couldn't find my copy of the recipe, which I had tucked away in a safe place after I had last cooked it, two and a half years
ago for an Australia Day barbeque - January in Berkshire being the perfect weather for a barbeque. But now, when I needed it, I could not for the life of me remember where the safe place was. All I knew was, each time I looked into one of cookery books or cooking magazines, it wasn't the right one. I spent fruitless days looking for ground hazelnuts just in case I had to use another recipe. There was a lot of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I had to get this one right. My whole cooking reputation rested on it.
It was in the laundry. In a box full of bits of paper that had stuff on it that I thought might interest me.
Just as I remembered, it was a simple recipe of easily-sourced ingredients. I just hadn't remembered the baking part. No probs, I said to myself after a very large scotch, I have time. I made one batch on the Thursday night. That would be cooled by Friday morning, I'd do the second batch Friday, so by Friday evening the petit fours could be all cut and bagged, to be delivered to the blushing grooms on Saturday morning.
'Can we pick up the party favours Friday afternoon?' Such an innocent text. Such a mad scrabble. The second batch of slice cooled while three men - Erstwhile, Son and groom - carefully packed the other slices into little cellophane bags, standing at the ironing board in my living room.
But they got done.
And did the petit fours go down well? They looked great, and tasted better. The grooms thanked me, I got all teary, and there's a lovely bottle of wine waiting for me - after the Christmas party, when I can come off my fitting-into-the-tight-dress-for-the-Christmas-party diet. Oh, and some rumballs. Some very expensive rumballs.
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