hbd 2 my bil
It was my brother-in-law Joe’s birthday last weekend! We hadn’t seen him since he helped us move out of our Chicago apartment in June, so we invited him to spend his birthday weekend with us.
One fun thing about having two adult brothers in a small confined space is how much exasperated yelling goes on constantly. It’s pretty much their main mode of communication. Fun at first, but maaaaybe a little stressful in larger doses.
Overall, it was a fun visit. We ate tons of good food and played board games for many hours. Every time I go to a game shop, I try to find the newest releases from the EXIT escape games series and save them for when he visits. But now we’re all caught up and out of games!
We have actually gotten too good at this series after playing through at least a dozen versions. It’s like learning how to take a test very well. They ran out of new exciting tricks for us, and we can see all their “out-of-the-box” gimmicks coming at this point. So instead we picked up Pandemic Legacy. Too soon, I know. This version particularly stressful to play because every fuck up we made carried over and affected future rounds.
So yes, lots of yelling and arguing over what city to quarantine next or whatever. The “tensions” (if we can call it that) may have also been exacerbated by staying up all night, waking up early for work still, and continuously skipping naptime, but our time together was short and precious! Yelling is cathartic anyway.
On one of those napless afternoons, I made Joe a birthday cake. I figured the good olive oil from the last recipe will certainly go rancid before we use it in daily cooking, so I made an olive oil mousse as the “frosting component.” It’s not very traditional to make regular (aka white cake) birthday cake and top it with mousse. But I was trying to keep it simple since it was just the three of us.
I flavored white cake with orange zest, topped it with mousse, and decorated it simply with (accidentally over-)candied pistachios and orange slices. It kind of tasted like a grown up dreamsicle.
The cake components were obviously delicious, and I think I executed them okay for someone who’s barely baked in six months, but there was a huge conceptual flaw. Next time, I would not combine a butter based white cake with olive oil mousse - there is a reason this combo is not a real thing!
The temperature window to enjoy both components at the same time was too narrow - a cold cake eats very dry because of the butter, and warm mousse is …a puddle, basically. Next time I might try an oil-based cake, or adapt a sponge that would be typically used in an entremet type thing, anything that is meant to be enjoyed at a colder temperature.
I had planned on jotting down the recipe for this luxurious olive oil mousse, but in the chaos of preparing multiple components so the mousse would set before dinner, I didn’t take any pictures of the cake making process. Maybe next time! I’d really like to explore this whole “grown up olive-oil dreamsicle” vibe a little more - we’ll see if that ever happens.
Some crazy things are happening/have happened in my life recently, and I am just mentally exhausted constantly. If I could get over the mental block to cook more, it might actually be therapeutic for me. Vicious cycle. Hold space for me, internet strangers.