Our social life seems to revolve around food. Perhaps not the best "hobby" for a diabetic, but I've always been determined that diabetes will live with me and not the other way around. I love cooking, always have, and I love entertaining, again, I always have. So, one way and another we'll find ourselves regularly throwing out invitations on the spur of the moment and to be fair we receive lots of return invitations - all our friends seem to enjoy entertaining too.
A week ago at a girlfriend's birthday lunch we met up with another couple who we have known through her for some time and we always find their company delightful, so we invited them to come for dinner yesterday, along with the mutual friend and two other friends of ours who have quite a lot in common with them but don't know them.
Naturally as it was the first time we'd invited them to dinner I wanted everything to be perfect. So planned a nice dinner. When thinking about dessert I asked hubby "what do you suggest" and he responded that I'd not used the cook's blowtorch that he'd given me for Xmas and which I'd once said I really wanted. So OK, Creme Brulee it is. I then got online and found a recipe for White Chocolate Creme Brulee. I'm a sucker for white chocolate so that's what I decided to prepare. However, this concoction required the use of 9 egg yolks and I'm thinking "what do I do with 9 egg whites?" Well the only thing that really came to mind was Pavlova. Two really not diabetically friendly desserts. Hey ho, I should have to be "strong" and just have a small white choccy creme brulee. So I made 6 normal size ones and a tiny one on Friday ready to be refrigerated overnight and caramellised at the last minute.
On Saturday I was well organised and had plenty of time. What I hadn't actually thought of at the time I planned the menu, was that quite a lot of the items would need preparing very close to the time, or right before consumption. Anyway, I started with the meringue for the Pavlova. It's years since I've made a Pavlova (certainly not since diagnosis) but I used to do a mean meringue. Didn't look quite right after I'd added the sugar and I'm not sure if I'd over-beaten the eggs a bit. However I spooned it onto the baking paper and put it in a very low oven. An hour later I looked into the oven and I had the biggest pancake you ever saw! No way was this monster going to fit on any cake dish or stand I possess. Never mind, shut the oven door and left it to it. Continued with the prep and at a certain point went off to get glamorised so that I'd have plenty of time to finish off last minute stuff. Decide to peel the silicone paper of the meringue, at which point it crumbles into large pieces - oh well, decided I could just put it into sundae glasses, add whipped cream, raspberries and grated dark chocolate and call it "Eton Mess"
At 7pm with guests arriving at 7.30 I decide to "do the deed" and christen my blowtorch. Only to discover that I've used so much caster sugar in the meringue and the white choc custards that there's not enough to caramellise the brulees. Darn.... not an item I actually keep on my shopping list, I should think the last sugar I bought was several years ago. Hubby was faffing with speakers and had a number of "duties" to do, so I jumped into the car and sped off to Tesco.
Got back home at 7.15 with my bag of sugar (why did I pay 25 pence more for "golden" caster sugar - it's still sugar and I doubt it's any healthier than the white stuff). I get the first custard out of the fridge, spoon sugar on and aim the blow torch. It produced a whiff of smoke when the sugar caramellised and the sugar did actually catch fire momentarily before I blew it out, but the result was a pleasing dark brown caramel. So I set up a production line, whilst hubby was toasting one side of the walnut ciabatta for the starter (Pear, rocket, mixed leaf and walnut salad with an apricot vinaigrette dressing topped with toasted ciabatta and grilled goat's cheese).
At this moment the doorbell went and the friends who are habitually 10 minutes late, turned up at 7.23. Eeek. So took their coats, asked them what they'd like to drink etc and I explained that I was caramellising creme brulee and they wanted to watch. OK... get back to my blowtorch... and apologise for the smoke it's making, suggest the kitchen door is closed because of the smoke detectors on the stairs etc. Hubby proceeds to do the drinks. At that point the doorbell went so my friend Caroline went off to answer the door and it's Lolita.... fine... greet her and take coat etc. The smoke detector goes off. I grab a tea towel and start fanning it... and the smoke gets thicker and thicker... and we suddenly realise that it's nothing to do with my blowtorch and the sugar. The ciabatta under the grill has actually caught fire 'cos we'd forgotten it! By this time the house is filled with smoke and we're rushing round opening the kitchen window, the back door and every other window we can find. There are 3 smoke detector's screeching away and I'm standing on the stairs collapsed with laughter waving a tea towel somewhat ineffectively at the lowest one whilst hubby is sprinting to take the batteries out of the others.
Naturally, at that moment the last guests, the ones I'd hoped to impress arrived! The house smelled of severely burnt toast.. everyone's coughing, if not with the smoke, with uncontrollable laughter!
Fortunately the laughter continued throughout the evening and the worst spike I had was 7.9! This morning I was still trying to work out how 7 people used the 28 glasses that we washed up!
