Life Through Food: Two Cake Dessert

Children running around in the background, young adults and adults engaged in loud and gushed discussions respectively....
This is the sign the neighbours use to let them know guests were being entertained.

Nobody wanted to be stuck in the kitchen doing the cooking and washing up (our house-keeper is not a live-in, and doesn't work on weekends!), so we had to strategise. Why? Because hyper, nearly teenage, children were expected.

So, the cooking was done early, making sure not to cook too much food. We'd often made this error of cooking too much and not being able to eat it all in time. Instead, we opted for more desserts. So my sister cooked the meal - spicy baked chicken, cornflake crumb coated fried prawns and baked potatoes and potato chips- while I made the dessert, which consisted of a lemon polenta cake and a chocolate cake made with strong black coffee.

I wasn't sure if the polenta cake would be palatable for everyone, so I made it as simple as possible - using lemon and vanilla essence instead of lemon zest. Usually around Christmas, I bake a blueberry version with frozen blueberries.

I knew one couldn't go wrong with chocolate where children are concerned, so the chocolate cake just had to be moist, fluffy and rich enough for even those with an extensive palette. So the eggs where beaten with the oil and hot coffee to perfection before adding the dry ingredients.