A few months ago, rather than stretch the pennies and buy the posh vanilla in the brown bottle, I bought a smaller cheaper bottle...well that's what I thought until, whilst mixing brownie batter, a waft of Almond alerted me to my mistake - a smaller cheaper bottle of almond flavouring. I am quite generous with vanilla and so there was no hiding the almond impostor. Ah well, more cocoa helped a little.
Yesterday I decided to make vanilla cakes (I'm not using the C- word prefix anymore!) as I has promised G I would. Yes, you've guessed it, in went a gallon of Almond Flavouring! I was so cross with myself, I thought I had thrown the bottle away weeks ago and replaced it with Vanilla? No, it was still in the cupboard waiting to unleash it's unwelcome taint on the next bake. Now don't get me wrong, I do like almond and can easily chomp my way through the marzipan off cuts from the Christmas cake, but almond flavouring has it's place and the fakeness of the stuff I bought left your mouth in shock and can ruin anything just like an un-rinsed soapy cup which can ruin a perfect cup of tea and leave your mouth tasting like a super-clean toilet.
I was going to throw the batter out and start again, but I had made a lot of it and so the only option was carry on. With blueberries and some lemons lurking around the kitchen I added lemon juice to the batter and half filled a loaf tin, then a layer of the fruit and a generous swathe of Lemon Curd then topped off with the remaining batter. Baked off, cooled and then drizzled with hot lemon syrup. Not bad.
