We made a Duck!

Elizabeth and I are hosting our family for Thanksgiving. After seeing the movie Julie and Julia we decided to make a duck instead of a chicken. Since the recipe is really hard and involved we decided to do a few practice runs. The first of which was Saturday. The duck turned out beautifully. It took all day to cook (we didn't eat until 10 that night) but it was so worth it.

To go with the fancy dinner I made Queen Mother's Cake. It was a wonderful chocolate torte. Since a torte has no flour something else is used to bind everything together. In this case it was almonds. I had to grind the almonds into a very fine powder. Elizabeth still doesn't have a food processor but I did learn she has a chopping attachment for her stand mixer. So with a few simple twists I had a power tool of the kitchen variety.

After the almond grinding the rest was easy. Well sort of. I burned the cake a little bit but I scrapped most of the burnt parts off and it tasted just fine. The chocolate icing was dark and rich and wonderful. To add to the fanciness of the evening I decorated the cake with homemade whipped cream (heavy cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla) and raspberries.

The cake was wonderful and I plan on making it again!