Things aren’t always what they seem. . .

After moving here, it didn’t take us long to realize that things were—understandably--different in South Africa from what we were used to in the States. Still, we quickly learned where to find the best fresh milk, the brand of juice we liked and even what spaghetti sauce tasted the best. There are some things, though, that I never learned. Last week we invited a family over for tea and in preparation of their visit, I made a cake. Gingerbread to be exact. And to make it even better, I took the trouble to make a custard to pour on top.

For some reason, our guests failed to show up, and as you can imagine, it didn’t take long for the kids to start asking when they could eat the cake. Why not, I told them, and promptly served up cake for everyone.

There was only one problem. The cake was horrid! How is it possible for a person to ruin cake of all things? I mean this is dessert. A bunch of sugar and white flour. Needless to say, none of us could eat the cake. Yes, it was that bad.

I mentioned this to Janelle the next day, and she proceeded to laugh out loud once I told her what kind of cake I’d made. Apparently, molasses has to be halved and mixed with syrup, because here is it too strong. Well, I’ll say. No wonder no one could eat the cake.

We all got a good laugh, but I’m afraid that’s the last time I’ll be making gingerbread for a very long time!


Have a great day!

Lisa