I finished off the last of the boeuf bourguignon on Thursday, which meant that I needed to cook again. This time I cooked boeuf a la mode, which isn’t beef with ice cream. It’s beef braised in red wine. Actually, it’s a beef roast marinated for hours in red wine with vegetables and spices. The marinade was surprisingly fragrant. After letting my roast (all I could get was bottom round) marinate for six hours, then it had to be browned on all sides and then put in the oven with the marinade and additional beef stock. Again, this takes most of the day. I thought I would have time to do other things while the roast cooked, but I was wrong–again.

The recipe called for carrots braised in butter, which I had made before, so I was confident I could have those turn out. I also had to make brown-braised onions–also made before. I burnt the carrots. They were fine, nearly done, so I turned down the heat. I have no idea what happened, but when I went back to check them, they were burnt. I saved most of them, but a few were a lost cause, stuck to the bottom of the pan in the brown muck. The onions turned out much better. I even blanched them properly, so the skins came off. I love the taste of the onions, but I hate the little suckers. Blanching and peeling tries my patience. I nearly bought jarred onions, until I saw the salt content.

The roast turned out rather well. I expected the roast would be funny colored from the wine, but it looked normal and tasted wonderful. After cleaning, it was time to bake. My birthday is this weekend, and for months I have had a Betty Crocker gluten-free cake mix. I got a coupon to try it, so the mix was free. I also added Julia’s butter cream with powdered sugar. I’m used to butter cream frosting, but I have never seen the recipes in French Cooking. This butter cream had butter, of course, and egg yolks. It’s the fluffiest frosting I’ve had. My chocolate cake required chocolate butter cream. The great thing about these butter creams is that they can be flavored with anything.

Oh, the gluten-free cake mix is excellent. It has the perfect sponginess that you expect in a cake. Gluten-free baked goods can often be very heavy. I did add the ingredients differently than it said on the box. I beat the butter with a small amount of mix. I whipped the eggs separately until they were frothy, and added those to the creamed butter and beat that good. I added more mix until the butter was fully creamy and then added the water slowly. When it got too watery, I added more mix. When it got thick, I added more water until all the water was in. Then I put in the rest of the mix and beat it for several minutes.