starryluvly

I got a wonderful fruitcake recipe from my mom. It turned out pretty good only not as moist as I remembered it to be.

I tried looking through the recipe and the only thing that I could think that I did wrong was add too much orange zest (her instructions said 2 orange rind - it could have been only 2 teaspoons but I added the rind of 2 oranges).

Do you think all that orange zest would have absorbed the moisture of the cake making it drier than what I expected it to be?

I guess oven temperature might have had a role to play in it as well (her recipe uses a normal oven, mine is fan forced) but as per the usual guidelines, I had the oven temperature lower in my oven and as expected with fan forced ovens, the cake cooked a lot faster than the estimated time. I doubt the oven temperature would have had anything significant to do with it though - I've baked other cakes before and they've turned out fine.

I've been using a brand of kitty litter (made of pine i believe) which is meant to be great for compost. I've just filled up a pot of soil and mixed in the litter and noticed some little maggots in there (really tiny, maybe about 1mm in length, maximum - maybe housefly maggots?).

Are these maggots ok for my soil?

Or should I remove the plant I put in the pot asap??

Hi there

Can someone explain what a AAA opal is??

I came across a really interesting tomato variety at the farmers' markets and I am completely stumped. It looks like a cherry tomato (only slightly bigger), very fleshy (almost meaty) and the flesh is very deep red.

The skin is red with greenish stripes - the stripes aren't very distinct looking, they almost look like they're fading away. The boy at the table said that the name of this tomato is "perzola" or something like that but when I tried searching for it online, I came up with zilch.

I don't think it's a green zebra or a tigerella. Any clues anyone? I'd love to grow these but I need a name!!

I've heard the term bandied about but am clueless about it. Help?

I did some research and it said that polenta usually takes 45 minutes to cook and the back of this packet said it takes only 10 or so minutes to cook? Is there some other kind of instant polenta?

I ask because I just made cornbread and it seems a bit gritty. Thanks!