So I had a taste of the ice cream I made just now: it was bitter and fiery to the tongue.

That means Father was honest in his feedback, because I had thought he was being negative and discouraging as usual, which, is his usual sort of self.

I clearly had put in too much almond essence, and it wasn’t sweet enough. The reason for the latter was that recipes for sweet confectionary usually specify quite a visibly large amount of sugar. So I tended—just as I did this evening—to put in only about half of what is specified in the recipe, with the obvious result being the end product not being sweet enough.

The reason why I had put in double the amount of almond essence was that I had doubled the specified amount of the other ingredients so that I could make a larger batch. This was clearly a mistake. So next time I will just put in the specified amount of the flavour, and then increase the amount of the other ingredients to puff up the size of the batch.

Luckily, this is just a small batch, so I won’t have to endure it for long. I doubt Mother and Father would take another portion on this account.

• Cooking