New Baking Method?

You will have seen the previous post with the picture of my chocolate cake disaster. I said I would explain, so here goes.
A friend at work was leaving to have a baby and I had promised to make a cake for her farewell tea (we have tea and cake at work quite a bit, lots of birthdays etc) and what with it being the Christmas season I didn't have any time to bake except before going to work. So up I get at 6.30 and began the baking. I had decided to make Nigella's Quadruple Chocolate loaf (quadruple because it has cocoa and chocolate in the cake, a chocolate syrup poured over the top and chocolate shavings to finish! So a bit of chocolate is involved). I won't give you the recipe this time, I will wait until I make it properly!
All seemed to go well, batter made, tin lined (with my loaf liners), oven pre-heated, all normal. I popped it in the oven and then went to have my shower. I came downstairs about 30 minutes later and it smelled like the cake was burning, but it couldn't be it had only been in the oven for 30 minutes of it's hour. So what was happening? I opened the oven to discover that the mix had risen over the top of the tin and some had burned on the bottom of the oven, mystery solved. As I had the oven open I decided to turn it around at which point I discovered that the top of the cake was burned black. Rather than rising as a cake usually does it was completely flat and black! And not cooked inside, liquid inside really. I was flumoxed as you can imagine. I poked it a few times, wondered what I had done and after about 5 minutes of non-plussedness I decided it wasn't fit for human consumption. I then poured the syrup away, washed up and went to work wondering all the while what I had done wrong.
When I got to work I was explaining what had happened to a friend at work and she asked if I had put the grill on instead of the oven! And suddenly it all was clear, I had grilled my chocolate cake!!
I told the potential recipient of the cake my sad and sorry tale and she was very understanding and even moved by the fact that I had tried at least! We had Maison Blanc chocolate logs and lemon tarts instead and some yum home-made cupcakes, so no lack of cake.
When I got home that night the grilled cake was waiting for me, I had a taste and let me tell you it was good, but I binned it. I could have eaten it all but that way lies madness and an even bigger waistline. But I will make it again. But next time I will make sure I don't bake at 6.30 in the morning!!

Chocolate Cake Disaster

Just adding a picture of a cake disaster that happened this morning, feast your eyes and I will explain later!

Christmas Baking: The Cake (Part 2)

And so armed with my Merchant Gourmet chestnut puree I was ready to make the cake. As I said before it is from Feast and is the "Easy-Action Christmas Cake". Not your serious-soak-the-fruit-overnight-"real" Christmas cake but your easy-throw-everything-in-together Christmas cake. My kind of cake!
There is some soaking of the fruit, you put all the fruit, butter, sugar, chestnut puree, rum and orange juice and zests in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer it for 10 minutes and then leave it for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes I can cope with, otherwise you have to think ahead and prepare! Very bad when you think I'm trying to be all traditional and make my cake in advance but you know it works just as well this way so why tinker.
Once the soaking has finished you then add all the rest of the ingredients (eggs, flour and spices) mix well and pour into you prepared tin. The prepared tin means a double layer of greaseproof paper and then another double layer on the outside of the tin (double the height of the tin) to protect the cake during the long bake. Then it's into the oven (150 C) for one and three quarter hours to two hours. I managed to stop myself from opening the oven door the whole time and after and hour and three quarters it was done, risen and cracked on the surface all rich and fruity and smelling of Christmas.
The final thing to do was to douse it in more Rum! Then leave it in the tin until it is completely cooled, wrap and store. I just had a quick look at it now (really to take a photo for you guys) and it looks great and smells yum. I also took the opportunity to give it a little more Rum, well it is Christmas after all!

Christmas Baking Continues: The Cake (part 1)

It was puddings a couple of weeks ago and last week it was time for the cake. In fact it was supposed to have been the previous week but Tesco (again) conspired against me. The recipe I used is from Feast by Nigella, I used it last year to great success and so decided that it would be the one this year too. It calls for pureed chestnut, seems reasonable doesn't it? Not beyond the ken of man? So you would think.
Armed with my ingredients list we went to Tesco Extra (note the Extra, promising me, well extra) at Surrey Quays again. I should have known better after my last trip but I'm an optimist at heart and the boyfriend needed to go there so... I didn't need to get much so we grabbed a basket and, dodging the multitudes who were all out again, we picked up the various ingredients. Then it came to the pureed chestnut and we went to all the aisles that it could/should have been in but no luck so I asked someone. It so happened that another woman had asked about the same thing (I did wonder if she was making Nigella's cake too, but didn't ask) and the gentleman had searched the spices aisle with no luck and sent us to the Christmas aisle. Off we went to be confronted with all manner of Christmas food, cakes, puddings, santas and other chocolate shaped Christmas objet. As you will have guessed, no pureed chestnut. One more turn of the likely aisles and we gave up. As I wanted to do the cake that day the boyfriend offered to take me to Sainsbury's in New Cross Gate (my local) and after checking that he really meant it (well, you have to show willing!) off we went. And, guess what? Loads of the stuff, tins of it, down be the head with it we were. Yes they had it. Not sure what this means about the difference between Sainsbury's shoppers and Tesco shoppers but I'll not be looking for anything out of the ordinary at Tesco for a while.
By this time I had lost my Christmas cake baking will so decided to leave it until the next week and so we get to last Saturday.

Pumpkin Pie a la Gayle Hunnicutt

As it was bonfire night last night (and I was having friends over) I decided to continue my Halloween baking theme and make a Pumpkin Pie. I know this is American and usually made for Thanksgiving but what the hey.
A friend mentioned that she had a recipe that her and her mother had been using for years so I decided that it was best to use something that was tried and tested. When I got the recipe it turned out to be Gayle Hunnicutt's Pumpkin Pie. The name was familiar so I checked her out online and it turns out she was an American actress who had a brief Hollywood career then married David Hemmings and moved to London. Not sure what her qualification are for making Pumpkin Pie! But I digress.
The recipe calls for a 12inch pastry tin and a pastry case to go in it. So I made some shortcrust pastry (from Gary Rhodes) and blind baked it in readiness.

Ingredients:
1 medium Pumpkin (I used my Libbys pureed Pumpkin rather than roasting and pureeing the Pumpkin as the recipe calls for, much easier. I used a 425g tin)
4oz caster sugar
2oz light soft brown sugar
half tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
half tsp ginger
quarter tsp nutmeg or allspice (I used nutmeg)
zest of an orange and a lemon
one eight tsp ground cloves (seems a bit pointless so I left it out)
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp Molasses (I had treacle so used that)
300g soured cream (it really said 2x5oz cartons of soured cream but I converted it to make it easier)
2 and a half oz cream cheese
Basically this is a "put everything in a bowl and mix recipe", very easy. So I did just that and put the mixture in the pastry case and put in the oven (170C) and started to clear up. As I did this I noticed the two eggs that were supposed to in the mixture! As it had only been in the oven for a few minutes I whipped it out and scraped the mixture back into the bowl and added the eggs. Disaster averted. Back in the oven it went for about 40 minutes (it's ready when a knife comes out clean).
Sometimes I'm just a bit of a klutz, I think I'm reading the recipe thoroughly but then I miss something, it happens a bit too often! But it never seems to make much difference, the cakes seem to turn out (most of the time). And now, writing up the recipe here I've discovered that I forgot to add the caster sugar! You see, klutz.
I served it with cream and pretty much all the plates were cleared, no one said "you know what this is missing? caster sugar". I have to say it wasn't my favourite dessert in the world, not sure I will make it again but not sure that the missing caster sugar was the culprit. It might have made it a bit sweeter but it wasn't the sweetness I didn't like, not sure I can put my finger on it. So, note to self, read the recipe through a few times and maybe check off the ingredients as you go along!

Halloween Baking

I love when a new season starts and a whole new array of food is available to cook. Being a baker there are lots of cakes that you make for a particular occasion and a lot of these fit in with seasonal food. And so we have Halloween, ghosts and ghouls, fancy dress party's and pumpkins. Not only do you have the delights of pumpkin and/or squash in a savoury way there are also lots of cakes to be made.
Last year I bought some of the tinned pumpkin that is used in the US to make the traditional thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie. I figured that Whole Foods would stock it and I was right, they had a whole wall made out of Libbys Pumpkin. I had just bought the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook and they had a recipe for Pumpkin cupcakes. I made them and brought them into work and we had a lovely Halloween afternoon tea. So I decided that I had started a tradition and that I should do something again this year (any excuse!).
After another trip to Whole Foods (the High Street Ken one is a nice walk through the park away from work) I looked to the Google machine for inspiration. I fancied doing a loaf, mostly because it is easier to transport but also because they are usually very easy. I found a recipe for a Pumpkin, Lemon and Poppy Seed loaf and decided that was the one. This recipe called for roasting pumpkin and then pureeing it but I was way ahead with my Libbys. It was very easy, the most fiddly thing was processing the flour and butter to make a fine crumb but it was hardly hard work!
Now the other reason I wanted to do a loaf based cake was that I had bought some greaseproof paper lining cases for a loaf tin last week in John Lewis. I have seen these in various places in the last few years but never bought any and thought I would give them a try. Let me tell you I will be going back for the other versions because these are genius. No more greasing and lining you tin, all you do is plonk this in the tin, fill with cake mixture, bake and remove. And the cakes look shop bought! Why haven't I been using these for the last few years! Madness. I duly lined my tin and filled with cake mix (ok, the first attempt went a bit wrong, liner collapse, say no more) and it was so easy to remove, love these. The cakes looked great and smelled of nutmeg and mixed spice, autumn in your kitchen.
I decided I would make a frosting for one and leave the other as Delicious magazine intended. I used cream cheese and icing sugar with a bit of lemon zest (1oz cream cheese to 6oz icing sugar, a helpful recipe from a friend) and transported it to work with the cakes and iced it just before serving. They went down well and there was some leftover for breakfast the next day! Sorry, no photo this time, I forgot. You will have to take my word for it that they looked damned fine.

Christmas Puddings (Part 2)

Sorry to keep you waiting for the end of the pudding story, I know that you have been on tenter hooks, did she or didn't she? And just in case you can't last to the end of the post, it has a happy ending!
As you know I used my mother's recipe, she sent it to me a couple of years ago, handwritten on some lovely notepaper, notepaper that only a mother of a certain age would own! But stationery apart it works. It's all in ounces and I'm very bad at converting to the gram and when I was buying the ingredients I over-bought on everything! But it means that I have enough dried fruit for my Christmas cake.
Ingeredients: (I'm going to give it to you as my mother wrote it)
6oz Flour
8oz White Breadcrumbs
12oz Brown Sugar
1 lb Currants
8oz Raisins
8oz Sultanas
4oz Cherries (glace)
4oz Mixed Peel
Zest of 1 Lemon
Zest of 1 Orange
8oz Margarine or Butter (I used butter)
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons Brandy or Whiskey
half a pint Guinness
1 teaspoon Mixed Spice
half a teaspoon ground Cinnamon
half a teaspoon ground Nutmeg
These ingredients are enough to make two 2 pint puddings (I bought 2 plastic bowls in John Lewis for £3 each), grease the two bowls and make sure you have greaseproof paper and tin foil for the top.
Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl (all the fruit and breadcrumbs). I managed to get all the dry ingredients in the bowl and was about to add the flour when I realised that I didn't have the breadcrumbs. I was making these at the boyfriends house and he doesn't possess a food processor or a billy whizz (you know that hand held processor?) so I had to use his liquidiser. It works but it's not ideal.
Sieve the flour and the spices in another bowl and add your dry ingredients and mix well. Melt the margarine/butter and leave to cool before adding to the mixture with the beaten eggs and whiskey/brandy. I used whiskey, one from the whiskey society called "Banana Split in a Sauna", I kid you not! My mother put a PS at the bottom of the method "you may not want to put in all the Guinness, you will know if it's wet enough". So leave the Guinness to the end, I used almost all the half pint. My mother was right I did know when it was wet enough.
Now the most important part of making Christmas puddings, the making of the wish. When we were growing up my mother would get us all to stir the mixture and make a wish. I can't remember if the wishes came true but I remember always making sure that I got to make it.
So wishes made fill you pudding bowls and cover with greaseproof paper and tin foil, making a fold in the middle to leave room for air to get in when steaming. My mother always tied twine (you might know it as string) around the bowls making a little handle so that it's easy to get them out of the saucepan. I then steamed them for 6 hours, which just seems like forever. At 8pm on Sunday night they came out and they smelled good, they smelled of Christmas. There are instructions in the recipe for cooking the pudding before serving but you will have to wait until December 25th to hear the end of this story.

Christmas Puddings (Part 1)

So it's Christmas pudding day. It was supposed to be yesterday but after a 4 hour shopping marathon (don't ask) there was no time for the 6 hours of steaming and I had to move it. One of the reasons for the extended shopping yesterday was that I forgot to bring the ingredients list into the supermarket. Picture the scene: Saturday afternoon on a Tesco Extra with the whole population of London surrounding us (believe me it felt like it), we are nearing the end and I suddenly remember that I don't have the list I need for the puddings. There was a moment where I was thinking of not mentioning it but thought better of that so I told the boyfriend. Rather than getting upset he just smiled and asked if I wanted him to go to the car and get it! Not sure what happened there but I didn't ask just said yes and we met five minutes later in sliced bread. The upshot of which is that I have the ingredients and it's time to start. More later.

Banana Muffin Disaster

Last week when I was recovering from a cold I decided, as a way of cheering myself up, to bake something. For some reason I fell upon Banana Muffins, don't ask me why, it just popped into my head (much like the stay-puffed marshamallow man!). I did a search and found a food blog (chubbyhubby) where he had made Nigella's Banana Muffins (from Domestic Goddess) and I read on. Well, he didn't like them, he said they were easy but didn't taste good. As a big fan of Nigella I felt a certain amount of resentment and defensiveness at this slight and decided to show him!
I have the book so I checked what I needed and went to the shop. The recipe calls for a small amount of butter (30g), honey (60g), vanilla extract and mashed banana as the wet ingredients and flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder (no eggs I hear you say, I know, but Nigella must know what she's doing). You add wet to dry mix and put in muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes.
Once they were out of the oven they looked a bit underwhelming but I iced them with some butterscotch sauce that I had made a while ago and was still confident of a good Banana Muffin. After dinner I offered one to my friend and we peeled away the muffin paper and bit in. Well, I hate to say it but chubbyhubby was right! The only thing that made them taste in any way good was the butterscotch sauce! I wasn't happy and after keeping them for a couple of days I gave in and threw the other ten away. The horror, the horror!
But Nigella remains a heroine as this is the first one of her recipes that I've tried that hasn't worked so that's a fairly good record. So photo for this post.
On another note, Christmas is only ten weeks away (I know) and my friend made some Christmas puddings over the weekend and it made me think it's time for me to make some myself. I will be cooking Christmas dinner for the boyfriend's family this year so it's all the trimmings. I started a search for my mothers pudding recipe, she sent it to me a couple of years ago and I knew I had put it somewhere safe. And I was right, it was in Rachel's Cooking for Friends. So I am armed with the family recipe and I will make them at the weekend, more later.

The Rumours of my Death Have Been Exaggerated!

I have been absent, away, not here, an ex-blogger. Have you missed me? It has been a bit of a whirl at work recently, travelling etc so no time for the blogging. There have been many cakes, but as there has been a break, I can't really remember the details so I'm going to do a big list.
So there was the Banana and Chocolate loaf, the Cherry Chocolate Coconut slices, the Apple Cake (made twice, the first time to great success and the second time, well lets just say it was thrown away!), the Banana Cake with Butterscotch Icing, the Pastry-less Pear and Almond Tart and THE most sticky, gooey, sugary flapjacks ever to come out of an oven. All met with yums and were eaten up so haven't lost the touch.
I've also finished my stripey crochet cushion. It seemed to take a while but then came together really quickly in the end. It now has pride of place on MY chair (you know what I'm talking about!).
There will probably be a bit of a gap between this and the next post too as I am off to Frankfurt next week for work so very little time for the baking or the knitting but I'm determined to bake up a knitting storm when I get back.
P.S. I came up with the post name and then couldn't remember who said it so my helpful friend Mr Google cam to the rescue, it was Mark Twain.

Buns and Shortbread

A couple of weeks ago I had a week away in the Cotswolds (with the boyfriend), we hired a cottage in a village called Sherston and planned walking etc. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, it rained pretty much every day and there were two days when it rained all day, don't you just love the British summer? So we had to find other entertainments to keep us amused. One of these involved a trip into Bath (I had an appointmnt for a book spa, more on that later) and according to a guide book we picked up Sally Lunn's was the place to go for buns. Well, it seemed rude not to. Sally Lunn's is famous for it's buns, they are based on a brioche recipe brought over from Frabce by Sally Lunn in the 17th century. The menu is extensive, you can have your bun with virtually anything (well, anything edible anyway) and after much umming and ahhing I went for lemon curd and the BF had a walnut and coffee paste (I had major food envy). They were really good, huge so you only get half the bun, a whole one would be too much. We then bought one to take away and had it later (back at the ranch) with bacon and melted cheese, yum.
I mentioned a book spa earlier and I'm sure you're wondering what the heck I'm going on about. Well, there is a bookshop in Bath called Mr B's Emporium of Reading Delights and they offer book spa treatments. I was given one by friends for my birthday and booked it for the week we were away. So what does this entail? You are paired up with one of their booksellers and you sit and talk about the books you like and dislike etc and then they go off and come back with lots of recommendations (while you eat the lovely chocolate and cranberry cake they supplied). Then you spend some more time deciding if you like any of them and then you can buy as many as you want (part of the cost includes £40 of books). It was a dream afternoon for me and I came away with six books that I would never have found on my own. I'm reading one at the moment (Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto) and it is living up to the hype. I can't recommend it enough, the shop is great and the people are lovely and so knowledgalbe about their subject.
On our return from holidays we had the afternoon at home and I decided as an end to the week we should open a bottle of wine I had bought when we were in Milan over Easter. This was a sweet wine, slightly fizzy, that we had with a shortbread biscuit when we were there so I wanted to re-create this. I found a recipe for shortbread in my new Cakes and Slices book. And a combo of butter, sugar, flour and eggs later I had a tray of shortbread. And with the wine a fitting end to the week. I made too much, of course, so work were treated to the leftovers.

Lamington Lovelies?

Has everyone in Cakes and Cardies land heard of the Lamington? I'm sure all my well-travelled readers will know it as an Australian confection, right? Just in case you were absent on the day the Lamington was explained they are usually squares of sponge, dipped in chocolate and rolled in coconut. Imagine my joy when a certain Australian friend of mine was having a birthday and NEEDED cake?! Lamingtons I said to myself (not out loud, of course, I'm not mad). As I was making them on a school night I didn't want the phaff of dipping squares of sponge in chocolate, I know some friend I am? Australian Woman's Weekly to the rescue, Lamington cupcakes. I figured as the recipe was from an authentic Australian source I was in safe territory, so when there was no mention of fat in the recipe, I trusted them, foolish maybe but I'm a trusting soul.
Beat 4 eggs until pale and fluffy and (a la meringues) slowly add 110g of caster sugar and fold in 2 tablespoons corn flour, 50g plain flour and 35g self-raising flour (gently, mind, to keep all the air in the mixture) Divide between your muffin cases and cook for 25 minutes in a pre-heated 180 degree oven. I did as I was told and when I took them out of the oven they looked fab, all golden and risen. I left them to cool a bit turned around to switch the oven off and when I turned back they had collapsed! Why does that happen? So many times I take a cake out of the oven and it looks perfect only for it to deflate. I'm sure I must be doing something wrong, I guess I need to do some research and experimentation, I will keep you posted.
So I had my cakes (with their craters), they then needed to be iced with the chocolate ganache (dark chocolate melted with cream) and the final addition of the dessicated coconut meant the Lamingtons were complete.
And the next day they were presented to the birthday girl and we had a taste. You know, they were fine but you definitely could tell that there wasn't any fat in them. They were a bit dry and spongy (not in the good sense of the word) but perfectly nice. I think the next time a recipe is fat less I will move on to the next website/cookbook and find one that has lots of the stuff!

Courgette Cake

I made a promise to work people that I would make a cake for a lunch we were having and I thought I would make brownies or some such. Then I met my friend for dinner and a crossword (we do love the Saturday Times crossword) and she offered me some home grown courgettes. So what better idea than a courgette cake (or Zucchini Bread according to Rachel)? I decided that I would add a lime icing to give it a little lift. Really this is a banana bread but rather than the bananas you add grated courgette. The home grown courgettes were lovely, so green and fresh, lovely to use something that has been grown from scratch. Rachel's recipe makes two loaves which was serendipitous as there would be about 15 people for lunch. I made the icing with lime juice from two limes, some zest and icing sugar. The citrusy lime cutting the sweetness of the sugar. So after being soaked through on the way to the lunch (one of those freak summer storms) they made it in one piece and were greeted with lots of compliments. So thanks to my friend and her fresh produce and I look forward to more home grown goods (and especially vegetables, there were some beetroots I have my eye on for a chocolate and beetroot cake) to make more yummy cakes.

The Most Beautiful Boring Cake!

Not a very auspicious start to a blog about cakes is it? That was the reaction to my Italian Hazelnut cake, but let me explain. Friends of mine have recently bought a new house (well new to them, not new in the just built way of being new, eighteenth century more like it) and we went to see it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. My, what a lovely house it it too, a bit of work to do but it will be beautiful. So I needed to bring cake, well it would have been rude not to wouldn't it? I have had my eyes on an Italian Hazelnut cake from Rachel Allen's Bake. It's flour less so I thought it would come in handy for friends who don't do flour.
You take 200g of hazelnuts and grind them with cinnamon. Meanwhile whisk 5 egg yolks with 175g of caster sugar until "moussey" and add the hazelnuts and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Then whisk the eggs whites and a pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks and gently fold into the hazelnut mixture. I did this in three stages making sure that they were well mixed before adding the next load but you also have to be very gentle so as not to deflate the whites. A tricky business. Then pour into a prepared (greased and lined) springform tin and bake in the oven (170 degrees) for 55-70 minutes. Once ready let it cool in the tin for 15 minutes and then ease out and let it cool. I also sprinkled some icing sugar on top, just 'cos I like how it looks (Rachel doesn't call for it).
So all ready, stored in the cake tin safely for the journey and off we went. After some yum scrum Mexican food we cracked open the cake. Many "mmms" and "oohs" and then one of my friends piped up with the phrase above, "Don't take this the wrong way but that is the most beautiful boring cake I've tasted"!! Once she said it I knew exactly what she meant (although I made her explain!), it isn't all bells and whistles, gooey, chocolaty, creamy, stodgy. It's a really clean satisfying hazelnut taste (when it came out of the oven it smelled like hazelnut gelato, THE best gelato flavour). So we tucked into our second slice just to make sure she had got it right!

How to Block Out Your Knitting

As I have mentioned before I love starting a knitting project and finishing it, the bit in between can sometimes be a "when will this finish so I can get on to the next thing?" So I recently finished the 40s jumper (mentioned in an earlier blog) and thought this would be a good time to walk you through finishing and by that I mean blocking out the garment so that you achieve the best finish after all the hard work you've put in to the project.
The first thing to do is weave in those ends, not my favourite bit, but it makes for a neater end product. Then it's to a flat surface, I use my table in the kitchen, with enough room to fit the biggest piece of the garment. You will need:
An iron
A wet tea towel (or other such piece of material)
Pins
Measuring tape
I usually start with the front piece. The first thing you need to do is pin one side (at the armhole decreasing) then stretch the piece to the size you want it to be (see the final measurements in your pattern) and then pin the other side at the armhole decreasing. This will mean that the chest size is now correct. You then work down from your first pin straigthening out the seam and pinning at frequent intervals until you have pinned down both sides seams to the beginning of the rib. NB you never iron the rib. I'm not sure why but I'm guessing it's because you don't want to lose the elasticity (but that's just a guess, I should probably find out why shouldn't I?). You will also need to measure the length of the piece and make adjustments with your stretching and pinning as needed.
Once it is all pinned and measured take your wet tea towel and cover the piece (avoiding the rib) and iron. I usually iron until the tea towel is almost dry, this gives the sticthed more time to flatten and set in place. Be extra vigilant on the seams because the flatter these are the easier it will be to sew up.
When you are happy with your work remove all the pins and repeat with all the others pieces.
This is the method I use but you can also do this by hand (pulling up, down and diagonally until the piece reaches the size you want) and also by soaking the whole garment in water and re-shaping while wet. I find the above method easy and effective. You would probably use the soaking method for pieces that really need heavy duty re-shaping but hopefully your knitting is so good you won't ever need it!

Cake Jewellry

Just wanted to share this with you. A friend at work gave it to me this week. She saw it and I popped into her mind as the perfect recipient! As my birthday isn't for a few months and as she was so excited about it she gave it to me now. Isn't it the best? I love it, it makes me smile everytime I realise that I'm wearing a muffin tray and measuring spoons around my neck! Someone suggested I make some cakes in the muffin tray, watch this space!

Sticky Onion Jam

Darina Allen is proving to be my cookbook of choice at the moment, not sure that you have noticed! When I was leafing through it at the beginning I got to the preserves chapter and, as I love a savoury jam, I thought I would make some onion jam as a new home present for some friends I'm visiting today. I guess the worst thing about onion jam is the peeling and slicing of many onions (in this case 700g). Luckily these weren't the streaming eyes type of onions so it wasn't too painful. Once they are sliced (thinly, mind) you cook them in butter and sugar for about 30min. Then you add red wine, Creme de Cassis (this is optional but as it was sitting on my drinks trolley (!) I went for it) and Sherry vinegar. This is then cooked down for about 40mins. Darina said not to let it cook down too much and being a good girl I did what I was told. It turned out a bit runny and I had taken it off the cooker and started jarring it up (technical term) before I realised this and by then it was too late. But I tasted it and it is very good, sweet and savoury with a lovely deep flavour. I got two jars out of this quantity and a half jar for me (with some good cheese). This jam lasts 7-8 months so easy to leave it in the fridge and take it out whenever you have some good cheeses and impress your dinner party guests.

Mini Victoria Sponge Mountains

My boyfriend doesn't always get to sample my cakes, I'm usually making them for someone else, so he misses out. So I thought I would make him a Victoria Sponge after my first successful foray into the classic. But when it's just two of you eating it, that's a lot of sponge (not to mention the calories) so I decided to make mini ones. Same cakeyness less caloriness, perfect. Darina Allen strikes again, it was the book I had with me (being as I was staying at his, so a limited cookbook range was available to me. I know the interwebulator is one great big cookbook but there is nothing like leafing through a book to get inspiration). So I chose Darina's fairy cake recipe, much the same as all the rest but her cooking of them was new to me. The cakes are put in the oven at 220 degrees until they start to rise and you then turn the oven down to 190 for the rest of the time (I think her timings were a bit too long (25 mins) I took them out after 20). And what you get is the traditional fairy cake with the "mountain" look, they rose really high and they stayed that way too (these would be perfect for butterfly cakes). No falling as soon as they come out of the oven which sometimes happens. Once they were cooled I took them out of their cases and cut them in half, spread the bottom with jam (raspberry this time) and cream (I know!), put the top back on and sprinkled them with icing sugar. And there you have lovely mini Victoria Sponge Mountains. A great individual dessert and you get to feel like a giant!

Brown Soda Bread

In the second recipe from my new Darina Allen book I decided to go all Irish and make Brown Soda Bread. My mother used to make this when we were growing up and then bought it when it was too much bother to make. It's an Irish tradition. Bread is always one of those things that is just a little bit to much bother, isn't it? All that proving, rising, kneading etc you have to have a hole day just to make one loaf. And then you have to eat it straight away, 1. because it's so good just out of the oven and 2. it will go stale fairly quickly. I know that there is the bread maker which makes the whole process a bit easier but then it's not handmade.... I know! Well, the answer may be soda bread. No yeast involved. It's just bread flour, an egg, buttermilk, salt and bicarbonate of soda. These are just mixed together, put into a lightly greased tin and cooked for about an hour. You get perfect brown bread that is great fresh from the oven and when it's a couple of days old it's great toasted (with smoked salmon, poached egg and hollandaise sauce). So it will never be a problem to make bread again, I will never complain again just get my buttermilk and bicarb out and Bob's your uncle!

Limoncello Slushy

I have turned to the drink! My friend procured a copy of the new Darina Allen book for me, Forgotten Skills of Cooking, and I got very excited. It doesn't take that much these days! One of the recipes I came across was for Limoncello and being a big fan I decided to make it. It seemed fairly straightforward but, as you know, that is never the case. So armed with my 12 lemons, vodka, sugar and sterilised bottle I began my work. The first part of the process is to put the zest of the 12 lemons in a sterilised bottle/jar with the vodka. And so we hit my first, shall we call it a hiccup? To sterilise a bottle you put it in the oven for about 15 minutes, lovely. I did just that but then after about five minutes there was a strange smell emanating from the oven (and not my oven I should say, my boyfriends new oven), I opened the door to discover that the plastic lid (I know, I know) had melted. Oh dear, boyfriend was fairly calm about this and helped remove the plastic and kindly let me use another one of his bottles (sans plastic lid this time, you see I learn quickly). Back on track, I peeled the lemons and put them in the bottle, added the vodka and put it in a cupboard to ferment for 48 hours. It was at that point that I realised my second mistake, I had put the lemon zest in a bottle, a small necked bottle. How was I going to get them out? I wasn't, another bottle down the drain, thank God for Ikea! This didn't effect the making of the Limoncello as I just had to drain the vodka out of the bottle after the 48 hours and mix it with an already prepared sugar syrup. I did, of course, have to put it in another bottle (we're up to three now, but that's it honest). Then that's it, apart from the tast test (I'm not that silly). It tasted good. I then popped it in the freezer, which is where I always store my Limoncello (I always get my brother to bring over a bottle when he comes from Italy. He lives there, I don't make him go there just to get me the Limoncello!). And now we get to the slushy bit. My friend offered me a Limoncello the other night and when she took it out of the freezer it had almost completely frozen. Usually alcohol is fine in the freezer, it just gets a bit viscous, but I guess the sugar syrup was the culprit. Nor defeated we ploughed on and had a lovely (couple) of glasses that were reminiscent of a slush puppy, not a bad thing in this heat.

New Knitting Project

Just a quick one to let you know about my new knitting project. Even before finishing the stripey wavy jumper I knew what my next project would be. I am a bit like that, once I'm getting to the end of something I start looking around for the next thing. It's kind of like cheating on my current knitting project in a way! I do love starting a new project though, deciding what to do, buying the wool, avoiding doing a tension square (I know, very bad, but I just want to get started and the tension square gets in the way of the starting-a-project-gratification) and finally casting on those stitches. Once you've cast on the stitches it then becomes old hat and you start thinking, what's next? Well, it's not that bad but you know what I mean.
The new jumper is for a friend's birthday, she decided that she wanted me to knit her something and who am I to say no? One of our knitting groupers visited her grandmother recently and came away with a haul of old patterns and all the needles she will ever need. And amongst these patterns we found the one. It is a 40s twinset but I am just doing the jumper (my friend may well do the cardie later) a Paton's Beehive pattern. It calls for a 3ply wool which only seems to exist as a baby wool but we got some great advice from the haberdashery department in John Lewis and we went for a Debbie Bliss 4ply in a beautiful red. I have to say I did do the tension square for this one because being an old pattern and using different wool it was necessary. I have finished the front, one sleeve and started the second sleeve. The pattern is very easy to follow and, as I have found with old patterns, very polite and proper. For example, "until work measures 5 ins. from commencement" and "work anther sleeve in the same manner". Just lovely, you can just hear a forties housewife (Celia Johnson maybe) reading this with with perfect RP. I may just use old patterns from now on!

Victoria Sponge

I've never made a Victoria Sponge (what, I hear you gasp, never made a Victoria Sponge, calls herself a baker!), hard to fathom I know. So last week I asked a friend what sort of cake she would like me to bring over for afternoon tea and sure enough she went for the classic. A couple of evenings before I would be making it I had knitting group and asked advice from one of the members who is almost a professional baker (you are really!). She had some great tips. If you don't have a recipe for the tin size you have just weigh your eggs and use the same weight of flour, butter and sugar. When you put the batter in the tins make it higher around the edges so that you get a more even sponge. Just before you put the tins in the oven bang them against a work surface to get rid of any air bubbles. And you can never cream the butter and sugar too much. All great tips all of which I used apart from the egg one as I was using a Nigella recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess and had all the right tins. Firstly, I made sure that my butter was very soft. This, I have realised is one of the most important things when it comes to baking a cake and ensuring it's lightness. I used my stand mixer, I think I have the measure of it now, added the butter and sugar and just left it to do it's work for about 10 minutes until the mixture was almost white. Then I took over and added the eggs and flour etc by hand, popped the batter in the tins (making sure that the sides were higher) and into the oven. I know that you shouldn't open the oven during baking but I find it very difficult not to especially as my oven has a tendency to be on the hot side. But lately I have managed to keep myself away from the door and now I know why you shouldn't disturb a cake in it's cooking and rising. I have also noticed that there is a certain smell when the cake is just about done and I can tell when it has gone over and may be on the way to burning (am i unique in this or is that the same for everyone who bakes?) I really need to get myself a proper cake tester, I just use a knife at the moment and it does leave an unsightly slit which is usually covered with icing so it doesn't really matter but you know....right tools for the job and all that. Must get myself onto Lakeland. Once out of the oven I negotiated the hairy task of removing them from the tins without breaking them and managed it (just about, a hot sponge is a bit too flexible!). Now as I was transporting the cake to my friends I decided to bring all the component parts and assemble it at my destination rather than risk Vitoria Mulch. Once I arrived (the table set in the garden for afternoon tea) I whipped the cream, spread the jam, sandwiched the sponges and sieved icing sugar atop (thus disguising the knife-testing slit), voila. But then the controversy began, whipped cream wasn't the right thing it should be butter cream (or so I was told). So my first foray into Victoria Sponge making wasn't quite the classic but we made do (there's always the next time). Unfortunately as we sliced the cake the heavens opened, however we were very British about it and stuck it out until it became torrential and the umbrella started leaking! But we did eat the cake outside before the rain and very nice it was too.

New Blog Colour

Sorry, I know I said last time that I wouldn't change this again but a couple of friends have had trouble reading the red blog (and I saw it last week and it looked awful). Sorry about that, so we are back to a more sedate colour scheme, much how it was originally. This time I'm sticking, unless of course no one can read it!

One Stripped Wavy Jumper

It's finished! Sleeves put in tonight (I did the side seams late last week) and it's all done. I even tried it on and it sort of fitted, although it's not for me. Couple of photos here to show the finished article. I need to get a tailors dummy (I keep checking them out on ebay but nothing yet) so I can put the finished garment on to take a better photo. If you come across one let me know. Anyway, on to the next one, a jumper from a forties pattern in a brilliant red.

Magnificent Macaroons, Maybe?

I have been contemplating making the macaroon for a while (I think I may have mentioned it here a few times) and last weekend I was presented with the perfect excuse, a friend's birthday! I searched the interwebulator for a recipe and, of course, there are a lot to choose from and how do you choose? A friend also gave me a book (a whole book) just on the macaroon, I ♥ Macarons. This book takes macaroons very seriously, but spells them wrong! Although there are a lot of artistic photos of macaroons (all colours) there are also lots of instructions on the making, baking and sandwiching of the said sweetmeat. Not just lists of equipment and ingredients but photos too. This was all a bit too much for a first attempt so I decided to use a recipe from BBC Food by Simon Rimmer and use some of the advice from the book. For example, a macaroon has a pied (literally "foot", the "craquelure" at the base of a macaroon) and to get this effect once you have piped the macaroon you bang the baking tray on a hard surface. Also you have the "macaronnage" which is the way of mixing the flour and meringue to get the batter for the macaroon. I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this one. But undaunted I started by processing the ground almonds, icing sugar and cocoa and sieving it into a bowl (one of the keys is that this element is as fine as possible). Next the egg whites, I whisked them to a stiff peak and then added the flour mixture in three batches and then I attempted the macaronnage. This is basically pressing the batter along the side of the bowl and then turning it all over and repeating 15 times (no more or there will be consequences as laid out in the book). I did it as best I could and it seemed to be the right consistency, when it's ready it will drip slowly from the spoon. I had prepared the baking sheet by drawing circles on baking paper and now I tried to pipe the batter onto the circles. Easier said than done! I had a piping bag but not a metal tip, but that would OK wouldn't it? I filled the bag and piped. Now piping is not something I have done much of (none really to be frank) and so I did my best but I made the circles too big and all the batter spread out so much that the baking sheet was one big macaroon. I surveyed my work and decided to try again, I scraped it all off put it back in the piping bag and re-piped, smaller this time. I then banged the baking tray on the surface and left the batter to dry for 15 minutes. The recipe I was using asked for them to be cooked in a 180 degree oven for 7-8 minutes with the door ajar and the a 190 degree oven for 15-18 minutes (door closed, I presume). Very different timings, I went with Simon Rimmer and it was about right, if I had left them in for 15 minutes they would have been little pieces of charcoal (yum).
When I took them out they looked good, shiny, cracked surface, pied.
To sandwiching. I used a chocolate butter icing from Rachel Allen's Bake and sandwiched the little morsels together and packed them for transport. I think, for a first attempt, these worked out well. They certainly tasted good, moist almondy chocolatey bites. I will try again and this time be a bit more prepared and organised (a piping metal tip would be a good start!) and maybe try some different flavours and colours to boot.

So Much for Loving the Making Up Bit

I was so cocky last week, so confident that making up my jumper would be a breeze, a zen-like way to spend a sunny weekend. Well I should have known better. It all started off OK, the weaving-in took some time but I got into a rhythm and I had finished it all by the end of Saturday. Then, of course, there is the neck. Now most of the time this is fairly straightforward, you pick up and knit the required number of stitches on each piece of the neck and then follow the pattern, after joining the right hand shoulder, of course. It was the right hand shoulder that undid me. Maybe its because I'm left handed, I don't know, but I often find myself picking up the stitches the opposite way that the pattern says. It said "join the right shoulder seam". I held the pieces in front of me and chose the right shoulder as if I was wearing it, you with me? So if you are looking at it it would be the left shoulder. I joined the seam (very neatly too if I may say) and then looked to the pattern to guide me. This is when I realised that I have done the wrong shoulder and I have to reverse my picking up of the stitches. That's fine though, not a problem, it's still the same amount of stitches whichever way you pick 'em up. I merrily did this in reverse and then followed the pattern to knit a rib neck, excellent. Now this neck had decreasings in it to help shape it and of course they are set so that they fit in with where the bends should be. I finished the five rows and had then cast off before I realised that as well as reversing the picking up of the stitches I should have reversed the decreasings too! I ended up with bends in the middle of the front and back of the neck. I have to say that I did contemplate leaving it as it was (not for very long but the thought of ripping back, well you know how I feel about that!!) but I then saw the error of my ways, ripped it back and started from scratch reversing everything. I usually never have problems with the left handed thing, more often than not I do things the "right" way. But I guess my left handed brain likes to have some fun with me sometimes, mess with my mind, if you will, and the result is me having to take a deep breath and just do it all over again.

What's Happened to the Cardies?

I hear you cry. It's been a long time since I mentioned wool, needles, knit, purl, bobble, bobble so I thought I should apprise you of progress in the wool department. The main reason for the wool silence is because I was crocheting a couple of presents for friends babies and wanted to keep it on the qt until I had passed them on. One has been delivered and the other is wrapped and awaiting a delivery slot (the crochet that is not the baby). So once the second one has been handed over I will post some pictures of the finished articles. So now that I have finished these I am back to my wavy sweater (you remember, the one where I couldn't work out the pattern?) and have almost finished all the pieces, I just have to complete the last bit of shoulder shaping on the front and then it's all downhill. Then I get to the bit I really enjoy and others (members of my knitting group, you know who you are) detest and that is the making up of the garment. I find myself getting inot a very zen place when it comes to finishing my garment. First you have the tidying up, weaving all the loose strands. Although because this jumper is stripped there are a lot of loose strands to waeve in, it may take me some time, but satisfying nonetheless. Next is the blocking out, this is where you can hide mistakes and get the pieces all into good shape and ensure that they are the correct measurements. This involves pinning each piece to the size you want it and then ironing it with a wet cloth. This not only fixes the size it also makes it easier to sew up because all the edges are flattened and you can see all the rows ans stitches more clearly. Once all the pieces have been blocked out you then have to do the neck (picking up stitches along the neck and shoulders). Finally, the sewing up and this is the best part. I use mattress stitch to sew up garments because it is the neatest way. The seams, if done well, are almost invisible. Here's a video explaining it and it shows how neat it can be.
So that's my weekend sorted out (bar a communion mass or two), sewing in the sun.

Chocolate Squirrel Cake

When I was growing up my mother baked every Saturday, without fail, so that all week we had baked goods to nibble on. She always made fairy cakes (what cupcakes used to be called before they grew up and became sophisticated), apple tarts and then some other cake. One of my favourite of the cakes was her chocolate swirl cake and being children my brothers and I called it chocolate squirrel cake. So just to allay your fears about squirrels being hurt in the making of this cake, it's OK, no squirrels are involved. I decided I would make this for a friend at work whose birthday I missed. While checking out Rachel Allen's Bake I found what she called a "Chocolate and Vanilla Marble Cake". But she couldn't fool me with her posh name, this was chocolate squirrel cake! So decision made. I had most things in already but had to replenish my eggs and butter. I am still persevering with my stand mixer, I think that if I keep using it that it will all come good. I think one of the issues is getting the butter soft enough, then that will help with the mixing. I don't have a microwave so I put the oven on at about 50 degrees and put the butter in for about 10 minutes, which worked. I left it in the mixer for a good ten minutes to soften the butter before adding the sugar. But then when I added the eggs (one at a time) the mixture had that split look to it, you know when it looks like scrambled eggs? Not very encouraging. But I have found that if you push on when this happens it all seems to work out in the end. I took it off the mixer and continued by hand adding the dry ingredients and it came together OK. The mixture is just a Madeira mixture and once all the ingredients have been added you then divide it in two and add cocoa powder to one and you have your chocolate and vanilla mixtures. You then layer the chocolate and vanilla into the cake tin and, using a skewer (or in my case a chopstick, necessity being the mother of invention and all!) mix it together in a swirling movement to create the marbling (or in my mothers case the squirreling). The key is not to over mix, you want to make sure that you can see the swirls of chocolate and vanilla. I thought I did a good job but you never know until you cut it. Then it's into the oven and bake for 45 minutes, or if you have my old oven then probably 35 will do. It looked great when it came out, that lovely cracked top and you could see the swirls of chocolate too. I brought it in the next day and we consumed it in the afternoon, all to good comments. I took a photo when it was cut to see the marbling, I think I over mixed, but you can judge for yourselves. Although it was good I do think that my mother's tasted better, that may be just my memory playing tricks or maybe she really did put squirrels in and that's what made the difference!!
I'm off to France today so will be silent for the rest of the week but you will be regaled with all things French when I get back (remember Milan?!!).

The Mythical Choclate Fondant

At last, I have made a chocolate fondant. The holy grail of desserts, or at least according to Greg Wallace. Every time someone does this on Master Chef Greg pulls his "I'm not sure he/she's going to pull this off" face. The main thing about this dessert is that you can't prepare anything in advance (bar buying the ingredients), it has to be done while your guests are sitting in the other room have intellectual, stimulating conversations about politics etc. So after a successful main course I repaired to the kitchen to start the fondant. I chose a recipe I had seen made on Glamour Puds (a mid-afternoon Channel 4 program that I caught earlier in the year) that looked relatively straightforward. It was presented by Eric Lanlard, a French Master pâtissier, who makes some incredible cake creations for weddings and all sort of occasions. So I chose his recipe but not the orange sauce, I decided to serve it with a Pomegranate ice cream that I have made before and is very easy and delicious (Nigella strikes again). The recipe was easy to follow, melt the chocolate and butter together, whisk the eggs and sugar until fluffy and then add the melted chocolate and flour. This then goes into the prepared mini pudding bowls. There was a bit of a panic when I realised that I didn't have any cocoa powder to line the basins but my boyfriend came to the rescue suggesting I use drinking chocolate instead (worked a treat). Then these little puds go in the oven for 12 minutes, not a second more. It was a bit nerve wracking taking them out of the oven and then out of the basins, hoping that they didn't collapse. The first one collapsed a bit but then all the others came out perfectly. And now the moment of truth, would they be a gooey mess of chocolaty loveliness when we delved in? Oh yes they would. They were yum, a really rich chocolate flavour, spongy on the outside and molten on the inside. Probably a bit too big but I managed to do mine justice. And so I have made my first chocolate fondant (hopefully the first of many) and I think the Greg would have been happy.

Torta Pasqualina

I know I have been silent for the last couple of weeks, not that I haven't been cooking and knitting up a storm but that thing called "work" has meant that I haven't had much time to update you on my cakery. Now to fill you in. When I was in Milan recently (I will shut up about Milan soon, I promise) we had a traditional Easter savoury tart called Torta Pasqualina. Yummy pastry filled with spinach and cheese. So when I had friends around for dinner a couple of weeks ago with a vegetarian being amongst the guests I decided to give it a go. After much Internet research I settled on a recipe that I felt would be doable and tasty (there were many different variations out there). What was common to all was the pastry or rather the layers of pastry. It turns out that it's not just one layer of pastry but several, it varied from recipe to recipe but it's at least five layers (top and bottom,with oil brushed between each one). The one I chose (see link above) stipulated seven layers but being a novice I wimped out and did five. I made the pastry with olive oil, flour and water and kneaded it for 10 minutes then divided it into 10 balls and left it to sit. I then proceeded to sit in the sun reading and generally feeling pretty good about how organised I was. It then got to 6pm (guests arriving 7.30pm, pie takes an hour to cook) and I was in a panic. So I started rolling, you have to roll each ball of pastry very thin (very thin) and big enough to cover the dish and hang over. At first I panicked but then got into a rhythm and although it took longer than expected I managed to get it in the oven in time, phew. The filling was easy really, spinach mixed with Parmesan, garlic, parsley and marjoram and put on the bottom of the pie. Then covered with ricotta and finally eggs broken into reservoirs, more Parmesan and then your five layers on top. I tell you it was worth the panic, it was a treat. I would re-think the pastry next time as it was a bit dry but that didn't stop people going back for seconds. Next time....Chocolate Fondant, finally!

Egg-making Photo Story

Eggtastic

Hello all and apologies for the gap in posts. As you know I was in Milan for Easter but then was sick at the end of last week and could hardly lift my head off the pillow let alone come up with some bon mots concerning cakes and cardies! But all better now and ready to tell all about Easter egg making, fab food and rain. I have to take my hat off to my sister-in-law in who's house we were staying. She was feeding 6 adults and 4 children for the whole weekend and we never went hungry for good home cooking let me tell you. But a special mention has to be made of the Chocolate Fondant that she made on the Saturday evening, it was a triumph. If it had been on Masterchef Greg would have been in Dessert Heaven (I did butter and coat the moulds in cocoa so I feel I added a little to it, not much but you know....). I have a lot to live up to and we shall see this weekend, it's Chocolate Fondant weekend, at last. We went out for Easter Sunday lunch to a farmhouse in the foothills of the area near where we were staying. It was a beautiful old Italian farmhouse where they grow and raise everything that they serve. There isn't a menu, they just keep bringing food, more food and more food. There were four antipasti, two primi's (pasta and risotto) two secondi's, all sooo tasty. Then they brought a bottle of sweet wine (yum, I brought one back) and some biscuits and we tucked in thinking that was it, there couldn't be any more, could there? Oh yes there could! Just as I was tucking into my third (I know....I thought that was it!) biscuit they brought out bowls with a traditional Easter cake (Colombo, a sort of brioche baked in the shape of a dove with great big sugar crystals on top) with a chocolate orange sauce. I don't know where we found the room but all the bowls were emptied. And all this for very little, great value and lovely people and what else can you do when it's raining gatti e cani.
So on Saturday afternoon (it was raining) we decided it was time to make the Easter eggs. I had a mould for each of my nieces (two) and nephews (two), chocolate and brushes to paint on the chocolate. Everyone was very excited so with the chocolate melted we started. My nieces remained excited throughout and did a great job, they couldn't wait for each layer to set so they could do the next. My nephews managed to do the first layer and maybe the second but then the call of the toy car was too much and their fathers finished off their eggs instead (their mothers were sensibly lying down or reading). We finished them and I then sent them off so I could fill them with secret gifts and stick them together and parcel them ready for the Easter egg hunt the next morning. And the egg hunt was lots of fun and many eggs were found and opened, Italian (and French) Easter eggs are very different from our English eggs, these were basically giant Kinder eggs. It was great to watch the wide-eyed manic opening of the eggs, by any means necessary, there were no prisoners taken!
So all in all a great weekend and again thanks to my sister-in-law, a brave lady indeed.

Easter Baking

I took a half day last Friday, I had one hanging around so I thought, why not? And there was all the Easter baking I had planned so it was perfect. As you will remember I wanted to make a Simnel cake, the traditional Easter cake. Although apparently it started out life as a Mothering Sunday cake but has been adopted by Easter. I had a look on t'internet for recipes but plumped for Nigella's in Feast (you can always trust Nigella, if I have said this before I'm sorry but it bears a repeat). Now it turns out that there are many schools of thought on the marzipan balls that sit atop the Simnel Cake. They represent the Apostles, 12 in total. But because Judas betrayed Jesus and went on to kill himself he is left out of the cake-topping joy. Or so I thought. There are some that still put 12 balls on there and some that put the extra one on to represent Jesus, it caused a right to-do when I brought the cake into work (sorry skipping ahead here, haven't even made it yet). So I went with the 11 marzipan balls, never liked that Judas! The cake itself is a light fruit cake with cinnamon and ginger and a disc of marzipan is baked in the centre. Once the cake has cooled another disc of marzipan is perched on it and then the above mentioned 11 marzipan balls. Then the really cool bit, you brush it with whisked egg white and put it under the grill until it goes golden brown (or if you have a blow torch, this works better) and you get the lovely object you see above. I brought it in to work this week and shared the joy, really tasty it was too. I also made some salted caramels on Friday which were a bit softer than usual but nonetheless very tasty and wrapped them in some silver foil for adding to Easter gifts. Saturday was the day to make Easter eggs. As you will remember I am going to make Easter eggs with my nieces and nephews this weekend and I wanted to have a trial run to make sure it was doable. I can tell you it is, very doable. They turned out brill, all I did really was change the state of the chocolate, i.e. melt it and re-mould it as an egg. But, I have to say they look impressive and will form Easter gifts for friends I am seeing this week. I also make some mini eggs to go inside the the caramels made up the rest. All in all it was a very successful baking weekend and lots of fun, it's great having projects.
I'm off to Milan this weekend (to visit family) so will have some news from there next week. I will also be breaking my Lenten fast and boy am I looking forward to that first glass of wine and piece of chocolate, mmmmmm. Happy Easter.

New Design

As you may have noticed I have had a little re-design of the blog. Not that there was anything wrong with the previous design but Blogger sent me some updated templates and more advanced layouts so I thought I would give it a go. I like it, hope you do too.
I have lots to tell you about my baking weekend, so I will work on that and hopefully post before leaving for Milan (sweetie) on Thursday.

Peanut Butter Cookies

As you know, an invite to a friends house for lunch is always an excuse to do some baking and Saturday was no exception. We were invited to Norbiton for lunch and rugby watching (six nations fans will understand) so my challenge was to make something that didn't have chocolate in it and was quick and easy to do on Saturday morning. I chose Peanut Butter Cookies from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, assembled my ingredients and set to work. I used my new Breville stand mixer to cream the butter and sugar, but I'm not sure how good it is. It doesn't seem to mix very well, certainly not until it's "light and fluffy". I'm not sure what I need to do, maybe I just need to leave it for longer, be more patient. But I didn't and carried on adding in the eggs, peanut butter, flour, bicarbonate of soda and vanilla essence. Measuring the amount per cookie and the space between them has never been my strong point, I always think that they are too small and add more. That's what I did on Saturday and, of course, they all melded into one another and looked a bit like a jigsaw puzzle! Not great for gifts. Luckily I had some more cookie dough left and managed to make a decent batch which then made it to my friends. The picture shows mine next to what they should look like, I don't know how they get that cracked surface and I didn't really like the taste, they tasted a bit like bicarbonate of soda and very little like peanut butter. Was that the fault of the recipe, me (I put everything in as I was instructed) or was it something to do with the mixing, the Breville? I need to persevere with it, I can't just dismiss it after a few goes. I guess it's like anything I have to get the measure of it. So Friday will be my next usage and we shall see how we go.

Erratum

Some friends have pointed out that one of the details in my last post was inaccurate. I mentioned that I was "single and childless" and although I remain childless I am, in fact, not single. Well, in the technical sense of not being married I was correct. However, my boyfriend may beg to differ (if he's reading this, sorry!). So I am putting the record straight, I am in fact, with someone, coupled-up, courting or whatever term we are using these days. More later on peanut butter cookies and the not so great Breville stand mixer.

Technology and Crafts

As you may have realised from previous posts I am not exactly up on all the modern technology. Don't get me wrong, I can find my way around the interwebulator (my pet name for it) and I get that it is an amazing thing, what did we do before it arrived? But there is so much that I don't know and last night I learnt a little bit more with Twitter and Facebook feeds set up. It got me to thinking about how this technology makes crafty things so much easier. Just a simple search and you can find Knitting Standards, buy wool, find recipes for anything you desire and get the wherewithal to make Easter Eggs. And that is what I am going to do, make Easter Eggs. I am off to Milan for Easter to visit my brother and family. My other brother and his family are coming too so there will be four nieces and nephews (two of each) to fill full of Easter chocolate. I was going to make the eggs and bring them over but then at a friends suggestion I decided to bring everything with me and we can make the eggs together. Am I mad, foolhardy or just a single childless woman who doesn't see the pitfalls of mixing children with melted chocolate? Maybe, but I'm actually looking forward to it. I will practice before I go, just to make sure I know what I'm doing and the upside is that my friends will benefit (yes that's you reading this) and I get to lick the bowl. No I can't, it will still be Lent, ok so I will have to wait for bowl licking until Milan. I have now purchased everything I need (from the Internet, some great sites out there, cakes, cookies and craft shop and Lakeland being the ones I used on this occasion) and will spend the weekend before Easter having lots of messy fun, I'm really looking forward to it and I will make sure I post photos to show you how I do.
P.S. the picture at the top is of some yummy scones I made on Saturday, so quick and easy and great for afternoon tea. Nigella's recipe in How to Be a Domestic Goddess is the one I use and they work out everytime.

Technology!

I have just set up Twitter and Facebook feeds! Only because my friend (who knows about these things, cos I don't) has talked me through it. I am being dragged, kicking and whimpering, into the 21st century! So now you lovely people on the Twitter and the Facebook will get a little message saying I have updated the blog and you can happily click through and read (or ignore!). I will have a more meaty post later in the week so watch this space (and other spaces in the interwebulator).

Food Porn

As most of you will know we are now in Lent and have been for 17 days (and nights), not that I'm counting or anything. Well I am really as I have used the Lenten period as a way of cutting out two "food" groups. One (alcohol) because I find it good to give up for a period once or twice a year and the second (chocolate) because if I was allowed I would eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. So the second one is a real sacrifice and Lent, after all, is about giving up something that you really enjoy. It's a Catholic thing, and me being the good Irish Catholic that I am......! Being Irish (and Catholic) there are various rules or get out clauses that mean you can indulge in your forbidden food on certain days during Lent. Sundays and St Patrick's Day are the main ones although when I was growing up we didn't do the Sunday rule. We (my brothers and I) always gave up sweets for Lent. This didn't meant that we didn't get any sweets, we still got sweets but we each had a Tupperware container (that we kept in the sitting room, each with our own hiding place to stop a greedy sibling from stealing our stash) that we put them in and collected them until Easter Sunday when we could then gorge ourselves on them. Not really the spirit of the thing but we always had great fun. I remember breaking the Lenten fast many times by sneaking into the sitting room and helping myself to some of my stash (always my stash, I was a very honest child), it was risky and exciting, or as risky and exciting as it gets being a six year old.
So in my state of abstinence I find myself watching food programmes and reading books about food! Hence the food porn title. Raymond Blanc is the main culprit with a whole episode on chocolate, chocolate mousse, chocolate torte and a cup and saucer made out of chocolate with more chocolate on the side. Enough, spare a thought got the Lenten fast BBC! The upshot is that I now need to make a chocolate fondant, it seems to be the holy grail of the pudding world and I think I'm ready, well after Easter.
As for the reading, I loved the film Julie and Julia, I think that might be an understatement but lets go with it for now. I loved it so much I bought My Life in France, Julie and Julia and Mastering the Art of French Cookery the day after seeing it. I picked up the Julia Child one a few weeks ago and loved it, especially the living in Paris in the 40s and 50s and eating great French food. And I am now half way through Julie and Julia which is very funny, especially the Lobster chapter where Julie becomes a murderer! If I can't eat chocolate I can certainly get my kicks in other ways, role on Easter Sunday (I hope Milan is ready for my post Lenten chocolate needs!).

The K Factor

Have you seen the K Factor? On Harry Hill's TV Burp? Genius. I would have loved to have been in the room when that idea came up the first time! It really makes knitting the new rock 'n roll. This week Knitted Simon Cowell had his head chopped off by a disgruntled reject. Imagine if that happened on the real X Factor (I'm sure many people have wanted to do it) but the great thing about knitted characters is that they can be knitted better! And the winner this week was Harry Hill Meercat, I say again, GENIUS. I will have to think of something to knit for it.
Quick update on the wavy sweater, back and one sleeve are finished and the second sleeve almost there. I will be taking a break from it as I need to do a couple of projects for presents (can't say here what they are as they are for people who may well be reading this. I know, ever the optimist) so I will have news about these once they have been gifted.
Oh, just wanted to tell you about a great shop in Peckham. I was walking from Brockley to Camberwell on Friday and I took the opportunity to drop in to Persepolis a fantastic Persian deli. I have gone past this on the bus for years but this is the first time I have ventured in and am I glad I did. What a treasure trove of spices, cakes and all this Middle Eastern. I bought a couple of spices for a friend (Sumak and Juniper Berries) and some Rose Petals for myself (I'm thinking Turkish Delight?). If you get a chance then give it a try.

Nougat Nightmare

There are some things that can't or shouldn't be made at home, some things where "homemade" isn't a selling point. And I found one of these last Sunday. As you know I had success with my marshmallows and was really looking forward to my next sweet-making treat, Nougat was the next project. The picture in the book looks yum and who doesn't love Nougat? Right? Well, after a half an hour hacking away at a slab of white nutty stickiness I was changing my mind. To begin at the beginning, I started making it on Saturday. You make a sugar syrup (with a lot of sugar, really a lot of sugar) once it's up to a certain temperature add half of it into egg whites (already stiffened in my lovely stand mixer) the other half goes back on the heat and is brought up to an even higher temperature. All the time the mixer is going mixing the sugar syrup and the egg whites, then add the rest of the syrup and keep mixing. Then the first problem occurred, the mixture was SO sticky the mixer stopped after five minutes (it needed to mix for ten minutes) but I wasn't going to give up so I folded in the nuts and cherries, although fold in doesn't really cover it,think stirring cement and you are about there. Then I transferred it to the waiting tin (lined with rice paper, well potato paper but that's another story!). I left it for the requisite overnight period and Sunday morning, in preparation for lunch with friends for which the Nougat was to be a present, I started the hacking. A half an hour and a bruised hand later I had enough Nougat to bring along to lunch but the prospect of cutting up the rest made me blanch. As my mother would say, it was as hard as the hob of hell (don't ask, one of Maud's many words of "wisdom", but in this case it fits perfectly). I have to say I gave up, maybe that was defeatist of me but I want to keep the use of my hands, they do come in useful! I think from now on Nougat will be bought from the lovely Hope and Greenwood shop and I will leave them to the hacking. The picture above shows my Nougat compared to the picture of what it should look like, slight difference. I have to say, though, it tasted really good and there was no major dental damage.