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.