New Kitchen Friend

I realise that it has been a while and if my faithful followers are not so faithful anymore then I understand completely. I will only say that it has been a tough six months and although I have been baking and knitting I haven't felt inspired to write about it, until today. Not sure what has changed today but this morning I found myself thinking about writing and I didn't immediatley think "naw, can't be bothered", a step forward I think you will agree. So enough of that and onwards with the news.
The post title implies that I have a new friend, I do indeed. But it's not a flesh and bone friend (don't worry it's not a six foot rabbit called Harvey!), it is a brand spanking new glorious....KitchenAid. Now people who even have a vague, passing acquaintance with me know that I have coveted one of these babies for, well a long time. My friends are positively sick of hearing about it and as for the boyfriend well he had reached the end of his tether. Perseverance pays off and having been a good girl last year Santa came up trumps leaving a Candy Apple Red KitchenAid under the tree for me! I have to say that in person (well, it is my new friend) it is a thing of beauty, such a wonderful design and you can see why so many people want one. But does it work? You bet ya it does. The only thing I haven't done yet is knead bread in it but that's more to do with me having learned how to do it by hand and preferring it that way. But I will try it. I've used it to make cakes, icing, pastry, meringues and, I think, everything tastes so much better! Not really, but it does make creaming the butter and sugar very easy, just turn it on and let it do its thing. But I think I have waxed lyrical enough about the shiny red thing and will move on to my other activities.
In my efforts to make cakes from around the world, I made a couple of Pannetone's for Christmas and am planning to make some Colomba's again in the run up to Easter, I still have some of the moulds left. I am still baking bread but now almost exclusively using the Dan Lepard kneading method (see The Handmade Loaf) with great success. My sourdough starter is still alive, almost a year old now, and although I don't make a loaf every day it is very easy to reactivate it as long as I plan ahead. In fact, I have just taken it out of the cupboard today to remind me to do just that so I can make a loaf at the weekend. I have also worked on getting the loaves as crusty as I can and have managed this but still can't work out how to maintain that crust, any hints gladly accepted.
In the knitting stakes I was stymied in my "lace cap sleeved top" project by running out of wool that you can only buy in Italy but I have an insider on the case. So while that is on hold I have started a runner for one of our beds. I've made up the pattern myself, altenating suares of stocking stitche and moss stitch in a red aran wool. Not groundbreaking but I think it will look good in the room.
I think that is enough for now, I will post about my weekend sourdough and hopefully kepp you glued to cakes and cardies for the rest of the year.

Technical Bake 2: Iced Fingers

I'm not doing the technical bakes in any order. I have decided that number two is the iced finger. I remember having these when I was growing up, yummy doughy fingers with sweet icing. These Paul Hollywood fingers have the addition of fresh cream and strawberry jam and I have to say their addition makes for a great afternoon sweet treat.
I started to make these last Sunday morning and I made the full amount, 12 iced fingers. Might as well go the whole hog. With all the ingredients surrounding me I added all the dough ingredients to a bowl, holding back about a third of the water. I put my bowl on the scales so that I could add the rest of the water but for some reason I just added all the water in my jug rather than weighing it and got a very, very watery dough. I know it's supposed to be watery but this was too much. So I had to throw it away and start over. Second time around I got it right.
The dough was still very wet and kneading was almost impossible, I had more on my fingers than on the surface. In the end I just gave up and put in back in the bowl to rise and hoped for the best. An hour later and it had risen beautifully and after knocking it back I divided into 12 balls which I then rolled into finger shapes and placed on a greased tray. These are covered and left to prove for 45 minutes until doubled in size and all touching. They then went into a preheated oven (200 degrees) for ten minutes. These were left to cool and I made the icing. I followed Paul's instructions to dip the roll in the icing and then smooth it with your fingers, it worked a treat. I then piped the cream and tried to pipe the jam but I bought jam with fruit bits in (I know!) so a spoon did the trick.
One of the things that Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry looked for in the 12 iced fingers was a consistent size. On that, I'm afraid I failed. But I think Paul would have been happy with my "bake". They were soft, sweet and moreish (I had two, I confess). The extras came into work with me on Monday and got an office thumbs up.

Deathly Beautiful!

A friend recently gave me some Halloween themed cupcake holders and last week, it being Halloween and all, I decided to try them out. I didn't make Halloween themed cakes, in fact they were rosewater flavoured butterfly cakes! I use Nigella's cupcake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Godess, it never fails. I replaced the vanilla extract with rosewater to give a delicate floral flavour. So these may have been spooky on the outside but sweet and soft on the inside.

Technical Bake 1: Tarte au Citron

My challenge began yesterday with my mini Tartes au citron a la Mary Berry's masterclass. I decided to do mini ones because if I had a whole one, well it would be eaten. Simple really!
I started with the pastry and rather than dividing by two I made the full quantity and then froze half of it (more tartes in the near future). The cleverest thing about this recipe is Mary Berry's tip for rolling out the pastry. I always have that problem of getting the rolled out pastry from the work surface to the tart tin without it breaking up and Mary has the solution. Roll the pastry out on the base of your tin! Place it on some greaseproof pastry and mark a circle about 4cm bigger than your base, flour the base and then place the ball of pastry on top. You then roll out as normal, moving the paper rather than the pastry. Once it is the correct size fold in the edges, lift the base and drop into the tin. You can then unfold the pastry and press into the fluted edges, no breaking or sticking, genius! The other tip was to use tinfoil to hold your baking beans for the blind bake, it makes it so much easier to support the beans and to take them out half way through. As a result of these I managed to get two almost perfect pastry cases, something I have never managed before. Thanks Mary.
The top tip for getting the filling into your case without spilling any is to fill the case once it is on your baking tray in the oven. As my tartes were smaller I knew I needed to alter the baking time, so I left them in for 20mins (rather than the 30-35 in the recipe). I checked them for the "wobble" but they were pretty much set so I was a bit worried that I had failed on the first hurdle. I took them out and let them cool for about 5 minutes before moving them from the tins to the serving plates.
All that was left was the tasting. I dusted them with icing sugar just before I served them and we dove in. The pastry was nice and thin and it wasn't soggy and the filling was smooth and lemony. I think that Mary would have been pleased with my first effort and now I know how to do it I will be making it a lot more often.

My Mission Should I Choose to Accept It...

Instead of being out enjoying our great summer (!) I have been enjoying the wonderful Great British Bake Off. I missed the first episode but from then on I was hooked, what great telly! I loved it. And the right person won, Jo was great. Just amazing what they achieved. With the announcment of the winner I thought that was it and was away for a couple of weeks and came back to another two episodes. God bless the series link on the sky machine. Masterclasses with Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood where they have made all the technical challenge bakes with lots of hints and tips. What a treat. And as I was watching the second one yesterday I had an idea, I would make all eight. It was just an idea and then I thought, why not? They are all yum and I will learn lots too. So that is my mission and I have accepted it. There isn't a timeframe on this (not practical really) but over the next few weeks I hope I can complete the task. I'm looking forward to all of them but I think the Battenburg may be the last one, my least favourite. I have chosen to start with the Tarte au Citron, not sure why, it just looked so good. I'm going to make two mini ones rather a big one so I have decided to halve the ingredients. So more later with results and pictures.

Knitting Projects Finished Over the Summer

Just a couple of my knitting projects completed over the summer (I have another on the go and another that I'm working on at the moment).
As mentioned before the cushion has yet to be delivered and the doggie is happily ensconced in his new home.

Buttery, Sugary Heaven

A friend went to Paris during the summer and came back with tales of a Breton pastry called Kouign Aman. I had never heard of it and neither had my friend but after having it about three times during her week there she was a convert. I needed to try this new confection. My friend sent me the link to a blog by an American living in Paris with a recipe for the Kouign Aman and with visitors from France coming that weekend I had my opportunity.
My sister-in-law and my niece lent a helping hand, the former reading the instructions and the latter helping with the mixing etc. David Lebovitz's recipe was very easy to follow with pictures along the way to help you keep on track. This is just a mixture of water, flour, sugar, butter and yeast and what you get at the end is divine. I followed the cooking time and temperature to the letter of the recipe but it cooked in less time (30 minutes) and was a bit burned. I served it anyway (I had some other cakes too so not a disaster) and by the end of the evening there was none left, it was a hit.
After that weekend I was using the oven to bake some bread and noticed that there was a lot of solidified butter at the bottom of the oven and realised that it was butter that had escaped from the Kouign Aman! I had put it in a loose-bottomed tin.
I had cause to make it again the following weekend for a friends house warming. I learned my lesson about the oven temperature and timing but not about the loose-bottomed tin! I used a smaller springform tin and the tart rose better than the first time but there was butter escape again. I guess it gives me an excuse to make it again and this time I will steer clear of the loose-bottomed tin!
The reaction to the second one was similar to the first, there were people fighting for the last piece. It's great that you can create such a wonderful taste from just five ingredients isn't it?
P.S. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures but they looked pretty much the same as the ones on the blog, really they did!