The Inappropriate Muffins

"Mummy lets make butterfly cookies" the Pose asked one Sunday while we were eating lunch.

"Ok Pose, if you are a good girl and eat all your sandwich we can make cookies" I lovingly replied.

"Ok mummy"

That's a verbal contract in my book.  

She didn't eat her sandwich.

Not the end of the world I grant you but with the current battle-of-wills-Mexican-style-stand-offs we have begun enduring as our little person demonstrates she has indeed inherited both her father's AND mother's stubborn-must-always-get-my-own-way-nature, I was determined to stick to my guns (ah the sweet sweet irony).

Within an hour I was feeling bad about it.  I had been away on the Thursday night for a biz trip and was departing for another 4 days on the Monday and wanted to have a nice Sunday with Posie.  I had also decided that it would be nice to leave something baked for them to eat while I was gone.  Plus muffins aren't cookies right, so I technically still won this battle (at least I'll keep telling myself that).

We all love blueberry muffins so it seemed logical that I'd make those to leave as a token of my love for my little family (ahhhhhhh).  Now here's where I admit that I've never made blueberry muffins from scratch.  Don't get me wrong, I've made them before but with a little help from Betty Crocker!  We have a little shop at the end of our road and they always have blueberries so we popped down to pick up a punnet.  Except they didn't have any today.  Le Pose spotted strawberries and bright little thing she is, suggested strawberry muffins.

After a little peruse on the t'interweb I found this recipe which seemed like good brekkie fodder...

The recipe - Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins courtesy of the Yummly website

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
2 tsps baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 beaten egg
½ cup milk
¼ cup olive oil (light)
½ cup sugar (I used caster)
½ pt strawberries (chopped fresh)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups (I just put muffin/cupcake cases into muffin tins, I didn't bother with the oil). 

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, milk, olive oil and sugar. Mix in strawberries. Stir strawberry mixture into oat mixture just until evenly moist. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.

3. I then thinly sliced some strawberries to use for decoration and carefully pressed a slice into the top of each muffin.

4. Bake 18 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Ummmm...

They tasted great and at only 174 calories were great for a low cal breakfast (I found dumping low fat yoghurt on top made it even yummier).  The Pose and the hubster both enjoyed them so it made me very happy.  Until hubster made a comment on the appearance.  I was horrified.  These were made with the little one's "assistance" so I felt awful that without thinking I had made "inappropriate" muffins with my toddler....ooops.*

* If you can't see it I'm not explaining!  How embarrassing....(*hands her head in shame*)

Hummingbird Cake (without the feathers)

Yep, I made this.

I've got no idea why Hummingbird Cake is called Hummingbird Cake.  I can only speculate that its because of how sweet it is.  In fact, before a few weeks ago I'd never even heard of it.  

When I started the blog I often debated whether or not to tell colleagues (especially colleagues on my secondment.  I mean I wanted them to like me and thought that to let them see my silly little mind might not be the best idea).  When I kept bringing in baked goodies to work I got questioned on why I was always baking and having got to know 1 of my colleagues well I finally let on to my dirty little baking secret and she seemed quite enthusiastic about it (well people are...to your face).  I told her that I was very happy to take requests so she sent me a link to Sweetapolita's sky-high version of the Hummingbird Cake.  I was less happy about my enthusiasm about letting people put in requests.

Now I put off making this on the basis that it really looks far too fancy for just normal baking so I decided to wait until the right opportunity, a birthday preferably.  April rolled around and brought 4 birthdays in my team in the space of a week.  There are only 9 people in my team.  Time to attempt the Hummingbird Cake I thought....

I had a look on the web and found a recipe on Joy Of Baking's website and when I looked at the Sweetapolita recipe I noticed that she had also used the Joy of Baking recipe as a starting point.  They both looked good so I kinda worked back and forth between the two, using the Joy of Baking recipe but the Sweetapolita method on constructing the cake.  As usual, the actual recipe is in italics and my additional commentary is in normal font.

The recipe from the Joy of Baking and Sweetapolita

For the Cake:

1 cup (110 grams) pecans, toasted and finely chopped
3 cups (390 grams) all-purpose flour
2 cups (400 grams) granulated white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (180 ml) sunflower oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 x 8 ounce (227 grams) can crushed pineapple, do not drain
2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3-4 medium sized bananas)

For the Frosting:

1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1 lb (454 grams) (about 3 2/3 cups) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
1 tsp (4 grams) vanilla extract

Garnish:
pecan halves

1.  Firstly to the cake....Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) with the rack in middle of oven.  Prepare three (I used only two pans!) 8" round cake pans with butter/oil spray and a parchment circle on bottom of pan. Set aside. 

I even bought new pans! Exciting times...no seriously

2. Chop the pecans.  I used one of my favourite kitchen tools - my Pampered Chef Food Chopper.  Its great, you just put whatever you want to chop underneath and bash the top, ideally focusing on someone you really dislike or something that is pissing you off then bang, bang, BANG!  All done.

3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.

4. I could only find pineapple rings so I simply blitzed the pineapple chunks using a stick blender.  I then mashed the banana.

5. In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, chopped pecans, oil, bananas, and pineapple.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until combined.  

Looks a little vomity, right?  Tasty.

6. Divide the batter evenly into 3 (remember, I only used 2) prepared 8" round pans. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake (about 30 minutes - I don't know if my oven is playing up but I definitely had to keep the cakes in for a good 50mins). Don't open oven for first 20 minutes, then rotate pans, checking after 10 more minutes. Try not to over bake! Let cool on wire racks for 20 minutes (in the tins), then invert onto racks, remove the parchment paper and let cool until cool to the touch.  Wrap the cakes in foil and put in the fridge overnight (this makes them easier to slice).

7. Remove the cakes from the fridge and unwrap from the foil.  Taking a bread knife carefully and evenly cut each cake into 3 thin layers.

8. Then onto the icing...Using electric mixer (how generic, of course I turned to dear Berta), combine the butter and icing sugar until just combined.  Now I had some problems here, possibly due to the fact that I realised I only had fondant icing sugar.  The butter and icing sugar just refused to combine so I had to take some drastic measures.  I needed to warm the butter enough to be able to combine it with the icing sugar.  I thought that actually heating it would be a mistake so instead I took a bowl of lukewarm water and put the mixing bowl into the water - enough to warm the sides of the bowl (its metal).  This definitely helped and put the icing back on track.

9. Add the cold cream cheese, all at once, and beat on medium speed for about 4 minutes. Turn up to high speed for another 1 minute. It should be fluffy (mine wasn't but again I believe this is all down to the fondant icing sugar). Don't over beat, or the icing will start to lose thickness.

10. Onto assembling the cake!  Taking one of the bottom layers spoon a big blob of icing into the centre and carefully spread the icing to evenly cover the cake.  Always cut side down, place the next layer on top and repeat the process.  Repeat with the remaining layers.

No, there is no Tabasco in the cake.

11. Spoon the rest of the icing onto the top of the cake and, using a palate knife, smooth it all across the top of the cake easing it to the edge and down the sides (this was how I had to do it because of the consistency of the icing.  I think it would be more spreadable and less drippy with regular icing sugar).  Make sure the cake is evenly covered and decorate with a couple of pecan halves.

12. Carefully transfer to your serving dish! (I transferred it to my brand new spotty tins to take into work.  I love my new spotty tins)

This cake is quite sweet but fantastic and serves plenty.  It went down very well at work and every last crumb was eaten.  If you want a cake to impress - this is the one.  Personally I found it was best served off ducky paper plates that were left over from one of Posie's parties but obviously you do not have to recreate this ;)

I'm all up for gratuitous self-promotion!

...eating her curds...

Was the wait just too hard to bear?  Did you cope?  I know, I know...not quite a True Blood-holding-your-breath style cliffhanger but you never know.  Maybe a broken tart crust leaves your heart pounding?

So where were we? 

I went to bed that night happy with my 6 pie crusts and awoke thinking that the pie crusts seemed incredibly fragile.  I therefore decided to leave them out to harden up a little (i.e. go a little stale).  It just seemed like the right thing to do. 

As I was getting ready to leave for work I was enjoying listening to the conversation between hubby and Pose.  They were discussing the pie crusts and being very cute.  And then I heard the words that never precede good news..."oops".  I peaked my head around the corner to be greeted with pie crust carnage.  ANOTHER TART WAS BROKEN.  I asked why and was given my husband's cute-I'm-trying-to-get-out-of-jail-free-smile (I got no answer to the "why?" but have assumed he was trying to break a little bit off just to get a taste and well, you know the rest).  I just put my face in my hands and explained that I was already down 2 and this now put me in negative equity.  He offered to make more and I really had no choice so let him get on with it, grudgingly thanking him.

Evidently, he is not a pastry chef (but I love that he offered to try to fix it).

Sunday morning rolled around and I was at my mother's bright and early preparing the Mothering Sunday lunch of Coq au Vin (containing 1 entire bottle of very nice red plonk - my father (who does a great hangover fry-up but isn't exactly renowned for his culinary skills) tried to stop me putting in the 725ml called for by the recipe and claimed my mother only puts about a cup in.  I said the recipe I was using was HER recipe given to me about 9yrs ago.  He said ok, but that a bottle is 750mls so I should just pour the lot in...um, ok dad...).  Once that was all settled into the slow cooker I set my mind to completing the LMP (remember Lemon Meringue Pie*).  So next step, lemon curd (see what I did there?  Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet eating her curds...?  No...?  Killjoy).

The recipe - LMP courtesy of the New York Times Cook Book (1961 edition!)

Part 2, the lemon curd

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup flour (I used plain)
3 tbsp cornstarch (I used cornflour - I'm not sure if there's a difference?)
2 cups water
3 eggs, separated (save the whites for the meringue topping)
1 tbsp butter
1/4 cup lemon juice (this is roughly the juice of 1 lemon)
grated rind of 1 lemon

1. Combine the sugar, salt, flour and cornstarch and gradually stir in the water.  Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth. 

I should point out here that the recipe isn't particularly detailed on how to "cook" so I basically put the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat and stirred using a whisk.  You need to be patient though, it takes its time thickening.

2. Gradually stir hot mixture into beaten egg yolks, return to low heat and cook, stirring, two minutes.  Stir in butter, lemon juice and rind and cool slightly.  Pour into baked pastry shell and cool.

Again, not much detail.  Personally after step 1 I put the pan to one side to cool (away from the heat) and then set to beating the yolks, zesting and juicing the lemon.  By the time you are finished (unless you are "Supercook" - faster than a speeding Kitchenaid!!) the hot mixture should be about cool enough to mix in the cold mixture.  Just be wary.  I remember an episode of Masterchef The Professionals where they set the "professionals" the task of making lemon curd and the majority of them created lemony scrambled eggs.  I succeeded where they failed - hurrah!!

Once the mixture begins to cool it goes quite gloopy so you will need to give it a quick whisk.  I then spooned the curd into the pie crusts (and some additional crusts I had quickly made with some ready-to-roll pastry my mum had in the fridge) and returned to the Coq au Vin whilst the pie's cooled.

Of course you could stop here and let them set to have lemon tart instead.  My family took some of the pastry off-cuts and dipped it into the remaining lemon curd as a sort of appetiser (I guess?) and seemed very taken with the curd.  It even got my Nan's seal of approval.  Although it didn't help with her regular afternoon bout of heartburn...

You might notice this post's distinctive lack of pictures.  I take all my baking pictures on my iPhone (its just more handy than my good camera to be honest) and it just so happened that this particular Sunday my mother, my brother and I all had dead iPhones.  It being Mother's Day (i) I had to wait for my mother to get up to find the charger, and (ii) ranking in order of seniority (read "age" but shhh don't tell her I said that), I had to wait for my mother to charge her iPhone.  You'll have to wait for the next post to see pictures.  

...to be continued**...

* My nurse friend advises me that LMP stands for something entirely different and not dinner-time-talk.  Oops.

** Oooh another cliffhanger!! Well I did say it would be a saga.

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet...

I'm pretty sure that the curds and whey Little Miss Muffet was eating had something to do with cheese and not lemon curd but hey...lets talk tuffets.

Finally I got around to blogging about the last piece of the Mother's Day afternoon tea puzzle*.  What has this got to do with Little Miss Muffet or curds and whey?  Well, my mother's favourite dessert is Lemon Meringue Pie (at least I think it is, she always seems to have a Sara Lee one in the freezer) so I decided to attempt a Lemon Meringue Pie, well not one, 8 Lemon Meringue Pies....in miniature of course!  I have never made a Lemon Meringue Pie (seriously I can't be bothered to type that each time so lets go with "LMP" from now on) before as I'm not a massive fan of it, or meringue (I really don't - its like the hubby's weird cake-phobia - well not that weird, that really is bizarre.  Worst of all it seems to be genetic and my daughter has also started rejecting cake!  What is the world coming to when a 2yr old doesn't like cake!?!?).

Anyway, moving swiftly on...

So yes, I had never made an LMP before.  I figured that with a classic recipe like this you really need to go back to an old recipe.  Now my mother was friends with a lovely loud Southern gal' who had a great passion for cookery and had amassed a large collection of cook books.  Sadly she passed away and the cook books needed a new home.  A large number of her books were American cuisine and given that at this point in time I was dating hubby my mother thought the best home for these books would be with me.  One of my favourite of these books is a real tome and according to the inside covers was published back in 1961.  I went straight to this book to find an LMP recipe and there it was.  Oh, and its The New York Times Cook Book so I figured it must be a decent recipe.  I wasn't wrong.

The recipe - LMP courtesy of the New York Times Cook Book (1961 edition!)

Part 1, the crust
I decided to go with a sweet pie pastry recipe (the book also gives other crust recipes) as follows:

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour (I used plain)
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons sugar (I used caster)
1 cup butter (at room temperature)
Grated rind of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.  Make a well in the centre and add the remaining ingredients.

2. Mix the centre ingredients with the fingers of one hand or a pastry blender until blended.  Quickly work in the flour.  Add a small amount of ice water if necessary to moisten the dough so it can be gathered into a ball.



3. Wrap the dough in waxed paper (I'll admit it, I'm lazy and just put it in the fridge in the mixing bowl) and chill one hour.  Roll out the pastry, fit it into the pans (the recipe makes either 6 tart shells or 2 9-inch pie shells, I made slightly smaller ones to fit in a cupcake tray) and bake on the bottom shelf of a preheated hot oven (450F) until brown, about 15mins (just watch them!!).

Now you might notice that there are 8 crusts in the first picture and only 6 in the second picture.  Well it seems that the crusts had their own opinion on LMPs (or perhaps just shared mine) and took it all a bit personally.  They couldn't quite bear it anymore and took dramatic action:

I may have lost 2 of my "tuffets" (I seriously don't know what a tuffet is but it works so lets just go with it) but figured that although there were 8 people eating (i) I'm not a fan so could go without; and (ii) my 2 year old really doesn't NEED dessert. I was still in the game...

...to be continued**.....

* I was baking on Sunday (Hot Cross Buns! Post coming soon...) so fully intended to sit down last night and write this up. Alas, my laptop seemed to be hating on me (I'm so down with the kids) and then I got side tracked by the brand spanking new episode of Mad Men (hurrah!!).

** Oooh baking cliffhanger, exciting times....I was recounting the tale of the LMP to a friend the other night and she described it as a saga, so lets just go with that too.  A lickle experiment.

Carrot juice tastes like evil

Its only since I became an "adult" (and I use that term with not just a grain of salt, but a ruddy great bucket of it) that I began to like carrot cake.  Actually it could have just been that the thought of putting carrot...in a...cake (!?) sent me into a great sadness ("why god why!?!?").  I mean vegetables...in a cake....that's just wrong on all levels.

Then there's the carrot factor.  A couple of weeks ago I was in Pret grabbing breakfast and saw a bottle of carrot juice.  It said "grab me" (it literally said "grab me" on the bottle) so I thought "sure, what the hell".  I mean how bad could it be?  My friend K is into juicing (vegetables not just fruit) and really seems to like her concoctions plus its meant to be super healthy.  I was also trying to be on a new year's health kick, the carrot juice just seemed to come along at the right time.

Sure.

I took a sip of the carrot juice and instantly regretted it.  It tasted like vomit.  Actually carroty vom.  I told myself off, I mean I'm an adult right?  It really can't be that bad, I'm sure I'll get used to it.  So I took another sip.  Still vom.  Another sip?  Yep, still carroty vom.  I gave up.  Carrot juice tastes evil.  I-kid-you-not.  It tastes like the carrot found out about the carrot juicing, topped itself then rotted in the bottle for a year.  I spent the rest of the day belching carrot juice and feeling like I would actually vom carrot juice.  It was vile.  Morning sickness was more fun.

Anyway I wasn't a fan of carrot cake until recently.  Now I realise that it doesn't taste vegetable-y (yes, that's a word, I just wrote it and spell check didn't correct it) or carroty vom, it actually tastes quite pleasant.

My NCT group were having a little meet up and I offered to bake (I'll take any excuse) and figured carrot cake would be a good option.  Now when I was pregnant and suffering from delusions of wanting to be the greatest-mummy-baker but being paranoid of making my unborn child fat, I bought the book Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood.  Sounds good right?  Well there's a catch.  All of the recipes try to sneak in vegetables and contain very little fat.  Sounds like I'm talking sh*t?  To my constant surprise the recipes are actually pretty delish (I've secretly served the title chocolate cake (that contains aubergine, yes A.U.B.E.R.G.I.N.E.) to dinner guests and they've been very complimentary (and I don't think they were just being polite).  The recipes also seem to be largely gluten free.  So...

The recipe - Carrot Cake

I'm too lazy to type this up!

Basically follow the recipe!  Well, unless you're me.  I misread how much lime to use in the icing and instead put in the zest and juice of 1 whole lime (not just half the zest and 2tsp of the juice).  That being said everyone said they really enjoyed the zingy icing.

The recipe doesn't go into any detail on how to go about icing the cake so I've put some pictures below:

1. Put a big dollop of icing in the centre of the base cake (my base cake was a little bigger than the top cake - I realised all too late that none of my 3 loose bottom tins are the same size!).

2. Using a palette knife, spread the icing out across the base.

3. Carefully place the top cake onto the bottom cake and repeat steps 1 and 2 for the top cake.

4. Make some little carrots!!  Using some fondant icing, mix a little water, a couple of drops of red food colouring and a lot of drops of yellow food colouring (alternatively just use orange food colouring!!) and mix into a pliable dough.  Sprinkle some icing sugar onto a board and pop the icing ball onto the board.

5. Now I tried 2 different ways to make the carrot decorations.  The first way I split the dough into 4 portions and then tried to shape the dough into carrot shapes.  This didn't seem to work too well and in fact looked like I was trying to replicate an earlier creation.  I wasn't thrilled with the results of the second way but I needed to leave for the meet-up so the second way was the only way...I started by flattening the ball with the palm of my hand.

6.  Using a knife cut 2 eye shapes out of the icing and cut each of the eye shapes in half again.

7. Taking the knife, make several horizontal gashes across the surface of the "carrots".

8. Next I added a ton of green food colouring to the left over orange icing (yes I could have started again but I HATE waste) and flatten the icing out.  Then cut the icing into thin strips.

9. Cut the long green strips in half and layer them on the cake like the roots of the carrot and place the carrot gently overlapping the ends.

10. Continue to do the same for the other 3 carrots.

The cake tasted really good, even if I do say so myself.  My icing carrots were a bit of a disappointment though.  The icing wouldn't set so the carrots got a little limp.  I'm not having much luck with fondant icing!

All that aside, the cake went down a treat at the meet-up and I was able to take some leftovers to the folks (they had offered to babysit for us that night and I felt I should take some cake by way of a thank you).  In fact, my father insisted I left him the last of the cake.  Sounds like a success to me.

Pride goeth before a fall

A staple in our household is the humble Jaffa Cake.  Unfortunately they are both a firm favourite of mine and the hubby's so they rarely last long and in fact usually lead to a War of the Roses stand off followed by a couples counselling session.

I love Jaffa Cakes. I still practise the "Full Moon, Half Moon, Total Eclipse" mantra but that's just how I roll.

Anyway, so a while ago on Saturday Morning Kitchen I saw Simon Rimmer make homemade Jaffa Cakes.  "Amazeballs!" I thought and vowed to try them.  So this weekend with expectations running high given my recent successes (do you recall the Michel Roux Jr references....?) I set out to making them.

As usual, the recipe has my commentary...

The recipe - Homemade Jaffa Cakes (with thanks (through gritted teeth) to Simon Rimmer)

For the cakes:
2 free-range eggs (I'm going to throw this out there, I know it sounds like I have an obsession with fresh eggs but I think these should be as fresh as possible given the cooking method)
50g / 2oz caster sugar
50g / 2oz plain flour

For the filling:
1 135g packet of orange jelly, chopped
1 tbs orange marmalade
125ml boiling water

For the chocolate:
200g / 7oz good quality dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), chopped into pieces (seriously its a chocolate covered cakey biscuit, what did you expect!?!?)

1. Start by making the filling.  In a bowl, mix together the jelly, marmalade and boiling water until the jelly has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Pour the filling mixture into a shallow-sided baking tray or large dish to form a thin layer of jelly (the recipe actually says a 1cm/½in layer but that seems far too thick to me). Set aside until completely cooled, then chill in the fridge until set.  (The recipe also called for this to be made at a later stage but I figured I'd give it more time to set).

2. Next, make the cakes.  Start by preheating the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.  Bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl and beat continuously for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is pale, fluffy and well combined.

3. Add the flour, beating continuously, until a thick, smooth batter forms.

4. Half-fill each well in a 12-hole muffin tin with the cake batter. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake the cakes for 8-10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown and cooked through (the cakes are cooked through when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.) Remove from the oven and set the cakes aside, still in their tray, until cool.

5. When the jelly has set and the cakes have cooled, cut small discs from the layer of jelly, equal in diameter to the cakes (now my intimate knowledge of Jaffa Cakes means I know that the jelly bit does NOT cover the whole cake (the travesty!) so I cut the discs about 1cm smaller in diameter using a little medicine cup). 

                                          
6. This is where it all went tits up. Once the cakes were cooled they were meant to be removed from the tin.  I borrowed one of my mum's bigger non-stick tins for this as I didn't want to be faffing about with mine.  I went to turn the cakes out of the tin and they wouldn't budge.  I went to prise them out a little with a knife, and was successful.  At first.  Then they refused to come out without tearing. 

YOU WILL COME OUT!

"Fine, be that way" I thought "You're getting covered in chocolate anyway so I can cover the cracks" (yes, I sound like I know what I'm doing).  Then I had a little epiphany and figured that I should probably taste the cakes before making the chocolate.  Best.  Decision.  Ever.  They were vile - overly sweet, eggy, anaemic, rubbery hockey pucks.  They were like the little white sponges you can get to clean walls.  Unimpressed doesn't even begin to cover it.

At this point, it was coming up to 9pm on a Sunday night, The Time Traveller's Wife was on and the bottle of Port on the window sill had somehow found its way into my hand so I thought "sod it" and buggered off to the lounge.

The rest of the recipe, just to finish it off, is meant to go like this:

7. Sit one jelly disc on top of each cake.

8. For the chocolate, bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water).  Add the chocolate and stir until melted, smooth and glossy, then pour over the cakes. Set aside until the melted chocolate has cooled and set.

I have to say, I was pretty unimpressed by the recipe (yes, that may be influenced by my inability to complete it and yes, it was the recipe's fault not my mad-skillz).  I can't help thinking that the muffin tray should have been greased and I'm not sure what mixing the cake batter over the hot water does that mixing them cool wouldn't.  Perhaps I'll try doing it like that next time and see what those results are like. 

I guess I've been riding high for all of the posts so far that it was only a matter of time that I would have a tumble.  Problem is I now have a fridge full of orange jelly discs and nothing to do with them and I'm not going to attempt this again this week as I have a much bigger project to tackle.

Anyway there's a box in the cupboard so altogether now "full moon, half moon, total eclipse"....

daddy, daddy cool...

On Friday my father received some rather fantastic news and the family had a little celebration on Sunday night.  So, I thought, I'll use this as an opportunity to try another recipe (I have to say that as someone who tries to eat healthy and not have sweets, cookies or cakes in the house, this blog is proving rather tricky so I'm trying to find reasons to bake and then remove the results from the house!  I know, I know, digressing).  I sent my father a text to ask him what his favourite recipe was, it went like this:

So, I set about making butterscotch flavoured Angel Delight for my pa, not...

Like the text says, this is one of my fave desserts (not desert, I don't have a fave desert, that'd be weird) and I have actually attempted it once before.  I should note this isn't to be confused with Creme Brulee which I haven't been able to eat since a certain "incident".  Anyway, last time I made it the caramel didn't go quite to plan (burnt sugar is not tasty) and the custard tasted distinctly eggy.  The recipe was from one of my mum's '80s cook books that contained other delights such as "prawn cocktail in a marie rose sauce", "vol au vents" and "cheese and pineapple on sticks stuck into an orange" (I secretly love all of these things).  I'm not sure if the recipe was the reason my creme caramel was not a success but in my mind I am a rival to Michel Roux Jr. so it must have been the recipe and not me (reality and I have been strangers for some time now).

Anyway, this time I went with the British answer to Martha Stewart (but, as far as I'm aware, a little less involved in criminal activities but more involved with Canaries), Delia Smith.  The recipe and method is set out below pretty much verbatim, however, I have added extra "clarifications".

The recipe - Creme Caramel (with thanks to Delia)

For the caramel:
6oz (175g) white caster sugar
2 tablespoons tap-hot water

For the custard:
5fl oz (150ml) whole milk
10fl oz (275ml) single cream
4 large fresh eggs (fresh fresh FRESH, it makes the custard less eggy)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150C (gas mark 2 or 300F)

2. Begin by making the caramel.  To do this, put the sugar in a saucepan and place it over a medium heat. Leave it like that, keeping an eye on it, until the sugar begins to melt and just turn liquid around the edges, which will take 4-6 minutes.  Now give the pan a good shake and leave it again to melt until about a quarter of the sugar has melted. 

3. Using a wooden spoon, give it a gentle stir and continue to cook and stir until the sugar has transformed from crystals to liquid and is the colour of dark runny honey – the whole thing should take 10-15 minutes. Then take the pan off the heat and add 2 tablespoons of water, being a bit cautious here, as it sometimes splutters at this stage (it did, step back, wear gloves, go for the full lab wear if you feel the need).

Mmmm caramel.  Must. Not. Touch....resist....

As an aside, if you have a small toddler I would seriously not recommend attempting to make the caramel unless she is in another room being occupied by another adult or out of the house (although that isn't me saying that you should put the toddler out the back door, close it and let her run riot unsupervised in the garden either). Whatever, I had enough issues resisting the urge to lick the caramel off the spoon, I didn't need the added fear of my toddler with 1st degree burns (and with her mother's track record, the odds were STACKED against us).

Gu Gu

4. Now you may need to return the pan to a low heat to re-melt the caramel, stirring until any lumps have dissolved again.  Then quickly pour two thirds of the caramel into a soufflé dish (or in my case spoon 2/3 tablespoons of the caramel into 7 little glass dishes*), tipping it round the base and sides to coat.

*We have probably over 20 of these little glass dishes.  Hubby has a sweet tooth and seems to have taken it upon himself to support the Gu brand...I don't mind though as they're great for cooking!

5.  Now make the custard.  To do this, pour the milk and cream into the saucepan containing the rest of the caramel, then place this over a gentle heat and this time use a whisk to thoroughly combine everything. Don't panic if you get a great clag of caramel clinging to your whisk or there's some stuck around the edges of the pan – remember that the saucepan is over the heat and the heat will melt it.  Eventually is the word, so be patient (Delia?  How do you know me so well??). When it's all melted, remove the pan from the heat.

6. Next, break the eggs into a large bowl or jug and whisk them, then pour the hot milk that's now blended with the remaining caramel into this mixture, whisking it in as you pour (make sure the milk isn't too hot or it will scramble the eggs!). Next, add the vanilla extract and, after that, pour the whole lot through a sieve into the caramel-lined dishes (I didn't, the world didn't end). If you have any caramel left on the base of the pan, to clean it fill the pan with hot water and a drop of washing-up liquid and place it over the heat again – then it will wash off easily.

7. Now place the creme caramels in a deep roasting tin and pour in enough hot water to come two thirds of the way up the dishes. Place the whole thing on the centre shelf of the pre-heated oven and leave it there for 1¼ hours (or between 50mins to 1 hour for the individual creme caramels), until the custard is set in the centre, which means it should feel firm and springy to the touch.

...the creme caramel settled in to enjoy the mood lighting of the oven...

Then remove it from the roasting tin and, when it's completely cold, cover with clingfilm and chill thoroughly for several hours in the fridge (I put them in the fridge overnight) before turning out.

I served the creme caramels in their dishes and let my family decide if they wanted to turn them out onto their plates.  I did, it took a little coaxing but sliding a knife around the edge and prising it back just a little to let some air in and out they popped.  It was, I have to say, very good.  The caramel was all melted and infused into the custard; the custard wasn't eggy.  It was just yummy.  My mother, who isn't a big eater, ate two.  Sums it up rather well I think! 

Michel Roux?  Michel who?

Right, my small person has asked for baby corn muffins so hi-ho-hi-ho-its off to bake I go...

Doughnuts? Doh!! Nuts!! There goes the diet...

So what did I do with the other dough ball?  I know, the suspense is palpable.  You were sat on the floor of the living room in the deepest depths of despair crying "Please...please, why are you keeping this from me?? Why?  What happened with the dough!!!!".  I know, I've been there.

Fear not, the answer is here.

Says it all really.

The last trip to the USA my in-laws properly acquainted me with the delights of fried dough.  It's the kind of food that is typically served at fairs, carnivals and theme parks, that sort of thing.  You can have sweet or savoury toppings on them, like sugar and cinnamon or tomato sauce and parmesan (both, FYI, are crazy tasty).  It really is pretty self explanatory - its dough that's been fried.

Since I had the other big dough ball I figured I'd attempt to make doughnuts out of it.  So I made lots of little balls of dough and let them prove again overnight (not in the airing cupboard this time, just on the counter).

When I went to make the doughnuts in the morning, however, the pizza dough had its own ideas.

Pizza dough is quite a soft and sticky dough (which, by the way, keeps rising and rising and rising if you let it) so when I opened the container the dough had risen and spread but become incredibly soft.  Just picking a ball up deflated it and set my plans for beautiful homemade doughnuts for breakfast (what an incredible wife) asunder.  Not one to accept defeat I switched things up and figured I'd make fried dough instead.

1. Very simply, I half-filled a medium sized frying pan with vegetable oil (ideally you want enough so that the dough floats but please be careful not to fill the pan too high) and put it on a medium heat.  You could, of course, use a deep fat fryer (mmm, I can feel my arteries clogging already). 

2. I then teased the dough into discs.

3. Using little bits of dough to test the heat, once the oil was at the right temperature (it bubbled when I put the dough in) I carefully lowered a couple of bits of dough into the oil.  Using a spatula and fork, after about 2 minutes (or until the immersed dough is golden - you can see the difference in colour on the edges of the dough) I flipped the dough over for another 2 minutes (or until the then immersed dough is golden).

4. I then set the dough aside on a plate covered with kitchen roll to drain some of the oil.

5. Next you have a couple of choices (involving sub-choices):

• choose a topping - I went with granulated sugar and cinnamon (you could go with confectioners sugar (powdered or liquid) or whatever you want);
• choose how to apply it - I went with the sprinkle approach, you could go with the full on plunge (i.e. put the sugar and cinnamon in a dish and roll the dough around in the sugar until it's fully coated).

6. Fill your boots with sugary doughy goodness!  Bon-app!

Nom.