The Icing on the Cake.

I was trawling through an absolute behemoth stack of Christmas recipe books today, trying to find some inspiration for decorating my Christmas cake, and whilst I found nought that sated my half modern-half traditional creative tastes, I meandered to the internet for my fickle needs. I must quickly apologise yet again for my Christmas related post for those who don't celebrate it, once mid-month arrives I will have probably gotten bored and my attention attracted to another culinary exploration. But, for now, I must pay homage to a few pretty sexy cake decorators across the internet. You have hijacked my entire Sunday morning (in a good way!) and kept me occupied and inspired to try many a different decorating technique. 

So this little mini post is to inspire others as I have been. 

For those who like traditional Christmas Fruit Cake (like me...)

When I think of really traditional cakes I think of perfectly smoothed top, not a crack or imperfection in sight tied with a thick checkered ribbon tied neatly around the edge. Perhaps a tiny snowflake or two iced onto the top. And while I love that, I do relish a little individuality, and I think this is such an ace little idea. Just changing the snowflakes from flat to vertical makes a whole lot of difference. 

I'll be honest, I have never seen a cake that has dips especially for tea lights, and I absolutely love it! What with my fetish for candles and all. Thank you for enlightening (too much of a cheesy pun?) me, G-Man.

For the people who love a little cute kitsch in their kitchens, I think this will be an absolute favourite. Like I said, taking something simple and traditional and adding a little modern (or modern-vintage) style to make things absolutely stunning. This is merely a taster of the wonders I found on Victoria Made, if you're a confident (or just super ambitious) baker, her stream is is definitely porn for your tastebuds.

This one is so adorable, and definitely a contender for my mini Christmas cakes this year! Thanks StripeyAnne

For those who don't like Christmas cake. Or those who like chocolate (like me):

This talented lady makes tonnes of amazing cakes, including this beautiful Büche de Nóel, if you fancy looking at more here's the link!

If you're thinking about making your own Christmas cake this year, do get on it pronto! As it needs time to sit. If you're worried it won't come out well, just stick to the classics, Delia makes a cracking good fruit cake that never fails. Either way I hope I've instilled some sort of inspiration with you in case you do decide to make your own this Christmas. With all these beautiful ideas knocking around, it's hard not to get excited about home-made Christmas cakes. And with a bit of instruction from someone who knows about baking or good bit o' Youtube (which has loads of videos for learning new stuff) you can get something that looks awesome.

Peace

JR

Love for Mince Pies.

I do feel somewhat compelled to adhere to food etiquette, on occasion. After Eight mints after 8pm (...ish), nought but raisins in my scones and mince pies only at Christmas. The latter being of interest for today. I absolutely adore mince pies, so much. I'm not sure whether it's because I know I can only have them, by conscience, in December, or whether they're actually just that amazing. I love that many very talented chefs have reinvented this old classic, whether it's to adapt for people with certain food intolerances, or because they grew up on badly made mince pies or whatever their reason may be. However, I have no major food intolerances, I grew up on awesome mince pies and I am set in my ways, so I still love them. I was perusing the BBC Good Food website and found only three recipes, that weren't mince pie slices, cakes, muffins or other general paraphenalia. It might not sound so slanderous, but if you take into account the vastness of the website and the recipes it holds, it is. 

I know they're everywhere at Christmas, but I don't really know anyone who makes them at home anymore, I think it's a bit of a shame. They're not difficult, they don't take up much of time, even if you buy ready made pastry they're still cheaper to make then they are to buy, and they taste better. So when we reach December, I will be able to re-test out my recipe and post it on here, so you guys don't have to use experimental recipes and such like. Such dedication to my etiquette.

Around this time of year is a good time to be making your mincemeat (if you plan to make your own mince pies that is). Obviously it depends entirely on personal taste as to what sort of mincemeat you can make, if you want a real traditional style mincemeat you can use suet. This is obviously bad news for vegetarians (and vegans) and people who care about their waistline, so you don't have to put it in, as there's plenty of fat in the pastry you make. Personally, i'm not a purist in this region so I leave out the suet. There's some things that you unfortunately just cant leave out of mincemeat, such as raisins, sultanas and currants. There is a difference between raisins, sultanas and currants too, and they do differ in taste, so find one you like and stick a load of it in your recipe. You don't necessarily have to use all the types of dried grape, but you've gotta use one, it's just not the same! Personally I use half raisin (dried red grapes) and half sultanas (dried green grapes) in mine, currants are dried Black Corinth grapes and they are too shriveled and hard, no matter how long you soak them.

A little note to those who aren't fans of sultanas or currants:If you want to use all raisins, you need to lessen the amount of sugar you put into your mixture. Red grapes are naturally sweeter than green so when the sweetness is intensified by the drying process it'll end up far too sweet when you add even more sugar during the cooking process!

Because I know all are not the same i'm providing you with two differing recipes, huzzah! One is for the traditionalists, and one for more modern taste buds. They are both from the legendary Constance Spry cookery book, and I've used them both for many a Christmas. The measurements are converted from pounds and ounces into grams so it's all rough. But it's all fine, that's the wonder of mincemeat it doesn't really have to be perfect. You can also leave bits out too, if you don't want to use (or can't find) Brandy, use a different liqueur or orange juice if you fancy.


Traditional Constance Spry Mincemeat
Makes enough for 20-30 good sized mince pies.
500g raisins
400g sultanas
350g chopped apple (any variety works well, cooking Bramleys are good for thickening the mixture, and Golden Delicious is good to add lightness and sweetness)
350g brown sugar
225g beef suet
250g mixed peel
120g almonds, chopped finely
Grated rind and juice of 2 unwaxed lemons
Tblsp mixed spice
2 medium glasses of brandy.

- Shred the suet as finely as you can and mix all of the ingredients together. If you're worried about it being too boozy you can add the brandy bit by bit until it's just moistened.
- Keep for a few weeks in the fridge before using to let all of the flavours intermingle!

This one is lovely and filling, because of the suet used, but if the thought of having beef fat in your mincemeat makes you cringe you can leave it out and it'll still taste awesome (and stay away from supermarket bought mincemeat too!).

Mincemeat: Take 2
Makes enough for 40-50 mince pies, or to last you through a big family Christmas.
900g chopped apples
1.5kg chopped raisins
1.5kg sultanas
700g grapes (seedless to make your life easier)
Rind and juice of 3 or 4 unwaxed lemons
400g almonds
250g mixed peel
900g brown sugar
1 gill of Brandy or Rum (about 150ml)

- Pulse the peel, almonds and apples in a blender to help your along, otherwise chop them as finely as your hands can carry you! Mix everything together and stir it every now and again.
The second one is a lot fresher, so keep it in the fridge and stir it quite regularly and it'll be golden! By the time it gets to mid December it'll be beautiful and ready to use. A little project to keep you occupied for the cold winters drawing in perhaps?

Peace
JR

Chocolate Candles

Advent calendar's are obviously a big part of Christmas, it's not quite the same if you have a Christmas when you're young (or young at heart) and not opening the little door every morning, piercing the thin foil with your thumb and eating a little piece of dog chocolate inside. There are quite a few traditions that are seared into our brains now, such as the fact that no matter how unpleasant the chocolate, you are forced, by unofficial law to get up every morning and eat chocolate for breakfast for most of December. Of course when you're little you don't really think like that, you're too busy smearing it round your face and running round the house like a lunatic. There are still some 'traditional' styled advent calendars knocking around, the advent candles, where a candle is lit for every day leading up to Christmas. 

I always thought in my naivety that the oldest advent calendars were the fabric ones filled with gifts, just because of the significant absence of chocolate. The first printed calendars came about in 1908 by a man named Gerhard Lang after his mother used to make him them as a child. It was simply named "Christmas-Calendar" or "Munich-Christmas-Calendar" (how inventive, Mr Lang) and was for all of the Lutheran Christians in the area. He went on to create little doored advent calendars, filled with Biblical references. The association isn't so abstract to grasp, it's entirely logical that the first printed ones were religiously based, as is the entirely holiday, obviously. There used to have the snowy nativity scenes with doors that could be opened to reveal selected bible verses for each day. I would love to see a modern (and, obviously, an Athiest) child get one for this December, just to see the look on their face and the slow realisation that there's nothing to eat in it. I would guess it's something not too dissimilar to this...

I'm surprised it's taken this long to feature a cat picture on my blog in all honesty.

But it's true, living in the UK, well in the area I live in at least, there is not a huge saturation of Christianity and most of the children here would be horrified at the lack of sweeties on a chilly December morn. But I digress, I was mentioning the dog chocolate that comes in most of the advent calendars, even in - i'm sorry in advance - Cadbury's.  I have a love-hate relationship with Cadbury's chocolate; love because I have such fond memories of eating chocolate buttons as a child, but hate because I don't like the taste of it anymore, it makes my teeth hurt. So I decided to test a proper one this year. I mentioned in my Theobroma Cocoa post about my love for good chocolate, and after a few months of working hard to save money, I decided to treat me and my other half to a good advent calendar this year.

It's pretty amazing, it's probably as thick as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (a good reference point?) and you get two little truffles in each one to either share with your significant other. I'm no going to lie, it is as of today, the 9th of November, and nearly every chocolate in this calendar has been eaten. Such a lack of dedication to my etiquette

When I started eating them I completely didn't care that is was November, they were too nice. There are a few different types, so you don't get bored, which is a nice thought; mulled wine, gingerbread, cinnamon, milk chocolate, dark chocolate and salted caramel. They're all pretty sexy, but the gingerbread truffle is absolutely immense, followed closely by milk chocolate. It's nice to indulge yourself once in a while with really amazing chocolate, I don't eat Cadbury's anymore, so I like to buy a little bit of something amazing. I tried a direct comparison to Cadbury's equivalent house milk (Dairy Milk), dark (Bournville) and white (Dream) to Hotel Chocolat's, and it signed my soul onto it forever. Never will a piece of Bournville grace my lips or cooking ever again. The actual cocoa mass content is horrific (with Hotel Chocolat's milk chocolate containing more than Bournville, which is meant to be dark), they instead fill it with vegetable fat which not only makes the texture horrible, but makes it completely tasteless. I understand why they did it, they wanted to spread chocolate to as many people as they could, so they held back on the cocoa content, because, it's unavoidable, cocoa is very expensive at around £1700 a tonne. But it's been at the significant cost of the taste of it, ironically making it taste less and less like chocolate as their greed got the better of them.

I digress, if you fancy actually treating yourself this year instead of eating cardboard chocolate, or just want something a little more sophisticated, have a look at here, they're probably the best actual chocolate advent calendars out there, without remortgaging your house. They've also got a pretty wicked Christmas selection at the moment as well, the awesome gingerbread truffles that I have in my advent calendar come in the little boxes of eight on the right hand side of the page. If you feel like it's too much to spend on yourself, why not treat someone else to one? Maybe they'll repay the favour and you'll have a tonne of good karma at the same time.

Just on a final note, I thought i'd post a short summary of some adventures i've been up to recently. I was propositioned into making a small set of cakes for a friend's party so I thought i'd share the love.

A lovely little lemon cupcake with cream cheese icing, with added cute sugar daisy!

Along with a massive chocolate layer cake - the recipe of which is in my last post - with a half dark (for the adults) and half milk (for the kiddies) chocolate ganache on the outside. I hope everyone enjoyed them, and I had a really fun time making everything and playing with edible glitter with my sister! It prompted me to seriously debate the idea of setting up my own little independent cake shop.

I suppose that's it for now my lovelies. The mince pie experimentation will have to wait for a few weeks but i'm sure i'll think of something to fill my time with until then. I'm having some pretty epic cravings for Moroccan food at the moment, I suspect a tagine is in order. Soon.

Peace.
JR

Upon Request

Well, I can safely say that my recipe-a-day for National Baking Week went completely to plan...it really didn't. I'd apologise, but honestly, I was dying of a cold for most of the week and nobody wants a cake baked by somebody coughing every three seconds into the crook of their arm!

But, on my honour, and also by request, I have been asked to cover the subject of chocolate cake. I'm not even going to pretend the recipe I use is the quickest recipe out there, it does take quite a bit of time to make, but it's not monstrously difficult, you just need to pay a bit of attention that's all. If you're put off already, shame! This is quite a big cake, and can easily 16-20 servings out of it. Now, i'm usually a very haphazard cook with most things, exchanging ingredients I don't have in the cupboard or things I can't afford and what not.

 I've mentioned before that if you're cooking vanilla cupcakes or birthday cake, to use a good vanilla extract (not essence), and the same applies to all other types of cake, chocolate or otherwise. I absolute hate cook's chocolate, it's waxy, and disgusting, and there's no need to use it unless you want perfectly round chocolate chips in cookies. If I could eradicate it, I would. If you want to make a really lovely chocolate cake (for a birthday or party), you do need to invest in decent chocolate. 

Do you even need to ask what I choose?

There's a temptation when baking to just bung it all in together and forget about the individual effects that each ingredient has on the another, but it's not a great idea with baking. As i'm sure many will know, the logistics of baking is very much a science, and if you don't consider all the bits and pieces you'll end up with a whole plethora of problems, like cakes not rising or being too dry. Both of which I have experience many a time.

But, I won't go too much into it right now, as this post is all about the cake.

Chocolate Layer Cake

16-20 slabs

300g light muscovado sugar

250g butter

100g plain flour

100g self raising flour

5 eggs

300g dark chocolate

- Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3 and grease and line 3 sandwich tins
- Melt the chocolate over a double boiler and leave to cool slightly at the side.
- Combine the sugar & butter until fluffy.
- Add eggs one by one, if the mixture goes too eggy add a tablespoon of the flour mixture and beat in to prevent it from splitting it too much.
- Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the egg and sugar mixture and beat in slowly.

- Fold in the flour, try not to knock it around too much!
- Spoon into the three sandwich tins and bake for about 30 minutes. Keep an eye on it though, it should only have a light crust, but it shouldn't wobble in the middle!

The finished product!

This is the recipe for the bulk of the cake, you can choose your own style of icing, if you'd rather go down the sweeter aisle, you can choose a milk chocolate ganache (such as the recipe that will follow) or you can choose a dark chocolate ganache (which I will include a recipe for too) depending upon your tastes. If you fancy a bit of both use milk chocolate to sandwich the layers together and dark chocolate to cover the outside. Ganache is a wonderous marriage of cream and chocolate and makes a beautiful glossy icing that's not as sweet as buttercream, and is easily sculptable to make your cake look all fancy and pretty.  The basic concept is to boil cream and pour it when it's boiling over chopped chocolate and let it melt in, cool it a little and then spread it over the sponge you've baked. If you don't have the time to do it all in one go, I would recommend you make the sponges and stick them in the fridge, because ganache doesn't keep particularly well. I found this out once when I stuck it in the fridge to make it cool with a little more pace, forgot about it and had to chisel it out of the bowl . So yes, sponges first, and make the icing fresh, and if you do leave it in the fridge to thicken up, don't forget about it!

Milk Chocolate Ganache

Enough to sandwich 3 cakes together
300g milk chocolate
60ml double cream
30g unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- Put the butter and cream on a low heat, stirring continuously.

- Add the chocolate and stir until completely melted, it won't take a few minutes and add the vanilla.
- Spread in the cake right away!
In my recipe book i've noted quite eloquently at the bottom of this recipe:

"Do not over mix milk chocolate icing or it buggers up! Also, don't return to the heat or the butter does something weird"

I'm not entirely sure what that means, but i'm going to assume it means use it as soon as you make it.

Dark Chocolate Ganache
Enough to cover a 3 layer cake
300g chocolate

300ml double cream

- Bring the cream to the boil.

- Pour over chocolate and stir until melted.
- Spread on cake.

- Smush your own and a friend's face into cake.

- Lick friend's face.

And you'll end up with something that looks a little like this beast.

That's pretty much it. It's honestly as simple as that. If you want it thicken, let it cool more by putting it in the fridge (but don't forget about it). Other than that that's all you really need to know.
Enjoy!

Peace.
JR

Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail

I was recently looking through my relatively large collection of DVDs and books, sorting which ones to sell and which ones to keep to make some extra space. Some of them flew out of my hand into the bin bag, ready for the charity shop, 'A Very Long and Tedious History of Pebbles" included...I may have paraphrased. Whereas others were practically magnetised to my floor, too stubborn to leave, and were determined to clog up my room. If anybody asks that's totally what happened, my books came to life. This included a 1970's book of fairy tales, my entire Roald Dahl collection, all of my Tolkien and this beautiful pale blue Beatrix Potter book, with all the Peter Rabbit stories. Now I know it's not exactly a niche to me, it sold millions of copies, but I have very fond memories of this book growing up. And this morning, my heart actually sped up. It did I swear, at the result my search engine gave me. There's a cook book. There is! I found it this morning, and somebody is selling it for 1p, no lie. Peter Rabbit's Cookery Book. Needless to say I clicked 'add to basket' faster than a fast thing and I'm now eagerly waiting it's arrival. 

I wish I could live my life like this, in a wood, with a little basket.

I did a little research on this book's existence whilst waiting and found a few names that have made me even more excited. Samuel Whiskers' Roly Poly Pancakes, how amazing. Doesn't the name just make you smile? Oh Samuel Whiskers and your wile ways, whatever will you get up to next? Whilst thinking about this, my mind couldn't help but wonder to other possibilities, other pairings of recipes, and then the irony passed over me of whether or not they would include recipes for rabbit stew or pie in this book. Would that be too mean? Or would the connection of where meat comes from and the lovable characters not register in the minds of the young 'uns. Happily skipping home from the library - in the 80's may I add, nobody goes to libraries anymore - looking forward to making pancakes, not yet aware of the impending doom of Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkins. Peter Rabbit and the Butcher Slab. Squirrel Nutkins and the Pie Dish, they think they're going to have a silly mishap, Mr McGregor covers Nutkins in pastry, realises just before he puts him the oven and sets him free. What actually happens is that he really does puts him in the oven and everybody gets some pie and mash. Poor kids, never saw it coming. Now they're traumatised for life.

This anthropomorphic drama is kind of relevant I promise. Apart from the inevitable influence my childhood has upon my everyday life as an adult (or thereabouts); fairy tales, fantasy and history are all apparent in the way I cook, from the use of old recipes to the mindset in which I bake. It's all kind of there. This book is 30 years old, so it does have a lot of old school recipes and cooking methods, and though Pigling and Pigwig didn't actually make a 'Hot Rice Breakfast Treat' for me and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise didn't rustle me up a good spinach salad, it's nice to have that sense of innocence and fun with food. Why always so serious? It doesn't matter that it's loosely based around the fantastical characters to appeal to children. I love it already, and it's not even been posted yet!

One of the most poignant pictures of my childhood, mainly because I wanted to live in a little rabbit hole and have my little pot of tea over the fire like Mother rabbit!

The wise, if not a little heartless, words of Mrs Rabbit:

" 'Now, my dears,' said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, 'you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden: your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor"

I am somewhat transported back to my trips to Germany, as a child, when me, my sister and my dad would go walking in the country. I would stand, innocent as ever with a handful of raisins in my hand, my dad too nice to tell me I was holding a massive handful of rabbit poo. He said that if we caught a rabbit while we were out we could take it home as a pet, oh the teasing cruelty, I know what he was thinking, if we ever did catch one it'd be straight in the pot for dinner, free food!

However, in the spirit of this lovely fantasy fuelled cookery book session, i'd like to mention another series of children's books that has it's own cook book, the wonderous, the spectacular, Moomins. Now I've been a fan of Tove Jansson for years and years, especially Moomins, and I was overjoyed when my best friend bought me the cookbook for my birthday last year. I won't go too into the Moomins because I honestly could chatter on for hours and I want to dedicate another post purely to them very soon, so very simply, here is another recipe for National Baking Week. A tip before beginning though, take heed of my warning from my A Little Slice of the Black Country post, buy ground cardamom, it won't be quite so potent as the freshly ground, but it will make your life so much easier. So, here's to something a little different from Scones and Biscuits.

Moominmamma's Lingonberry and Cardamom Cake
Enough for 8 big or 12 small pieces
2 tsp baking soda
250g wheat flour
250g brown sugar
2 tsp dried ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp cardamom
80g pureed lingonberries (or lingonberry jam)
2 eggs

200ml cream

90g melted butter

NB - You might not find lingonberries in your local supermarket, but if you ever take a trip to Ikea (if you're from the UK!), I know they sell both lingonberry and cloudberry jam there. You can choose either as they're both amazing!

- Preheat the oven to 175C and grease and breadcrumb a ceramic pie dish or a quiche dish.
- Mix the baking soda into the flour, then mix with the sugar and all of the spices.
- Add the lingonberries (or cloudberries), eggs, cream and the cooled butter. Quickly mix them all together thoroughly.
- Pour into the prepared dish and bake for about 60 - 70 minutes.
- Leave overnight to let all the flavours mingle.
Enjoy!


I hope you do decide to make this wonderful recipe, it is lovely and warmly spiced and perfect for this time of year, well I think so at least. But that's it for now, until another day my nostalgic friends.
Watch yourself Squirrel Nutkins, you never know who may be round the corner.


Peace.
JR

Death and Taxes

Never have these two concepts been so prominent in my life. I think I should mention right now that I do not understand money, in the slightest, neither do I understand taxes. And in all fairness, I have no desire to learn any more than how to prevent myself getting ripped off by the tax man, and effectively budgeting for my week's worth of food and general life expenditures. Apart from acknowledging this week's general money happenings over the pond (and the past few days' happenings in London), this post is not about the whole Occupy Wall Street scenario, though I do very much stand with the 99%...obviously. I am quite surprised, however, that it has taken this long for people to get this passionate about the income divide in the US, but I am glad that it has happened, maybe it'll spark some world wide coverage of the horrific divides in many other countries around the world too.

Thanks Vader/V

I won't go too much into it right now because frankly, I don't really want to burden my blog with so much seriousness, it is a place of sanctuary and love. So I send love to all the people who are supporting social and economic equality and the eradication of large corporations' excessive greed; but that's all for here...and back on to food!

Even though I have been incredibly lazy with my planning of late, I happened to have been unintentionally good with my money. After realising that my food extravagance needed to be reigned in while i'm saving up, I decided to think about how far my ingredients were going, more so than usual anyway. Whilst my cravings for baking have had to begin hibernating for the Winter like a small, crazy bear, I thought to myself how this time of year is the perfect time to start budgeting. The obvious reason is that Christmas is beginning to drop into people's minds and the inevitable budgeting problems that arise from it are making people take a significant step back. Those sensible people amongst us can sit and smugly think of how organised they've been and all the money they've saved throughout the year. And those who aren't so sensible, me definitely included, can sit in the corner and worry how they will afford Christmas presents, food and trying to achieve something charitable and spread the love around the holidays.

So today I pitch the idea to you of making a home-made Christmas, or at least consider a partial one. I know this has been done to death but it'll save you a tonne of money on expensive gift boxes for people you barely know, and everybody appreciates something home made. This time of year is a good time to start thinking about and making your stuff, chutney is awesome because you can use all the excess of apples that are still hanging around thanks to the decent weather we've had. Fruit cake is never to early making, stew it in orange juice, brandy, Cointreau, Disaronno, ginger ale, tea, whatever you fancy really. It's just a thought, if you fancy it, and don't mind the little bit of extra effort go for it! I'm lucky enough to have an extremely talented artist for a sister (her eBay and Folksy shop) who is pairing up with me to help make some gift baskets for presents this year. Me making Christmassy food and Corrina making the beautiful garlands and baubles.

I hope she doesn't mind me using this picture, I sneaked a picture on my way to work because they looked so pretty!

But anyway. The thought is there for now for you to mull over. And here is my proposition for doing something charitable for the holidays. I will send cake to any who want some for Christmas, as a charitable gesture. This kind of only applies to those in the UK because of customs in other countries. If you leave a name and email address in a comment at the bottom of this  post, I shall send you a piece of spiced ginger Christmas cake, just to say thank you for reading and a Merry Christmas.


For those who are groaning at the thought of Christmas in October, I apologise. I know there's much to come before then. For instance this week, beginning today, is baking week. Hurrah! I feel like I post a lot of sweet recipes on here, and although I would quite like to live on nought but cake, it's probably not a reasonable way to live, and would probably be quite boring after a while. So, in light of this fact, i'm going to post a savoury bake-related recipe.

Irish Wheaten Bread
1 reasonable sized round loaf, or 10-20 rolls, depending on the size you fancy.
350g wholemeal flour
100g strong white flour
350ml buttermilk (OR 350ml whole milk and the juice of 1 lemon)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
50g - 100g oats, plus more for sprinkling

- Preheat the oven to 220C and grease a baking sheet.
- Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, sugar and salt. Then add the oats. If you love oaty bread, add 100g, if you just want a little bit add 50g, but remember that you might need to add a little more or a little less buttermilk.
- If you can get buttermilk, add it in now, if you have milk and lemon juice, put about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and stir it into the milk, and leave for a few seconds for it to sour a little.
- Add it in stages until the mixture is bound together, you might not need to use all of it, dependent on how many oats you included.
- Form into a round ball or cut and form into rolls, cut a cross on top and sprinkle with oats.
- If you're baking a big loaf, 30-40 minutes is a good guideline, depending on how crusty you like it (I like mine super crusty!), if you're making rolls, 15-20 minutes should be more than enough.
- Serve with a good bit of Irish stew or some Autumn soup. And it makes your house smell awesome!

Oaty goodness
Easy peasy, it takes very little effort, they taste lovely and very filling. It's quite a dense bread, because there's no kneading, thus no gluten strands are stretched creating the bounciness of normal bread. But this sort of bread is wonderfully comforting on an Autumn eve with a warm bowl of soup and a good spread of butter. 
I wouldn't want to disappoint those who do enjoy a sweet something at the end of the day, so here's a lovely recipe courtesy of the National Baking Week website which pairs nicely with the earthy bread, and a cup o' tea of course. There is a reason there are certain types of sugar, you really can't skip on the muscavado sugar, it's what makes your cookies chewy!


Chewy Macadamia Nut Cookies
About 16 cookies, depending on size.
170g soft butter
340g dark muscavado sugar
1tsp good quality vanilla extract (not essence!)
2 medium free range eggs
375g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
100g chopped macadamia nuts.

- Preheat to 180C/Gas mark 4 and lightly oil a baking sheet. 
- Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together. And when they're light and fluffy, add the eggs one by one until a batter is formed.
- Add the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together and mix until smooth. Stir in the macademia nuts.
- Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge to firm up.
- Shape the dough into 1" balls and place well spaced apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown. 
- Take off the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack. 

Enjoy with a brew.

For this week, I will post five more recipes to celebrate the seven days of Baking Week. So keep an eye out for more loveliness.


Peace.
JR

Baking For Victory

I bet there are a number of people reading this (look at me getting all cocky that people actually read this!) that have been watching "The Great British Bake Off" on BBC 2. If you haven't, you really should. Mary Berry is an absolute legend. But every Tuesday night it makes me want to try something new, the week before last it was pork pies that floated before my eyes like pastry sheep, counting my way to sleep, last week it was cheesecake, and this week I sat dribbling into my tea, watching these random contestants make some pretty epic croissants.

Parisienne Croissants

To say the amount of times me and my family have driven to France, and the amount of croissants I have consumed over the years, I really do not know very much about them. Other than it means 'crescent' in French and that if it made it from the bakery back to my tent with more than just a few crumbs and a buttery sheen on my upper lip, it was a minor miracle. So I went about researching, naturally. I found the basics from the British Bake off - thankyou very much - that the pastries were actually based upon kipferls, created in Vienna in the 1680's to spite the naughty invading Turks. There was an infiltration, of sorts, upon the city late one evening in Vienna; a group of Turkish soldiers were trying to dig under the walls trying to invade the city, when a group of bakers heard the whole kerfuffle and went to the Austrian defenders. Ain't that just peachy? To add insult to injury, they decided to attack the Turks in their own little way by creating a lovely little pastry in the shape of the Ottoman flag, just to gloat. I think I quite like their bare-faced audacity.

Some funky Ottoman flags; the first is the official flag of the Ottoman empire  from 1453 - 1844, the second is the flag of an Ottoman admiral from 1453 - 1793, the third is the flag of the Ottoman navy from 1453 - 1793.

It's nice that the French bakers that adapted it decided to invent a whole new name, you know, translating the same word, crescent, from the German kipferl, to the French croissant, inventive, guys. That is a mere brush of the surface of the history but it's nice to know the basics. It's also worth mentioning that Pierre Hermé makes absolutely amazing croissants, he is just a bit of a pastry legend really. I mentioned his awesomeness briefly in Celadon Sweets, as well as being a macaron genius, he is equally as capable on the pastry front. How jealous I am! I did think though, after seeing that the ratio of yeast dough to butter when making croissants is 1:1, I think i'd feel a little sick by the time they'd actually cooked. 1 lb of butter to 1 lb of dough. And that doesn't count the significant globs of butter I used to whack on afterwards, I dread to think how much in ingested, oh the delicious artery clogging goodness!

One day I will get around to making them, but the very idea of folding, and waiting while it proofs, and more folding and waiting, then folding and waiting some more, it makes me a little tired just thinking about it. Oh how laborious the art of laminating pastry! I know it would be worth it and all, but I just keep thinking how disjointed I would feel knowing that it'll never be as good as the ones you get from a French bakery at 6am on a beautiful Summer morn. But knowing me i'll do it anyway, so watch this space for some sort of attempt of croissants, you guys can either laugh at my feeble attempts and my eventual emotional crisis (crises more like), or to find a decent recipe, win win I suppose.

On a side note whilst on the topic of baking, British Baking Week is coming up in a few weeks and though I missed it last year due to a significant lack of funding, I urge those of you who enjoy cake to try and make your own, and I will make along with you. It doesn't have to be complicated, and it can be really fun even to those who are most opposed to cooking. 17th - 23rd October. Remember!

Thankyou very much NBW website for your cheesy representational picture

On to the next mini portion. This week in the UK has been unseasonably warm (17C this evening!) which is quite unheard of here. It is quite difficult to think of changing Summer-style food onto Autumnal comfort food in this heat I must admit. But I know as soon as the rain begins and quenches the 'heatwave' - I leave it in quote marks because it probably seems insignificant to anyone reading from a country closer to the equator - I will want soups and stews in a heartbeat, oh how fickle I am. So to prepare myself, I have found the first thing I am going to make when the weather decides to get it's chill on.

Fassoulada
Greek Haricot Bean Soup

500g Haricot Beans
1 large brown onion, roughly chopped
3 carrots, sliced thinly
3 sticks of celery, peeled and chopped
3 tomatoes (or a can of peeled chopped tomatoes)
2 tblsp tomato puree
2 bay leaves
1 tblsp dried oregano (or 2 handfuls of fresh)
1 tsp dried parsley (or a handful of fresh)


This is super easy to make!


- Drain the beans and wash, put in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil, skimming off any froth.
- Add everything else and simmer for an hour and a half (if using fresh herbs by the way leave them until about ten minutes before the end of cooking)
- Cool is slightly, season lots with some proper salt and pepper and serve up.

Nice and simple, nice and healthy and everything too. If you fancy something a little more substantial, serve with cheese toasts (any strong cheese will do, cheddar, parmesan or even blue cheeses will do), keep 'em crispy lads and ladettes.

Right, for now my lovelies, I am to bed. There is a program about dinosaur films on BBC 4, and I have a serious weakness for Jurassic Park and a bit o' 'zilla. Onwards to the social worries mirrored through the medium of film!

Peace
JR

Cotton Anniversary.

Hello my oh so dedicated followers and random blog generated hitters. I am back from working the Jersey Live Music Festival (hooray!). Not to say that I didn't have an awesome time, it was pretty epic, but it's good to be back in a warm, non-soggy tent. We were treated like kings for the duration, with good food every day and a sneaky upstairs shower to not be disgusting slobs throughout our stay. Unfortunately, I didn't get to explore much more than a teeny corner shop, a few lovely views and a slightly hungover KFC visit so I don't have a vast amount of food-related excitement to share with you unfortunately. But all the same, I got to see a few really awesome bands, Ed Sheeran was most definitely the highlight, he is a truly amazing live musician, if you ever get to see him, go for it! But there were a few others, I worked for a few hours in the VIP Hospitality tent manning the fences to stop people hopping over, and I caught a really immense band called King Charles. If they had an album out I would 100% buy it because this guitarist, he was an absolute ninja.

Back to food anyway. I've been up to some relatively exciting culinary adventures as of late. As was the reason for starting this blog (the making of the other half's birthday cake), the time came round again to indulge my baking urges and make another try! After my relative disaster last year - I say only a relative disaster as it was still edible, but vastly undercooked - I went for something a little simpler, no painting mint leaves or awkward transportation. I was armed and ready, with triple cling-film wrapped layer cake and cupcakes, and ingredients to make the icing. The choice this year was kids party cake, as in vanilla and jam. The reasoning, not that it needs a vast amount of explaining, was that I kept remembering how awesome they used to taste at birthday parties when I was younger, simply enough. So I thought why the hell not, I don't go to kids parties anymore, so I thought i'd bring a little child-like delight back into the world. This is possibly my new favourite vanilla sponge recipe for the record. Most times I make cakes I seem to find the faults ready to improve next time, but, not being cocky, I think I did relatively well this time round. This is by no means my recipe at all, so I'm not taking a single ounce of credit, I got it from a recipe book, so i'm just transferring it from page to screen for your delight and mentioning that it was a success!

I enjoy posting recipes that I know work, and if there is something not quite right I don't think I would have the audacity to lie to you all. Plus, you know, what's the point? So I give to you, if you make it right, a perfect vanilla sponge, or white sponge for the Americans amongst us... ps - it's totally vanilla sponge. This recipe was originally for cupcakes and was just converted into a proper cake. It originally came with a vanilla buttercream iced on top, and it was yummy, but I'm still not sold on the whole crazy-über sweetness, so i'd pair it with perhaps a vanilla cream cheese icing around the outside for vanity's sake or just leave it as it is! The icing is lovely for kids, but it might be a bit much for adult tastes, just so you know.

How they look when made by a professional

Vanilla Hummingbird Birthday Cake

Makes 3 layered cake (and 16 or so cupcakes on top of that)

160g unsalted softened butter

560g caster sugar
480g plain flour
2 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
480ml milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs

(Optional) Half a jar of jam for sandwiching the cakes, raspberry works well, so does damson, then again, I would say that!

NB: This mixture is massive! Seriously, under the guidance of the recipe book I made double the mixture to make a layer cake, but it was alot, so I'd say this could feed an entire party in layer and cupcakes, or two two-tiered cakes.

Also, as I briefly mentioned before, this recipe was originally for cupcakes, if you want to try it out to see if it's up your alley, half this recipe to make 12-16 good sized cupcakes.

- Oven at 190C/Gas mark 5. If you're making cupcakes, line your tins, and if you're doing a layer cake, greaseproof paper this mo fo, i've tried it with butter and flour and with greaseproof, and seriously, just make your life so much easier and use greaseproof, the end result is quite delicate.

- If you're lucky, or rich, enough to have a posh electric mixer it will aid you well here, if not, you're gonna have to get some elbow grease going on! Beat together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until they're all well mixed and resemble fine breadcrumbs. It's definitely worth taking your time to make sure it's really well mixed at this point may I add, it'll make the rest of it a doddle.

- Add the milk, vanilla and eggs to a jug and whisk together until combined well. Make sure that the yolks aren't still all together, they do need to be relatively well mixed. Pour about three quarters of this mixture slowly into your breadcrumbs and mix as you go, scraping down all the sides as you go to get all the goodness together. Add the rest of the mix and go to town on this batter, make sure it's really smooth. Beat the living hell out of it!

- After much gasping and whisks switching hands (leading to the debate on whether you should actually be making this cake or eating a bag of carrots instead), pour into the prepared tins and baked for 18-20 minutes, but keep your eye on them. Oh, and if you really do need to open the oven door, wait until after the halfway mark.

- Take them out of the oven and leave to cool for 5-10 minutes in the tins, then take them out and cool them properly on a rack, until completely stone cold.

- When it comes to decorating this lovely morsel, heat the jam up before spreading, and then pour onto the top of the cakes and sandwich together. It might slip and slide a bit so perhaps cling film the cake to a plate to keep it from slipping apart and stick in the fridge.

It looks a little something like that, woohoo!

This sort of cooking isn't exactly rocket science, and requires no particularly outlandish or expensive ingredients to make, so if you have a birthday coming up and were planning on buying a cake, just make one instead! You now have a foolproof recipe, it costs around the same, and if you buy good quality flour it'll have no preservatives and you'll have the satisfaction (and potential gloating rights) of making your own awesome cake. So yeah, the only thing I would say is to fork out for a decent vanilla extract, mine cost around £5 from Sainsburys but it's a big bottle and lasts me for a good 6 months of baking often, and I am quite liberal. It is the highlight of the cake after all and why not make it taste even more amazing by using good quality ingredients.

After an entire year, I'm still rather content with this little diary; it sort of serves as a dual function now. The first is to document my general cookings on about town, and it's also ended up doing something else I hadn't quite anticipated. It's kind of a nice addition that doing this has sort of spurred me on to make more stuff, and explore more things, and be generally a little bit more daring with my food. Hopefully it does instill a similar reaction in the few of you who do read this as well, as it fills me with that warm fuzzy feeling I can only describe as pride I suppose. The 8th was my anniversary, a moment of celebration that I've kept this going for an entire year, i'm quite proud of my dedication. But for now, I bid to you a farewell, a thankyou for keeping up with what I thought was my boring exploits, and a happy cotton anniversary to The Damson Tree!

Peace.
JR