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

Cookies and Chutney.

It's been a while since I last wrote on here, and i'm starting to get a little bit fidgety and generally just being a bit of a grumpus. I would say that me writing is not a choice, but a deep seated need to project my inner creative out like a pretentious tit but my body does seem to be proving my theory right. I give to you this example; I've been tired all evening, I get into bed, say hello to Jupiter up to the South-East of my sky and decide to write myself a reminder sentence, something I often do, and here I am, two hours later, bolt awake and writing tirelessly. I've not written anything properly for the past few weeks, and I feel like my brain cells are slowly dying, a reaction I, coincidently, also develop when i've not read (...about cooking) for a while. But back onto the post, this is more of an update to all of my happenings during my absence rather then a history-based post, so i'm sorry if you're disappointed, but there will be a rewarding recipe by the end I promise.

I've just started a new job and i'm balancing as many hours as I can and putting off all my other things, like having a social life and cooking properly. Oh the shame! I say that, i've still cooked a fair amount, for example, a fortnight ago I made a huge batch of cookies (see rudimentary figure below!)

I was quite chuffed with them, me and my sister crowded round the oven 'ee'-ing at the cookies to not spread any further and squeaking at random intervals when we spotted a rogue chocolate chip melting into the dough. They were yum, so to reward your patience, I give to you a pretty damn sexy cookie recipe. Make them right and they are lovely, chewy and soft, love it!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
170g unsalted butter
200g dark brown soft sugar
100g caster sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
300g chocolate chips

- Set your oven to 170C or Gas Mark 3 to start with, and cover your baking sheet with greaseproof paper/baking parchment.
- Melt the butter and leave to cool a little, whilst you're waiting sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a separate bowl and set aside. Once cooled a little, cream together the butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until really well mixed. Add the vanilla, egg and egg yolk and whisk as hard as you can until light and creamy.
- Add in the sifted ingredients until just mixed and then add in your chocolate chips (I used a mix of dark and milk because I couldn't decide on the one I wanted!).
- Spoon your mixture out onto a tray, leaving about 3 inches in between each cookies, you should fit maybe 9 cookies on a good sized tray. If you want to as well, instead of laying out your cookies relatively flat, try to pile them high and thin, that way when they melt they'll stay a decent thickness and will be even more awesome!
- Bake for around 15minutes, but keep a very close eye on, to keep them chewy they're almost a little underdone. It's difficult to tell if they're golden brown because the dough is already that colour, and once you notice they're getting darker it's already too late, so you have to do it by touch. If you open the oven after 12 minutes, touch the top of a cookie with your finger and it feels completely liquid underneath, they're too raw, but they shouldn't be solid. They should spring back ever so slightly but not feel like you're poking an egg with no shell...or a fake boob.
- Leave them to cool for 2 or 3 minutes on the tray, then lift them off onto a cooling rack to cool properly.

What they look like once finished! (Stolen from Allrecipes where this recipe is from!)

This recipe is pretty perfect, I remember many, many years ago when I was still an angst-ey goth and I made a set of cookies that were absolutely amazing. I literally searched for 5 years to try and find it and I just sort of gave up that it was a one off and it wasn't to happen again. Turns out it was this recipe, to cut a long story short, and they're still as lovely as I remembered, sweet and satisfying with milk, as any good cookie should be I suppose!

I've not just stuck with cookies either, I also decided it would be a brilliant idea to make a plum and apple chutney with the huge bowl of yellow plums my grandad bought up from his allotment. My dad loves cheese and by the time Christmas comes around it'd be perfectly matured. It was a good idea, in theory, until I realised my biggest pot was not big enough to fit the monster haul...after i'd put in all the ingredients. After much chutney was slopped about and transferred to my slow cooker, I left it to bubble down into a sticky, lovely mess and pour into jars. And voila, the finished product!

Hooray for cute chutney jars (thanks Dad for indefinitely lending them to me!)

Something you thankfully see just off screen is not only the horrific state of the caked on chutney on my slow cooker, but also the fact that i'd taken merely 3 ladles of chutney out of the beast, leaving me with a three-quarter full pot of chutney, and no jars to store them in! Oopsie.

Also, as well as starting a new job, I also turned 21. Hooray, I can finally drink in the US and Canada, not that it's that big of a deal, i've been able to have a cider or eight in the UK for three years, but it's encouraging that I can now go to North America and drink to my heart's content. But anyway, I had a little get together to celebrate my coming of age, with lots of yum food and good company!

From right to left (clockwise); in the slow cooker on the right, a slow cooked Greek shoulder of lamb with orzo stew, Sailor Jerry's Tiramisu (with a nifty little link to my recipe and everything), cherry tomato and parmesan omelette, tortilla chips and Tzatziki dip, pesto pasta with chorizo and roasted peppers, brownies and bread. It looks a little bit sad when I see it laid out, you wouldn't think this took me almost an entire day to prepare.

I would go on a little more about my exploits but it's coming up to 2am UK time and I'm going to go and work three very long days at the Jersey Music Festival. So I better go get my beauty sleep on so I can be up bright and early for 6am.
So for now, tara. I shall not leave it as long as I last did until my next post, I will doubtlessly be full of excited Jersey energy and bring back some wonderous tales of French-English food from out Channel Island cousins.

Peace
JR