Cinnamon Sunshine

I once read a really important article, noting that a blogger should never apologise for prolonged or even a moderate absence. In most cases it's not a bloggers job to blog, have people read and enjoy, they gain no money and most are in a situation where they need some sort of income, like me. But still, I find myself realising that I may have broken this rule on numerous occasions since I began blogging in 2006. I don't know if it's particularly to the few of you that are my regular readers, or more of a conscious cuss at myself for not writing as much as I think I should be writing. Either way I still do it, a constant reminder that I am no longer a student, and I miss no longer continuously writing in some form or other. 

Today, I am going to keep to this rule and say that I have simply been busy frolicking around in the sunshine to stay inside and write on my laptop. Okay, that's kind of a lie, i'm relatively fair-skinned so I had keep bobbing in and out to stop myself from burning. Which kind of happened anyway. But still!  

My post today is about summer, it's about bold flavours, gallivanting around eating ice cream, enjoying the heat and not shivering when you get out of the shower. If you're reading from somewhere exotic this doesn't really apply, but there's something massively satisfying about getting out of the shower, and not making a mad dash to your towel for warmth.

A few weeks ago I had a bit of craziness for cinnamon. A really massive, heady craving for it. I made my cinnamon popcorn but, while it was glorious, it did not sate my lust. So as I was peering through the masses of submissions on Foodgawker, I came across the beauty of cinnamon pull-apart bread. Oh my.

I'm going to include this recipe today for you with a little note. I literally picked the first recipe I found that looked about right. I tweaked it a little bit as I was making it because it turned out a little different then it was described. When I first started researching cinnamon bread I was under the impression that it was going to be floppy and pretty much like a soft-baked pretzel. If you are looking for that kind of recipe, this is not it! It's utterly delectable in it's own right, soft and light bread and more like a traditional cinnamon bun/brioche.

Cinnamon Bun Pull-Apart Bread
makes 8 mini loaves/buns or one full loaf.

450g plain flour

50g caster sugar

1 sachet active dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

50g unsalted butter

115ml whole milk

2 medium eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling:

2 tablespoons butter

Ground Cinnamon

Ground nutmeg

Caster Sugar

NB: If you've ever made bread before, the process of making the dough is very similar!

- Activate the yeast by emptying the yeast into a little bowl and adding a few tablespoons of warm water (not too hot!). Leave it for a few minutes to activate!
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together 350g of the flour, sugar, yeast and salt. Set aside to chill out for a bit. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl and leave to the side too.
- In a small saucepan, melt the butter and mix it together with the milk. Take it off the heat and add the vanilla. Leave it to cool a little!
- Pour the slightly cooled mixture into the dry ingredients and mix in well. If you have a mixer with dough hooks, use it now, it'll make it a little easier. Add the eggs in one by one, it'll be a little bit soupy, but keep mixing, it'll come together.
- Add the last remaining bit of flour and mix again until it comes together in a sticky dough. If it's still really runny, it doesn't hurt to add a little more flour, just don't go too crazy. It needs to be sticky!
- Grease a separate bowl, scrape all the dough from one bowl to the greased one, cover in cling film and leave it to rise for about an hour somewhere warm. Until it's doubled in size.
- While it's rising prepare the filling, melt the butter in a pan. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C (fan).
- Get the dough out of the greased bowl, knead it a little and deflate the dough. On a lightly floured service, roll out the dough until it's about 1cm thick. Leave it for 5 minutes to rise a little, and then brush on the melted butter. 
- Sprinkle lots of cinnamon, a little nutmeg and lots and lots of sugar! 
- If you want cinnamon buns, roll it up length-ways and cut it about 1" thick, so you get the classic swirl, if you want pull-apart bread, cut it into squares and pile upright into a greased loaf tin (or mini ones if you have them like me).
- Bake for about 20 minutes for a mini loaf  or buns, 30-40 minutes for a full loaf. 

While this bread it lovely and light, it does need to be eaten on the day you make it. It'll still last until the next day really, but it's perfect on the first day. Please, now. Go and gorge yourself on all the bready goodness. I hope you enjoy this summery treat.

Peace
JR

Princess of Battenberg

Today is yet another sweet post to add to my humble collection. "What a change from your usual repertoire  JR" I hear you say? Well I say to you, "Oh stop it, you!" with a bashful blush. I will alleviate the sweet tooth problem I've been having next post but today is about one of my favourite cakes. Battenberg! You have these little lovebirds to thank for this glorious creation:

Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.

        


Well, I question the choice they may, or may not, have had in their matrimonial bliss, but I am grateful all the same. Queen Victoria thought it would be ace to throw them a badass Wedding party and include reams of this incredibly addictive cake. The chefs of the royal household decided to honour Queen Victoria's German heritage with a typically 'German' style of almond sponge, which was popular at the time. They, then, dyed it pink and yellow and sandwiched it together in a checkerboard pattern to represent the equal merging of two households, and wrapped it all securely together in marzipan. I have no idea whether the marzipan is meant to represent the security of the growing English empire, or whether it was just damn tasty, I'm just speculating over here.

The man after which this cake was named actually went on to change his last name to Mountbatten (sound vaguely familiar?), but the cake remained untouched, in all it's glory. The history is really that simple, it's not entirely English, it's not entirely German, but it's a lovely entanglement of the two. I like that, the harmony.

The reason I speak about Battenberg cake is because I found a packet of golden marzipan in my cupboard from Christmas the other day (shameful that I missed it, I know) and felt I had to use it sooner rather then later. In all honesty, unless I get specific requests or have a mega-craving, that's how most of my baking endeavours begin. So, in short, I made a huge Battenberg cake; but me being me, I chose to make at least one tweak.

It was my first time at covering a cake so be kind, I was actually reasonably proud that it went on without too much effort. A small victory for novice bakers everywhere!

I was actually reading a few of my older posts today and I'd realised what a bore I'd been over the past couple of months. I seem to have lost my flourish-ey style of waffling. I'm not if that's entirely a bad thing, I know it can annoy some people, but I felt like I'd lost a little bit of myself by curbing the useless rambling. Oh the irony after that post. I hope I've not put you from returning if it's your first visit to my little emporium.

Bright, light, almond-ey goodness. Use good marzipan and your life will be complete. Also, as a parting note I'd like to introduce my little mini-bakery. I was so proud putting these little bags together today, I even made the stickers myself. So I thought I'd share it with you, my devoted readers:

I think that's a nice point to end on. So I think I'm going to go. Have a nice evening!

Peace

JR

A Sweet History of Nearly Everything

I realised yesterday after checking through my blog for a recipe - yeah, I forget recipes quite easily - that I never ended up writing about confectionery. I wrote this entire post about my love for my new sugar thermometer, which has now been christened, and I made no attempt at a follow up. Not that any of you guys will have remembered, but apologies all the same. I was originally going to write about the wonders of marshmallows, but I decided that I wasn't having a marshmallow week, I was having a honeycomb week. 

Apart from being a really lovely word (is it odd to notice that?), it's a pretty damn tasty thing to eat, and eat it I could, until I was sick. Well, yeah, I found a little while ago it's actually surprisingly easy to make, you just need to work speedily to get it perfect. A little background first, I promise it'll be quick.

The basics of  sugar:
Sugar is created from a plant known as sugar cane, it's big, it's grassy, and it can pass for a mighty fine looking Windows wallpaper.

It's speculated that the grass originated in New Guinea around 2500 years ago, and spread throughout Eastern Asia not long after that. They sort of chilled and enjoyed it's various uses and it spread further and further West through to the Middle East. Fast forward a few decades and Spain was controlling a number of plantations throughout the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where the high rainfall and warm temperatures were perfect for the cane to grow. Then, in short, everybody sort of exploded with a desperate need for sugar and all hell broke loose, the French grew sugar beets to help alleviate their dependence on Spanish and English imports, and it was refined from a greenish sap-like liquid, to a brownish sugar 'loaf' and eventually into the varieties that you can find today in shops. This is, however, all down to those lovely guys over in the Middle East, who helped to build the sugar trade ridiculously in the early times, and gave us the root word for our English word 'sugar' from their shakara. Thanks dudes.

The cinder toffee/honeycomb history is sort of fuzzy, there's not many records on where exactly it began, but there are a number of books noting it's popularity in the early 1900s, especially with children. Other then that there's not much to tell, so I won't bore you.

Short-ish and sweet, there are so many stories, of cruelty, slavery, genocide and everything which should be told as well, it hasn't been all plain sailing for the sugar trade. But, those stories shall not be told today. Today is about peace, and sweets.

So onwards to my recipe for the day. I, in no way, made this recipe, all the kudos has to go to James Martin, his 'Desserts' book is nothing short of genius on a page. You need a sugar thermometer to make this, there's no way around it i'm afraid.

Sweet, Sweet Honeycomb 

James Martin's Cinder Toffee Honeycomb

Makes a good few handfuls of honeycomb - and several missing teeth

400g caster sugar

100ml runny honey (you sort've need good quality honey, it's important!)

2tblsp liquid glucose (SilverSpoon sell a tube of this in Sainsbury's if you can't find it)

Oil for greasing

1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Optional: chocolate of some description.

- Place the honey, sugar and glucose in a heavy pan with 100ml water. Put it on a high heat and bring to 160C/325F (or to light caramel stage).
- Grease a big, I mean BIG baking tray while it's boiling. 
- You need to work very quickly here because you're working with bicarb. Add it to the mixture and whisk  in with super speedy hand. And pour it onto the greased tray.
- Don't freak out, it'll bubble like crazy, but leave it, don't touch! Leave it to cool completely on the tray, break it up and enjoy.
- If you're gonna dip it in chocolate, melt it over a double boiler and dip away. If you're gonna do this, use dark, not  milk, come on, we're not animals here. Milk is sweet sweet overload, dark goes much better. Trust me on this.
- Now you can use it however you want, ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate, by itself, with fruit. It's relatively versatile. So go nuts with your sweety treat.

I hope you enjoy making it, it is actually really fun to make, and really easy once you have the tools. I've honestly never bothered to try another recipe for it because it's already perfect for me! I hope it is for you guys too.

Peace

JR

Popping Visas

My life is actually quite exciting at the moment. I am in the process of acquiring a visa so I can go work and live in Canada for a year. It's been a bit of a long and arduous journey so far, and it's not quite finished yet. I'm still waiting on the vital decision of whether or not they actually want me. I won't go on about it too much because personal stuff isn't why I set up this little blog, but a big move like this is going to change my perspective on food (and life...obviously).

I've never been to North America, I've never been to South America either, but you know what I mean. Having not been I really don't know what to expect, I have only small insights from Canadian/American food blogs and TV really. In simple English, I know very little about American food, and even less about Canadian food.

My mini rant is relevant I promise, it made me think of all the North American imports we have over here in the UK. Some ones I like, cupcakes, maple syrup and barbecued everything, and some I don't like so much, corn dogs, and clam chowder. So for my lunch the other day I decided to wave my own little flag towards the West, in honour of my hopefully imminent departure.

I know the tagging may look a little odd at the moment, but I noticed a few sneaky people stealing some pictures so I felt it necessary to add my little mark.

The reason I chose to use this little picture today? Because it is my own little homage to the US - Ben & Jerry's 'Oh My Apple Pie', with home-made shortbread (the recipe of which is here) and chocolate bark. 

The realisation that i'm leaving most of my possessions behind did sort of dawn on me earlier too. I'm not a hoarder by any means, but I do have a lot of cookbooks, and any free or bored moment I flick through my mini library and i'll always find something interesting to read about. I can't exactly lug this huge s.o.b collection around with me, so I figured out a way that I can keep all of my recipes along with me. Last year, both my sister and my best friend bought me recipe keepers for Christmas - oh, how well they know me. So i've decided, i'm going to take each of my favourite recipes and collate them all into this behemoth of a book. Like a bible, except factual. I'm not going to lie, in an entirely geeky way, i'm quite excited to get it all together.

If you follow 'The Damson Tree' on Facebook, you may have seen I hosted a competition not too long ago. The prize was to win the top 5 flavours of popcorn, submitted and voted by all my lovely readers. To do a little follow-up on it, the winner was Cinnamon-Sugar, and it looks a little something like this:

I'll be honest, most popcorn photographs look very similar to me, unless they have something really distinctive like toffee, chilli or chocolate. I could be masquerading salted popcorn, i'm not, but I could if I was feeling somewhat rebellious. I thought i'd share with you the basics of making popcorn. It's not exactly difficult to do, but you can refine it with a few tips. You can use this for any flavour really, the tips still work. If you're making salted or savoury popcorn you need to switcheroo the order you put the ingredients in a little! If you put the salt in the oil before everything else, it helps to distribute it more evenly, but you have to alter it slightly for sugar, because it burns to the pan quite easily, and nobody likes the smell of burn in their kitchen.

Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn

Feeds two little 'uns, one greedy person or two people capable of sharing.

50g Popcorn kernels (about 2 tablespoons)

2 tablespoons mild tasting oil (either sunflower or vegetable oil works well, but whatever you have in the cupboard will do really)

50g golden caster sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Although the amount of ingredients isn't huge, you need a bit of space, so use a heavy bottomed medium saucepan for this recipe!

- Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a little bowl to start with and keep to hand by your pan.
- Add the oil to the pan and spread around evenly, put the heat on medium-high. Drop two or three kernels into the oil, give it a bit of a swirl around to get it coated and pop the lid on. When all of the kernels pop take the pan off the heat for a moment, take the popcorn out and put aside for a cook's snack.
- Put the rest of the kernels into the bottom of the pan and coat evenly in oil, making sure they're all in a level layer at the bottom. Put the lid on and pop it back on the heat.

- The kernels will pop quite quickly so don't run off to make a brew or anything. 

- After about a quarter of the kernels have popped, chuck a teaspoon of the mixed sugar into the pan and shake (holding the lid down still!). Because you can't open the lid to look, just count to ten after the first kernels have started to pop and it should be enough, but use your common sense, if you've only heard one or two kernels pop, wait a little bit longer.
- Turn the heat down to low-medium heat and after another quarter of the kernels have popped, chuck another teaspoon in, and shake shake shake.
- After the third quarter, add one more teaspoon and shake well again. Turn the heat down to just above low heat, it helps to reduce the risk of the sugar sticking. 

- It's difficult to judge sometimes when your kernels have all popped, the best advice I can give is to wait until the time between each pop is longer than three seconds, and it should be done. Add whatever is left of your sugar and shake well to coat.

Well there you go my dears. Serve in a stylish bowl and watch some del Toro and have yourself a wild evening. Hooray.

Peace

JR