Obsession

'Ello all. One assumes that we are all fed and... fed. Quite possibly you are hitting the mad Christmas sales like the rest of the world. I was quite petrified on entry to M&S in Marble Arch that we pretty much left as soon as we got there. Scary. Anyway, here's my baking run down - there's not much in fairness since we were mainstreaming on the savoury stuff. A chicken, some pork, a forerib of beef for boxing day. I did however make some truffles which though very yummy, pretty basic - chocolate, hot double cream and a drop of peppermint essence if you fancied it. I also made mincepies with some cranberry mincemeat from Waitrose. The recipe was from Nigella's Christmas. Since SOMEONE complained that we never get to see the failures, I want to post this. Personally I don't think of it as a failure - I KNEW it was going to bubble over, but then I wanted the volume of mincemeat that we had. If you don't want it to do this, one option is to put a lid on it (lit...

Afternoon tea on short notice. One of my new favourite websites http://www.afternoontea.co.uk/ featured this one, and we went as it was convenient. First off, it's a Hilton. Therefore do not expect much. We were one of two tables that afternoon, and it took 45 minutes to serve us. The tea comes from Twinings in bags, the sugar is granulated without their own serving spoons (I hate using wet spoons). But to the review: It was £14. What do you expect? You are served one of these little stacks each. The scones are warm and plain (joy for my sister, the non-raisin eater). However - you get ONE pot of jam each. Strawberry. I'm a purist. I expect a selection somewhere. There's clotted cream in the little black scoop, which did not match the tea set at all. Those little brown cones were either frozen mousse or very stable chocolate ice cream - nice, but when there is only one choice of cake on the stack - apple and walnut, you feel a little robbed of afternoon tea joy. The sandwi...

It's raining, it's pouring, we had to do SOMETHING!! Adapted from Marcus Wareing's Nutmeg and Custard, I made these little babies. I don't think the honey flavour is to my taste, but they are a brilliant texture and look like the picture :D My adaptation stems from, you guessed it, a lack of almonds. I probably won't make these again as is, but it's worth having listed so I can adapt later. Dessicated coconut (100g?) 12 leaves of gelatine (yep seriously - 12!) 150g sugar 7 tbsp clear honey 100ml water 2 egg whites 1. Line a wet dish with clingfilm. I used a circular dish around 3o cm in diameter, however the book recommends 15cm square. A nice brownie pan would do nicely (which I need to add to my christmas list). The wetness lets the cling stick to the pan. If you have OCD like me you will try and get the wrinkles out of the cling, but it doesn't matter because you won't see anything. 2. Toast coconut. I put mine on a metal dish and placed under a grill...

Every now and again, someone asks, "What is your signature dish?" I never really know how to answer but I think, after a few years of proper hobby baking, my top contenders are as follows: - Lemon cheesecake - Chilli Brownies - Cheesecake cupcakes - Vanilla Bundt Cake I'll add to these at some point (I hope!) but these are the ones which get eaten first time round with limited comments from the parentals. A lot of these, I admit, are very recent additions to the fold. But hunt on the site and the recipes should be up. x

There's something called the Iron Cupcake competition which has been around for around six months. I've followed it from the beginning on the Caped Crusader's site (see right) but I've never been because I was always out of town with work. This was the first time I made an entry and it was lemon and ginger. First off, I'd like to say it is not a good idea to bake something first time for a "competition" but since it's free entry for bakers I thought I may as well. The lemon and ginger recipe came from the book Decadence, with some adjustments because I didn't have any stem ginger, and so instead I did a coning job and filled it with a little bit of lemon curd mixed with a ginger syrup I made. The gingerbread cookies however was a pretty wonderful recipe, also from Decadence.

I'm not a major fan of brownies, when you get them from the shops or even Borough Market they tend to be a touch dry, or they fall apart. So with the exception of Nigella Lawson's philadelphia cheese brownies, I rarely make them. Today I made chilli brownies. The reason being is that there is a spice cupcake competition in town and I was wondering if chocolate chilli cupcakes would work. They probably would but whether that would be against the rules almost. Anyway, I'd already made cupcakes this morning - apple and spice cupcakes which on tasting, were definitely more muffin than cupcake. My fault. Any recipe using oil instead of butter comes out like that. I'll post an apple muffin pic up here, but not the recipe because it wasn't fabulous. You can find others just like it, but whereas I want the spice to meld into the cupcake, it was more like cake, with spice stuff. So back to the drawing board if I'm going to be entering that one (it's a fun competition...

Third time's the charm. I gave in and bought cake-release from the dreaded Lakeland. I love it. But I hate it as well. Love hate Lakeland. So commercial. But so necessary. It never has quite as specialist a gear that I need, but it still has more than the regular high street and more over, I have to go to odd places to get it!! Still, this concoction of hydrogenated fat allowed me to turn out a perfect bundt cake without any digging at all! *pop* cake. The recipe itself also was a winner. Dorie Greenspan's recipe, I do not believe I've made her before but boy does it rock. The recipe repeated here so I don't lose the yummy recipe which I did not change for once (although using my usual subs for sugar when I ran out) is as follows: 2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 2 sticks (220g ish) unsalted butter, softened 1 3/4 cups sugar (used 1 golden caster, 3/4 granulated white) 2 large eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract (used one) 1 cup sour cream 3 Tbsp jam, optional 1. P...