Obsession

Two sets of cookies I made today. Two somewhat different results. The first I made were the Pineapple and Macadamia nut thins from The Ultimate Cookie book. Except I have no pineapple, I used chopped nuts and er... I think there was something missing from their recipe. It was very much cream sugar and butter together, add flour... and then guess what? There was no binder. No egg, no water. Nothing. So I added an egg and made dough rather than crumble. It wasn't a bad cookie but not worth putting the recipe down. I used chopped crystallised ginger if you are interested, it tastes nice, but it still hasn't reached the pinnacle of cookie thinness and lusciousness. The dove cut outs you can see above are from Amazon marketplace. I put them on my shopping list awhile ago, forgetting to read how tiny they are. I think they are definitely better for fondant, although come winter I'm making the partridge in a pear tree linzer cookie I see so much of. Meanwhile, I also realised I de...

I made a lot of damp food last week. Above is the lemon curd, which I am very proud of because a) it used up the lemons b) it came out well (and like the shop bought stuff) c) it was ridiculously easy Lemon Curd: 3 eggs 1/3 cup of lemon juice (2-3 lemons) 3/4 cup sugar 50 g unsalted butter 1. Stir lemon juice, eggs and sugar over a bain marie. 2. After around ten minutes it gets thick. 3. Pour through a sieve and then whisk in butter. 4. Cover and cool. The cake, the cake... I made a cake because I felt like it (mother's day at the time). The recipe for the cake was from Good Food and it was really tough! Looking at the photo they have, I think it's supposed to be. Don't know why they've rated it so highly. I stuffed it with pear and whipped cream. I covered it in a mixture of whipped cream and ready made custard just for a bit of a change. Yes I know it's sloppy, but since I realised the cake itself wasn't going to amaze me, I got lazy with the decoration.

Second baking session of the day - using up the cranberries. As a result, I have an entire tray of brownies to eat on my own because no one eats cranberries! Ai. First of all, the recipe calls for dried cranberries. Let me make that clear. I knew therefore at the outset there was a bat's chance in hell that the brownies I made would actually set, being that I used frozen berries defrosted. Other than that, recipe wise it was pretty decent. Used cocoa rather than dark chocolate which made it a darn sight cheaper than usual. Definitely fudgy since it won't set. I would like to try it with dried berries one day, to see if it will set, but since I whacked it in for another half an hour with the frozen berries, I have my doubts. Otherwise, it's a nice, moist, tangy chocolate pudding. Served warm with vanilla I think it'd go down a treat. Cranberry Brownies 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup oil 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup flour (probably add some more if you wanted it to set) 1/2 cup coco...

It's time. To use up that half a pack of coconut I have left over. Not feeling able to commit myself to the full coconut cake as I have no one to offload it onto. Check this out, previous cake I have just demolished. 90% on own. Thankfully it's borderline healthy (I keep telling myself). This is because, yes, thy family does not do fruit in baking. And I still have a pile of cranberries to eat. *sigh* I'd make the coconut cranberry chews because the reviews are raving about them online, however, I can also read. And when it says 6 DOZEN, one should worry. 6 x 12 = 72. 72 cookies! That my family won't eat! Screw that. Save that one to try at Christmas when the offload potential is greater. Curiously the Metric recipe they offered uses 10 g more brown than white, but cup wise it's the same. Either way, will cheat and use margerine, even though I should really use butter in such a simple recipe because the ingredients really pop when you have less of them. Post making ...

After a bit of a horrible day off - me with the grumps, an aunt downstairs with a very loud voice, I finally got round to baking. Bring it on! I used up the apples, overdosing the cake with them since I'm sure four granny smiths does not equal 2 cups (see the massive chunks in the picture). But it all turned out well. I had the apple corer/slicer thing which I bought for a quid, and aside from drenching my top in apple juice, it did the job fine. I also managed to use a cup of cranberries, leaving another cup to use up tomorrow I guess, but since it's been sitting in my freezer since Christmas it's time. My verdict on this cake? I love it. The apples are slightly too bland, probably because they've sat around for awhile and because the chunks are so big, but the cranberries work a treat alongside. Plus it would seem this cake is ridiculously healthy. No butter, just 2 tbsp of oil and one egg. It lacks some punch though, so I think next time I'll add some more spi...

Random note to myself. Things to use up: Ground almonds Gelatine Chocolate cake covering Plain chocolate Poppyseeds Green tea Green food colouring Yellow food colouring Rose water Orange essence Apples Icing sugar Fondant

Remember the Gap advert?? Well it's better than the other things mellow yellow remind me of. I'd like to say, I LiKE myself. Now I don't want this to turn into some gratuitous blog of my life's comings and goings, which, I must say, I've indulged in before in my life. What happened to the days of writing in secret diaries? Being affronted by invasion of privacy, whereas, these days we just post it all out there... Now, back to why I like myself. I could be a little slimmer, a little smarter, a little nicer... but sitting here on my day off, looking at blue sky, getting a bit narked off by my auntie who is ridiculously loud downstairs and disturbing my baking schedule, I like myself. Why? I think I've lost track a little. Well. I like baking. I like taking pictures of them and saying "Look at me, look at me" (10 things I hate about you). I am, even looking to spend some money on a camera, just so I can do that, that bit better. (Blame the food blogs, al...

It's that time... yes I need to use the slightly out of date leftover stuff from the weekend. The glup of buttermilk and the sour cream. Unfortunately there is still a half cup of sour cream I have to find a use for, but! To the Banana Cake Batman! The recipe is from Betty Crocker, free application on the ipod touch. It's one of those pigging annoying recipe books where 99% of the recipes use a mix created by... Betty Crocker!! However, it has a recipe search where I looked up buttermilk and so, made banana cake. If you are doing this, one assumes you'd actually have buttermilk. I used my glup and made the difference up with sour cream. Please note that Frau Crocker also grossly underestimates the baking time. Mine took an hour or more using a 9 inch pan? Don't let it put you off though (apart from the gas bill I guess) because putting the cake itself together took less than ten minutes. I admit though, I had my brother mash the bananas for me, and being my brother he c...

Buttermilk cupcakes. It's my fault. Trains were awful this morning so I turned myself round at the station and asked for the day off as holiday. In my quest to bake I bought buttermilk and sour cream because all my recipes call for that? Right? Wrong. Why is it that all those recipes suddenly disappear? So I looked online and found a recipe for buttermilk cake. Which I made into little cupcakes because I cba to grease a pan and because my cousin said to . Buttermilk cupcake 100 g margerine 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 2 cups self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) pinch salt 1 cup buttermilk 1. Cream marge and sugar, add eggs and vanilla. 2. Alternate buttermilk and dried goods. 3. Gas Mark 4 for 30 minutes. They came out very flat - expected really since the recipe has an insane demand for self-raising AND added raising agents, must have been compensating for something. But they were delightfully ...