And just since Saturday I've been asked to do 2 more cakes for people! Could this be the start of something new and exciting? Time will tell...
Sunday, 29 January 2012
A new business?
I've just completed my latest commission and I was really pleased with how it turned out. Delivering cakes always seems trickier than the actual baking and making of them as you have to contend with speed bumps, corners, roundabouts and crazy drivers! Thankfully, with G driving, I could nurse the cakes all the way to their destination. Much to my relief they arrived in one piece and I set them up on the stand ready for the party. My colleague and his wife were very pleased with them. I hope their daughter liked it too!
Birthday treats
January is quite often a bit of a dull month. Christmas has been and gone, it's still cold and dark, and it seems a long time until payday! However, it's also a month where a lot of my friends, and my brother, celebrate their birthdays so it can't all be bad.
Two of my friends whose birthdays fall in January are also work colleagues. As is customary within our section at work, birthdays require cake. Now the team leader tends to buy most people a birthday cake from one supermarket or another but, not wanting to sound ungrateful, they're not the tastiest of cakes. They're often a bit dry, or taste a artificially sweet. Not my cup of tea really. And so, for my buddies at work (and the rest of my little team) I offer my services to bake a cake of their choice to bring in to work for their birthdays.
Request number one this month was for a carrot cake. And so on the 13th January I arrived at work with my special delivery of one delicious carrot cake with a cream cheese and orange frosting. Very scrummy indeed, even if I do say so myself, and it got lots of compliments. (Sorry, no photos of it this time as my camera was playing up, but I'll try to remember next time I make it...which shouldn't be too far away.)
Request number two was going to be cupcakes but then I was asked, if it wasn't too much trouble, if it could be macarons. Of course, said I, as I love making macarons! It took me a few attempts last year to master the art, but I finally cracked it and am now able to turn out rows of almost identical almond meringues, and have a number of very tasty fillings in my repertoire.
Now for those of you that don't know, the French macaron is a delicate almond meringue sandwiched together with a delicious filling, usually jam or chocolate based (although I have come across many strange and often wonderful filling combinations). It is not to be confused with the English macaroon (notice the subtle spelling difference), which is a coconut cakey-biscuit. Another thing to note about the French macaron is that they can be tricky little blighters to master, and can be very fiddly and temperamental! But I do love them so!
And so, last weekend, I set too, with Kipling by my side, to make 2 different flavours of macarons. I chose to do tiramisu flavoured ones (as I know these happen to a favourite of the birthday girl) and chocolate orange (always a winner).
So we got started, whisking egg whites, sugar and ground almonds and a touch of colouring to make them the right colours.
Then came the tricky part of piping the meringue mixture into (near) identical rounds.
And then they need stand for 30 minutes - 1 hour to set a little before going in the oven.
Once they are cooked and cooled you can fill then with the yummy fillings.
Unfortunately though, they are still in the fridge waiting to be eaten as the birthday girl was off poorly last week with evil germs. Booooooooo!!!!!
Fingers crossed she will make a return to work tomorrow so we can all enjoy these yummy birthday treats!
The diet starts on Tuesday...
Two of my friends whose birthdays fall in January are also work colleagues. As is customary within our section at work, birthdays require cake. Now the team leader tends to buy most people a birthday cake from one supermarket or another but, not wanting to sound ungrateful, they're not the tastiest of cakes. They're often a bit dry, or taste a artificially sweet. Not my cup of tea really. And so, for my buddies at work (and the rest of my little team) I offer my services to bake a cake of their choice to bring in to work for their birthdays.
Request number one this month was for a carrot cake. And so on the 13th January I arrived at work with my special delivery of one delicious carrot cake with a cream cheese and orange frosting. Very scrummy indeed, even if I do say so myself, and it got lots of compliments. (Sorry, no photos of it this time as my camera was playing up, but I'll try to remember next time I make it...which shouldn't be too far away.)
Request number two was going to be cupcakes but then I was asked, if it wasn't too much trouble, if it could be macarons. Of course, said I, as I love making macarons! It took me a few attempts last year to master the art, but I finally cracked it and am now able to turn out rows of almost identical almond meringues, and have a number of very tasty fillings in my repertoire.
Now for those of you that don't know, the French macaron is a delicate almond meringue sandwiched together with a delicious filling, usually jam or chocolate based (although I have come across many strange and often wonderful filling combinations). It is not to be confused with the English macaroon (notice the subtle spelling difference), which is a coconut cakey-biscuit. Another thing to note about the French macaron is that they can be tricky little blighters to master, and can be very fiddly and temperamental! But I do love them so!
And so, last weekend, I set too, with Kipling by my side, to make 2 different flavours of macarons. I chose to do tiramisu flavoured ones (as I know these happen to a favourite of the birthday girl) and chocolate orange (always a winner).
 |
| Kipling busy at work |
So we got started, whisking egg whites, sugar and ground almonds and a touch of colouring to make them the right colours.
 |
| Meringues for tiramisu macarons |
Then came the tricky part of piping the meringue mixture into (near) identical rounds.
 |
| Meringues for chocolate orange macarons |
And then they need stand for 30 minutes - 1 hour to set a little before going in the oven.
Once they are cooked and cooled you can fill then with the yummy fillings.
And then hopefully, when they're all assembled and decorated (if you so wish), they should look something like this!
 |
| Chocolate orange macaron |
 |
| Tiramisu macaron |
Unfortunately though, they are still in the fridge waiting to be eaten as the birthday girl was off poorly last week with evil germs. Booooooooo!!!!!
Fingers crossed she will make a return to work tomorrow so we can all enjoy these yummy birthday treats!
The diet starts on Tuesday...
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Bake Off
The Great Sport Relief Bake Off has begun! I know what I'll be watching on Tuesday nights for the foreseeable future. It's a good job G goes climbing on Tuesday nights so I can enjoy my programme in peace and quiet with a lovely cup of tea. Tonight's episode is traybakes, cheese scones and meringues.
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Love food, hate waste
Weekends are great, especially lazy ones.Weekends are for lie-ins, breakfast in bed, trips to the cinema (we went to see Sherlock Holmes...ace) and afternoons in the pub. But the one thing I don't like about weekends is housework. Like a lot of people I work Monday to Friday, 8am (or 9am) - 5pm (or 4pm). I train at Kung Fu Monday nights 7-9pm, and I try and go to the gym, for a swim or to a Pilates class on 3 other evenings during the week . I'm lucky if I'm home before 7.30pm most days. So after dinner has been cooked and eaten there's not much of the evenings left to do anything productive, even if I had the energy to do something, which I usually don't. Therefore housework tends to be a weekend job.
As I was cleaning and tidying the kitchen I noticed there were a few wrinkly and squashed apples in the bottom of the fruit bowl, forgotten about over Christmas when cake, chocolate and mince pies were more appealing. They were too wrinkly and soft to eat, but as I don't like wasting food I didn't want to just throw them out. so the only logical thing to do was to cook with them.
There weren't enough apples for a cake or a pie so I decided to make some cookies. I perused my vast collection of cookbooks but couldn't find a recipe for apple cookies. Cakes, scones, pies, crumbles and tarts...yes. Cookies...no. I did, however, come across a recipe for raisin, oat and cinnamon cookies. Aha, thought I. I'll just substitute the raisins for apples and all will be fine...but no, I didn't have enough butter for said recipe and halving it would have still left me with a wrinkly apple or two. So I decided to experiment a little. With a mixture of bits from this recipe and bits from an 'old faithful' cookie recipe I cooked up my own oaty, apple and cinnamon cookies. Which, I have to say, have turned out very nice indeed. Maybe a little soft in the middle, I put that down to the moisture in the apples, but they taste great. And they'll definitely be eaten long before they're past their best, so no waste here!
Oaty Apple and Cinnamon Cookies
Ingredients (makes approx. 16 cookies)
150g/6oz butter, softened
100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g/6oz self raising flour
150g/6oz porridge oats
1 tsp ground cinnamon
150g/6oz - 200g/8oz apple, peeled, cored and diced (not too small, not too big)
Method
1.Preheat oven to 160C. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment/greaseproof paper.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Then beat in the syrup. (I find my stand mixer or an electric hand held mixer best for this job.)
3. Mix in the flour and half of the oats, adding it in a few stages, until combined. Then mix in the chopped apple and the last of the oats. At this stage you may need to get your hands in to bring it all together.
4. Divide the mixture into 16 balls. Place them on the baking sheets, not too close together as they will spread when cooking, and press down lightly on each to flatten a little.
5. Bake for 15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes or so before transferring to a wire rack to finish off.
Whilst they are cooling, stick the kettle on and make yourself a cuppa. And enjoy with a freshly baked cookie.
The rest of the housework can wait :-)
As I was cleaning and tidying the kitchen I noticed there were a few wrinkly and squashed apples in the bottom of the fruit bowl, forgotten about over Christmas when cake, chocolate and mince pies were more appealing. They were too wrinkly and soft to eat, but as I don't like wasting food I didn't want to just throw them out. so the only logical thing to do was to cook with them.
There weren't enough apples for a cake or a pie so I decided to make some cookies. I perused my vast collection of cookbooks but couldn't find a recipe for apple cookies. Cakes, scones, pies, crumbles and tarts...yes. Cookies...no. I did, however, come across a recipe for raisin, oat and cinnamon cookies. Aha, thought I. I'll just substitute the raisins for apples and all will be fine...but no, I didn't have enough butter for said recipe and halving it would have still left me with a wrinkly apple or two. So I decided to experiment a little. With a mixture of bits from this recipe and bits from an 'old faithful' cookie recipe I cooked up my own oaty, apple and cinnamon cookies. Which, I have to say, have turned out very nice indeed. Maybe a little soft in the middle, I put that down to the moisture in the apples, but they taste great. And they'll definitely be eaten long before they're past their best, so no waste here!
Oaty Apple and Cinnamon Cookies
Ingredients (makes approx. 16 cookies)
150g/6oz butter, softened
100g/4oz light muscovado sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
150g/6oz self raising flour
150g/6oz porridge oats
1 tsp ground cinnamon
150g/6oz - 200g/8oz apple, peeled, cored and diced (not too small, not too big)
Method
1.Preheat oven to 160C. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment/greaseproof paper.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Then beat in the syrup. (I find my stand mixer or an electric hand held mixer best for this job.)
3. Mix in the flour and half of the oats, adding it in a few stages, until combined. Then mix in the chopped apple and the last of the oats. At this stage you may need to get your hands in to bring it all together.
4. Divide the mixture into 16 balls. Place them on the baking sheets, not too close together as they will spread when cooking, and press down lightly on each to flatten a little.
5. Bake for 15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes or so before transferring to a wire rack to finish off.
Whilst they are cooling, stick the kettle on and make yourself a cuppa. And enjoy with a freshly baked cookie.
The rest of the housework can wait :-)
Friday, 6 January 2012
Happy New Year!
Welcome and a Happy New Year to you all.
In the past I have not been so successful on the blog front. I've started them with good intentions but after a few weeks I tend to forget about them. This one, I promise you, will be different.
With Kipling my trusty mixer by my side, and G and friends as my faithful tasters I will be baking to my hearts content. And I will be telling you all about it. Projects big and small will be recorded here.
I already have 2 big projects lined up...which isn't bad considering it's only January! I've been asked to do an 18th birthday cake for a colleague's daughter at the end of the month, and a friend's wedding cake in August. Both of which I'm very excited about!
So what am I waiting for...let's bake and eat cake!
In the past I have not been so successful on the blog front. I've started them with good intentions but after a few weeks I tend to forget about them. This one, I promise you, will be different.
With Kipling my trusty mixer by my side, and G and friends as my faithful tasters I will be baking to my hearts content. And I will be telling you all about it. Projects big and small will be recorded here.
I already have 2 big projects lined up...which isn't bad considering it's only January! I've been asked to do an 18th birthday cake for a colleague's daughter at the end of the month, and a friend's wedding cake in August. Both of which I'm very excited about!
So what am I waiting for...let's bake and eat cake!
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