The butch can't bake... (and other wittering)

Yeah, I'm calling a two week (from right now, this minute, 23:39 UK time) baking strike.  I have to, I'm on lighter life and the baking makes it very, very hard to stick it out.  Seriously, can you make cookie dough and not try some raw? can you smell fresh bread without wanting to chow down right there and then (and for the love of monkeys pass me the butter!) on its warm, yeasty loveliness?

 Thought not.  Me neither.

 My strike rules (aliens are all about rules)

1. no cookies, no cookie dough, no damn cookies.
2. no cake, no cake batter.
3. no steamed puddings.
4. no flaming brownies, blondies or bars!
5. no crumbles, crisps, slumps or cobblers, not even in the case of a family crisis.
6. no sweet breads, babkas, croissants, scones or coffee cakes.
7. no pancakes, griddle cakes, johnny cakes or welsh cakes.
8. no fun (kidding, kidding, I can still have fun)
9. no pies, no tarts, no crust.
10. nice, normal bread is permitted, but only for other peoples consumption.  I shall be at the other end of the house till the nice smell vamooses.

 This should help me focus a little in any case... and looking on the bright side if I don't lose weight I'll at least save money on unsalted butter and eggs.  Apart from the weight thing the moratorium on baking sweet stuff should allow me to check back in with the bready part of my list which is languishing under a pile of cookie/cake/brownie recipes almost as heavy as me.  Today I made a very lovely bread with red wine and walnuts, but, alas, it doesn't count towards the B2/M2 project as it's from a library book.  I have no pictures either, for shame.

 For entertainments sake lets have a ticker... yes, a nice, ticky, ticker (yep, ocd still here) which represents my goal using pie and cookies.  I also have a wicked sense of irony.

So dear reader (or voice in my head, whatever) there you go, no cake, just bread. But bread is good, bread is better than good, it's bloody great stuff.  I meant to post pics of the challah I made but it was devoured before I got the camera out, see, everyone loves bread (apart from those Atkins folks, but we don't care about them).



Challah back girl

Yeah, I know, just couldn't resist.  I loved making challah, I started out with it (from a totally generic, non artisan inspired, not real sourdough, stoneground  bread making book I bought in a pound shop) as one of the first breads I really made a lot.  Worked every time, looked pretty, tasted great.

 Then I lost my challah mojo, who knows why? maybe it's like the Kirkcubright centipede Check the video out! I over thought the braiding? made the dough too wet, dunno.  Maybe a combination of these factors.  Anyway, does it matter? no! I've joyfully embraced many other breads and techniques, but in my heart I've missed my challah.  Chocolate chip challah, raisin challah, pumpkin challah... *sigh*

 Last night, whilst watching Shrek 2 with one eye and reading The Complete International Jewish Cook Book (1980 edition) by Evelyn Rose I decided to try again, I mean if she cant help me who can?  Her dough was simple and quick to prepare, then required a long, cold rise.  Perfect, I'd been up since four so a bread that didn't mind me going back to bed was ideal.

 I braided the dough using the fabulous video on you tube, see it here.  Absolutely the easiest and clearest instructions to follow.

 The recipe, pictures will be along tomorrow, I mean, it's dark here! really dark.  I love November.

Fresh Yeast Challah

15g fresh yeast (Asda/Sainsburys/Tesco give it away for nearly free, Sainsburys, or free, Tesco, Asda.  Just ask someone on the bakery counter)

200g warm water

2 tsp salt

3 tsp caster sugar  (I used honey)

2 tbsp oil

480g bread flour

1 large egg (plus 1 to glaze)

 poppy seeds or whatever you like to sprinkle on top

Mix the water, yeast, sugar and a third of the flour together on a bowl.  Stir till a smooth, pastey batter forms, then leave it covered for 20 minutes.  It should have frothed up and be bubbly.

 Now add the egg, oil, salt and the rest of the flour.  Knead together until a smooth, springy dough comes together, it should be slightly sticky but not excessively wet.

 Oil a bowl lightly and refrigerate the dough for 12 to 24 hours.

 Remove the dough from the fridge and leave at room temperature for a while, to take off the chill.  Divide the dough into evenly sized pieces and shape as you desire, I did a six strand braid, but you could equally well do two smaller loaves or rolls, whatever!

 Allow to prove for half an hour in the warm kitchen.  Glaze with the beaten egg and top with seeds if you like, then bake at 220 for 15 minutes then reduce the heat to 180 and continue to bake for 35-45 minutes depending on size.

 The book gives many variations on shape and flavour, all using the same basic dough.  Pletzels, bialys, even bagels.

Halloween battenburg take #2

'Cause once just wasn't enough! lol.  Same cake, but better I think, just things I learned from the first time.  Fridge the cake between sticking it together (tightly wrapped in cling film) and applying the marzipan.  Work very clean, use lots and lots of cling film, lol.

 Instead of pumpkins we have poisonous (obviously, they are after all red with white dots, it screams poison dont you know?) toadstools and foil wrapped pumpkin sweets.  Yum, unfortunately.

 

Happy Halloween!

Yay! my favourite holiday.  I was actually invited to (rather than hosting, lol) a Halloween party last night.  Any excuse being a good excuse in my eyes I decided to push the boat out and make Martha Stewarts candy corn sugar cookies.  Push the boat out? yeah, living in the UK and all I usually flip right past recipes involving candy corn (which costs around a whacking $4.50 here)  or a half pound of butterscotch/cinnamon/peanut butter chips/Hershey kisses... all far too pricey for a midweek cookie session. 

Anyhow, these are the cutest damn cookies ever! quite tiny, just a little larger than the candy corn itself, but cute and delicious.  I weighed both the chocolate and vanilla doughs and the (raw) cookies were 7g each.  I was really worried, but they baked up just fine, though I thought I let the vanilla ones go a minute or two too long, next time I'll get them out faster.

 Recipes goes like this...

Makes about 36.


4 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
About 36 candy corns

Preheat oven to 350/180 degrees. Place butter and sugar in a medium bowl; beat with a wooden spoon until combined. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Add flour, and mix until a dough forms.


Scoop out level teaspoons of dough (or weigh each ball then roll), and roll into balls (chill dough briefly if it becomes too soft to handle). Place balls on baking sheets, 2 inches apart.

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are firm and cookies are dry to the touch (do not let cookies color), 10 to 12 minutes.

Remove from oven; gently press a candy corn into center of each cookie (surface of cookies may crack slightly). Cool on sheets 1 minute; transfer to a rack to cool completely.
 
For the chocolate cookies use half a cup of flour and add a quarter cup of cocoa powder.
 

Cowboy Cookies, from Baked Explorations

Wahoo! a properly butch cookie, get the name, the size, the salty pretzel addition.  Yep, it gets 9/10 on the butch scale (and 10/10 on the yum scale).  Of course my saying wahoo and giving marks out of ten probably gets me 20/10 on the geek scale.  Well, it's too late to try to be cool now.

I bought Baked Explorations on the strength of the first book, Baked, the recipes I tried from Baked were totally delicious and just worked, which is what I like in a cookbook! lol.  I've now made two recipes from Baked explorations and although I didnt get a picture for #1 (the carrot and coconut scones, delicious, I added a little less sugar than suggested and served them with a curried lentil soup) I'm counting this book in! I have b2/m2'ed it and it stays.

October birthday #3 (take two, the cake)

Happy Second Birthday Dearest Squid!



I love birthdays, presents, hugs, golden excuse to bake things otherwise shelved indefinitely... Like this! I've been absolutely dying to make this cake since I  first saw it, but when, why? I really needed a good excuse for such a huge and colourful beast of a cake.

I admit it, I used mix, I trolleyed into town and bought ye olde Duncan Hines white cake mixes, just because I wanted really bright colours and doubted my own white cake would be quite so bleached.  Another trip to the purveyors of all things bright and glittery (hobbycraft!) and I was six tubs of lurid food colouring gel better off.

 The cake was easy enough to make... mix the mix, weigh and divide by three, add the food colouring and bake in 20cm tins.  Each mix made three thin 20cm cakes, perfect! a normal thickness cake would have needed planning permission before frosting and stacking.  As it was I stuck it with many wooden skewers to keep it together, just in case.

The cream cheese frosting (yes, again) is from Nigella this time and I will never stray again.  It went on, stayed on and tasted good.  I layered it with apricot cake glaze which gave it a nice sweet/tart flavour.

 The cake tasted pretty good, much better than the amount of colouring would have you believe it could, it also kept well, after a few days in the fridge it still tasted really nice (that'll be the huge amount of e numbers I guess *sigh*) and wasnt stale.  Every last bit was eaten and I'd definately do it again, lol, just not for a while.

October birthday #3 (take one, the cookies)

Yep, somesquiddy was two! you can tell, right?

 In my perpetual quest to be the ideal mommy (it is mommy, just is, I don't know why, something to do with the cherry pie/milk and cookies image of the good old all American mom, clean living and so on) I did number cookies for her birthday.  Recipe from how to be a domestic goddess (a book which gets a free pass owing to heavy use over the years) was as good as ever, it stays in shape while baking and tastes good.

 They were decorated with royal icing and a whole lot of little choking hazards sweeties.  The decorating was a lot of fun, I was ably assisted by my glamorous assistants with the piping and splodging.  The results looked not too bad really, it's a massed effect thing I guess! 

And Cake Win!

Or, how my mojo returned!

 Today is October birthday #2 and in the interests of getting right back on my horse I decided to gamble it all on a new recipe.  Killing off a birthday cake and an item from the b2/m2 list.  I bought the Greyston Bakery book a while ago from tk maxx (home of an ungodly amount of cookbooks) but had yet to bake from it.

 The carrot cake baked beautifully, even and flat on top and perfect for a birthday cake!  This carrot cake uses melted butter instead of corn oil, and I like that! butter is good.  I hate cream cheese frosting, for frosting, to eat from a bucket it's just fine.  I knew as soon as I smeared some onto the cake that the consistency was off.  But it looks ok... the carrot decorations are just a follow on from my pumpkins, in our house any excuse for marzipan is a good excuse.

The cookies, well, the cookies were totally unnecessary.  But who doesn't love a cookie? these were a lovely confidence booster! I like a nice, wholesome looking hessian kind of cookie.  These fit the bill. 

Greyston Bakery Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1.5 cups plain, unbleached flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature

1.5 cups packed soft (dark, I used) brown sugar

1.5tsp vanilla extract

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats (I used a local mix of spelt, rye, barley and oat flakes)

3/4 cup shredded coconut

7oz dark chocolate chips

 if you're playing along use the waitrose conversions, they worked just fine.

Preheat the oven to 180, get two baking sheets and line with parchment paper (the non stick one, I was taking no risks here).

Whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda.

In a mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg and vanilla, keep beating till it becomes a light, creamy mix.  Scrape down the sides and beat briefly.

On low speed mix in the flour until just barely combined.  Mix in the oats, coconut and chocolate using a spatula.

 Either drop the dough by the spoonfull and hope for the best or weigh the dough, divide by 24 and make perfectly round cookies (you just know what I did, right?) that bake evenly.  With this dough each (unbaked) cookies weighs nearly 50g! big cookies.

 Space them evenly on the sheets and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, till golden brown.  Cool on the sheets briefly then move to wire racks to finish.

 Enjoy, with a big glass of milk.

Cake Fail!

It happens to all of us, right? right!

 The other day was October birthday #1... birthday tea was planned, with fondant fancies, cake pops, cute iced cookies etc.  All bloody night the day before and most of the actual birthday was spent baking, however I was missing one crucial ingredient, my baking mojo.  It upped and left.

 Result? uh, three usable fancies, and they only came into grudging existence because my sister (perhaps more genetically gifted and naturally suited to pretty and cute cakes) is no quitter! I was all for chucking the bastard things out.  There were six good fancies, but the dog ate the other three, that was just the sort of day it was.

My cherry bakewell whoopie pies were very cute and (dare I say?) pretty tasty, they were also more at my level decoration wise, I mean, splodge on the icing and press half a (E number loaded, no natural image to protect here) glace cherry on top.  The recipe came from The English kitchen, a lovely blog with lots of nice recipes. 



The cake pops were sweet, in every sense, I might try them again but with home made cake and frosting.  They were quite cute though, even my very non professional looking efforts.  My iced cookies ran, dripped and failed to set properly... *sigh* the jam tarts, delicious, almondy short pastry, sad they all collapsed then! my dear family scraped them off the cooling rack and made very appreciative noises.  Good pastry, bad mojo.



Cute little cookies

Please, be gentle.  Cookies, iced cookies, not one of my strong points.  I prefer the roll into a ball, dunk in sugar and bake variety, or maybe the cut out with a cutter and pretend it's a plain/folksy/Steiner thing.  However, perhaps all this will change? I borrowed the totally gorgeous Biscuiteers book from the library (and would like to have my own copy eventually! ) the other night and have since been itching to make something, well, cutesy.

The recipe (adhered to strictly, I love this level of do as we say in a book) produced a lovely lemony cookie, despite the fact I rolled them a little to thick I think.  Applying the icing, it wasn't exactly a breeze, but for a first attempt I'm pretty pleased with them.

 Obviously the first ones I tried were Halloweeny, I love Halloween! seriously, a lot, I'm like a crazy dyke version of Martha Stewart (only without her gazillions of dollars, hordes of minions and snappy dress sense, obviously) and it is now officially pumpkin season! I noticed while making these biscuits I only have one exceptionally crappy pumpkin cutter, this must be put right, as soon as possible... because, who knows when the strange urge to bake may strike? after all, I do have half a batch of this dough in the freezer and another box of royal icing in the baking cupboard.

And finally... a tip, from me to you (because I care) if you should happen to be in the trade department of a well known home improvement store, enquiring as to the availability of 2" thick insulation grade styrofoam board, do not, I repeat, do not tell them it's to make a gravestone.  They look at you funny, just saying.

Halloween Battyberg (get it, get it?!)

Ooh... inappropriate baking!

 I've always loved battenberg cake, it's delicious.  Even the supermarket version, slightly stale, sugary marzipan.  It's a gastronomic experience.   Since seeing a tin designed to create a homemade version I've been dying to give it a shot.  I know, you can do a fancy pleating thing with foil and a brownie pan, but I hate pleating foil and hoping for the best.  It doesn't suit my brand of kitchen ocd.

I'd love to say this counted towards the b2/m2 project, but it doesn't.   I just used the recipe that came with the tin (although adding copious amounts of orange and black food paste and a bit of cocoa to the black cake mix).  The pumpkins are honestly nursery school stuff, just a ball of marzipan, a bit of toothpick stabbing and a leaf cutter.  I'm not artistic! not at all, so if I can, you can too.

 Next time I might tint the marzipan for wrapping, just because the black colouring bled a little... but otherwise I'm delighted! lol.  This will definitely be featuring at our Halloween afternoon tea, but more on that later.

The Pineapple

Yay weekends, Yay giant pineapples! And a hearty Whoopie for another list item ticked off.
 Today we visited the Dunmore Pineapple.  A lovely, crazy building in a gorgeous walled garden.  It's been a very longstanding ambition of mine to go see it, so today was extremely satisfying.

Why a pineapple? good question, clearly the bloke in charge at the time was a little cuckoo! lol, no, seriously it's an old symbol of hospitality and welcome.  Also the gardens were heated with furnaces at one time allowing exotic fruits like pineapples to be grown right here in Scotland.  The gardens are still beautiful if a little less balmy now.  We picked a bag full of glorious crab apples as an edible reminder of our trip (guess I can tick off another b2/m2 item to boot) to the wacky and wonderful pineapple.

 The list is doing pretty well, I really need to scratch my head a little though for some more items.  Tuesday is looking good for #29 (take one) as I'm thinking of having an industrial added to my left ear, we'll see!

Tales from weight loss camp... #1

God, grant us the...

Serenity to accept things we cannot change,

Courage to change the things we can, and the

Wisdom to know the difference

Patience for the things that take time

Appreciation for all that we have, and

Tolerance for those with different struggles

Freedom to live beyond the limitations of our past ways, the

Ability to feel your love for us and our love for each other and the

Strength to get up and try again even when we feel it is hopeless.

 

 

I'm not religious, not very anyway (but that's a whole 'nother bowl of kittens).  But, if you ever see me chopping chocolate chips for cookies or stirring frangipane and my lips are moving (but not coated in chocolate, in which case I've failed in my resolve!), that's what I'm reciting.  Despite my limited retention I have managed to memorise this prayer/extra long mantra and find it incredibly useful. Of course more conventional diet aids (cattle prods and the like) help too. 

 

  lol, edited at 22:37... I've made it through today, no deviation from the Lighterlife Way of Life. I feel good, I feel hungry.  Only three weeks to go on the full meal pack thing though, which is very exciting and a bit terrifying really.  I'm 11stone 13lbs as of my last weigh in, which is less that I've weighed in, forever!? can I lose 13lbs in three weeks? no idea, maybe? it's possible? maybe if I slice off some nonessential stuff (what the heck does the spleen do anyway?) and breathe helium.

 Never mind, one day at a time.  Today good. 

 

Peter's Yard

Yep, another list item ticked off and done! uh, except that I have to go back sometime for the gorgeous sounding breakfast and a cardamom hot chocolate...

 With my trusty taste testers (see list item 6, I'm still dieting here) in tow I headed to Peter's Yard bakery and cafe yesterday, it's gorgeous! It's light and airy and smells of bread, cake, coffee and cardamom.  I felt a bit geeky but got some pictures of the amazing bread display.  Wish I'd had the nerve to take some of the cakes and buns too, another time I guess.

   I always love and respect any cafe that provides books to read, and this one has all the rest beat! it has cookbooks, lots of gorgeous cookbooks.  The bread builders, Artisan bread, lots on chocolates, I could have settled down for hours (and possibly stayed overnight) to read in a completely contented fashion.  Oh, and once you've read the theory of baking these gorgeous breads you can peek through the window to see the bakery in action!

  I sampled the coffee (lovely, and for £1 you can have a refill) while my tasters had a lovely chocolate, marble cake heart, a toffee, coffee, chocolate slice (with crunchy espresso beans on top) and a marzipan tartlet.  It was all declared pretty delicious (and in the case of the latte deliciously pretty) and worthy of a revisit.  They do do savouries too, but we skipped right to dessert for breakfast, you only live once right?

We also bought a few things to sample at home, three types of cookie, a loaf of sourdough, crispbreads and a cardamom bun.  The cookies are insanely good, the pink sugared one is a light, crumbly shortbread type, the chocolate one is sprinkled with pearl sugar and has some cardamom in it and the last (totally my favourite) is a strangely chewy spelt cookie sprinkled with coffee beans, I do mean chewy in a good way here, it has a lovely texture.

 Everything was so good that I had a hard time persuading the smallest (squiddy) taste tester to let me finish taking pictures...

Librarything (and how my books got out of control)

I thought perhaps a link to my Library thing might be helpful, to illustrate the scale of the book collection... I enjoy making lists (as you will later see I also enjoy calculators and rulers in the kitchen, it's part of my nature) so Library thing really appealed to that part of me.  My catalogue, unfinished as it is.

The obsessive book collecting started when I left home and started to learn to cook, it was a self defense thing, one more frozen ready meal and I would have gone crazy. One day I was in a charity shop and whoa, so many cookbooks!  Finding out about cookbooks was second only to the discovery that I adore cooking, when the going gets tough I go to the kitchen.

 Once they were aware of my growing stack of books family members started passing theirs on too. Fast forward to now and, Christmas, birthday, yup, it's a book (which is great for me, I love books) or a book token... not to mention the random eBay/tk maxx/charity shop/Abe books etc hauls that sometimes follow me home.

 Now with the b2/m2 project on the go I'd like to say I was being more selective, but I cant.  D'oh!

photo dump/list catch up

a delightful conglomeration of pictures and list items achieved... starting with

Go Ape

We visited the Go Ape course at Aberfoyle, probably the best one (in my completely unbiased opinion, lol) because of the giant zip wires! (the longest one, return crossing is 426m and one of the biggest in the UK).

I've been more than a bit nervous about going ape as I'm pretty scared of heights, seriously, climbing a ladder to change a light bulb makes me come over all weak and kittenish (uh, please feel free to read incredibly confident and macho).  The first zip wire was a challenge, as I sat down I gave a loud and most unladylike yell of Oh Shit... which echoed across the valley leaving safety instructors and gogglers alike in stitches.  No matter.  That was the worst bit, except the Tarzan swing which we will not speak of, ok? yeah, good.  The rest of the course was superb! I took both chicken routes, but next time (yep, I want to go back) I'm determined to do the entire thing.  The weather was glorious which undoubtedly helped the atmosphere, but I reckon even on a cloudy day it would have been great.

and moving on to, The Earthship.

 I've been really interested in visiting the earthship since I read an article ages ago about building using cob, earth sheltered houses, straw bale construction and so on.  Once it was on the list I finally had a good reason to go! oh, and it was on the way to somewhere else too, you cant beat us for fuel economy, lol.

 It's a fascinating place, the earthship itself is great, but the grounds and polytunnels are even better, if you are someone whos heart beats faster at the sight of pumpkins, grapes and sweetcorn growing in plastic tunnels (yeah, so, I am) this is the spot for you.  We saw greenhouses made of plastic juice bottles (great idea but I'm sure my neighbourhood aint ready for it)  and fantastic vegetable and herb gardens.  I'd like to revisit to explore the grounds a bit more.