Monday 17 November 2014

Pinwheel cookies: Take two... or 3 if you like.

I can be a perfectionist sometimes. I don't like to leave things unfinished and I was not happy about posting my last blog post without having the pictures to show for it. I had an afternoon off so I thought I'd revisit the pin wheel cookies to show you how good they looked. This time, however, I thought I'd stick to the more traditional vanilla and chocolate design.

After looking through a few recipes I found one (in metric!) that was quite simple. This recipe calls for cocoa powder rather than melted chocolate which is far easier and involves less washing up. Very efficient!
These hypnotising biscuits make you look like a whizz in the kitchen, they look more complicated than they really are and the contrasting design is really fun without having to decorate them. They can also be stored for weeks in the freezer as dough, just cut off a few slices when you have visitors or fancy a quick chocolate hit.
The only thing I'd say about these is slice them a little thinner or cook them a little longer for a better crunch to your biscuit and then serve with the obligatory glass of milk. I'll definitely be checking out some more biscuit recipes soon, biscuits are underrated!

Friday 14 November 2014

Disaster averted.

I narrowly averted disaster today in an attempt to make Pinwheel biscuits. I'd seen them on Pintrest and was looking for a reason to make them. Not the chocolate and vanilla ones, these were pink and white and cute as a button. The concept was simple without looking at a recipe, 2 layers laid flat then rolled into a 'sausage' and then sliced before baking but I wasn't sure what biscuit recipe to use.
As much as I love biscuit I haven't made them since I was a kid, using cutters to make cute animal biscuits that would then suffer decapitation or have their limbs devoured one by one. I'm not a masochist, honest! I always remembered these biscuits being a little bland so I decided to use a richer, tastier recipe loved my millions: shortbread. What I didn't realise until I began to roll the 2 layers together was that shortbread is not flexible...at all! It crumbled (as shortbread should) and I had to attempt to separate the pink crumbs from the plain with despair.
To fix the problem I compared the shortbread recipe to a Christmas cookie cutter biscuit recipe and realised a bit more sugar and an egg would make the dough sticky enough to roll. So half an egg to the pink dough and the other half added to the plain worked brilliantly and the extra sugar made it sweeter than the animal biscuits of my childhood. Epic recovery!
I actually don't have any pictures of the pinwheels, I took them to work almost as soon as they were out of the oven as we were saying fair well to a colleague. Which leads me on to the main subject of the picture below. It's the same girl from my previous post. She starts her 9 months 'Maternity' leave so we did a whip round and I offered to make a baby clothes bouquet.
You will begin to tell from this blog that I am very creative and love crafts as well as baking. I don't like the term crafty as it makes me sound sly. Not only do I enjoy the skill of making things but I thoroughly believe that a hand made gift shows so much more thought and effort than a store bought gift. I had made fabric roses before and thought it would be a similar concept (which it was). You can find all sorts of tutorials on the internet but here are a couple of random ones to get you going.
Baby Clothes Bouquet
How to make fabric flowers roses


If you have all the materials ready you can create this in around 2-3 hours. A word of advise though when purchasing the clothes- anything long and thin will create a better flower shape and socks make the best cute little roses!





Just another note on the picture above. Of course after learning how incredibly simple shortbread is to make I couldn't not knock up a batch for myself! Buttery goodness!


Thursday 6 November 2014

It's not a celebration without cake!

There is no better reason to eat cake than in celebration. It's an integral guest at any birthday, Christmas, baby shower, wedding, engagement, retirement, anniversary etc. etc. celebration and if you haven't got cake at your party then you're not doing it right!


Todays special occasion is very special and a little unusual. A friend at work was in court yesterday to find out if she could (finally) adopt a little girl and she has been accepted! There is such a buzz of excitement in the air around the my team so cake was obviously needed, but what to bake?!


I thought I'd go for a baby shower type them as the girl she is adopting is only a few month old, so lots of pink. I wanted to do a gradient caked covered in a buttercream piped rose design (I've not tried these before but I think they're so pretty). I decided against it because it's rather difficult to serve without a kitchen, cupcakes however are perfect to pick up and eat on the go. Pintrest is full of inspiration and I took a few ideas from some of the cupcakes on there, including the piped buttercream roses.


I also took this opportunity to practice my sugar craft skills. I've made a good amount of occasion cakes using roll out icing and crafting various shapes, particularly flowers for my brothers wedding cakes (note the plural- all 8 of them). I'm no expert but I think I'm pretty decent for an amateur and I will use any opportunity to practice and improve these skills, however I'm far too messy a worker for them to ever be perfect and I will forever live in awe of those who can perfect the skill.

Tuesday 4 November 2014

The perfect flapjack.


I had my next post planned, I prepared the fruit, made the mixture and put it into the oven and then I had to abandon it part way through its bake. When I put it back in the oven the next day it took forever for the centre to cook through and resulted in the edges being rather tough. Not what you want in a cake. I'll have to readdress that post at a later date but I'll keep the subject a mystery until then so as to not spoil the surprise!

I was craving something sweet today but didn't fancy venturing out into the cold. When I want something sweet, warm and quick my go-to recipe is flapjack. I haven't met a person yet who doesn't like flapjacks. My sisters partner loves them so much he doesn't win brownie points, they're converted into flapjack points! 
There are a bajillion different recipes for these oaty goodies. Forget about the fillings or toppings and there are still a million ranging from the crispy and light to the dense, gooey, sticky variety. My bestest makes hers with condensed milk or there are (much) healthier versions. It all comes down to personal taste. My own taste is sweet and buttery, sticky in the middle and crispy and golden on the edges and my favourite recipe so far is good old Lyles Golden Syrup for its classic simplicity. 
I've used it many times for a quick craving cure, sometimes with a little less abandon: not measuring the ingredients or leaving it in the oven a little too long. Today I weighed the ingredients carefully, timed the baking to the minute and the golden wonder came out perfectly! A crispy golden edge, crumbly yet sticky and moist in the middle, spot on. Flapjacks are one of the easiest things to make and can be done in 30mins with minimal washing up. They can go wrong very easily so take the time to measure properly and you'll have instant success! Be patient and wait for them to cool (if you can resist) otherwise they'll just fall apart. 


Friday 24 October 2014

More international inspiration.

My sister was never into cooking or baking. While I grew up with an obsession for food, often helping in the kitchen at dinner time and always in the kitchen when my mother was baking, she had other hobbies. Since having my gorgeous nephew 5 years ago she has developed into a domestic goddess but sometimes her lack of experience shows. Now I don't want to embarrass her but most recently she bought corn flour with the intention of making corn bread. Needless to say it did not go well! But when I saw Corn Meal in the Caribbean section of my local supermarket I was inspired to have a go myself.
I've always thought that Brits were missing something by not using corn as a grain. From the moment I saw Wild Bill denied a piece of cornbread in the Green Mile I've wanted to try it and when I was recently in Blackpool I had the opportunity to try a corndog, delicious!
The cornbread that I've made was a little dry for eating on it's own so I've done a bit of reading on how it should best be eaten, I've discovered that Americans take their corn bread very seriously and there are arguments about the right corn to use, the use of sugar in the recipe, the way it's cooked etc etc. From what I can tell this cakey variety is Northern style and the use of sugar makes it a dessert or sweet treat and would therefor best be eaten with honey or maple syrup. The southern version would omit sugar and be cooked in a skillet, it would accompany savoury foods such as chilli. Either way I still think corn meal is underrated in Britain!

This recipe was taken from the Betty Crocker recipe and works really well for a moist yet grainy cake style corn bread. I've converted all the measures below. 

Ingredients

240ml Milk
56g Butter melted
1egg
185g Coarse yellow corn meal
150g Plain flour
100g caster sugar
3 teaspoons Bicarbonate powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt

Preheat the oven to 200•c and grease a 20cm square pan.
Melt the butter, then beat in the egg and milk. 
Add in all of the dry ingredients. I'm told to expect a lumpy batter so don't worry about sifting.
 Pour the batter into the tray and bake for 20-25 mins until golden brown. 
So easy!



Tuesday 21 October 2014

The Emerald Isle Continued...

Continuing on in Ireland, I never spoke about my other favourite restaurant, this time in Galway. Galway is famed for its colourful eclecticism which attracts artists of all kinds. It's a wonderful, lively city and the focus point of it seems to be the Spanish quarter where a stroll to the harbour passes craft shops and restaurants and the bustling atmosphere is warm and inviting. In a very European fashion restaurants spill out onto the street in an attempt to  entice you in and trying to decide on a place to spend your money can be difficult, everything looks so good. We chose a place based on its A board menu as it was tucked away upstairs.

The Artisan captured us with it's tantalizing menu for only £25 for 3 courses and the food really was tantalizing. From start to finish it was delicious and extraordinary: the goats cheese starter was served in the form of a pate, the sea bass was subtly seasoned and expertly pan fried and the selection of desserts were delicate and delectable.

Now I just want to detour a moment to speak about hospitality. We were completely underdressed for an evening out in Galway, we had travelled all day and just wanted somewhere nice to eat. We hadn't pre-booked even though the Spanish Quarter was becoming lively and it was pretty obvious we weren't their usual art collecting punter. Despite this, the hosts welcomed us with warmth and cheer and were very attentive to our small cover. While we gazed at the artwork adorning the walls we were offered freshly baked breads and we soon felt very comfortable. When we asked about an art piece the owner came over to speak to us about it and gave us the information of the artist. By the way HERE is his link, strikingly visual topography which can be made to order. The Artisan was more than we could have hoped to stumble across and turned into the perfect romantic evening.

Now back to the food! While in Ireland the majority of my diet consisted mainly of sea food, salmon fillets, prawns, sea bass (at the Artisan) and in particular the delicious combination of Irish bread and smoked salmon. As you would expect being situated on the coast both Dublin and Galway are authorities in sea food, in fact Galway had just hosted it's 60th oyster festival a few days previously to our arrival. It has to be said that I love my smoked salmon, a firm favourite at any time of the day and I always go for quality over price at the supermarket. However, there is a (disputed) claim that Coton in the Elms in Derbyshire, only 12miles away from me, is the furthest point in England from any coastline and despite the quality you can taste the distance. By that I mean that the fresher salmon smoked and served on any coastline is so much richer and deeper in flavour than any which has travelled courtesy of the supermarkets. When you combine that with the dense, grainy and flavoursome soda bread of Irish bakers you get a combination of flavours that are made for each other. Move over salmon finger sandwiches, make room  Scandaweigian open face sandwiches, there's a sexy new Irish charmer in town.

For this post I intended to make soda bread with Irish stew (as the weather has turned colder)  and then smother the left over bread with  sexy smoked salmon for lunch. I'm afraid the leftovers weren't used so I'll have to make do with the original bread and stew!


For the Irish Stew Delia is the queen of traditional! 



Tuesday 14 October 2014

The Emerald Isle.

So last week I was in Ireland with my boyfriend, a native Dubliner. We spent the week exploring both Dublin and some of the West Coast around Galway where I experienced some of the most dramatic scenery I'd ever seen; invigorating coastlines, serene lakes, sleeping giants of mountains and luscious green wilderness. There were also the tourist traps, some of which we visited briefly, and mainly consisted of a shop or two of green colour explosion. Imagine Kermit devoured a gift shop and spewed it all back up. My friend Dani would have loved the pure tat, so obscenely twee.

Along the way we discovered some amazing eateries and also some less so. There are two restaurants that have cemented themselves into my memory, both as different from each other as they are distant. The first was in Dublin, a place called Rustic Stone which (now I've had to read up on this after being told the basic story behind it's conception) is owned by Michellin starred chef Dylan McGrath, also the judge on Masterchef Ireland. This is his concept taken from the restaurants website,
""At Rustic Stone our philosophy is simple. We source the best seasonal ingredients, then we apply simple techniques to extract the most flavour, while giving you the information you need to add nutrition and structure to your diet. The produce I've chosen and our demand for freshness, is the cornerstone of our Rustic idea, while providing a healthy but affordable eating approach." After a stressful past in fine dining and suffering deeply in Ireland's recession he met nutritionist Erika Doolan and the two spent a year devising the menu which focused an a healthier choice for diners. There's an interesting blog on the restaurants website if you'd like to know more.  

So anyway, back to my experience. I chose the Posh Pesto salad which sounded good on the menu, and included some flavours I already knew I liked and some peculiar new ones too, "Watercress, baby spinach, baby gem leaves, iceberg, cherry tomatoes, black olives, coriander, basil and pickled saffron shallots bound in pine nut herb pesto." It was a risk but I can honestly say it paid off, this is the best salad I have ever tried! And not by a small fraction either. So now I strive to recreate this behemoth of salads. Now of course I'm fully aware of the inconvenience and cost of some of the ingredients, I don't think picked saffron shallots are something you could casually pick up from the local supermarket and I haven't the faintest inclination to pickle my own saffron infused shallots so I've had to omit accordingly. I've picked out a few flavours and created a basic salad with some of the key ingredients for texture, colour, greenery and health. The result was great, obviously not Michelin star worthy but the flavours were definitely there, along with the convenience!

The reason this meal is sweet sticky toffee in my mind is because it was a salad! Now remember that a year ago I refused to eat rabbit food, i was a self confessed salad dodger! The lighter me is now quite partial to a salad and this is another area where I'm really trying to learn how to satisfy my tastebuds. I'm aware that there are endless ingredients, assembly methods, seasonings, textures and themes that can build a salad but as I'm new to (an awful lot) of these foods i find that the path of discovery to mouthwatering salads is a slow one but this was a great start.


Ingredients: 
2 handfuls of pre-packaged salad. (I used morrisons lambs lettuce, baby spinach and rocket)
A small handful of fresh basil (I didn't have coriander or I would have used this too).
6-8 cherry tomatoes (pan fried in olive oil until very slightly browned on the edges)
8 black olives 
1 level tea spoon of green pesto- mix the pesto with a little dollop of olive oil to thin it enough to drip it over the salad then add an extra drizzle of olive oil to the salad.
Salt and pepper to season
Sprinkling of mixed seeds just for texture! 




Tuesday 7 October 2014

An introduction...

For anyone who may be interested in reading another baking/cooking/travel blog please allow me to introduce myself. I'm Natalie, 29 year old lover of food and cake connoisseur. I mean who can resist the sweet smell, the soft warmth and adorable allure of cake. As the title of this blog suggests you can't be sad when you're eating cake, its inconceivable!
Although I do my fair share of baking I've also become quite the cook (or so my boyfriend tells me) and in the last few years have developed a taste and style of my own in the kitchen. This style comes from my mother who I spent many of my childhood days in the kitchen with, watching and learning and also my desire to eat healthily and wholesomely.
My relationship with food is a difficult one, one which has comforted me, entertained me and in doing so has caused me to suffer in obesity. A year ago I was 5 stone heavier than I am now and morbidly obese. Since loosing the weight ( I am no where near slender but I'm sure a slim cake connoisseur is an oxymoron) my eating habits have been reformed. My tastes have broadened and I have a blossoming romance with vegetables, of which I'm constantly trying to discover and adapt new ways of cooking as I'd never chosen to eat them (let alone cook them) previously.
Inevitably you will find that my attempts in the kitchen will probably focus around baking and healthy recipes but variety will come from other inspirations including travel and people and (hopefully) many other interesting sources. I hope you will enjoy reading the blog, a tiny anchovy in the ocean of amateur cooking blogs, but maybe my attempts and discoveries can inspire a fellow foodie.