fresh fraisiers with gooseberries

As last month’s Daring Bakers challenge was a) awesome and b) fun to make, I was a bit worried that this month’s might not measure up in terms of tastynessnessness. When I finally read what the challenge was, I could recognise the thing in the pictures, but if I’m honest I had never heard it called that.

Not that it was anything rude.

I just had never heard its name. But really, how often do you need to call desserts? And if you do, do they reply? It’s almost midnight, so bear with me.

fresh fraisiers

Anyway, the recipe was for fresh fraisiers. Yeah, I wouldn’t know what they were either, without a picture. Actually, I just Google Images’d it and what came up was the Daring Bakers challenges now unveiled. So I’m going to take a wild guess and say that in the world of desserts, as far as popularity is concerned, baklava is the Madonna to fraisiers’, well, whomever was second place in last year’s X Factor.

Jana of Cherry Tea Cakes was our July Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to make Fresh Frasiers inspired by recipes written by Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson in the beautiful cookbook Tartine.

So, the above is the challenge. And the pictures were ridiculously seductive. So even though it’s not at the top of the dessert charts, it was worth a try.

I didn’t want to use strawberries or blueberries (because I love them just the way they are and besides, I’d rather have them in my breakfast bowl), so I used gooseberries instead. And pears.

the gooseberries look like cherry tomatoes, but I assure you this isn't savoury

Gooseberries are a strange fruit – really tart. They’re supposed to be cooked into compotes or similar, but I tried a raw one and thought it might be ok; after all the whole recipe is so sweet that something bitter might just make it a bit more interesting. I coupled them with pears because I’m chicken.

The cake recipe is quite good, although word of warning: mine were (yes I made two) all plump in the oven and just as they came out, but after a while they came down slightly and the tops looked a bit like your fingers when you’re in the bath for too long (also, why are you taking a bath? Take a shower instead!)

I was very tempted to make just standard custard and then add the cream, but in the end made the recommended recipe because I wanted to know what it tasted like, and I’ve tasted custard countless times. And it’s good! It’s nice and sweet, and although the use of cornflour brought out the culinary snob in me (‘Blergh, who thickens custard with corn flour? Blergh!) I ate my words – and a whole lot of custard – as it was actually very very good. Yes I shall be making it again, but perhaps with more eggs and no flour.

I had a few problems with assembly. When cooling, my cakes shrunk from the tin (which wasn’t springform anyway so I don’t even know why I’m mentioning this), so I used a food ring. My largest food ring is slightly smaller than either of the cakes so I had to cut them both. Let’s just say this wasn’t surgery, so the cuts are less then perfect. Also, it wasn’t tall enough for the amount of custard I wanted in it, so the cake had to go on top, i.e. above the ring. Which made for fun unmoulding (read – comedy).

I used elderflower cordial instead of syrup

If anyone has any tips for unmolding a fraiser stuck inside a ring, please let me know; somehow I have a feeling I won’t get very far with Google.

I made my own almond paste, which for the record, YUM. If you make one thing in this dessert, make the almond paste. And then try to resist it, which should be an Olympic sport. I froze my left over one. Recipe is below.

The final result is quite pretty, although it lacks a bit of sofistication in the looks department – that is entirely my fault. The taste test, well it is quite sweet (I was right about the gooseberries but the pears worked really well too) but all in all I think it’s too much work for the final result. Maybe it’s because mine didn’t look as pretty as the pictures, but I don’t think so. I like my desserts simple and stunning (you wouldn’t think so reading this blog though).

Recipe for the whole thing is in the site mentioned above, below is the lovely almond paste:

Almond Paste Recipe

(adapted from this one)

1 cup ground almonds

1 cup icing sugar (yes you will get, as Raymond Blanc would put it, ‘white in the face’)

the equivalent of 1 egg white – I used pasteurised egg whites and would recommend these as salmonella lurks everywhere

1 tsp almond extract

pinch of salt

1. Combine all ingredients until you have a homogenous mixture. Eat straight away or keeps for 1 week in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer.

Yield: less than two cups, I think.

pear on the inside, not just above

apple crumble

Here’s the problem with braeburn apples: they’re fickle.

Sure, they may look ever seductive with their red and greed skins, their shiny and plump figures; but inside sometimes lurks the most disappointing texture, kind of like what would happen if you mixed cornmeal with apple juice and left it in the sun. Yes my friends, braeburns are unreliable.

And yet when they’re just ripe, they’re incredible, a mix of tangy and sweet, fresh and juicy.

Braeburns are something we enjoy almost every day. Even knowing that when you bite into one you may get the bitter disappointment that comes with a dud, we usually take our chances. I guess that the later you leave your braeburns, the more they will tend to the grainy mess. I’m sure there’s a mathematical equation for that.

apple crumble

Last week we probably ordered too many, and were left with a couple that just had big dark spots, and felt quite soft, so they ended up in the bottom of the fruit bowl. I didn’t want to throw them away (even though they kind of deserved it), so I made a crumble. That’s right, I made a crumble in the summer – not a cobbler, a crumble. A crumble.

And what’s more, it was awesome. Especially when paired with vanilla ice cream – store-bought, which doesn’t make it any less tasty.

warm + cold = win

Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookery Course has all sorts of crumble alternatives, both for the top and bottom layer. I picked the one that a) I had ingredients for and b) seemed the most healthy. The options she offers are pretty varied, but I think I may just stick with this one because of how crisp it was.

it didn't take long to tempt me into having a taste

I don’t have an ice cream scoop (yet – I know, it makes no sense at all, what self-respecting home doesn’t), so I have decided to blame my uneven and generally lopsided ice cream dollop on that.

I would advise you to try a crumble during summer – especially british summer as it was up until saturday. Topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Apple Crumble

(adapted from Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookery Course)

3 old braeburn apples (approximately 300 g)

25 g of mixed dried fruit

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch of cloves

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tbsp water

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Peel and cut the apples into about 1,5 cm cubes (depending on how lazy you feel at the moment, you may make them way larger).

2. Mix the apples with the other ingredients and cook in a saucepan in low heat until the apples are soft (it took me less than 10 mins)

3. Spoon this mixture into individual ramekins (or one big ovenproof dish) and sprinkle with the crumble topping.

4. Cook for 15-20 mins if using ramekins, longer if using a larger dish. It will be ready when the topping is golden brown.

Crumble Topping

(adapted from Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookery Course)

40 g whole wheat flour

40 g porridge (rolled oats if you’re American)

25 g butter

25 g brown sugar

1. Mix the flour, porridge and butter with your fingertips until it resembles coarse bread crumbs.

2. Combine with the sugar, and sprinkle over the apple mixture, making sure it completely covers it. I like to pack mine a little bit.

Of course you can use this crumble topping with any other type of fruit. Or even rhubarb. I’m not sure that’s a fruit, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

it's all gone now

strawberry ice cream

In terms of baking and cooking, I would consider myself a follower. Even though I might make changes to some recipes to suit what I have in my cupboard or the flavours I prefer, I am at this point unable to make something out of nothing. Whenever I have dared to try, the results have always been sub-par.

I don’t have that many cookbooks (contrary to what my boyfriend may tell you), so I rely heavily on the internets. Fortunately for me I’ve managed to find a number of places where I know I can find good recipes.

strawberry ice cream

BraveTart is one of those places. It is my favourite food blog. Not only is Stella (the author) an incredible baker, she is also a very entertaining writer, who doesn’t sugar coat things (even when she sugar coats things – b’dum tsh). All the recipes I tried from her wonderful list have come out nicely, and disappeared from the kitchen almost instantaneously.

When I saw her strawberry (or rather berry) ice cream, I knew this was something I would have to try. I love strawberry ice cream, but not just any strawberry ice cream. It needs to taste like strawberries, and I find not many achieve that. They taste like something I call ‘strawberry flavoured’, but that is not strawberry and never will be.

My mother makes the perfect strawberry ice cream – I don’t have her recipe although I have been meaning to get it for ages. I suppose it is actually better that I don’t have it, otherwise there would be a permanent strawberry genocide in my kitchen. Honestly. I would probably have to be investigated. And I would need a StairMaster and some bigger clothes.

Anyway, back to Stella’s recipe. Nancy and her mother sent me some serendipitous strawberries that I had to use for this thing.

look at all that pink!

The recipe is unusual in terms of ice cream, at least for me. But that’s never stopped me before.

I started out by making the strawberry reduction. Instead of leaving the fruit to macerate in the sugar for 2 hours, I left it overnight. The next day it was pretty much ready to be eaten – but no, I managed to keep it away from my mouth and proceeded to make the actual reduction.

Now, word of advice: when Stella says ‘add rose water’, don’t question it. I know it seems weird, but if you think rose water has no place in a strawberry reduction (you racist), you are wrong. So so wrong. Because in fact, when added to the reduction, it transforms the strawberries into ~strawberries~. I had to taste it at least 4 (hundred) times to make sure that it was actually real. This must be what unicorns and clouds taste like (not that I’d ever eat a nicely roasted, falling off the bone unicorn, of course!).

When I added the ingredients that turn this into ice cream, I was a bit generous with my spirits, and ended up going for a mixture that added up to twice as much as the recipe calls for. Which just proves how magical the whole thing really is, as it came out super creamy and lovely. Oh, I also used coconut cream instead of coconut milk, as I was unable to find the latter (believe it or not). I think I shall stick with coconut cream from now on.

I may have an unnatural obsession with this colour

So there you have it. The reason why, if you’re reading this blog, you should stop wasting your time and head over to BraveTart. That’s where all the cool kids hang nowadays. So get over there!

Strawberry Reduction by BraveTart

Strawberry Ice Cream

(adapted from BraveTart’s Favourite Ice Cream)

1/2 batch of strawberry reduction
1 packet of unsweetened coconut cream
pinch salt, or more to taste
5 ml vodka
5 ml cherry brandy
5 ml sloe gin

Whisk all ingredients together, then refrigerate for a couple of hours. Process it in your ice cream machine, following the manufacturer’s instructions.

It doesn’t really get any easier.

Yield: about 0.5 l of mindblowing strawberry ice cream.

the last of the decent pictures I took

baklava (not balaclava)

There are some words in the English language that I find really hard to tell apart: like classic and classical, arc and arch, dishwasher and washing machine; just this week, I told my good friend Nancy (who you may know from, hmm let’s see, all my posts ever?) that my balaclava was awesome. I don’t even know how I would go about making an awesome balaclava. What qualifies a balaclava as awesome? Exquisite eye holes? The option to have a mouth opening? Good use of colour?

I obviously meant baklava, the delicious concoction of phyllo and nuts (and butter and sugar).

baklava

Why would two things that are so different have the same name, other than to screw with me? I cannot guess. It makes my life very difficult though.

Baklava is this month’s Daring Bakers challenge. I didn’t do last month’s, because let’s face it, I am lazy (it’s true, I’ve had it pointed out to me on occasion). But I had to make this.

here it is again

Erica of Erica’s Edibles was our host for the Daring Baker’s June challenge. Erica challenged us to be truly DARING by making homemade phyllo dough and then to use that homemade dough to make Baklava.

I wasn’t able to post this yesterday since I spent all day in transit (and airport wi-fi is pretty rubbish), so here it is today. I didn’t have time to make the dough. Shoot me (don’t shoot me).

I promise I will make my own, but I wasn’t able to complete the task at home (was on hols) and it was a pretty busy time, so it would be pretty cheeky of me to take over the kitchen counters for a few hours just for this dessert – there was A LOT of food to be made. You could argue that I could have made it sooner if I had been organised, but I would advise against arguing with me. I bite.

extreme close up

My filling was mostly pistachios, very little almonds and walnuts. It was pretty delicious. I didn’t use as much butter as the recipe calls for, or as much syrup. Below is what I did, more or less.

Baklava Recipe
Adapted from Alton Brown, The Food Network 

450 g phyllo pastry (I used pre-bought)
100 g butter, melted

For the filling

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
100 g blanched almonds
300 g pistachios
140 g walnuts
150 g sugar

For the syrup: 

200 ml honey
200 ml water
200 ml sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 piece fresh lemon peel

Directions 

1. Pre-heat oven to moderate 180 degrees C.
2. Combine nuts, sugar and spices in a food processor and pulse on high until finely chopped. I used my mother’s food processor for this as I was on holiday (yay).
3. Trim your phyllo sheets to fit in your pan. Brush the bottom of the pan with butter and place the first phyllo sheet on it.
4. Brush the sheet with butter and repeat approximately 8 times ending with butter.
5. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top
6. Continue layering phyllo and buttering repeating 8 times
8. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top
9. Continue layering phyllo and buttering repeating 8 times
10. Sprinkle 1/3 of the nut mixture on top
11. Continue layering and buttering phyllo 5 more times. Brush the top layer with butter. Tuck in all the edges to give a nice appearance.
12. Cut your baklava into the desired shapes and number of pieces. Place in the oven until it is browned on top, mine took about 30 minutes (on a fan assisted oven)

While the baklava is cooking, make syrup as follows:

13. Combine all ingredients in a medium pot over medium high heat. Stir occasionally until sugar has dissolved
14. Allow to simmer for 10 minutes – once 10 mins have passed, strain and leave to cool slightly.

Assembly:

15. When baklava is cooked remove from oven and pour the warm syrup evenly over the top, taking care to cover all surfaces when pouring. Leave to stand overnight, at room temperature.

Serve at room temperature. It keeps for over a week.

yum!

It’s really delicious, I’m sure I’ll do it again. I will attempt to make my phyllo soon, just to see what it’s like. Hopefully when I have more time.

pickled turnips

In the summer (or whenever it’s not raining and/or extremely cold), my friends and I usually go have lunch in the park by Exmouth Market. This market has a number of stalls that sell food, mostly awesome food, and we manage to get a bit of fresh air and get away from the office at the same time.

Recently, one of those stalls has been calling to me, like a siren. It makes the best falafel wraps ever. Extremely simple, but the falafel is delicious, and it includes something I hadn’t tried before but am now a massive fan of: pickled turnip.

look at them! LOOK AT THEM.

Yes I am biased. I LOVE pickles. Cauliflower is my favourite; I pretty much won’t eat it unless it is pickled.

But turnips. Turnips. Turnips don’t taste nice. Turns out that if they’re pickled, they do. The traditional way of pickling them (arabic? jewish? who knows?) uses beetroot to give them a pink colour, or red cabbage to tint them purple.

I had to make this at home. This is too good to not be experimented with in my lab. So off I went. I looked up a number of online recipes, but in the end decided to go with the lovely Claudia Roden, that comes highly recommended from one of my favourite cooks.

look at these crazy colours!

Claudia suggests a water-to-vinegar ratio of 3-1. She mentions that this can be fiddled with, according to taste. I guess the more vinegar you put in, the longer they’ll last. I don’t think it will be an issue, as I plan on eating copious amounts of them.

My 1kg of turnips made a lot of pickles, so I had to add a bit more liquid than Claudia. Hopefully that won’t make too much of a difference.

i hope you like pink

I’ve kept them in the sun as much as possible (damn you british weather!) and the turnips have decided to float to the top of the jar. I will let you know if this affects them when they’re ready – 8 days to go!

Torshi Left – Pickled Turnip

from Claudia Roden’s A New Book of Midde Eastern Food (my adaptations in italics)

1kg small white turnips

a few celery leaves

2-4 cloves of garlic (optional – I used 4)

1 raw beetroot, peeled and sliced or cut into medium-sized pieces (1 used 2 medium beetroots)

4-5 level tablespoons (about 90g) of salt

1l water (1 used 1250ml)

300ml white wine vinegar (1 used 375 ml)

Choose small white turnips. Peel and wash them, and cut them in halves or quarters, depending on their size (I cut mine into chip shaped chunks). Pack the pieces in a clean glass jar with celery leaves and garlic cloves if liked, placing pieces of raw beetroot between the layers at regular intervals.

Dissolve salt in water and stir in vinegar. Cover the vegetables with this solution and seal the jar tightly with a glass top if possible. Store in a warm place. The turnips should mellow and be ready in about 10 days. Then transfer the jar to a cool spot.

This pickle should be eaten within a month to 6 weeks of making.

I can’t wait until the 10 days are up. Mmmmmmmm

whoaaaaa, flares!

birthday cake (belated)

A few years ago I started learning to dance Tango with an Argentinean couple. Their names were Oscar and Gladys, and they had moved from Argentina and would teach tango lessons (the cool kind, not the ballroom kind) in the evenings. After the lessons my friend Cláudia and I would usually stay a bit longer and chat with them. Oscar was particularly interesting, and once taught me this Argentinean saying; I’ve tried googling it without success, but I think it would be something like this in spanish: Argentinos, lo que no tienen de pinta, tienen de lengua. Or something along those lines. Roughly translated: Argentineans, what they lack in looks, they make up for in tongue. Tongue in this case meaning speech, as in they talk seductively etc.

I don’t dance Tango anymore (sadly) but the saying, turns out, is still useful.

birthday cake

I think that if my birthday cake was a man, he would have been born in Argentina. It’s not the best looking, but what it lacked in the beauty department it more than made up in the tongue department – it was quite frankly delicious.

I made it the day after my birthday, which was filled with cakes; that way I was able to enjoy it more.

the layering was nice - excuse my slicing ability

I followed this recipe to the letter, only halving the amounts as even though it’s my birthday, I still have jeans and things I need to fit into. I found the marshmallow broiling quite difficult: mine all melted into this delicious goo, but I added it to the filling and it was ok. As with everything that has buttercream, it’s best consumed when it’s approaching room temperature. Try this cake if you have some free time and a very sweet tooth. Who knows, maybe yours will be pretty!

the stuff on top was such a BAD idea

birthday macarons

Another post about macarons. Yes yes I am a one trick pony but it’s fun.

malt choc macarons

I made these for the office. While thinking about making them I struck up an email conversation with the BraveTart (yes another link to her website) and let me tell you folks, not only is she an incredible baker and writer, she is incredibly nice! So anyway, following her advice I made up my mind about making malt macarons.

They came out really well! And the tops of the shells were super smooth which is quite unusual for me. Now, something I need to say about macarons. I ALWAYS count the number of folds I make. For 2 egg whites (or thereabouts) I always go under 50, possibly 45 or even less. This time, with 5 egg whites, I made about 55 folds. And they were lovely. I piped them onto my new Silpats, that Nancy kindly brought from New York City, but got a bit over excited and piped them too close to each other, so some ended up merging. Still good. I separated them and you know, not perfect but still edible.

this picture looks a bit pretentious

And how edible. I took them to the office, and never got that many compliments in any baked good. Ever. So now I’ve received an order for more. For the office. Wish me luck in this, as I am about to blow 15 eggs (or thereabout) on the enterprise!

Again, for the recipe follow this link to BraveTart’s blog. I just swapped 1 lb (I have no idea how much that is, just used the converter in my digital scale) of powdered sugar with 1 lb (minus about 2 tbsp) of malt powder, plus 1 tbsp of cocoa. 2 tbsp would be about, umm say 1 oz?

Oh, oh. Forgot to say I filled them with a chocolate malt filling with a marshmallow filling centre (recipes from Sweetapolita) that I had left over from the birthday cake I made – and will post about in the near future. I also sieved some cocoa on top for decoration.

more macarons

An account of the batch macaron making to follow. Surely. Soon.

baker’s block

It’s been quite hot in London, lately. Actually, that’s a lie. The weather doesn’t seem to be able to make its mind up, which is at the same time annoying and — umm, just annoying.

Like the weather,  I (ha ha) have been struggling with desserts. And crafts. I really wanted to make something to kinda sorta maybe celebrate the royal wedding, or rather make it my sort of royal wedding, with Tudors and symbols galore, but I didn’t have the patience to get it ready in time. Then I made an awful, awful (-ly delicious?) Vicky sponge, and was too impatient to let it bake properly, so it had a huge crater in the middle. Turns out that when you fill it with strawberries and cream that is actually not a problem, but a blessing.

there they are! and pink!

In the end I think I used some egg yolks for something (maybe some savoury palmiers – can’t really remember) and decided to use the whites to make, you’ve guessed it, macarons.

Fortunately, the Easter/Royal wedding period brought about a huge assortment of holidays, and I managed to get to a shop I had been meaning to visit since I first found its web address: Jane Asher. It has everything (and by everything I mean various baking supplies). Including gel food colouring, which is what I wanted and had tried to replace unsuccessfully (with beetroot powder, and let me tell you, don’t even go there).

So I used the fuscia colour for these. As usual, they came out alright (fuscia became pink), although I am getting more and more critical of the feet. Now that I get them, they’re not good enough – I have become a snob. (notice how everything takes place so quickly here).

that black thing is passion fruit

I baked my macarons at a lower temperature this time, about 150 degrees C. This was a good idea, as in terms of texture, I had the best results ever. Crispy on the outside, soft and lovely inside. I filled some with curd, and others with Nutella. The curd ones were obviously nicer in the hot weather, but the other ones were pretty good as well.

crunchy on the outside

I’m trying to think of something a bit more experimental for this weekend, to make this slightly more exciting. If you have any suggestions, I would welcome them.

In the meantime if you feel like it, do try this delicious concoction, Brave Tart‘s incredible macaron recipe that has recently made it to the top spot in the foodista.com‘s Macaron Madness: 10 Marvelous Recipes.

Here’s another picture:

another picture

maple everything

A couple of months ago I decided to join Daring Bakers. My friend Nancy had joined them and I was growing a bit envious of all the stuff she was getting to make, and of the ideas it gives you – also, she was so secretive of the whole thing that I wanted summadat. So after the probationary period (a month) I was finally allowed to bake the secret recipe. I was pretty excited about it, but when it finally came around, I was slightly disappointed: maple syrup? bacon cups?

I am not a fan of maple syrup. It tastes weird (as do most syrups – oh, did I tell you I don’t like jams? Well, honey and syrupy stuff is for the most part just as bad). Also, bacon is far too amazing and precious to use with maple syrup. So yeah, the first challenge didn’t quite endear itself to me. I kept checking the forums and seeing what ideas everyone would come up with (to be honest, between Nancy and I we had come up with most of those), and kept wondering what I’d do. It was my first challenge too, so how could I not do it?

Eh well, I did end up making it.

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com

I started by making the mousse; I’d figure out what to do next. I reluctantly bought the maple syrup, took it home and left it in the same spot for two weeks. I didn’t really want to think about it.

maple mousse on maple snap

I eventually decided to go for it. I did. It wasn’t particularly challenging, and I finished it really quickly and made a batch of macarons in between, using the egg whites I had left from the mousse.

Let’s talk about my saga with macarons for a minute, as it is at this point still ongoing. I seem to have a better idea of what’s going wrong when something does go wrong, but still no success with colours. Ah well, at least they’re not ridiculously ugly blobs.

the worlds smallest macaron

The macarons made me happy, but then it was time for the edible container. I had set my mind on making Dorie Greenspan’s Maple Tuiles (maple on maple seemed sensible), but with a 3 hour to overnight wait for the dough it seemed like it wasn’t going to work – this was at about 4 pm on a sunday, and I had to make the best of the light available.

I went for brandy snaps instead. I made them using maple syrup instead of golden syrup (I have to use up the bottle anyway), and although they didn’t come out as thin and tuile-like as I would have wanted, they were still ok. I tried to make a quenelle – after all, the daring bakers are all about experimenting, right? – but it seems like I don’t have the right tools. Seems daft really, but all my spoons are rounded and yes, I do blame them.

The mousse is quite stiff – I expected it to be soft but there’s far too much gelatine in it for that – it almost wobbles. Probably due to my cooking methods (I wasn’t too happy with not cooking the egg so I returned the mixture to the hob for a couple of minutes, thus making it thick – which makes me wonder if gelatine is actually necessary at all). Regardless.

sprig of mint on top makes it prettier

I assembled the dessert but it seemed quite boring, visually; so, I did what anyone would do. I added a tiny little macaron on top, filled with mousse. Seriously, I might start making macarons that size, they’re adorable.

So there you have it, my first entry for the Daring Bakers. Not over the moon with this one, but I guess if I liked maple syrup I’d have an entirely different opinion. Here’s hoping the next Daring Bakers challenge is more, umm, challenging.

maple syrup food

Maple Syrup Snaps
(adapted from Bron Marshall)

1 tbsp maple syrup

40 g butter, unsalted

35 g brown sugar

45 g flour

1 tsp ground ginger

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Prepare a baking sheet with a silicone mat, and have ready a cooling rack and something to roll your biscuits on (I used a rolling pin)

In a pan, heat the maple syrup, butter and brown sugar until melted and combined. Remove from heat and sift flour and ginger into the mixture until combine. Spoon teaspoon sized portions onto the mats and spread to form a thin biscuit (I only made 3 at a time). Bake for 5 minutes and remove with a spatula, placing them on the shape you want them to adapt to. Allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then transfer to the rack until cool.

Yields about 10 biscuits.

hot cross buns

With Easter approaching, my boyfriend is always seduced by the hot cross buns we see in supermarkets everywhere. I have never understood how a sweet bread (ugh) with raisins (double ugh) could yield such appreciation from him. I usually buy some, and end up trying them and then promising myself I won’t eat anymore because they taste… sweet! I have an issue with sweet bread.

This weekend I thought I’d make them as a treat for him. After last week’s bread lesson, I felt pretty confident that they would turn out OK, and besides I wanted to see what they’d taste like.

hot cross buns

I used Delia Smith’s recipe from her Complete Illustrated Cookery Course. It came out really well; I was worried about the fact that my yeast seemed to be a bit, erm, inactive, but it still did its job. Delia tells you to not use easy blend yeast, and I followed her recommendation, but next time I make them (next week?) I may well branch out and try it. Kneading proved (oh no! pun!) a bit tricky, as the dried fruits tended to get flinged across the room every time I slammed the dough on the counter. I kept finding them everywhere even after I baked the buns.

look at those crosses

The white dough for the crosses was a bit of a disappointment. The amount that Delia recommends is way over what’s necessary (I used less than a quarter), and in my opinion has far too little water. I added only a bit more to make it pliable, but next time I will make sure it is quite runny and pipe it onto the buns, as it is a bit tough and weird, and contrasts with the softness of the buns in a way that is not altogether pleasant.

Oddly enough, I really enjoy these! (meaning I had two, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here). They’re not as sweet as purchased ones, and the raisins in them work really well. I replaced one-third of the all-purpose flour with wholemeal, and it made them a bit more dense but also more flavourful – I actually think it suits them. I’ve been enjoying mine with curd, which I don’t think is very traditional, but I don’t like jam (shock!). My boyfriend still prefers the shop ones, as in his opinion these don’t have enough fruit; I’ll up the amount considerably for next time, and then we’ll see who wins.

look at them. LOOK AT THEM.

Hot Cross Buns – Delia’s recipe here