Playing Catchup

Today's efforts on the baking front were, I must say, somewhat half-hearted. It's not through lack of desire to complete the challenge or even through detestation of the idea of baking, I am in fact surprisingly still enjoying it!

But Alas, a weary teenager struggles to really get stuck into making a cake after a terrifically long day out... shopping with the girlfriend. Guys out there will be nodding in agreement and girls will be shaking their head in a disapproving way. Guys simply just don't have the stamina for a full day's shopping without constant encouragement, feeding (includes sugar/caffeine rich drinks), comfort breaks (this can include trips into shops of a non-clothes nature) and of course, the all important victorious end result (when the lovely girlfriend finally tries on a piece of clothing she: A) Was looking for B) Likes & C) Is not too pricey.

So after a tiring day wandering many of the shops in Peterborough (most of which were explored twice at least!) I got home and could barely stand let alone whip butter and sugar into a frenzy! Yet, my mind switched on suddenly and screamed at me: "DON'T YOU DARE GIVE UP NOW!!" Yesterday, I had decided to forgo the baking and catch up another day but it was clearly going to be a massive effort to catch up by baking three day's worth of recipes in just one day, so my mind engaged with the task afoot and I began whipping butter and sugar into a frenzy.
Today the task was a Spiced Apple and Currant Cake - I think Apple-Currant Cake sounds better but apparently my book sucks at coming up with recipe Names aaaand recipes (see "Almond Cookies with a Cherry on Top" for more uninspiring recipe names!) - and also a small task to finish off the rest of my Hazelnuts and also complete yesterday's recipe "Hazelnut Bars."

In my last post I teased about a potential "mini-challenge" in built in my other challenge, and today's task of baking two seperate things in one day was a sort of challenge which could help me prepare for that... And I must say that it was rather a lot easier than I expected. Yes, there was an issue finding extra ingredients and weighing up and whatnot but the main area in which I provided useful was on the washing up front. It was so easy to re-use some bowls from one recipe to another, after all butter and sugar won't spoil a recipe involving butter and sugar!

I also successfully practiced the art of mini baking (ie Baking with recipes 1/4 so there is only enough for one or two people.) with the help of my mother's handy 1/8 of a teaspoon measuring spoon I could successfully get super accurate divisions of awkward measurements, woo! And once again, I have had literally no other problems to report, remarkable considering the chances of error were doubled with my quantity of recipes!

The Results:

Mmmm Appley

Mmmm (insert pun about nuts) -ey

As you can see, they look pretty damned good! The apple cake was especially delicious, it was so very moist and juicy yet not soggy (don't ask me how on earth that works!) and although the hazelnut bars were a little underwhelming in comparison, they really did work well. Though I was a little surprised at the result, which resembled a tiny sponge cake in consistency, I fully expected a biscuit like tecture but it was far closer to being lots of square cupcakes. But I am thankful for finishing the last item with hazelnuts as a main ingredient; I have pretty much run out of Nut related puns, towards the end there I was really scraping the bottom of the sack for them...

Raisin the bar for biscuit baking...

I must say that successes have been few and far between on this blog and I really don't know why. Although I am obviously an "Amateur" baker that doesn't mean that I'm by any means a complete novice, I have baked successfully in the past and have always been complimented on my "mad skillZ" (well perhaps never that exact phrase, I sincerely hope someone does say that to me at some point though!) so it's really hard to understand why I have had quite so many failures already. 

Of course, I'm not complaining! After all, they have all been edible so they can't be that bad! Plus a disastrous baking adventure is far more enjoyable to read about and write about that a wonderfully successful one would be - just imagine how pretentious and overly descriptive it would get - however it is clear that I am going to run short of disasters any day now. Suddenly the transformation will be complete and I will no longer be amateur but a Master-Baker (careful how quickly you say that one!). So what then? What will I waffle on about?!

I've decided that soon I am going to embark on a challenge which is in conjunction with this one - to those gamers out there, it would be a mini-quest or mini-game inside the main game - I will still be doing the 100 recipes in 100 days but I am going to introduce an added element to help judge the success of each baked good. Because let's face it, I am a bit of a biased judge & so are my friends and family! But More on that as it develops and becomes a reality rather than just another insane idea I have in my head.

Today's challenge was Raisin and Nutty Oatmeal Biscuits, and remarkably they are probably the first biscuits I've made which I am actually very proud of! They may be a little small (yet again I halved the ingredients in order to save some pennies and some arteries) but other than that they came out perfectly. 

They are neither too powdery nor too doughy or burnt! It's as much of a shock to me as it probably is to you! These are definitely the quality of biscuits I would expect in a really fancy "Gift Box" from one of those expensive market stalls you sometimes get popping up in the streets of posh shopping districts. Except they were made by my good self in the comfort of my old family home. Perfect!

The Result: 

Bana-noooooo! Loaf

After Yesterday's powdery Shortcakes I decided I wanted to tackle something soft and moist today. Also, because I'm home from Uni now there is a lot more fruit here (I buy bags of lots of clementines or satsumas and literally nothing else) and of a much wider variety. Also, because I really dislike bananas it seems sensible to make Banana Loaf when A) I have people who can eat it other than  me! & B) I don't have to waste bananas buying a whole hand of them.
So I got to work mashing the horrible yellow fruits (don't you dare be nitpicking about herb or fruit!) into baby food, the smell was surprisingly pleasant. I can't say I've had a banana in many years of course, but I thought that the smell was a promising one; perhaps I would actually like this recipe...
It's a relatively simple recipe (I will post it up eventually, I will upload most of the less complicated & the best ones up here before the end!) which was a relief because I really didn't want to be slogging away separating yolks or carefully moulding anything which I knew I probably wouldn't like!

DISASTER STRIKES. Ok, that may be tabloidising it a bit but a frustration or mild annoyance did occur. Looking in the spice cupboard I realised we only had cinnamon sticks, no ground cinnamon... Why!? WHY!!?!

- Sorry to be over egging this disaster a bit, but when you write about baking everyday somehow it becomes rather a lot less eventful, I've got to take advantage a little and try and work in some exciting prose! -

So I got a knife and crushed the end of the stick a bit until it was a bit finer - not exactly an irreversible problem!

However, a less reversible problem crept up on me about 45 minutes later: distractions. The Loaf was meant to be cooking in the oven for an hour exactly. Naturally I wasn't going to sit around staring at it slowly cook in the oven but the problem was that my usual task of washing up took 15 minutes, about the amount of time a lot of the recipes I've cooked take in the oven. Today I got distracted...

I wandered upstairs (having set a timer on the oven) and took to my laptop. I fiddled around on various social medias for about five minutes but then I fatefully decided to check my eBay account. I've recently been selling my broken iPod so I decided to check its progress ( £2.20 at this moment in time!) but of course - as many shopaholics will know - it's not as simple as just checking eBay like that, no, I just had to search for an iPad. In fact, I've caught myself doing right this very second. I checked it to find out that price for you and now I'm already trawling through lists of glorious looking Tablets I'm still not sure I want and definitely not sure I need (Ok that's not true, I definitely want an iPad!)

And now I'm distracted by talking about it! Anyway *baking blog, baking blog, not tech blog*, this untimely distraction meant that the banana loaf was in the oven a bit too long...

The Result:

Mmm, Burny...

So there you have it, one burnt banana flavoured baked good... Possibly the worst thing I could ever imagine eating! Yet, it really wasn't half bad! Thought the outside looks burnt it's more burnt in the same way shop bought loaves of bread are (they always have a black top) the inside was very spongey and , well not very nice for my bananaphobic tastebuds. But others seem to have enjoyed it, so all in all, not a terrible disaster!

Viennese Jam Snore-Cakes

You know when you have a lie down after a long day's work, and it just feels so fantastic? Well that's what happened yesterday, I worked from 10-5 at the Maud Foster Windmill in Boston. I lugged flour about, filled bags with flour and mixed baking powder with - you guessed it - flour to make self-raising flour by the sackload. Although it may not have been the hardest day ever it was following on from a busy weekend out in the sun and travelling hundreds of miles, and that can be tiring.

So my little lie down was so very good... that it turned into a snooze. Then that snooze turned into a fully fledged hour long nap. Suffice to say that this did not leave me with very much time between work and going off to see some of my friends yesterday evening. Hence why I'm posting yesterday's blog today.

On waking up an hour before I was intending on heading out I jumped off my bed with surprising athleticism for someone who's been baking every day for the last three weeks and who'd just had a nap! I rushed downstairs to begin baking the most basic thing I could remember seeing in the book I hadn't already done. Viennese Jam Shortcakes are little cupcake style shortcakes which blur the line between biscuit and cupcake quite cleverly... and in my rush to do them I ended up over cooking them slightly.

Thankfully this was the only error in an otherwise easy recipe. Thanks to a friend of mine (and avid reader) I now know how to use a piping bag a little more efficiently and successfully squeezed mixture into cases without so much as a drop of unbaked goods anywhere on the surfaces (shocking I know!).

The Result: 

So they do look rather nice and dainty as one would hope, perfect for a lovely outside picnic in this lovely summer weather we've been having... Well, the weather we had this weekend anyway - As I read someone say recently "Summer was my favourite day this year..." -

But unfortunately, though they look rather delightful and cute looking, to my increasingly high standards of baked goods I just don't think they cut the mustard. The taste was lovely but I thought they were a little powdery for my liking, perhaps it was down to leaving them a little too long in the oven because of my rushing about or just because the recipe book I'm using is terrible and the recipes crappy. Who knows... 

Later, Banana Loaf, which should be fun considering I dislike Bananas...

Aww nuts, these flapjacks didn't go too well...

It's been a couple of days since I wrote a post on here but don't worry, yet again I have still been baking as much as ever. And naturally have a couple of anecdotes to update you on, we all know nothing ever seems to go according to plan with me!
Yesterday I attempted to bake some Nutty Flapjacks and of course that is certainly easier said than done...
The eponymous nuts in the recipe were Hazelnuts and my book recommended chopped hazelnuts which I had a look for in the supermarket but to no avail. Perhaps it simply meant buy whole Hazelnuts and then chop them... But regardless it took a while for my sun stroked brain to comprehend this idea! So I left with a bag of unchopped hazels.
In the style of Homer Simpson's inventions, I thought that I could think of a quicker way in which to chop said nuts. I say chop, I really mean pulverize into a powdered form! I put them in a plastic bag and used my masculine delicacy to destroy them with a rolling pin. Result: trapped air in the bag meant it exploded, sending nuts flying across the counter. The lazy man's way turned out causing a lot more hassle and tidying up for myself; I guess that's Karma for you!
In my infinite wisdom and careful planning (*ahem*) I had decided to bash on with these flapjacks before I'd even decided on what kind of tray I'd bake them in. Of course, as it turned out, I needed a square/rectangle inch deep baking tray... Something I do not own! But far from letting that bother me, I delved into my cupboard to find my cake tin and ended up with a circular flapjack pizza (cut into triangles of course!).

The Result:

Mmmm, Crunchy!

So as you can see they can't be that bad ( I ate most of it before I remembered to take a photo!) but there are a couple of recommendations I would like to make. First, If you decide to make nutty flapjacks make sure the nuts are thoroughly chopped and/or crushed. The fact they were still quite whole means that the mixture doesn't hold together as easily as it could do. Also, be wary about halving recipes. I halved this one because I didn't have many nuts (and by gum are they pricey!) but I didn't consider that in doing so i'd be making the mixture spread more thinly in the baking tin, so not only did I end up with very thin flapjacks but also, they were far harder than the traditional gooey ness of the pinnacle of flap & jack based cooking because the cooking time wasn't reduced accordingly. I make the mistakes so you don't have to!

Tune in tomorrow morning to find out how I got on with today's recipe, Viennese Shortcakes...  

Macaruins?

Macaroons are something I had never even heard of until this challenge. Though I understand that they are rather a lot more widespread than I thought when I discovered them. To those uninitiated - like my good self - they are basically tiny meringues sandwiched together with a filling of some sort.
To my absolute terror and shock, they are the very first thing in my challenge which has had zero dairy products... That's right, no butter, no cream, no thing to make my heart whimper and suffocate as I choke down those extra calories. Though I must say, the heart aches at the absence of butter from today's diet, I feel a little emotional about it... Well, as emotional as one can get about food!
Another first on today's challenge was that it was the first time I'd ever had a chance to use a piping bag. I sincerely hope it will be the last as well, I think that it might have been the most useless cooking tool I've ever had the displeasure to use. Although when full of mixture it did an excellent job of making lovely rounds of macaroon mixture when it was running low it just created a mess... Literally, I had nut mixture all over my hands, two spoons were unrecognisable from the mess and a spatula was really feeling the strain of usage. In short, I don't think I've ever had a less useless kitchen implement ever. For a start, it took an absolute age trying to spoon the mixture into the bag to begin with, and I'm lucky I had my lovely Sous Chef ( My beautiful girlfriend) to help. On my own it would have been pretty much impossible; how on earth are you meant to scoop something into a paper bag without it losing its shape and flopping all over the place. Macaroon mix was on the outside of the bag, the inside of the bag, my hands, cutlery and of course all the surfaces I'd even come anywhere near to touching. In short, I wish I'd just spooned it onto the baking sheets!
However badly this process ended up being, somehow everything went swimmingly from there onwards. Thankfully I carefully followed the recipe and left them to settle at room temperature for half an hour ( two weeks ago I may have misread that and cooked it for thirty minutes instead!) before baking for the last ten minutes.

The Result: 

Ok, let's face it, they aren't exactly the most aesthetically pleasing baked goods I've ever made and they certainly aren't quite as circular as the picture in the book looked. yet, they taste absolutely delicious, they are far softer and dainty than I had imagined, they certainly aren't biscuits or cakes but are, I think, far better than both! I am looking forward to making the vanilla macaroons (coming to a blog post near you soon) but there's something nicer about scraping the nutella into these knowing that they are going to taste gorgeous! They're a real treat! 

Irish So-Duh bread & Cinnamoan Cookies.

My apologies for being absent over the last couple of days, it's been a busy time for me but don't worry and don't lose faith, I'm still baking and getting through the recipes as planned! Yesterday was my last day at uni for this year so was a mixture of emotions (largely celebratory) and resulted in a mad dash to finish assignments - one such assignment was written ferocity in one sitting... on the loo - and of course cramming for my final exam. So naturally blogging about my various baking adventures dropped to the bottom of my list of priorities; no matter how much it hurt to do it!
But baking has been consistent, starting with the Irish Soda Bread I made on Wednesday evening. Soda bread is probably the best thing ever. Why? Because baking bread is pretty fun, kneading is therapeutic and the end result makes the house smell wonderful. But with normal bread, as opposed to Soda bread, there is a lot of waiting around for the yeast to start working ("Proving") here there was no such annoyance, a bit of bicarb and some buttermilk ( no, I'd never heard of that before either in case you wondered!) and it went straight in and then out the oven all in under an hour!
The Result: 

Mmmm, easy....

What came out of the oven was a very unusual type of bread. The butter cream clearly plays a massive part in making it taste so different, it is creamier and richer tasting than the average loaf of bread. Great with a bit of cheese or butter (if you don't mind injecting your arteries with kilos of fat...), and certainly a good loaf to try as a first attempt at baking bread. (It's literally just mixing 450g of flour with 300ml of butter milk and teaspoon of salt and bicarb and kneading it into a round shape, then cooking for 25-30 mins at 220c!).

Today's adventure was a bit of a haphazard one. I had originally intended to catch a train this morning to leave uni but as a result of way too much "celebrating the end of year" (which here roughly translates as alcohol!) I missed my train. Frustration doesn't even cover it. Nor did it help that I had an enormous headache to remind me of the reason I'd missed it...

But - for some reason - I found solace in the fact that I now had time to bake before I left! Not the most normal form of hangover cure but the cinnamon scented chocolate cookies certainly helped distract me and I always find that doing something is the best way to cure a hangover, so why not!

These tasty little ideas came out a bit disappointingly actually, perhaps it was my tastebuds being numbed by ehanol but they didn't seem to be as exciting as I had hoped. And they were definitely a little (a lot) too crumbly. They didn't have the "cookie" texture I'd hoped for, that beautiful doughy property the best cookies have. 

But I can hardly complain too much, I barely had any myself and everyone else seemed to really enjoy them! As someone cleverer than myself (not hard) once said "You are your best critic."

More exciting adventures to come tomorrow!

Mmmmm, Ingenious homemade cooling rack...

Ricotta make this again!

As I mentioned only a couple of days ago, following my disastrous attempt to make pecan pie, I really wanted to try and make a pastry based recipe again. Having had a look through them all, I settled on one neither too complicated nor one too easy ( I want to leave plenty of easier ones to break up the dead hard ones later on, just to keep faith!) with the beautiful - and intriguing - sounding name: Ricotta Tart with Walnuts and Chocolate.
I must admit that, in my amateur status as a baker (or perhaps my ignorance), I had no idea what Ricotta was. On closer inspection I discovered that it was a cheese. I can't decide whether this was a disappointment for me, on the one hand the Pecorino and Walnut Scones remain to this day one of my greatest successes - and my housemate's favourite - so the idea of combining Walnuts with cheese again appealed to me. On the other hand, I seriously wanted something really tasty and couldn't bear the thought of another Pecan tart style vomit pie (which funnily enough my housemate also loved... though to be fair anyone getting free tart shouldn't be too picky!). But the allure of Chocolate, walnut and Rum drew me in.

- I may be the first student to have ever bought Sainsbury's Basic Dark-Rum for any reason other than to get absolutely annihilated and stumble off "down town" or "t'ut club" -

Making the pastry was frustrating, for some reason the way of doing it seems to change quite a bit per recipe (probably to account for sweetness of the end product) and this time it asked to mix in the flour last with your fingers to form a dough... Unfortunately by this point I'd already made a woopsy and turned the lot into a very fine bread-crumby mixture. *Sigh* Luckily my status as a slightly more experienced baker is coming along strong and I rectified the mistake merely by adding a drop of water... TV deal and cookery book offer still a long way off though!
Onto the filling. As I've mentioned numerous times on my culinary adventure, I am a student having to deal with the harsh realities that I'm simply going to have to "make-do" with the equipment I've got. Luckily, I happened across a tart tin at work one day which my boss happily gave me for free but other than that stroke of luck I'm severely handicapped in the equipment department. Today I needed a pyrex dish to melt the chocolate in. It sounds like a simple problem to solve, but it was annoying, I had no bowls which were either fire retardant (my mixing bowls are plastic) or the right size to slot over a pan of simmering water. Rather than melting the chocolate in the microwave (which could easily burn parts and leave others solid) I used a small plastic bowl in a bigger plastic bowl of boiling water, the same idea as the intended way and success was mine!
After the mixture was done, it was a simple matter of prettifying the top with some purely decorative slices of Pastry and it was complete.

The Result:

An absolutely mind blowing success. Doesn't it just look gosh darned delicious?! Believe me, it tastes just as good! By no means is it the most normal of baked goods, it is full of flavours you just don't encounter on the average day, whether you're a renegade foodie or not! The chocolate and walnut give a solid foundation of flavour which though basic makes for a perfect after dinner treat. The rum and ricotta though, are the real Pièce de résistance, they add the kick to it and make it that little bit more exciting and interesting than your average tinned chocolate desert.

In many ways I'm sad that I'm doing this challenge on this occasion, because I know fully well that until the 20th of August I'm not really going to have the opportunity to make such a delicious dish again. But I suppose that without this challenge I would neither have the skill nor the desire to try it, I would always just settle with the more basic, humdrum and canned desert style dish and never even find out what Ricotta is.

Almonday morning cookies

I have had possibly the most productive day I could have had (other than perhaps the last couple of hours spent playing the classic PC game Rise of Nations...) today. After an - all too rushed - awakening a couple of minutes to nine, only seconds before my driving instructor pulled into the drive, I had a really rather enjoyable driving lesson (no, I still haven't passed my test at 19 though I should have by the end of this challenge...). And back before most Uni students are even awake on most days off I got straight down to revising for my final year exam - which looms ever closer - this Thursday afternoon. I won't lie, I was kicking some serious revision ass. I had written two essays on existentialism and the economics of the new industrial estate (sounds rather complicated doesn't it... mainly because it is!) before lunch, so I decided I'd take a break to bake some delicious (but rather boringly named) "Almond Cookies with a Cherry On Top."
-Yes the name does what is required of a name but somehow I feel it is lacking in a bit of invention, or pizazzz. How about Cherry Surprises? (Almond being the surprise) Or Almond Suprise? (cherry being the surprise)... Or perhaps something which has no surprises at all but is still inventive! -
Perhaps things could have gone better... Firstly, I decided (for the good of my health and wallet) that halving the recipe would be necessary. A bad idea, I always forget one thing if I do this, today I ended up not halving the quantity for the amount of Almond the recipe asks for. Oh dear.
Secondly, I completely didn't read the book at all (again). I accidentally sifted the flour into the butter and sugar before I even began to melt the butter. But a bit of re-sifting meant it went into the pan largely flour-less.
I then added in what I thought was almond extract... Naturally, it was the vanilla extract! I definitely need some new form of storing all my spices, herbs and extracts in a way which is more easily "filed" ... But I figured that since I'd accidentally doubled the amount of ground almond I put in the recipe this might be ok...
So I ploughed on regardless of my challenge to do every recipe in the book TO THE LETTER , I figure they're more like guidelines anyway! As you might be able to tell from my writing style today, that this was no disaster at all. Usually I'd be throwing exclamation marks all over the place, inventing adjectives and filling in expletives' middle letters with asterisks by now. Yet, I'm as cool as a cucumber, calm as the lull before the storm and as collected as... pokémon cards. And why might that be??
IT ALL WORKED OUT!! Somehow, miraculously, everything went completely and extraordinarily to plan! Despite all these relatively major fudge ups the biscuits came out as right as rain, as tasty as chocolate, as delicious as knowing a dirty secret about your boss. They are lovely! I suppose it's about time my luck turned in my baking, every tiny mistake I;ve made so far really blew up in my face but today it all went swimmingly!
Oh wait. I forgot one thing... Remember I mentioned that I'd been revising really well until I decided to take a break? Well, I suppose something bad had to happen after all those mistakes; I've written no more than one or two more words of revision since the biscuits came out the oven. Dammit, I guess that's karma for you!

The Result: 

Mmmmmmiraculous

Muffincredible

Today I was really on the ball with my baking, and I mean seriously committed! Perhaps it was because I woke up with the taste of yesterday's pecataclysm (I'm running drastically short on puns I can make about pecans!) still stirring in my mouth. Somehow the horrible, rich, sugary taste pervaded through two teeth brushings and my morning coffee. It was definitely time for something pretty much guaranteed to be tasty, so without any extra dithering I got weighing out ingredients. I must admit that baking on a sunday morning is far more relaxing and enjoyable than baking on an average weekday evening (even though weekend radio is terrible so I couldn't do my standard beating eggs dance... such a shame).

The task was double chocolate muffins and thankfully I had all the ingredients, including sour cream. I must say that having sour cream is something I would never actually have if it wasn't for this challenge, and I think that is probably true for most people. So why put it in a supposedly accessible cook book recipe? The top result for Muffin recipes doesn't have it so why should mine be so much more awkward and difficult!?

Apparently, soured cream is perfect because of its consistency, it makes for a much chewier and dense consistency than the average more crumbly texture. And I must say that I have really enjoyed both sour cream recipes I've done so far. Perhaps it's a coincidence but maybe not, there's just something else there in the taste and the texture which just seems to make them pop. The muffins - which i recommend serving before they've fully cooled - were absolutely glorious. They were soft, spongey and full of flavour. The chocolate melts beautifully in the mouth to make for a decadent deliciousness you just don't get in shop bought ones. It was absolutely delightful!

Usually I have a problem of some sort when baking to go on about a little bit but today there is literally nothing to complain about. I would bake them again tomorrow if I didn't have something else planned! Then again, there is still one significant problem...

Today I baked early on but still decided to leave it until now to post the blog (for some reason I write much more succinctly in the evening and night) but the problem was that I've eaten three muffins today despite my heart thumping out "no-more...No-more.. No-More...NO-MORE." I gave my house mates one each, which leaves one muffin uneaten... And I forgot to take a photo in my eagerness to try them! So please take my word for it that I cooked six muffins but they were just so good I couldn't help but eat them before I had a chance to get all instagram on them! Annoyingly, the one left was definitely the runt of the litter too, funny how much aesthetics helps us decide on our food, it'll taste just as good but because the poor thing is wonky it gets left in the fridge all alone over night... Bless.

The Result:

Mmmm, Lonely

Another Pecanlamity

Yes, Pecan nuts are back on the menu, and guess what? It went wrong... again. Last time I tried to make pecan and maple biscuits it went horribly and was the first major disaster of the whole challenge (even though they tasted pretty good). This time, it went way worse. Way way worse!

The challenge in question was a Pecan pie, it has a self-made pastry base and a filling made of syrupy, sugary, nutty mixture, yummy! Thankfully my first ever self made pastry base went swimmingly; putting it into a tin, weighing it down with baking beans (or rice, it's cheaper and does the same job!) baking, rising. Perfect! I had assumed that once that was out of the way the rest would be fairly straight forward. It was merely melting a few ingredients and mixing them together before cooking everything for a bit. As always, the simple task is always the one which goes wrong!

It went into the oven with everything melted together looking beautiful; it was literally picture perfect. I could compare the book and mine and they looked identical other than not being cooked. But everything went so very wrong as soon as it went into my terrible, teasing, sadistic oven. Have I mentioned my oven before? If yes, I don't care, I'll say it again. IT'S BLOODY AWFUL!

- My apologies for the language but I figure if "Bloody" is in the first Harry Potter film then it'll hardly bother anyone with access to a computer! -

The oven has wonky shelves. It has the most imprecise heat gauge I've ever seen on an oven (there is literally a millimetre between gasmarks four and five and no dashes to help differentiate the two). And of course it has a big ole fire at the back just to make baking anything that bit more difficult. I think the first problem can be blamed on the oven - unequivocally, unmistakeably, undeniably the oven. The pie is all wonky on one side, strangely not the side which the oven slopes down towards but the opposite end! I can only assume that despite rotating the slowly-spoiling pie half way through the cooking time wasn't enough, my oven is far too clever to be outwitted in its attempts to spoil my food for that, nooooo, it all bubbled up in the second half of the cooking time and solidified halfway up. Result... WONKY PIE.

I must admit, that this wouldn't usually bother me, I've made various concoctions on this challenge which have been, let's say, aesthetically challenged. So I would have let it fly if it wasn't for problem two...

The reason I decided to do this challenge was mainly on a whim inspired by Julie Powell's famous blog (check out what's left of it here) but also because I stumbled across a recipe book which looked great and was reduced by £15 down to £3. A bargain I simply couldn't resist! Yet, my parsimonious (word of the day!) ways have resulted in me having what can only be described as a sh***y recipe book.

- Harry Potter fans don't get that word so nor can you! -

Over the few challenges I've had so far I've discovered that most of the recipes have been ok, but some have certainly not been anywhere near as good as ones I've tried in the past. DO NOT USE THIS PECAN PIE RECIPE... EVER. Essentially, the recipe has turned into a wonky pie which tastes absolutely awful. There is significantly too much syrup in it which makes for a dominating and permeating taste in the mouth, the flavour of the £5 per kilo pecans is lost and the filling has the consistency of scrambled egg ( my guess is two eggs is too many!). I won't pretend to be able to tell you what is wrong with this recipe properly or how to amend it but I can promise you that I followed the instructions to the letter and it came out with something I almost feel bad giving to my housemates... almost.

The Result:

Mmmm, it looks as good as it tastes...

All in all, I want to try another pie/tart because that bit went remarkably well... There's a chance I may have mentioned enough times how badly the rest went!

Recipe 15: Pecan Pie

Ingredients:

Pastry:
200g plain flour
115g Butter
2tbsp Caster Sugar
Cold Water

Filling:

70g Unsalted butter
100g light muscovado sugar
140g golden syrup
1 large Egg beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
115g pecan nuts

Method:

1: Rub the butter into the flour until it forms breadcrumbs and then stir in the sugar and add a little water to make a firm dough. Cool for 15mins in clingfilm.
2: Preheat oven to Gas Mark 6/ 200c
3: Roll out the pastry to line a 9 inch tart tin. Prick the base with a  fork. Chill for a further 15mins.
4: Line the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans/rice and cook (bake blind) in the oven for 10minutes. Remove paper and beans/rice and cook for 5 more mins. Reduce oven to 180c/Gas Mark 4
5: melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan. Remove from heat and quickly beat in egg and vanilla extract.
6: Mix in the chopped pecans and bake for 35-45 mins in the oven until the filling has set. Serve warm or cold.

To see my tips and how I fared on this recipe click here!

Bargain Hunting and Biscuit Making

As I've mentioned numerous times during my challenge, I'm a student. I therefore have very little money; I don't have a job and I live entirely on my student loan. As you may have worked out from the various unusual ingredients and the quantity of baked goods I've been making, this is going to be a very expensive task.

Today was all about finding ingredients for the absolute minimum and in the homely city of Winchester where I live that makes for quite a task... especially when you don't have a car!
Yet, I've become a bargain hunter. I've found that by far the cheapest place for eggs is Iceland, they are a shocking £1.75 for 15 large eggs. OK, they are from caged hens but I'm afraid morals go out of the window when you're getting through a dozen a week!

I've had to be every single type of sugar on the face of this earth (or so it seems) but the problem with having these more obscure types is of course price and availabilty. I paid a shocking amount for demerara but somehow Muscovado sugar was actually cheaper than the light brown sugar. Who'd have thought it!

Anyway, today was a test in getting all of these today in one trip. I had Oranges, eggs, sugar and golden syrup to get. First I went to iceland, then I went to poundland, then I went to, the sainsbury's superstore (a two mile run) and finally to my local corner shop which had accidentally under priced Golden Syrup by £1.50 per bottle. I bought two. In short, I spent a lot of time and effort attempting to cut costs and still spent a fortune on foods, this money is almost literally going straight down the toilet...
But to the recipe, today was chocolate orange sandwich biscuits. These are by far the most interesting biscuits I've ever made, there is something so satisfying about making a creamy-chocolate filling and squishing two biscuits together onto it. The resultant biscuit is really quite remarkable actually. Both tasty and surprisingly far less messy to eat than I'd imagined.

Imagine eating a really full sandwich, you take that first bite and crunch through the crusty bread, feel the touch of the spongey bread and then the soft juicy filling... dribbling all the way down your hand after the bite. I thought that would happen here but luckily the biscuit was doughy enough to allow a bite to crumble straight through and not cause a filling fiasco. And to top it all off, they look like colour-inverted burgers, wonderful.

The Result:

Mmm filling-ey...

Yep, they look gooey and crunchy and lovely. But I have to say the orange really made them, I love how a little bit of Orange rind in a recipe like this can change them from being probably too rich and choclatey to just right. All in all, a great success!

Life of (Potato & Onion) Pie

Yesterday's challenge was one of the first real challenges in baking something savoury. Of course I have already baked bread a couple of times, cheese scones and of course the disastrous naan breads but yesterday's was a proper pie. Potato and Red Onion pie to be precise. For me this was also quite a significant evening in general because it was one of the last evenings I spent with all my housemates together before we head off to our various home towns across the country for summer. Part of the joy of baking this pie was that I was never going to be able to eat it all myself over a few days but that instead I could share it with my housemates and have a nice "family" meal together. The first time I cooked specifically for others...

Naturally it didn't all go to plan at all, so it didn't make for the wonderful family event I'd hoped. The first hiccup was the little fact that I had forgotten to get any more eggs. I had bought 15 eggs this time last week but already they had all vanished! I honestly never anticipated that, I mean I knew I'd need a lot of eggs but 15 in a week seems unreasonable! Luckily my housemate had one so I pressed on with the challenge... Until I realised I needed two... Dang! So to the shop I went, it seems that all I ever spend my money on these days is food. I'm rocketing through my student loan quicker than you can say "Orange and Poppy seed Bundt cake" (which still looms in my mind as the one challenge I dread to take on). Eggs in hand, pastry, onions and taters ("boil em mash em stick em in a stew") prepared the task carried on as intended. I must admit that seeing the puff pastry puff up in the oven is one of those wonderful delights in cooking. It unfolds like a flower tentatively in the start of spring and soon turns into something which looks remarkable and delicious. Brand new eggs whisked up with cream made the sauce to dribble into the top of the pie - another strangely enjoyable task, I am starting to get really geeky about this stuff - and then it was only a quarter  an hour before it was done.

The pie was a little bit too overdone on the outside and the veg was undercooked on the inside, so all in all not exactly great for the first pie I've made so far!Yet, despite those flaws, it was actually very tasty. Personally I am starting to doubt the credibilty of this book I'm working through (to be fair it was only £3 from The Works) so often the heat i've cooked it at has been way off... Though then again I am working on a "student" quality oven so I guess that may be playing a part!

The Result:

Mmm Undercooked...

Mmmm and Overcooked...

So all in all neither thumbs up or down for the poor ole Onion and Potato pie. But I learnt some pretty handy lessons (mainly to be careful with the heat of the oven and make sure it doesn't burn!

When life gives you lemons make lemon drizzle cake...

The title of today's post is stolen from an old proverb which is about optimism, no matter what life throws at you you have to make do and do your best. Today has been a tough day at University for me because for various reasons I won't go into the day didn't go out as originally planned, which naturally adversely affected me (I'm the sort of person who would win the lottery but then get struck by lightning twice in the same spot...). A part of me wanted to mope and get all huffy about it - and I definitely did for a while - but then I pulled myself together and worked on an alternative which worked out excellently.
It has made me think about the challenge I set myself almost two weeks ago. I originally said the deadline would be the first of the first next year, but really I always knew from the very start that this should be 100 recipes in 100 days. Perhaps I'm too craven to have gone the full hog and really challenged myself straight away but I've decided to amend the challenge, I no longer have many months to do this tough challenge but 100 days to do an even harder one. Wish me luck!
Anyway, today's cake is another one of those simple easy ones I simply have to do just to get it out of the way before advancing onto the hard stuff, it would be silly to do all the exciting stuff right away and then leave myself with the basics towards the end. Nonetheless, nothing ever goes smoothly evenwith a relatively simple cake like a lemon drizzle! As always it went wrong because I didn't follow the recipe properly, the recipe says an eight inch baking tin... I went with a seven inch tin. Why? Because I bought the seven inch one for yesterday's recipe and it cost me £4.25! That's almost two double rum and cokes! So I wasn't going to go and splash out on an extra inch no matter how much I need it (*insert innuendo*).
But of course this resulted in the cake being deeper so the center not cooking as well as it could do before the top started browning (or blackening, in my case) off. Simple solution is FOLLOW THE RECIPE. It's really quite obvious!

The Result:

Ok, so it's not the most beautiful looking cake ever made, and to be honest nor is it the tastiest but then it's really hard to make a judgement on this one. I feel like the actual recipe is lacking in something (probably butter which I'm pretty sure I now have an addiction to!) and the soured cream and oil just doesn't add enough taste to make it really worth going for. I doubt I'll ever make this one again.

Recipe 12: Lemon Drizzle Cake

Ingredients:

Oil 150ml 
caster sugar 200g 
Beaten eggs 4 
Plain Flour 200g 
Soured Cream 150ml 
Grated rind and juice of a lemon 1 

Icing:


Icing Sugar 4tsps 

1: Grease an 8inch cake tin. Preheat oven to 260c/Gas Mark 4
2: Sieve flour and baking powder in a bowl, then mix in sugar.
3: Whisk eggs, soured cream, lemon rind, half of lemon juice and oil.
4: Pour in tin and bake for 45-60 mins. Until golden brown.
5: When almost finished baking, make syrup by heating icing sugar and lemon juice in small pan on a low heat until it begins to bubble and turns syrupy.
6: As soon as cake comes out of the oven prick with a skewer and brush syrup over the top.

To see how I fared at this recipe check out this post!

You take the Lime and the Coconut and mix it all up...

I must admit that I'm not a fan of either coconut or lime. So I guess today's recipe wasn't a great choice, a coconut and lime cake is probably going to be one of my least favourite recipes so far however what is so enjoyable about this whole challenge is that really it's not about baking lots of gorgeous foods or even about conquering one hundred recipes in a hundred days; it's about trying something new (or should I say old?).
I've always been an enormous fan of anything which is vaguely old fashioned, things like pocket watches, black & white films and classical music have always captured my imagination. Anything historical has always engaged me in ways the plethora of modern technology ever has. Baking has somehow become one of those, perhaps it's the fact that big manufacturers can make everything we eat at fractions of the cost than little old me can. Or perhaps the "modern" life of working nine til five and commuting an hour each way means that people just don't want to bake anymore. Even baking has been made modern and quick with "ready to make" mixes of some of the more run of the mill baked goods. Somehow I've been drawn to this almost archaic way of making food, I actually enjoy the whole process of measuring it out, mixing it in special ways and in a specific order and then hoping you did it right. Maybe it won't be perfect every time but as Lord of the Rings fans always say when the eagles are mentioned: "It's not about the end result, it's about the journey."
To summarise a rambling & slightly off topic anecdote... I like trying to bake anything, I'll force someone else to eat it if I don't like it!
So, to the baking itself! Today's was certainly not a difficult one, as you'll see in the recipe, it's quite a straightforward deal. Though having said that, there're always a few anecdotes to be told about my baking! I was so very happy to be the proud owner of a new cake tin (essential for the rest of the book) and somehow the fact this was a shiny brand spanking new tin apparently made me lose any last vestige of common sense I may have already had. When the cake came out the oven (after an hour of baking) I strangely assumed it would cool within a couple of minutes... Smart move. So I'm typing this entire post with tips of three burnt fingers on my left hand, ok they're not major, but it certainly is a boo-boo worth sharing! Especially considering it is the first injury I've sustained ( I'm surprised it took eleven recipes to get there!)
But, today's excitement didn't originate from the actual baking because although I'd never grated a lime and extracted its juice before it's not exactly going to Disneyland. Really it's all about that fateful taste test. To someone who "isn't a fan of either Lime or Coconut," is a coconut and lime cake worth trying?
The Result:

Mmm Drizzly...

Armed with a cup of tea and a lovely sit down on the sofa I tasted my first ever coconut and lime cake and what did I think... Well for one thing you could definitely taste the lime and the coconut! It was actually a really tasty slice of cake, I love that the texture of the coconut adds to the sponge in a way which makes it really enjoyable to eat and the lime icing sugar though pretty sickly looking is absolutely glorious, it really adds an excellent tang to the concoction. Admittedly I am still not convinced that coconut is a very enjoyable taste but I am so very glad I've tried something new! I'm thinking tomorrow's adventure will be on the same lines, but for now I think I may have another slice...

Recipe 11: Coconut & Lime Cake

Ingredients:

Butter 175g 
caster sugar 175g 
Beaten eggs 3 
Self-Raising Flour 150g 
Desiccated coconut 80g 
Grated rind and juice of a lime 1 

Icing: 

Icing Sugar 175g 
Grated rind and juice of a lime 1 
toasted shredded coconut 25g

Method:
1: Grease an 8inch cake tin. Preheat oven to 260c/Gas Mark 3
2: Place the butter & sugar in a large bowl & beat together until pale and smooth. Gradually beat in eggs. Sift in flour and gently fold in. Fold in the coconut and lime rind & juice.
3: Spoon the mixture into tin and level the surface off. Cook for 1 hour 15mins. Leave to cool for 5mins in the tin and then remove to cool on a rack.
4: For the icing, sift icing sugar in a bowl stir in lime rind and juice. Spoon icing on top and allow to drizzle down the edges. Scatter extra coconut on the icing.

Recipe 10 - Classic Oatmeal Cookies:

Ingredients for 15:
 Plain Flour 70g 
Butter 90g 
Demerara Sugar 140g 
Small Egg 1 
Water 2 Tbsps 
Vanilla Extract 1 tsp 
Plain Rolled Oats 190g 
Salt 0.5 tsps 
Bicarbonate of soda 0.25g 

Method: 

1: Cream butter and sugar together then beat in the egg, water & vanilla extract until smooth. 
2: Mix the oats, flour, salt and bicarbonate of soda together in a separate bowl. Slowly mix into the creamy mixture. 
3: Place spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet making sure they’re well spaced. 
4: Cook until golden brown for about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and sheet and leave to cool on a wire rack.

See how I fared at trying the recipe here.

These cookies smell oat so strange...

My apologies for the absentee blogs this weekend (you may have noticed I'm now one behind,I'll be playing catchup soon!). The reason for this is because I've travelled the length of the country this weekend and so have had very little time to blog. As many commuters will tell you from time to time you have a day travelling which can be described using only four letter words I will not utter here.

Naturally, it all started with a simple mistake in preparation for the journey, namely, I forgot my debit card. I had walked for half an hour in the baking Friday heat to get on my train but couldn't claim my tickets without my debit card. Here follows a lot of running, swearing, sweating, and complaining loudly to anyone who would care to listen (myself mainly). Of course I missed my intended train so that meant I missed the train I had tickets reserved for. I don't know if you've ever experienced advanced rail bookings but they're pretty fussy about you having the right one. Using my utmost cunning I got away with the wrong one but irregardless it made for a stressful afternoon. Anyway, to cut an almost finished long story short, there was no desire to bake on Friday or after 9-5 work on Saturday ergo I'm one day behind.

Anyway, for today's recipe I went with an old classic, oatmeal cookies, and in general they were pretty darned easy. Just a little mixing of dry ingredients and popping it in the oven! Though the most unusual result came out when finished. Yes, they looked lovely and oaty, they even tasted lovely and oaty yet somehow they smelt quite strongly of sweetcorn... Yep, the yellow stuff. Why? If I knew I reckon this blog would be "professional home baking" instead of amateur! But there you have it, just another strange result of following the recipe to the letter.

You'll be happy to know I've actually written up all the recipes I haven't yet published so they'll be uploaded any moment now! Thanks for reading!
The Result:

Shocklate caramel shortbread...

I must admit than I didn't fully realise how absorbing this challenge was going to be. Obviously I knew a regular baking task would be difficult but there are so many tasks related to that which make it so difficult, and honestly I didn't expect the eating part to be a problem.

I am not a fat person but nor do I eat healthily really (McDonald's is a particular heart stopping favourite of mine) so I assumed that eating baked goods daily (or thereabouts) would be dead easy and really enjoyable... How wrong was I!

After the cheesy scones I felt a little gluttonous, it's my own fault for eating 7 in a day but still! After the cupcakes I felt sick, and the bread the other day was eaten in one sitting (that's one whole loaf of bread!). So as a note for people attempting this sort of thing... Make sure you have a lot of fat friends you can give treats to, because I have none!

Anyway, to the challenge, last night was time to make Caramel chocolate shortbread. These are such devilish creations that they have three layers of heart-attack inducing ingredients but it's the one in the middle which proved to be one of the most demoralizing challenges so far.

Making caramel you have to keep stirring all the ingredients whilst they simmer until it turns thick... This DOES NOT HAPPEN. I tried my hardest and I followed the instructions to the letter but still it somehow ended up burning and having bits in it. I ran around panicking whilst trying to keep stirring and also cook the base at once, it didn't seem to be going well at all but I had to finish it so I did.

So let's face it they look gooood, and honestly they taste good too. I don't know why the caramel has bits in it but it doesn't taste bad at all, it's probably the best thing I've baked yet! So the moral of the story is that even when everything looks to have failed miserably, never give up!

The Result:

Check out the recipe here...

Delayed...

I have been baking, so don't lose faith...

Recipe 9- Chocolate Caramel Shortbread:

Ingredients for 12:
Base:
Plain Flour 175g 
Butter 115g 
Golden Caster Sugar 55g 

Filling and Topping:
Butter 175g 
Golden Caster Sugar 115g 
Golden Syrup 3 Tbsps 
Canned Condensed Milk 400g 
Plain Chocolate 200g 

Method: 

1: Grease and line the base of a 9inch shallow square tin. 
2: Using a food processor bind together butter, sugar and flour then press it into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Bake for 20-25 mins or until golden. 
3: Meanwhile, make the filling. Gently heat butter, sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk until the sugar begins to dissolve whilst constantly stirring. Bring to the boil and simmer for six to eight minutes stirring constantly and ensuring the entire mixture is moving (un-stirred mixture at the bottom will burn). When the mixture becomes thick immediately remove from the heat and add to the base. Chill the base in the fridge (about half an hour). 
4: Melt the chocolate and pour over the caramel and shortbread base. Chill in the fridge again until the chocolate is solid. Cut into slices and serve.

Check out how I fared at the recipe here!

Recipe 8 - Wholemeal Harvest Bread:

Ingredients for one small loaf:
Wholemeal Spelt Flour 225g 
Semi Skimmed Milk 2 Tbsps 
Salt 1tsp 
Sugar 1 tbsps 
Yeast 1 tsp (half a sachet) 
Warm Water 175ml 
Sunflower Oil 1.5 Tbsps + Extra for Greasing 

Method: 

1: Mix flour, milk powder, salt, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Add oil and warm water (gradually) and mix until it makes a smooth dough. 
2: Knead on a lightly floured surface for ten minutes sprinkling extra flour if it is too sticky. Oil a bowl and add the dough, leave the bowl in a plastic bag for an hour in a warm place. 
3: Oil a loaf tin (or a making tray if shaping by hand). Knead dough again for one minute and then shape into the desired shape or add to tin with the fold in the dough facing down. Leave covered for 30 minutes. 
4: Bake for 30 minutes. Tap the bottom and it should sound hollow, leave until cooled on a wire rack.

These Apple Pie Cupcakes were Golden Delicious...

Today's challenge started out as a bit of an ordeal and waking up about three hours later than I'd hoped wasn't the best of starts. I had intended to get some baking done and blogged about before my lecture started at three in the afternoon but the best laid plans of mice and men... So it was my own fault that I'm having to do this blog at Ten PM after a frantic couple of hours in the kitchen.

It all started going wrong when my driving instructor (who was meant to give me a lesson after my lecture) never turned up. You know how when you're waiting for someone to turn up you can't do anything else at all? Well I did that for about an hour, he never turned up, worse though was that I'd wasted the hour or so I could have been baking on hovering about expecting him to arrive any moment. In the end I settled on making some wholemeal bread because it would only take a bit of kneading and then could be left to rise if he suddenly turned up. I know it's not the most exciting or interesting recipe I've done yet but it needs to be done & earlier rather than later. I had set my hopes on making Warm Spiced Apple Pie Cupcakes but this was the prudent choice. Plus I could pretend I was kneading my driving instructor's face in frustration for him not turning up!

So it was left to prove as I decided that actually I wanted to do the cupcakes as well, I'd had my sights set on them all day and I really wanted to have some tasty cupcakes to have after tea. Alas, I didn't have the ingredients again. A long trek in the rain later I was stocked up with everything I needed. And by gum am I glad I did that. I'll admit I was stressed out trying to cook bread, cupcakes and my dinner simultaneously but with the skill of an Octopus chef I managed to do what no man has ever done before... Multi-Task, and pretty successfully at that!

The dinner was edible, the bread is edible and the cupcakes well, they were pretty close to perfect. I'll be the first to admit I don't make my baked goods look pretty but they tasted heavenly. The crunch on the top, the mild spiced flavour, the bite of the cooking apples and the spongey texture of the cupcake in the middle makes for a delectable treat.

Before baking it looked impossible; the kitchen was a mess, there was washing up to do from yesterday evening (it really piles up when you bake daily!) and the lack of driving lesson had knocked me all out of kilter (as well as putting me on edge). But when I sat down with a cupcake and a cup of tea after a few hours of hectic activity I knew that this challenge was well worth it. I may have taken on more of a challenge than I had ever anticipated but I know for sure now that every single day will be well worth the effort.

The Results:

Mmmm, DELICIOUS

Mmmmm, wholesome...

Recipes are here: Cupcakes & Bread