Carbake sale/ Cakeboot Sale

As you may have noticed,my blog has been a little quiet of the last couple of days. Yet, I have been far from lazy in terms of my baking challenge. I fact yesterday I completed the historic halfway mark in my challenge in a spectacular (ok, that may be a bit hyperbolic but still...) way, I went to an enormous car boot sale to sell my cakes to passing punters... And I made a profit!

It all began on Friday morning when I set off on my dads bike - it was built in the nineteen fifties - because my bike had a puncture to go and get ingredients to bake the four things I intended to sell. 

The choices were: chocolate fudge cake, because let's face it who doesn't like that?!; clementine cake, whilst not an obvious choice it was very cheap so I figured I'd get a few wanting numerous cheap slices; crunchy nut cookies, they looked great and had a lovely honey filling sure to go down well; and lemon and chocolate whirls, pretty looking, interesting and cheap to make!

Although very nervous, it was an exciting prospect to actually finally make some money back off this challenge. I've been spending a vast amount of my ever increasing overdraft on flour butter and nuts and this just seemed like an obvious way to solve the problem. Why not try? The least that could happen was that I wouldn't sell anything and that I'd have still baked four recipes I needed to for the challenge anyway! 

So, laden with a rucksack full of ingredients and a carrier swinging on my handlebars I slowly cycled the two or so miles home... In the rain. I got soaked.

But still, the rest of the afternoon was spent in front of the oven swapping cakes about and generally working up a sweat so I soon dried off. But I spent four hours baking the two cakes and two sets of biscuits, and in the end I was very very impressed with how they went. My previous attempt at baking in a rush didn't exactly go to plan but here they all turned out miraculously well! The cakes looked fabulous and the biscuits very tempting. So prospects looked good for yesterday's boot sale, even the sun had made an appearance whilst slowly setting on Friday evening. 

After a restless nights sleep (mainly due to expecting it to be time to be up already) we arose at five thirty in the morning - my girlfriend had kindly offered to chauffeur me to the car boot sale... Bless her she must be crazy but I love her for it! - and set off beneath the grey skies for a challenge to sell cakes.

After a slow first hour or two - I suppose people don't want to eat cake early in the morning - things picked up and we began selling biscuits to passers by, then the chocolate cake started going, before we knew it a few hours had gone by and we were left with only a few biscuits and almost half of the clementine cake ( much to my surprise, people just didn't care much for the slightly healthier cheaper option). I was in my element; hailing down families and tempting them with offers of freshly baked chocolate cakes and biscuits. I love the environment of trying to sell something I've put so much effort into for a profit (no matter how small!).

I the end, we returned with only half a clementine cake and no biscuits left. We'd made a profit on the day and the evening's baking. Admittedly I'm hardly going to make a living on it just yet, but it's something! At 50p an hour I'm earning way less than minimum wage but in terms of enjoyment and excitement I feel like I'm a millionaire.

Then, it was to bed for the afternoon.

The Results :

Mmmm, Carbooty

Frosted Orange Biscutes

After yesterday's disastrous pastry attempt I decided I'd "take it easy" and try my hand at frosted orange biscuits. Lets make it clear right now though, there are literally no easy options left in my book I'm almost exactly halfway through the challenge so there is no longer the option to "take it easy" it is all go right now!

I have to say that these biscuits are easily - meant to be - the best looking biscuits in the book. The picture I have in front of me shows some beautiful cutesy looking flower shaped chocolate biscuits with a white icing centre topping in the centre and a drizzle of chocolate icing over the top... Mine clearly don't look quite like that! 

Perhaps it's my fault for being a bad manager of time; I must admit, it has never been my strong point. But after waking up at nearly midday (gimme a break, I'm used to the student life, not the bakers' life!) I ended up fiddling about for about twenty minutes or so 'waking up' - which to me is simply getting my social network fix, having a look at the news and dragging myself downstairs for my second fix (this time caffeine!). By the time I am actually ready to do anything productive in the day it is almost half past one and today I needed to run some other errands first, so baking finally came into sight at 2.30.... Only an hour before I needed to be at the cinema to watch a film with my lovely girlfriend. Cue mad rush to bake the prettiest biscuits I have to make in the challenge. Rushing whilst attempting to be neat doesn't usually go well together unfortunately!

Yet in the end it seemed to pay off pretty well, although the chocolate took longer to set than anticipated, what I ended up with didn't look too far off from the pretty biscuits shown in the book. Well, the carefully chosen ones for my picture certainly didn't, the others... Well, I think it's best that we don't bother mentioning the others! But hell, they still look good!

The Result:

Mmmm, pretty!

Apple Poor

"Part of me wants another disaster because it would be way more fun to write about..."

Those were my words in yesterday's post, following an out and out success with my cheese and mustard scones, and by god do I regret saying because it seems that there is someone up there granting my desires to come true... Well only in this case! 

Today was meant to be so easy, an apple pie certainly doesn't sound like an overly difficult task, yet it was far more of a trial than I could have ever imagined. It began with the small task of shopping for the ingredients, things like buying cooking apples shouldn't be so difficult! My girlfriend and I went to pretty much every single fruit and veg market stall in the centre of (market town) Boston, which I call my home, and yet every time we got to one they'd either ran out of these seemingly precious fruits or had never stocked them. 

- how can they be so precious?! I'm pretty sure we used to have a cooking apple tree in the back garden ( and so did the neighbours) but we got rid of them because the apples got everywhere, surely we didn't have the last one in my humble little town?! -

But finally we found one place with a few left and so I eagerly hoarded them in my bag in case someone else was in search of this green and bitter treasure...

As we arrived in the kitchen with flour, the precious apples and lard - something I almost forgot to buy so had to turn round and add an extra mile on the journey to get ( at least it helped working off the pie I'd soon be guzzling!) - the baking began.

And not for the whole of the challenge have  I been so distraught and frustrated by any single recipe. It was just pastry, and yet it just wouldn't bend to my will! It wouldn't stay together - even after the half an hour in the fridge - and every time I attempted to roll it just stuck to the surface, despite almost covering the entire kitchen - let alone the surface - in flour. In other words it just wasn't going my way today, the pastry ended up being more like a dough which I had to squash into the dish and hope that it would work. I fact I became so sure that it would ultimately fail that I even kept some filling back for the retry.

Alas, it came out of the oven after nearly an hours worth of baking looking... Messy - that's the first word that comes to mind! - but it was still clearly edible, and really quite edible in the end. The pastry was very crumbly, as expected, but it certainly tasted good, and when covered with custard, cream or ice cream no one would bat an eyelid at how destroyed it was by simply lifting it out of the dish! 

Not one to have to retry, but still, it certainly came close!

The Result: 

Mmmm, oh dear god, that looks horrific!

I mustard done well this time!

True to my blog yesterday I almost didn't bake again today, it certainly wasn't the top of the pile of jobs to do today, though in my procrastination I did find out a remarkable fact about my baking. The cost.

I mean I knew that it was an expensive endeavour when I began doing it. Even buying the cheapest cake you can every day for one hundred days would be expensive. At the minimum it would be about a hundred pounds! Yet obviously a baking challenge like mine doesn't just bake a basic sponge every day... I've had double chocolate gateauxs, spiced apple cakes, cheese cakes and everything in between. Although I've saved money by buying discount butter, flour and eggs you really can't save that much on things like glacé cherries or nuts. They're damned pricy! In short, I did some maths yesterday and discovered that the cake I baked yesterday cost me about seven quid to make, and that was with value flour and butter, it wasn't cheap!

Regardless, the challenge continues in spite of the ever deepening hole in my pockets. Today's challenge was going to be something more exciting than the Cheese and Mustard Scones I ended up making but I will have a proper day or two dedicated to baking soon, I've promised myself!

But the scones, which somehow jumped out at me, ended up being one of the most straightforward I've done in a while. It was almost literally weighing up the ingredients in any ole order and then whacking them in the oven! Unsurprisingly, absolutely nothing went wrong and they came out almost perfectly. Not only were they surprisingly tasty - lets face it, mustard and cheese don't scream out "yummy!" - but they were also so light and fluffy; perfect scones. Part of me wants another disaster because it would be way more fun to write about... But the other part me realises that at seven quid a cake I really can't afford any more disasters!

The Result:

                                Mmmm, lonely... 

A Cherry Good Cake

I'm almost halfway through my baking challenge, which may seem quite odd to those who've been following my various endeavours and writings on this blog, it certainly doesn't seem like this long has passed already! Yet, as expected it is getting exhausting now, keeping up with the daily pace of baking is really taking its toll on me. It's not in the actual baking or even the eating the foods - that is becoming easier as I find more and more people willing to take cake home with them - but it is actually just my enthusiasm for it. 

Of course I love baking, I always have, but right now I have lost most of my desire to keep up with the challenge; I am falling behind. But that certainly doesn't mean I'm  going to stop, I'm not one to give up.I did a bit of maths earlier and discovered that I am almost a week behind on the challenge. It's not because I've not tried (the last few times I've baked it's been two items at least!) but because I have quite an active social life at the moment, home from university means seeing my old school friends I don't really see in term time. And I have a few groups of them! Also my lovely girlfriend is at home and she definitely doesn't want to be my scullery maid - no matter how many times I've asked her - which also reduces opportunities to bake. 

This weekend I went to Glasgow to see my cousins who I spent a great weekend with sampling scotch and seaweed flavoured beer... There wasn't really time to bake a batch of cookies! So I came back and immediately set to baking myself a cake. A Classic Cherry Cake, which has turned out rather well  (except for a few minor errors); it was a normal cake. A simple bit of sponge mixed with cherries, lemon and almonds. My girlfriend has remarked to me that the recipes in this book of mine are very nut heavy, something I'm not particularly bothered by, I love nuts (make the jokes you wish from that!) which made me think, actually she's right - "You sound so surprised!" I hear her shouting at her laptop - so I decided to look into the book and see how many actually do have nuts in.

It turns out that 40 out of the hundred recipes I am working through have nuts in, surprising I suppose because these days I get the impression that nuts aren't really in many baked goods I buy. I can't remember the last time I bought something with hazelnuts or something in, they're almost entirely absent from many people's diets. Maybe it's because nut allergies are quite coming these days or - stoners, prepare for your mind to be blown - it is the other way round and we are allergic to nuts because they're not as common in things any more... Woah, man.

Anyway, back to that cake after a rambling. The cake went very well, I must admit, but it fell down at the final hurdle because - yet again - I didn't fully commit to this challenge by buying the correct equipment ( or account for the fact I had the wrong equipment in the cooking time). I used a nine inch baking tin rather than an eight inch one, not a problem on its own but the spreading out of e mixture meant that I should have adjusted cooking time suitably, and I didn't. A rather more brown cake came out than I'd hoped, it also is a little less moist than you'd like but then again, with a nice brew it goes down perfectly! 

This evening gone I also decided to make pizzas with my own good hands to knock another number off the list without overloading on sugar. I was surprised at just how simple they were up until the cooking stage. You'd think the hard bit would be the dough right? Wrong. It is simple bread dough ( well, simple to someone who's given that a go before) simply rolled flat once you've finished proving it. But once loaded up with toppings (and by god do I love my toppings!) it is an absolute bogger to slide into the oven! It is recommended to use either a proper pizza stone or an upended baking tray - guess which I used! - but unfortunately you really have to scatter a vast amount of semolina on all surfaces before you put the toppings on. It may be easy to move when dough on its own but you soon start distorting your face and worrying when there is the potential for cheese, tomato sauce, pepperonis, veg and chillies to give your kitchen floor a makeover! Semolina underneath the baking tray you cook it on and the plastic board you use to roll it out and as a surface for putting toppings on simply must be well semolinad up!

Still, it came out looking absolutely brilliant! 

The Results:

Mmmmm a lovely "piece a" cake

A lovely Pizza great!

Peanut Butter Lazy Time

Have you ever had one of those lazy days where you have literally sat around the entire time doing nothing but still somehow feel exhausted? Well I just had two of them, admittedly I am still feeling a little bit ill from the other day ( I'm pretty confident that in one of my coughing fits my lung is bound to fly out of my mouth!) but that hardly gives me an excuse to literally lie down ALL DAY. Today I haven't spent more than a few minutes away from some form of television other than trips to the toilet ( which, now I have an iPad, might actually start including tv!), don't get me wrong television is great if you just want to sit back and not engage with life in any sort of way for a while; everyone needs down time. With the exception of some forms of tv - news, documentaries, tv dramas etc - it is, for the large part, simply brain melting. 

Even shows which I really enjoy ( I'm a sucker for American sitcoms) eventually wear me down so much that I can barely string a cohesive sentence together in conversation. I've heard of people doing challenges in which they decide not to watch tv for a week or month, but honestly I think I'd find the opposite more difficult. Just picture sitting there on a sofa for 12 hours of your day, every day, for an entire month. It's what I would call hell. Especially day time tv. Assuming we're avoiding the slightly higher brow bbc breakfast, it starts with gmtv, then this morning then loose women and Jeremy Kyle and then come dine with me (ok come dine with me is not bad at all) and then it descends into quiz shows and sitcoms before night time tv gives into an actual variation in programming day by day. Does that sound in any way appealing to anyone?! 30 days of that? Because I think I'd prefer to run head first into the tv non stop for thirty days than actually soak that drivel in to my brain!

So after my lazy day I finally decided to get off my Harry shaped dip in the bed to do some baking. It's amazing how good it actually felt to do something (even if it is something I've done every day for almost fifty days now!). Mixing butter and peanut butter gave off a heavenly smell and mixing in the oats and flour just made it look so delicious.

These have certainly been some of the better cookies I've done. Admittedly not as good as my gingersnaps but still exceptional, I've never had peanut butter cookies before but by god are they good! 

Now I've finished, what should I do for this evening... I'll see what's on tv I guess... 

The Result: 

Mmmm Peanut Butter Cookies

Aww Jeez(cake) Part Two

Two days ago I promised you the second half of my gargantuan New York Cheesecake challenge,min which I would reveal whether my hardest challenge yet was a success or a failure. However, before I could finish it, I became quite ill with a horrible sickness/sore throat type bug thing my dad has been spreading round the house with his quite charming lack of mouth covering. So here I am tucked in bed  after a night attempting to clear my throat of whatever the hell is going on in there hoping to enlighten you on this second part of the cheesecake challenge.

I must be honest that writing a blog when feeling distinctly under the weather was never something I intended to do whilst completing this challenge. For one thing I genuinely never thought I'd get sick - the last time I was properly ill was almost a year ago when I was struck down by the dreadful freshers flu, undoubtedly caught from those "studying" media studies (if you can truly call media studies a real subject) my journalism course shares rooms with - but also that I'd haves to be mad to actually bake whilst ill; I seriously doubt the lurgy is a good topping to any cake! 

Yet I suppose today is a easy opportunity to take advantage of, it's not often I'm confined to my room with nothing but my (new and shiny) iPad for company and plenty of time to mull over my baking failures or successes. 

You may recall that i had left you with the potential disaster ridden cheesecake, I had completely forgotten to possibly the most important ingredient for any cake; flour. Yet, with a cheesecake made - unsurprisingly - mostly from cheese and cream I thought I might get away with it. There were only two tablespoons of it in the recipe after all!

After a night sitting at the bottom of the fridge (something my mother was not happy about considering its significant size!) it looked pretty much the same as it did when I put it in there; like a jelly before it sets. Yet, thankfully, when I lifted it out it was clear it was solid. HALLELUJAH! A far as I'm concerned it could taste terrible, at this point it was clear it was at the very least a "cake"! 

The result: 

It tastes very good, I must admit that. Is it perfect, definitely not but it does taste very nice (for a cheese cake anyway, they certainly aren't my favourite) I definitely think that whenever orange zest is asked for in recipes that I would always go for satsuma peel instead, it is far sweeter and so much tastier!

Though it certainly wasn't perfect, for instance the digestive biscuit base decided to stick to the base of the tin....not the cake! Still, you eat a cheesecake for the cheese cake bit not the "buttery biscuit base!" 

So there you have it, one pretty much successful cheesecake, proving that not only do you not have to be a very good baker but you also don't even need to put all the ingredients in to have a successful cake!