So I've baked a lot this summer, but I will put that on another post.
Right now, it's time to laugh at an awful excuse for coffee cake.
What happened- I put a well made Hummingbird recipe into the bottom oven of the aga... And then I watched outnumbered and Anna Karenina. Whoopsies.
But, it didn't burn because it was on a silly low lovel of heat. So essentially I didn't bake it, I dried it. Result? A very solid cake.
In an attempt to save it from the bin, I came up with the idea of coffee drizzle, with the intention of restoring some moisture in the 'sponge'.
I cannot believe how long it has been without baking. Between being ill and being busy, it's been difficult to get home to sleep let alone to make a cake.
Anyway, here is my comeback; The Brooklyn Blackout Cake
It is a Hummingbird Bakery recipe; a three tiered chocolate sponge, enveloped with a chocolate custard icing which was an absolute faff.
But what a beauty!
Housemate envy: 9/10 a very anticipated cake, that didn't disappoint. Half gone!
Presentation: 8/10 Would have loved to have a more squared off shape instead of a dome. Need to sort out my rise. First ever crumb coating though - success!
Yummy points: 9/10 Apparently a touch too much on the icing on the cake:covering ratio. Keep in mind.
Sorry I haven't been updating recently... I've been super busy with Architecture.
All food recently (including cake) has been ginger tinged - I bought SO much by accident (online shopping nightmare). As a result I have developed a ginger blindness; there can never be too much now, and it is disturbing my loved ones....
Cocktail party at Mary's - Such a great night of creating yummy combos and getting accidently drunk.
Mary made a cake for Luke's birthday - it was LUSH
Little bit nervous about my review tomorrow, but never mind.
Gave up on 'No Processed Food' - It's so difficult. It's harder than giving up sugar last year, because at least then I could eat pasta, bread and cheese.
I procrastibaked on Friday (maybe?), and made a weird fruit cake. I substituted butter for a touch of oil, and switched sugar for honey. I also added sunflower seeds.
IT WAS SO GOOEY.
... verging on "I will never be cooked".
It was kind of like Soreen, in the way that it stuck to our teeth.
It didn't last long at all....
I particularly like the gesture of leaving a little tiny bit...
Housemate Points: 9/10 - very surprising
Presentation: 8/10 - very normal, nothing special
Yummy points: 9/10 - maybe more spice!
On Tuesday night, I went out with my housemate. We were pretty loud when we returned in the wee hours of the morning. So I made some 'sorry for waking you up' treats.
Oatmeal and Raisin cookies.
Was still a little on the wrong side of tipsy, so it's a miracle that these came out ok. I used a Joy of Baking recipe, but deviated. A lot.
Crumbs stand as evidence that they are great warm (there were two dozen)
Housemate Envy: 9/10 - a simple recipe that simultaneously helped hangovers and mended fences.
Presentation Points: 9/10 - I could have wrapped them up, or presented them on a nice stand, but they were too yummy to waste time doing that. They had a nice 'golden brown' going on, and soft in the middle.
Yummy Points: 8/10 - need more raisins and oil for a more gooey cookie. A real homely bake, that dangerously feels like it should be healthy. Maybe substitute sugar with apple puree? More dried fruit?
The last couple of weeks have frightened me in how fast they go. It's crazy.
On the 28th January, I filmed a music video of my talented friend Mary Jane. We visited different locations and filmed the same song over and over. I then edited it into a very raw-feeling video, where you can hear the changes in sound in each cut:
I also made a coffee cake on Friday. I used a hummingbird bakery recipe as the baseline. But I halved the quantities, added more coffee and a dozen toffees. My idea with shape was to make a house... Not a great success.
Nevermind, it was great and we ate it with cups of tea whilst watching the rugby yesterday.
Housemate envy: 10/10 (it got rave reviews from all of them, plus guests we had back to watch the rugby.)
Presentation Points: 5/10 (very questionable, and not how I envisioned)
Yummy Points: 9/10 (I know this is my best coffee cake yet, but I felt the sponge could have been less dense. Buttercream was a dream -no recipe.)
The americans always go on about these in blogs, so I decided to make some today to see what the hype was about.
I made it up as I went and the recipe was:
Plop 3 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter in a bowl, then microwave until more pliable.
Mix with 1 tsp honey, and 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder.
Add enough rice crispies until it seems about reasonable.
Roll into balls about 2cm in diameter. (there were about 12 for me)
Put in the fridge to set.
Points:
Housemate envy: 9/10 (Their size and childhood-appeal definitely saw these disappear. I think it would be 10/10 but we don't have a full house today to judge by)
Presentation: 6/10 (They're cute, but I really need to start making pretty things!)
Yummy Points: 10/10 (These are DANGEROUS. Small, great textures, fab taste. They are all gone!)
We didn't get any snow in plymouth, so we went to dartmoor to find some....
And I made that gluten free cake. It was a bit dense, and sour (since I did a lemon drizzle topping)
Recipe:
Soak 500g of dried fruit (mix of whatever you like - I had apricots, sultanas, peel, dried raspberries, currents) in a big bowl with 600ml of boiling water and 3 tea bags. I used 2 PG tips and 1 oolong tea bag.
Leave overnight. Go to the pub, don't worry about baking hungover; it's easy as hell, go have some fun.
In the morning, remove the tea bags, and mix in 200g of sugar. I used granulated because I am poor.
Crack an egg in, and mix.
Spice it up with whatever you have in the kitchen. My weapons of choice were cinnamon and lemon rind.
Mix in 250g of gluten free flour. I didn't see the need to sift.
Bake at 170 C for about an hour. Test its 'done-ness' by inserting a metal skewer/knife and see if it comes out clean.
Give it 5 in the tin, but while it is warm, stab it a fair amount of times, then drizzle on the icing - juice of one lemon mixed with about 100g of granulated sugar. Using granulated gives it a great crunch.
Points:
Housemate envy: 6/10 (There isn't any left, but that might have been because there was a lot of us, and the snow makes you want to eat lots of cake. People thought it was an interesting thing - lots of questions)
Presentation points: 8/10 (Forgot to take a bloody pic of it whole. It was a bunt cake, which makes cake easier for picnics as there's no wispy bit in the middle to crumble.)
Yummy points: 7/10 (It's hard to judge as it was a bloody weird cake. But I had a fair bit as it was good enough for me.)
I also went to Exeter last night to see my friend Mary play, which was fab.
Thar be snow!
Had a play with photoshop to collage this great jump...
...and this one.
find out more on http://wordsbymaryjane.wordpress.com/
I am really excited about my architecture project, which you can read about on my blog here.
Meanwhile, it is snowing in about every place EXCEPT Plymouth. Which totally sucks! However, I'm going to the moors tomorrow with an architecture buddy, and so I am making a cake. Of Course.
It'll be a gluten free fruit cake, and it's the first time I'll be working with alternative flour. I'm a bit nervous!
Fruit before soaking in tea - sultanas, raisins, peel, apricots and dried raspberries.
I had a great dinner tonight - goats cheese and veg on toast.
Oh dear, it's been a long time since I posted a blog. I've been having some computer nightmares.... anyway, here's what I've been doing:
An architecture project
This is the one I talked so fearfully about in another blog post, but it's over now. For submission, I took 3 photographs of my elderly relatives, showing them as they are, with a bit of text saying who they are. I wrote the supporting text and all references on my type writer. I love it so much!
All wrapped up!
A Carrot Cake
This was baked for a coffee and cake chat with my friend Mary (who sings amazingly, check it out!)
New Point System:
Housemate Envy: + 9/10 (There is a reason that I don't have a picture of the whole cake!)
Presentation Points: 6/10 (The top icing was quite thin and runny, so I constantly felt like the fairies in sleeping beauty when they make the birthday cake, see below!)
Yummy points: 9/10 (It was beautiful, three different kinds of icing in it, moist, good crumb. The bottom was a smidgen overdone though)
By the way, this film is the way to my heart. It is definitely my favourite film EVER.
A Shirt Skirt (with tutorial)
I have definitely seen this before, but I didn't save the link so it cannot be credited :(
I was super happy with this, and wore it out on friday.
Take a shirt
Chop off the arms, collar and cut across the chest (cut across the chest at the part that matches your waist measurements)
Then sew up the sides as necessary, hem the top. I then cut the collar in half, and sewed it on to the top as a strange belt loop.
I have a deadline coming up soon. Two in fact, in quick succession.
So of course I baked a cake this evening, whilst watching the iron lady.
It's a strange kind of coffee cake. Again a little made up, but surprisingly sucessful:
200g butter
200g sugar
3 eggs
Coffee (made super strong coffee in cafetiere, then boiled this on the hob until it was super concentrated)
about 200g self raising flour - enough to make it cake batter looking
Then there's a cheeky hollow in the middle with coffee buttercream in - but you can't really see it in the photos... then coffee glace icing on the top.
New point system:
Housemate envy + 5/10 (it's kind of safe, but everyone loves coffee cake it seems)
Presentation points + 1/10 (big fat mess - top layer may or may not have broken in two when removed from tin...)
Yummy points + 8/10 (light sponge, but not enough coffee taste)
Today I experimented with icing - I made 12 lemon infused cup cakes (Ruddy good sponge if I say so myself!), then played with icings. There was a chocolate and brandy ganache, a lemon glacé icing, a lemony cream cheese icing, and then a few were made into lemon drizzles. They don't look like much, but they were pretty perfect, I'm proud.
I know it's a tad early, but I've made my resolution; Bake once a week.
Back in 2011, my resolution was similar but more vague; Bake More. I loved this, and so did my lucky friends. A few examples....
So now, for 2013, I've made a list of 52 recipes. I've tried to challenge myself with things and techniques I've never done before. I hope that this will allow me to establish some good recipes to play around with and adapt.
The list includes Chocolate and Raspberry brûlée, Lemon Meringue Pie, Ginger Florentines... beautiful things. I'm just going to have to run more!
And all this is in aid of..... My future career. Yes, I am training to be an architect right now, but I have been thinking about a little bakery for a LONG time. I would love nothing more than to live doing something I love. So I've half made the decision to set up a bakery after I finish my degree, instead of pursuing architecture forever.
I am encouraged by my friend Lilly, who set up a brilliant launderette with her sisters. They seemed to have fun doing it too!
