Baking again


I managed to cut myself while baking this time, by putting a very sharp knife into the washing up bowl and then trying to pick it up by feel. Bad idea. I did manage to keep the blood off the biscuits though.







I was given by my workmates a copy of How to be a Domestic Goddess, and by golly, I am one already. I thought I would try and make some biscuits out of what I have in the cupboard, and after a false start (turns out I didn't have any cocoa) I ended up with these. The first ones are trying to be really plain chocolate biscuits, so plain they are almost savoury, and they almost work. I remember them from being a kid, and they were good - the dough (first pickture) tasted about right, but the biscuits themselves are just fractionally too raised. Maybe if I made the same recipe with no baking soda they might turn out the same, then again they might turn out rubbish. Ms Lawson has the recipe fr just normal kiddy biscuits, but I swapped out a quarter of the flour for cocoa, which seems amazingly enough to have been exactly the right amount.

The second batch of things are oven baked donuts, called Chocodoodles, with nutmeg and cinnamon. Mmm. I reckon they will be best with milk. In fact both sets of bakery are a little dry, so milk all round.

Then, while I was making Lightly Curried Carbonara for supper, I sat down and wrote a story about a baker. A baker who's killed someone admittedly, but my day has been baking heavy.



I reckon i might go and find some vanilla ice cream, and see how well those Chocodoodles deal with that while I watch the Departed and wonder when the Brunette will be back.

Going to watch Involution again tomorrow. One review so far, the reviewer slightly misunderstood the play (and got Cloning and Genetic Engingeering mixed up (will these fucking morons EVER learn) but seemed to like it. Just a little web page tho, so fingers crossed for the big papers reviewers. If they are coming tomorrow I can give them cookies! but they'll have to bring their own milk.


- posted by Buntifer @ 2/23/2008 08:21:00 pm

 
Look look! A giant Jaffa Cake!
A combination that puts most men into a catatonic state of shock. Well I'm not most men, which is a good thing, because if I were most men, there really wouldn't be many men left, because despite the fact that I'm a fairly large chap, you could only reasonably have two other fully functional men (and they would have to be quite small) if you were to call me "most."

I appreciate that's not very funny, but cut me some slack, I've been baking all
morning. I have been baking an idea that I found on www.pimpthatsnack.com - a site I have long admired, although I prefer the "pimped" snacks such as the Burberry Curly Wurly to the giant snacks, which technically, at least in my humble opinion, are not "pimped" but "supersized" or if you prefer, "Americanised"















I have simply supersized a Jaffa Cake. A fairly easy procedure, prompted by our a prediliction to Jaffa cakes spotted in someone at work. It's press night tonight, so I thought I would take the opportunity to make a cake.

The sponge I made went a little flatter than I had hoped - perhaps I took it out of the oven too early, but a skewer came out clean, and it sprung back when pushed, so I thought it were ready. Nigella said it were. Anyroad - it's not biggie, Jaffa cake cake bits are a bit chewier then sponge cakes anyway, so I figure it doesn't matter hugely. The other issue I had with the sponge was the typical Jaffa Cake profile. Some clever people on Pimp My Snack (it was better when it was Pimp My Snack, Pimp That Snack just doesn't have the same ring.) baked their cake in a cast iron frying pan which had the right slightly-curved-at-the-edges profile, but unfortunately everything i have with the right profile has plastic handles, so I figured bugger it, it's a cake, people are going to eat it not look at it that hard. I hope I'm right.

The jelly I made double strength with some lemon juice to give it some kick, I tried a corner of it neat before I made it and it didn't taste of anything, so it needed something. Tasted much better once I had the lemon juice in, hopefully it will give it the necessary bite to compete with the cake and the chocolate. It set nicely and didn't melt too much when I put the chocolate on it, which was nice, because I had been informed that would the most difficult part due to the jelly's habit of melting under heat. I had just taken it out of the fridge, which might well have helped, and I found out something very interesting. Melted chocolate stays melted a lot longer than I thought it did, which is a lesson well learned - next Christmas I might be able to make truffle without them melting all over the bloody shop.

I had lots of melted dark chocolate left over. After debating having it for breakfast (I start baking early) I decided this would be a bad idea, because a sugar crash during my driving lesson has the potential to turn into a less metaphorical crash.

What could I do with them. I made a coconut and chocolate turd look-a-like at Christmas with left over things, and that was very nice, but I have no coconut left, having used it all at Christmas. But I have walnuts!

So I took these tiny tree-brains and dipped one lobe (the creative side, I like to think) into dark chocolate, a type of brain surgery I think I should pioneer. There are plenty of people out there who would pay vast amounts of money to have their brains dipped in chocolate.




Walnuts




Then I took some pictures, and stuck them up on here. A bake by bake account of my morning.

In other news, I am supposedly getting married next Christmas. **DISCLAIMER - reading this is no guarantee of being invited, except for you, Mum.**

The pics below are the front and back of the hotel we're heading to. They have a view over Lake Windemere, and if it rains, we'll get very wet, but it's beautiful inside too, oak panels and all. I post this now, because it's too late for anyone to object - hah! We have our license to marry, I think, ready to pick up from the glamourous Hounslow Registrar's Office, which could be exciting, or just mundane, does licensing something take all the glamour away? It did for owning firearms, maybe it does for marriage too.

We would have run away to Vegas, but I lent my Elvis costume to someone and haven't had it back.

Langdale Chase




- posted by Buntifer @ 2/08/2008 10:50:00 am