Caramel Slice

It has been quite a hectic few weeks since I last posted including my annual review (which I survived), our Post Graduate Conference which I gave a paper at (again, survived the ordeal) and watching the entire first season of Trueblood in just over 24 hours. My supervisor goes on maternity leave in less than a month and I have a chapter due before then. Little does she know I am going to Melbourne, which may result in a small chapter and a large amount of gin.

I also, stupidly, started a diet. I realise now, that not only do I like food a lot, I don't like being told what to eat, at all, and that 115g of ham is a hell of a lot of ham. I have, unsurprisingly, strayed from said diet, but may reengage it at a later stage as I am to be bridesmaid for my friend whose impromptu engagement party was the recipient of Chocolate-Guinness Tirimasu and wouldn't mind being a bit thinner for the occasion.

Baking has been a bit quite as a result. I did make some choc-chip cookies which almost ended in disaster when I realised after I put half in the oven that I hadn't added the Bi-Carb to the mix. After quickly withdrawing them from the oven and adding them back into the mixture, I ended up with marble cookies as the chocolate had already started to melt.

My most recent endeavour is caramel slice which I made as a result of an open can of condensed milk and this recipie for Dulce de Leche. I decided I should turn it into something, rather than just eat it all in its rich, creamy glory straight from the dish.

Having never made caramel slice before, it was good to make and the delcious tray of caramelly goodness in the fridge makes me want to make it again. I just made a digestive biscuit base, added the caramel and a very thin layer of dark chocolate. The thinness of the chocolate contributed to the cracking, but I don't care as it tastes fantastic.

HH

When good cakes go bad...

I am insanely busy at the moment, thesis, tutoring, life in general, all hectic. Despite all this, I couldn't miss an opportunity to celebrate with my good friend and her boyfriend, who got engaged last week. This saw me rush home from work with slight detours at the shops to make a cake, have it cooled and iced all in 3 hours. I also wanted to get some marking done, eat lunch, and write a job application. It doesn't need saying that I got very few of those things done, and with mixed results.

I decided on Nigella's chocolate Guinness cake, which I have made numerous times, as it is easy and involves no beating of butter, sugar etc as it starts its life in a saucepan. Something went wrong in the baking process as it rose gloriously, and then sunk, terribly, so much so that no amount of icing could have filled the void. I thought I would turn it over and ice the bottom - sweet. No, it didn't come out of the tin well (I rushed it, I know, and it was a new tin, silly me) - it was ugly, ragged and sunken and it was an hour before I had to leave - no time for a new cake or baked goods.

Then I remembered trifle - the saviour of cakes gone bad. From trifle I turned my thoughts to tirimasu, as the cake has a cream cheese icing - and from there the decision was easy, and the result I must say delicious (possibly better than the original).

Chocolate-Guinness Tirimasu
1 Chocolate Guinness Cake
1 packet of cream cheese
250 ml or so of thickened cream
(though you easily could use 1 1/2 or double the amount of cream/cream cheese)
100 g Pure icing sugar
Splash of Brandy (or whatever is left in the bottom of the bottle from Christmas cooking)
Sweet Sherry to douse the cake
Cocoa for dusting
1 packet of Frozen Raspberries thawed slightly in the fridge

Cut the dishevelled cake into thin slices.

Beat together the cream, cream cheese, icing sugar and brandy with an electric beater until smooth and fluffy.

Add a layer of cake to a trifle/any bowl. Douse with sherry, as the cake is quite dense I think you can be quite heavy handed with this.

Add a layer of the cream cheese mixture.

Repeat with the cake, sherry and cream cheese. (If you do double the cream cheese, you could do another layer of cake as you will have some left over) Dust over a generous layer of cocoa.

Leave in the fridge to do its thing until you are ready to eat.

Top with raspberries before serving.




HH

Cheesecake

I have spent my whole life thinking I didn't really like cheesecake, but secretly knowing that if I had a homemade one, that I would love it. The flavour combinations of cheesecakes always lure me in, I have spent hours looking at recipes, yet I have never made one...until now.

My little sister turned 16 last week, and as cheesecake is her favourite dessert I decided that it was the time to make it. She decided on Nigella's London Cheesecake, which I felt was a pretty good place to start.

My hand held mixer- which I borrowed several years ago from my grandma when our proper mixer died - was not happy with beating the cream cheese - making horrible screeching noises and casting off a nasty smell - but I persisted and eventually got to the lovely soft texture required. The rest went off without a hitch. After 50 minutes in the oven I added the layer of sour cream, vanilla and sugar as per the recipe. For whatever reason it didn't keep its lovely whiteness, but it was still lovely and added a nice touch.

The cheesecake was wonderful. Amazingly creamy, full of vanilla and just what I had been missing all these years! I shall be entering whole heartedly into the world of cheesecakes now, however, I may have to step it up at the gym to compensate!



HH

Profiteroles

I hate having to start these posts with an apology for how slack I have been, though I have been very slack this past few months. Apologies.

Thesis work is moving at a moderate to slow pace, and despite my asking for continuous extensions, and consistently failing to get things in on the date we agreed on, my ever patient supervisor is yet to wash her hands of me. My most recent chapter was well received, and I am trying to think about the next one. There is a moderate degree of stress building however, as my supervisor is pregnant, which is wonderful, but will be on maternity leave the semester I was planning to submit. This is a problem. I am thinking I will defer first semester next year and either go to England for a bit, or tutor a lot, but mainly work hard and try to write up and then try to submit as soon as possible after June.

In the baking world, things have been much more interesting especially since I have entered the world of creme patisserie, and am not looking back. My first effort was Nigella's chocolate meringue layer cake, of which the filling is a deliciously rich chocolate creme patisserie, and the second foray was with profiteroles. Not being familiar with choux pastry either, I made the first batch unmanageably small as I thought that they would expand more than they did, and also thought I was using a recipe that my friend said made a lot. ( I worked out a week later that I was not). The second batch were much better, though I need to work on my piping technique. The vanilla creme patisserie was beautiful, and over all I was quite pleased with my efforts. When I have more time and energy, I will revisit this new and wonderful world. I think next I will make a fruit flan.... I do love them.

HH

Poached Pears

Since my last post nothing has been done on my thesis, which is a terrible thing. The stress of having too much to do prevents you from doing anything, which compounds the stress you already feel, which in a vicious cycle, makes you do even less.

On the upside, I enjoyed, immensely, my time house sitting, getting into the Balmain lifestyle, making friends with the Gourmet Grocer, watching too much of the food channel, drinking, and having people over for dinner almost every night. My bank balance will, I am sure, be suffering for this extravagance, seeing I am only working one day a week at the moment, but, what is money when good friends and good food are to be had.

The highlights of the two weeks were a curry made with ginger, chili, turmeric, coriander, cumin and cardamon and chicken, pumpkin, and eggplant; Roast beef, which made delicious sandwiches the next day; a beef, eggplant and zucchini tagine, made with Herbie's Moroccan spice mix. I added dates and then honey at the end, it really was lovely with just the right amount of heat and fragrant spice; Moussaka, made with beef and pork mince, a bottle of white wine, beef and chicken stock, plenty of garlic, onions etc...and apart from almost dropping it on the floor as I took it out of the oven, it was amazing.

I didn't deprive my guests of dessert, and after making some more crumble topping, I made apple crumble one night, followed by mixed berry crumble the next. The berry crumble was by far the winner. I just used frozen mixed berries, a splash of vanilla, and a little brown sugar, let that sit whilst I finished dinner, and then topped it with the crumble and baked.

The overall winner, however, was poached pears. I have never made them before, and I couldn't find a recipe that I liked. Jamie's recipe wanted me to bake them in the oven, I didn't have time for that. Nigella doesn't seem to have one in the books I have, briefly looking on the BBC site, I couldn't find one that I wanted. I had, however seen Valentine Warner on his show What to Eat nowpoaching some pears, so armed with that and Jamie's recipe I proceeded.

Poached Pears:




1 Bottle of red wine
4 pears (though I could have fitted 6 or even 8 at a push)
Around a cup of caster sugar
Rind of half a lemon in thick strips
Juice of the lemon
A couple of Star Anise
A couple of Cinnamon sticks
A xouple of good slugs of vanilla
Knob of butter
Creme Fraiche

Peel the pears (slightly better than I did)
Add all the remaining ingredients to a saucepan big enough for the pears. Bring to the boil. Add the pears and cook for about 20 minutes until the pears are tender, turning the pears a couple of times if they aren't covered in the liquid. (My pears were pretty soft do didn't need a great deal of cooking). Leave to cool slightly in the warm liquid.

Divide the creme fraiche amongst the bowls. Place the pears on top. Meanwhile, reduce some of the poaching liquid, adding a bit more sugar to help sweeten and thicken it. Once reduced, add a knob of butter to make it silky and glossy. Pour over the pears and put any remaining syrup in a jug to add as you eat.




The (almost) best part of poaching the pears, however was not the delicious deep red pears, it was the remaining, unreduced poaching liquid, which I reheated, added a little more sugar to, and poured into a tall glass with a couple of shots of cointreau. Delicious, citrusy, peary, spicy mulled wine.



HH

'In the shape of some fragmented journal'

After a string of posts, I have once again become terribly slack in my blogging, and I do apologise, though I have had nothing of note to say. (perhaps I still don't).

I have finished my tutoring for this semester, all the marking is done, I just have to record the marks and haggle with my supervisor on the scaling. So this is excellent. I am now waiting, anxiously, to hear if I will be tutoring next semester. I hopefully will be doing a 20th C course, that I took when I was a first year, many moons a go. So fingers crossed.

Other points of interest were another trip to the Lord Nelson Pub where many pints were drunk, and where the pie with mushy peas (well peas that were mushed), mash and gravy was had. It was all very delicious, and Nelson enjoyed him self as well.

These pics are courtesy of my good friend Brennan




In other news, Mr A has booked his flights to Australia for a holiday in January next year. It is all very exciting and now we just have to work out our movements as he has family in Adelaide and Melbourne and go to see them before I spend a bit of time showing him round Sydney and its surrounds (and convincing him that he really wants to live here).

Finally, on the baking front, which was been relatively silent, I have made White Chocolate cheesecake cookies from Hungry and Frozen, as prompted by Foodycat. They are delicious, so creamy and tender and delicious, though I didn't enjoy them warm, patience in this case, is a virtue.



I shall try to be more diligent with the blogging, but seeing I have a chapter due in just over a week, perhaps it will have to wait. On the other hand, uni work tends to make me blog like fury, so you never know your luck!

HH

Speedy French Toast

As I mentioned, Mr A is in Paris for the Bank holiday weekend, and I am very jealous. I have taken to using google translator to write in French to one of my friends, though she started it, and I have also indulged in my newly discovered love of French Toast.

I have actually been craving it, in one form or another since Foodycat posted her delcious sounding Torrijas almost a month a go! A month is a long time to be craving something, and when the something arrives, it has big shoes to fill!!

Though I am very busy marking, I needed some down time, as well a break from sitting at my desk which is killing my back/shoulder/neck for whatever reason. I decided that last night was the time for French Toast action.

Needing to be speedy, and without enough Sherry to make Torrijas, I hastened to Speedy Nigella (Nigella Express), for her Doughnut French Toast. I didn't use thick white bread, just a normal pan loaf, and forgot to half the number of eggs, as I was only serving me, but it worked a treat. I let the bread soak for 5 minutes total, not 5 minutes a side. Delicious. Egg, vanilla and sugar. A wonderful supper.



This, however, did not satisfy my craving.

Breakfast this morning, I needed more French toast. I wanted something different, more breakfast-y. My weapon of choice, Nigella's Orange French Toast. Again I halved the recipe, remembering to only use one egg, though for the amount of bread (two pan slices)I could have used two. Now this was fantastic! Marmalade, cinnamon, egg, oranges. It was almost like Spanish Macaroons in French toast form! This was a winner, enjoyed with lots of syrup and two cups of tea. I am picturing lazy Sundays making this in my dressing gown, reading the paper and relaxing. I hope Mr A likes marmalade! (If not, ah well, more for me!)



HH