The Wedding Cake - Part 2

So, after very much ado, involving the difficult process of keeping the damn kitten off the iced wedding cakes, and checking the height and symmetry of said cakes with the lad's digital calipers and various other engineering processes to ensure the stability and structural integrity of the cake, we finally got it to the venue, set up and decorated. Not too shabby an effort for an amateur. And actually, while there were moments in which I questioned my own sanity at taking this project on (as did my mother and Grandmother), I really enjoyed it. It was lovely to have been able to make this for my dear friends and I know the bride's mother was really grateful that someone who was sort-of part of the family was making it, so that was important to me. It was fun! So much so that I'm considering taking a course or two in cake decorating...so, perhaps we will have yet more chapters in the tale of FF's Adventures with Marzipan?!

Not the best pic of the poor groom, but a lovely one of the ladies (and of the cake!)

A strong smell of vinegar

I was all in a pickle yesterday. Much of this weekend, in fact, was spent pickling and making chutneys and generally presiding over bubbling pots filled with vinegary, sugary, fruity combinations. The house has been filled with a very strong vinegar smell for days - the poor kitten keeps sneezing and seems to have trouble opening her eyes in the face of such a pungent smell, and the lad isn't enjoying it much more. I actually love the smell of vinegar - the harshness and eye-watering smell are part of its charm for me. It's a comforting smell I think - bringing with it the promise of a pantry filled with preserves.

So anyway. As I've mentioned previously, the poor old tomatoes are having a hard time coming ripe. And the weather has become increasing miserable so my hopes for a few more lovely red toms are growing dim. We've also had horribly strong winds which have blown some of the plants over and now the slugs are having a field day with low-lying tomatoes. I see no good reason why the slugs should profit from the garden when we could instead, so yesterday I had a big cull and picked some of the plants bare - green, yellow and red tomatoes were all thrown in together. Some of the nearly ripe ones are now basking in the watery sun on the window-sill, in the hope that they'll get there yet, but more green specimens were turned into my great-great grandmother's green tomato chutney. Their overripe buddies were made into my own concoction, which we shall now know as spiced tomato relish, and several of the giant courgettes still languishing in the fridge have become autumn harvest pickle (care of a modified Alison Holst recipe). They do look rather pretty, I think. I have absolutely no room in the house to store so many jars of pickle, but at least we won't need to buy any for quite some time.

Left: Green tomato chutney, Rear: Autumn Harvest Pickle, Front and Right: Spicy tomato relish

Oh, and I also made the top tier of the wedding cake yesterday. It is a changed recipe and it looks ok (she says with only a shred of confidence). I think I'm going to extract a core sample from each cake before icing though - just to be sure they are cooked. So. One tier down, two to go. The fruit for the middle layer is soaking now and I hope to get them all done this week. Then it's time to start mentally preparing for the icing process. Gird your loins folks...expect culinary disaster tales to be posted here soon!

Jess's Great Great Grandmother's Green Tomato Pickle
(Grandma calls it pickle, I think it's a chutney, but in the interests of historical accuracy, I call the recipe a pickle!)

6 lb tomatoes (green ones )  3 lb onions 3 lb sugar, 1 1/2 teasp mixed spice

1/4 teasp cayenne pepper, 2 tablesp salt, 1 1/2  pepper, 1 1/2 teasp ginger 1 quart vinegar

           Boil 2 hours.

Now. If you're not imperially inclined, and you don't have a pot the size of a witch's cauldron (I did not) then I provide for your pickling pleasure, a translated, halved, metric version! If you want to make the quantities my Grandma gave me, double the metric version.

1.5kg green tomatoes
750g onions
750g sugar
1/2 tsp mixed spice (I also added 1/2 tsp ground allspice because I love it)
1/2 tsp cayenne (or chilli flakes in my case)
1/2 tsp ginger (which I've just realised I forgot to put in mine)
1 tbsp salt (not iodised if you can avoid it - better for preserving apparently)
black pepper
500ml malt vinegar (I used a special pickling vinegar which is basically spiced malt vinegar. I suspect cider vinegar would also work)

Mix everything together in a large pot, bring to the boil then reduce to a fast simmer for 2 hours. Watch it for the last half hour as this has a tendency to catch on the pot. Pour into sterilised jars and seal with boiled lids (to sterilise jars - wash them thoroughly then heat in an oven to 100degC for about 10 mins; bring the cleaned lids to a boil in a pot of water then use a cloth to help you very carefully screw them on the full jars. The seals will click down after an hour or so. If they don't seal properly then you should refrigerate and use that jar the soonest).

Jess's Sweet and Spicy Tomato Relish
4 cups ripe tomatoes (skinned)
2 peppers (I used one red and one green but I suspect it should be all red or yellow)
1-2 pears or apples (I used pears)
1 chilli
1-2 onions (I used red for the colour)
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp fresh ginger, roughly chopped
3/4 cup dried fruit (I used a mixture of currants, raisins and sultanas because my house currently holds the world's supply of these three things, but dates would also be nice, or any one of the three I used)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp each (although I seldom measure and tend to be heavy handed with spices, so it's likely these were closer to 1/2 tsp each) cinnamon, cumin and allspice

Process the skinned tomatoes until mostly all chopped up (I like my relish quite fine textured, but as you like). Pour toms into pot, then blitz the peppers, pears, chilli, onion, garlic, ginger and dried fruit in processor until finely chopped. Add to the tomatoes, then add to the whole mixture the vinegar, sugars and spices. Stir and bring to a boil then simmer for 45-60 mins or until thick and shiny. Bottle as described above.

The Wedding Cake, Part One (with videos!)

Alrighty. So. I have mentioned that I volunteered to make my best friend's wedding cake for her October wedding a wee while back. I have since done three test runs of different recipes so that we could see which one we liked best, and just to test cooking times etc. In the end, Delia Smith's rich fruit cake won the flavour test, so that's what we've gone with (however, as you will see in one of the following videos, it might not end up being the final one because I have suspicions about whether the depth is going to work out ok. But we'll come to that later). The recipe is here: http://www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/scaling-up-cake-recipes.html

So I started out this post just taking photos, but then I thought, the hell with that (and also, I kept getting really messy hands and didn't want to have to keep picking up the camera), so, in a F&F first, I now invite you to watch 3 of possibly the worst videos ever made. So, complete with horrible camera angles and sound, horrendous commentary from me (in which I should have used my 'presenter voice' but didn't), accidental elbow knocking camera over incidents and my delightful double chin, I present to you: 'Mixing the Cake' (which includes some transcripted bits below because my accent is just That Bad), 'Filling the Tin' and 'Nyx Says Goodbye'. Spot Nyx in the final shot of the first video AND my humble apologies for her repeated shrieking throughout the first two. I also seem to say glamorous a lot. And departure, rather weirdly. Oh, and my apologies for referring to things in the second one which you can't actually see. I'm not sure cinematography is a strong point of mine.

Enjoy (or something).

Mixing the Cake

Transcripted bit: I was waffling about how much of an arm work-out the mixing process was, which I thought was good since I am wearing a strapless dress to the wedding but then I sort of realise that it's only one arm getting a work out which doesn't seem so useful. I also later comment that I'm sure this is a v glamorous shot of me with my hair frizzing everywhere because it's about a thousand degrees inside. I am prone to exaggeration.)

Filling the Tin

Nyx Says Goodbye

And, in only 5 and a half hours, we'll know if it worked or not! Fingers crossed...

A long time coming and none too pretty

At last in September we finally get the first ripe tomatoes from the Italian variety I planted all those many months ago!

The two plants of this kind are covered in green monstrosities but these are the first to ripen. It's taken months for them to turn red...proving once and for all that one shouldn't try to grow Italian varieties in the much cooler UK!
In saying that, while slow and ugly, the tom was rather sweet and delicious, and was lovely diced and folded through tonight's equally yummy dal.

My crops and such

Ok, crops is probably a bit of an over-statement. Small backyard plot with a few plants is probably a better description, but the ol' garden is going quite well this year and since it's much too hot for this Celtic-type to even think about cooking, here are some pictures from the garden instead.

I rather like the garden at the moment. It needs to be weeded and if I were any sort of proper gardener then it would very likely need to be mulched too, but I am not a proper gardener, and am also lazy, so it is what it is. But it's lovely out there - all green and growing. There are lots of flying bugs around too - hover flies and butterflies and bees, and cute wee ladybirds quietly munching on any nasty beasts that might try and harm the 'crops'. I'm not usually one for the bugs but it feels like they are all working together out there. I hope that is the case and they're not secret invaders. Things are still growing though so I choose to believe that all is well in the green pastures* of my backyard. 

Tomatoes in the front of pic - two types (one of which is v ugly but hopefully will taste fabulous) , beans and courgettes  growing in the back. Various weeds throughout

This bad boy grew quite literally over-night. Please ignore the obvious signs of weedage.

Delicious toms in a grow-bag. Taking their sweet time about ripening, but now that there's actually some sun, we should be able to pick more than one at a time. Ripen wee tomato - c'mon! 

Courgette blossoms which were duly stuffed and fried last weekend.  A touch too cheesy for my liking - I prefer them in pasta/risotto dishes so you can actually taste the delicate flower

Pickens' from yesterday and today. I picked all the courgettes yesterday and by 3pm today, there were 2 more giant ones to pick. There's actually no room in the fridge because there are already about 5 in there from the weekend! Good job we like 'em I guess, just a shame there aren't more than 2 of us! 

* for green pastures read: weed-ridden crusty dry grass-type substance with small patches of vegetable garden throughout 

I heart pie

It may well be my obsession with all things State-side, or it may be the simple fact that I really enjoy saying the word with a 'Southern belle' style accent, but I really do love pie. I can quite happily forgo most desserts but every now and then I get a hankerin' for pie and from then on, I must have it. This is one of my favourites and thankfully, it's possibly the easiest pie ever. The filling here is a lovely summery one, but you could just as easily (and I have) substitute apples and rhubarb, or apples and blackberries, or apples and raspberries - whatever you fancy really.

Rhubarb and Raspberry Pie (adapted slightly from Annabel Langbein)

Simmer 500gm chopped rhubarb with half a cup of sugar and 1/4 water until rhubarb is soft (try not to mess with it too much at this point or the rhubarb breaks up and becomes mushy. It still tastes good, but it won't look quite as pretty). Leave to cool. Once cooled, mix through 2 tsp cornflour mixed with a wee bit of water, and fold in 200gm raspberries and a bit of lemon zest if you have it (I'd had a lot of margaritas and other cocktails the night before, so the house was sans lemon).

Meanwhile, blitz in the food processor 2 cups of plain flour, 1/4 cup sugar and a pinch of salt. Add 125gm cold, diced butter and 2 lightly beaten eggs and process for around 30 seconds (it'll turn into a big gorgeous beige lump of dough). I'm sure you could do this by hand but it would take a bit of working. Divide into 2 pieces so that you have one large lump of 2/3rds of the dough, and a smaller 1/3rd lump. Put the small lump in the freezer, and the larger lump in the fridge for 30 mins.

Fill a pie tin with the dough - because it's sweet shortcrust, you don't need to faff about rolling and getting precious. I slice it into pieces about 1/2cm thick and just press/schmush it into the tin so that the sides and base are covered evenly. It's like playing with playdo - v fun! Pour in the cooled fruit mixture. Grate the remaining (now slightly frozen) wodge of dough over the top so that it's this crumbly, pastry shreds topping. If you wanted to get fancy you could probably add a sprinkling of cinnamon and demerera sugar so that it goes extra crunchy, but you don't have to.

Bake for about 40 mins at 180degC or until the topping is lightly golden and the filling is all bubbly and gorgeous. Best served warm with vanilla icecream. Will keep happily in fridge for a couple of days if it lasts that long.

Totopos - Mexican Leftovers

So. We had fish tacos last night, as I've mentioned. But the fridge is now full of bits and pieces leftover from the meal and there were also some small tortillas left out on the bench overnight which were now chewy beyond all repair.

Thankfully, Thommi Miers has a great recipe for dealing with this - totopos, or tostadas - fried stale corn tortillas topped with lovely things. Basically you deep fry (or shall fry in the wok in my case) small rounds of tortilla (or the whole thing if, like me, you have bought tiny tortillas) and then once they've cooled, top 'em. She has a whole smoked mackerel thing going on in her recipe (which does sound good), but I topped mine with the left over (cold) fish from last night, a splodge of the chipotle mayonnaise, coriander and lime juice. Wow - best lunch ever! This is definitely going to have to be tried out with other toppings.

And since I was lax last night with the pictures, here is a lovely shot of my lunch before I scoffed it. Such self restraint...

Jess-Goes-to-California Fish Tacos

I've long been fascinated by the idea of fish tacos. I was constantly tempted by the idea of Mexican-style fish but to me the combination of soft fish and crunchy taco seemed incongruous. That, though, was before I read that 'proper' Mexican tacos bear little resemblance to those crunchy folded shells we tend to buy in our supermarkets. In fact, so the experts tell me, tacos are meant to be soft. Corn tortillas, certainly, but soft, not crunchy. What a revelation! Suddenly fish tacos seemed to make perfect sense!

My recipe is largely made up, though I'm sure it is similar to others out there. What I do is this:

Slice fish fillets (I use tilapia - a sustainable and soft white fish with a lovely sweetness) into long 'fingers' and place them in a dish. Drizzle over some olive oil, a heavy-handed shake of ground cumin (we're talking here about 2 heaped tsp for about 300gm fish), some sea salt (a tsp I would say - you need a bit to bring out the cumin flavour) and a wee pinch of sugar (for similar reasons to the salt). Smear it all around so the fish is coated in cuminy oil, then squeeze over the juice of half a lime. Heat a fry pan (last night I used my new griddle pan which added a lovely charred quality - definitely will be doing that again) and cook the fish until it just flakes. Place into a serving dish/plate, breaking the fish fillets up into chunks/flakes and drizzle over the other half of lime juice. Scatter with plenty of chopped coriander and, if you fancy, some chopped red chilli. Serve in warmed, fresh corn tortillas* dolloped with chipotle mayonnaise** and some shredded lettuce and chopped avocado. Delicious - especially when served with a large pitcher of slushy margaritas or an ice-cold lager with lime.

We had this for dinner with friends last night but I had had too many of aforementioned margaritas to think to take a picture sorry! But it does look as good as it sounds, I promise.

* (I buy mine from Cool Chile Company online and they are totally unlike that 'certain' brand of bright yellow, stale, corn tortillas you buy in the shops. If you can't get access to good fresh ones online, I'd make your own and freeze 'em)
** Use either homemade mayo or a good quality bought one, add a tbsp of chipoltes in adobo and a small clove of minced garlic. Finish with a squeeze of lime and a pinch of salt. 

Behold - in all its blushing glory!

The first home-grown tomato of the season!!

Ain't it pretty? I thought so. And I felt that the first tomato of the season needed to be eaten in style, you know? Unfortunately there was only one ripe one (the others are slowly getting their 'red' on) so it wasn't going to be the main meal. But I figured, you can't go wrong with the (highly unoriginal but v delicious) salad caprese, right? Buffalo mozzerella (which I contemplated making myself, but there was no citric acid at the supermarket...I plan to persevere on this front though, because I can, quite remarkably, buy unhomogenized buffalo milk!), basil from the garden and our own beautiful (Latah variety) tomato. A drizzle of Simone's family's olive oil and some sea salt was all it otherwise needed.

But, as I said, it needed something more to make it a meal. That's where things may have gotten a little out of hand...

What we ended up with was something of a feast. Salad caprese, a raw marinated zucchini salad with mint, grilled zucchini with olive oil and garlic, beans stewed in sweet tomatoes, fresh foccacia with potato and rosemary, fresh foccacia with parmesan and red onion, smoked salmon, meats, olives and wine! What we really needed were 3 or 4 good friends to share the feast with, but we made do and it was delicious. The lad noted [he seems to increasingly find himself cast here in the role of food critic...intense pressure, poor lad!] that the tomato tasted like the ones his Grandma used to grow and give him in tomato sandwiches when he was a kid. He was right - it was a nostalgic tomato taste that only home-grown fruit can give. And the good news is that the other 4 tomato plants are covered in hard, green, ugly fruit - just waiting for some sunshine to make their cheeks all rosey and ripe.

And so we wait too....

The feast

Grilled zucchini with garlic and olive oil (and basil because it looked pretty)

The two types of foccacia. It's a potato-based bread and is really lovely

Summer = Courgettes

Call 'em courgettes, call 'em zucchini, call 'em what you will, but we've got 'em! We've hit that point in summer when you suddenly think, "hmm, at this rate, by next week we may be drowned in a sea of zucchini". This thought is usually followed by, "why the hell don't I ever remember how much each plant produces?!" This year (it having been a while since I grew any) I planted two varieties and three of each kind. Six plants in total (plus the 20-odd bean plants, the 5 tomatoes and umpteen brocolli and cavolo nero plants). Two of the courgies have been producing fairly regularly for a few weeks, but are really upping the ante at the moment, and the others are just starting to bear fruit. Both are lovely varieties - I got them from this lovely seed-saving catalogue which sells only plants which it knows will grow well in Britain (tune into a later post for my tomato harvest!! First ripe one to be picked tomorrow...an exciting day!). One is a normal courgette - an Italian green variety which is sweet and gorgeous. The other is a patty pan (summer squash?) and it's a whiteish French heirloom variety. See how pretty?

Pretty courgettes picked this afternoon. I picked twice this many yesterday so this lot grew overnight. Also some beans - I have 2 kinds of them as well

However, for all that they do tend to become an over-prolific blight towards the end of summer, I do love them and can easily eat them with every meal. But you do have to get a bit creative. I suspect (given that there's still a lot of courgette season left and the plants are only kicking into high gear now) that my courgette chocolate cake will make several appearances later this year! (if i haven't already, I will post that recipe next time I make it!) But tonight, I felt like something super simple for dinner and pasta with courgette seemed like an excellent idea. I didn't really fancy anything creamy or dense so it was very basic.

Summer Spaghetti with Courgette/Zucchini
2 courgettes (or a mix of courgettes/zucchini and patty-pans)
1 very large clove of garlic
big glug of olive oil (I used my friends' family's stuff for extra Italian charm! Yum!)
salt
freshly grated parmesan, to taste (I like a lot; Andrew's not such a fan so I added extra for mine)
basil (although I did also contemplate mint...the basil was on the windowsill though, so it won out)
courgette flowers if you have them
spaghetti or linguine

Cook the pasta and in a fry-pan, heat the oil then add the vege (I julienned mine in the food processor lengthwise so I had long thin strips. You could grate it if you don't have a food processor) and garlic. Add salt to bring out the moisture and softly saute until it is cooked but still bright green and with some texture (some of it will break down, other bits will hold their shape). Take off the heat and add a good handful of parmesan and the herbs. Throw in the pasta and a glug more oil and mix. Done.

I felt like being fancy with the flowers so ours had extra garnish (which tasted great!).

It was deemed very Italian by the other half - something, he said, like his room-mate when he lived in Italy, Salvatore, used to cook for him. I'd deem that a success! Buono!

Post-script: In the interests of actually getting some photos of food on here, I've taken to using my phone to take photos. This means the pics won't always be particularly good or arty, but I figure it's better than not having any! Trade off...

Burger Bun victory

I've long been searching for the perfect bread roll to use in homemade burgers (fish, chicken, beef, chickpea...whatever) and finally - FINALLY - I have found it. Thank you Dan Lepard, you are a bread-making genius.

This is his recipe, copied from his column in the Guardian. Alls I do differently is that I bung the combined wet ingredients with the dry in the food processor with the dough attachment on it and let it do the hard work of kneading. They are really lovely rolls and they keep quite well too - staying fresh and tasty for a couple of days. I also don't actually bother with the poppy seeds, mostly because they just make a giant mess when you're eating. For weeks afterward I keep finding them on the floor. They're quite tasty without, and they're also nice with sesame seeds.

Apologies for the dodgy pic - I was using my cellphone and I still haven't quite learnt how to keep get it to focus!

Dan Lepard's BBQ Onion Burger Buns


275g sliced white onion
50ml sunflower oil, plus a little extra for kneading
75g low-fat yoghurt
2 tsp honey
1 medium egg
1 sachet fast-action yeast
75g wholemeal flour
425g strong white flour, plus more for shaping
2 tsp salt
Poppy seeds
Put the onion and oil in a saucepan with a dash of water (this helps it sweat quickly) and cook over a medium heat until very soft, translucent and tender, with all of the moisture gone. Leave to cool, then mix the onion and any remaining oil with the yoghurt, honey and egg. Pour in 125ml warm water and the yeast, mix well, then add the wholemeal and white flours, plus the salt.
Start mixing everything together, adding extra water (about 50ml) to make a soft, sticky dough. I can't be exact here because it depends a little on how soft the cooked onions are, so gradually add the extra water and stop when it feels right for you.
Set aside for 10 minutes, then lightly oil a worktop and give the dough a quick 10-second knead. Return it to the bowl, cover and leave for another 10 minutes. Repeat this knead-and-leave sequence twice more, before finally leaving the dough to rise undisturbed for an hour.
Divide the dough into six or eight equal pieces, shape each into balls and flatten to about 2-3cm high. Brush the tops with water, roll in a plateful of poppy seeds so they stick well, then place on a couple of baking trays lined with nonstick baking paper. Cover and leave to rise for about 90 minutes, or until risen by half. Bake at 220C (200C fan-assisted)/425F/gas mark 7 for about 15 minutes, until just brown on top.
danlepard.com/guardian

I miss proper summer fruit...

So, I bought this packet of apricots at the supermarket on Monday. They were marked down because they were best before Monday but I figured that would mean that they might actually just be ripe, you know? Sure enough when I got them home they were rock solid and miles from ripe. But because they were obviously picked so long ago, they have not ripened at home - instead they have gone bad but have, rather spitefully,  remained unripe. 

How hard is it to leave fruit on the freaking tree until it's actually ready to be picked?! Summer fruit needs sun people - it's the thing that makes it taste good. If you pick it in June, it will not ever get ripe. Ever!!!! It's so annoying. And so wasteful! They pick all this fruit unripe, no one buys it because they know it tastes like crap, so it gets thrown out and wasted and the farmers are all like 'no one is buying our hard grown produce'. Then the supermarkets stop stocking it because people won't buy it and it's this ridiculous vicious circle. 

I miss central Otago apricots and nectarines and peaches and cherries - fruit that actually tastes like the sun has warmed it. 

Birthdays and boredom (where would I be without alliteration?!)

I am bored. Very very very bored. I have much to do but it's all Big and Scary and requires actual brain power so I'm trying to ease into it. Also the internet has failed me miserably today. I have looked at all my normal sites and there is nothing there to sufficiently interest me (despite this whole NOTW drama which does interest me, but about which I have already read too much).

So, since I have a desperate need to do anything other than what I should be doing (which also includes walking to the shops to buy a lottery ticket - but I can't be arsed getting dressed and doing my hair etc etc. Every possibly choice of activity seems to involve too many other requirements today. My laziness knows no bounds), I thought I would reinstate the 'mighty' blog, have a whinge and talk about the cake I made myself for my 30th birthday this weekend.

On Friday (the eve of my birth), I felt like baking. I don't love cake, and could easily endure a birthday without one, but as you know I do quite enjoy the baking process, and that's what I felt like doing. I originally set out intending to try and replicate an infamous birthday cake that Andrew once bought me (for my 26th birthday...a birthday which fell a week before my original PhD submission deadline and which ended with me hysterically sobbing over the realisation that, no matter how hard I worked, I simply wasn't going to get 30,000 words written in a week). That cake was a raspberry white chocolate mousse cake and it was amazing. I could have eaten the lot. It was layers of light sponge cake sandwiched with a white chocolate and raspberry mousse and topped with a sort of berry glaze/jelly thing. In the end on Friday, it was the glaze/topping thing that stopped me trying to make that cake. But thinking about it made me realise that I fancied something with a berry vibe. I came across a recipe for something called a Pink Lady cake which looked rather festive. It was made with strawberries and had cream-cheese icing - all rather tasty sounding. My other half, though, doesn't much care for cream cheese icing and since he'd eat the vast majority, I thought I'd go with chocolate icing. And then I thought that raspberries would go better with chocolate than strawberries and so my 4 tier raspberry chocolate layer cake was born.

I used this recipe as my starting point: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/10/pink-lady-cake/

Instead of the strawberries, though, I first pureed 600gms of fresh raspberries (they being in season here at the mo) and then sieved those to remove the seeds. Rather conveniently, that produced a cup and a half of berry puree.

When making the cake (which, by the way, is a freaking enormous batter! My Magimix couldn't cope - there was pink batter flying all over the place), I changed some of the instructions because they just didn't seem to make sense to me. For instance, I added the milk to the main batter rather than mixing it with the egg whites. I am far from an expert baker, but my baking instincts railed against the idea of trying to whip egg whites that have dairy added to them. Just didn't compute. I also may have inadvertently added a LOT more food colouring than was strictly necessary. The kitchen was splattered in red batter, as was I, and it all looked like a grizzly My Little Pony murder scene.

I persevered, though, even when the batter wouldn't fit into the first bowl and had to be decanted into the large, hideous plastic blue fruit bowl that was the only vessel I could fit it in. At this point every single bowl, utensil and surface in the kitchen was covered in fluro crimson batter. Deep, calming breaths. The batter smelt wonderful though - fresh and berry-scented, and when I licked the many spoons I had dirtied in the making, it tasted delicious. Sort of like melted raspberry icecream. What's not to like?!

The baking process also seemed to go well (given the whole Magimix/bowl/batter explosion thing, I figured the cake with its 8 egg whites and 5.5 tsp of baking powder would overflow out of the pans and into the bottom of my less-than-pristine oven. It did not. A small coup). The cakes looked pretty good when they came out - a less terrifying shade of pink, and perfectly edible. Progress.

Once they were cooled, I made an enormous vat of chocolate butter frosting (running out of cocoa along the way - I tried to make up for it by blitzing into the mixture some dark chocolate. This did not work and made the icing look like I hadn't sifted anything. Which I hadn't, of course, but it still wasn't a good look), and started the layering process. I split both cakes in half and towered them up with icing between them. Naturally I hadn't made the pieces uniform before doing this so my stacked cake had a rather trapezoid look about it, but not to worry, I thought! I'll just keep coating the thing in icing - no one will notice! Of course, despite using half a pound of butter in making my icing, I didn't have quite enough, so it was spread rather thinly in places.

But, despite all of this, the cake was a thing of relative beauty at the end. A giant towering beast of a cake with a chirpily blasphemous comment piped on top. I was so proud. Wouldn't you be?!

We lugged the beast with us to our friends' place on Saturday night, thinking it would make a delicious ending to a wonderful birthday. I should have known better. American recipes almost never work out for me, and this was another of those times. It was a thing of visual glory, this cake, but it tasted rather a lot like eating pink playdoh. In fact, if someone told you they'd made it in their Playdoh kitchen, I don't think you'd have been surprised. I'm not sure what went wrong to be honest - perhaps I tried too hard? Perhaps cakes just shouldn't be fluro pink (because, let's remember, this is not the first fluro pink cake incident I've had)? Perhaps raspberries are denser than strawberries. Perhaps the milk should have been whisked into the egg whites (though I remain v sceptical about that argument)? Perhaps blaspheming in icing wasn't the smartest karmic move?

We will probably never know. Alls I can say at this point is, I hope to god that my lovely friends' wedding cake (which I have volunteered to make - arggh) tastes much more like baked goods than childrens' novelty modelling substances.

Happy Birthday to Moi.

Loving the Mexicana - thanks Thomasina

I think I mentioned a while back my unhappy experience with a Certain Chinese Cookbook (which ought probably to remain unnamed). I also think that I mentioned my new Mexican cookbook acquisition from Thomasina Myers? (Surely?) Well, happily, Thomasina's book is wonderful. Loving the recipes, loving the vibe and the enthusiasm for Mexican cuisine which filters through all of her recipe descriptions - it's all good - great, even. I love, too, that she's a Masterchef alumnus. (Alumni? Alumne?) Speaking of which, I was rather excited to read in this month's cooking mag that British MC is getting a makeover of Tyra-esque proportions this year - it's going all Antipodean and picking up on the Australian mode of presentation. Yay! The lovely Australians have a much more dynamic and reality-tv-appropriate format in which the housemates (read: finalists) all live together over a number of weeks and pit their skills against each other in high intensity challenges. Cooking doesn't get tougher than this! (although clearly last year they were lying given the need for an overhaul). 

I'm not making any sense in this rambling nonsense tonight. I feel as if I did actually have something to say when I took to the keyboard. Oh, that's right. Yay Mexican food. I am also going to be brave and actually try some new ideas rather than just subtle variations on stuff I know I will like. I'm particularly intrigued to try tamales so I will be sure to do a decent food post about that when I do. Also, I will actually take photos of my efforts when I do, since, I've noticed the total absence of photos (good or otherwise) on here of late. Sorry about that. The one tiny problem with Thomasina's book is that there aren't enough pictures but I feel I can't really be annoyed with that since I've done exactly the same here. I think my problem is that I cant' seem to wait when food is ready - I must eat it NOW. By the time I remember I wanted to take a photo, the food has long since been devoured. I will try harder though, I promise. Unless it's really yummy and then all bets are off. 

A rant. With no food.

I really shouldn't read newspapers ever because it just enlightens me to the insanity of British politics and that almost always leads to me getting mad!! The STUPID Education Secretary Someone Gove is overhauling the high school curriculum to include more 'facts' because that's the stuff kids really need to know. This whole 'thematic' approach to history that the last government instigated is just silly and doesn't concentrate on the important things like facts. Never mind the fact that high school students for the most part get to uni with the bare minimum (if any at all) of critical thinking skills now - make them focus on regurgitating facts and they will be entirely useless!! Has this man never heard of Bloom's taxonomy of learning?? (which I wouldn't expect most people to have heard of unless they were being made to train as a teacher to work at Uni or - for example - were the minister responsible for EDUCATION policy!!) In that, recall and regurgitation of facts are very clearly identified as the lowest form of knowledge (although on the plus side, very easy to train students to pass exams with high rates thus lifting Britain's waning rankings in the world secondary education tables. Not that I'm a conspiracy theorist mind you. That would not be logical or based on facts). Stupid stupid man! AND he's getting rid of the citizenship classes that have been in place for the past 9 years because educating students to understand their political system is a waste of time and the curriculum "must not cover every conceivable area of human knowledge or endeavour and should not become a vehicle for imposing passing political fads". Yes, knowing and understanding politics is like, soooo 4 years ago. And hey, if we stop educating kids about politics, then they won't have the capacity to question dickheads like me properly when I do something stupid like turn the clocks back on education policy by 40 odd years!!!! GARRGGH.

(FYI: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/20/national-curriculum-review-facts-and-vital-knowledge
And: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/20/dont-scrap-citizenship-teachers-plead?intcmp=239

Ok. Rant over. Sorry if I bored you. I really must get a pet so I can rant to it and stop harassing actual people!

Anything  you need to get off your chest reader(s)?

Pollyanna vs. Eeyore

Things I liked about today:

  - the sun shone for at least 4 hours today! This was long enough for me to feel confident in putting my washing on the line. It didn't dry, of course because it was only about 3 degrees outside (so the sheets just sort of hung around getting colder and wetter) but it felt like a victory just to be able to put it out.

 - the delivery of my Graze box (see: http://www.graze.com/). Much like getting my groceries delivered, the arrival of any foodstuffs in my post-box is very exciting. And in this case, tasty. I love the randomness of this system. I think you can actually request specific things to be sent, but I don't and it's great fun. You get 4 brand new treats in every box but it's a surprise each time and so far they've all been tasty (except the goji berries. I know I'm meant to like these because they are meant to be so full of antioxidants that they turn you into Dakota Fanning just by munching on a handful, but they taste very odd. Not really unpleasant, just odd.)

 - the delivery of my milk in cute pint sized bottles on the doorstep. See above for my excitement about delivered foodstuffs. Is an odd new obsession I seem to have developed.

 - the fact that I managed to write 700 not entirely crap words on a paper I'm trying to develop with a colleague. This constitutes the entirety of my writing for the past 5 or 6 months so I shouldn't really be celebrating it, but small victories are victories nonetheless.

 - making plans to visit my family in Qatar, NZ and friends in Australia!

Things I did not like about today:

 - being woken at 3am by the loud truck of my milk delivery man.

 - split peas that refused to cook down sufficiently such that I now have lumpy/crunchy split pea soup which is likely to make my stomach rebel and cause unfortunate side-effects tonight...oi.

 - stupid fracking Latvian numpties who trade on eBay but refuse to use Paypal thus prompting an effort of diplomatic proportions (and several ridiulous arguments with my other half) to get money to them. Use the system properly people, or not at all! For shame strange Latvian vendor of vintage motorcycle parts! For shame.

- the giant scary pile of dishes I woke to this morning. The second giant scary pile of dishes that now awaits me in the kitchen. Not eating would have some useful payoffs.

Fragments of Inspiration

Yesterday was supposedly 'Blue Monday' (shiver in fear, ye new years resolution breakers!) - the day in Britain when people supposedly feel the most depressed all year. Some 'scientific' study has determined (in the most rigorous way possible I'm sure) that yesterday is the accumulation of bleakness for most Brits - it's freaking weeks still til pay day (we all got paid early last month and then squandered said paycheque on Christmas treats) so we're all broke, the weather is grey and shite, we've all apparently abandoned our efforts at losing 10kg by the end of the month and it's about 4 months until the next long weekend. Hence, Blue Monday.

Oddly (for me) I was actually feeling rather upbeat yesterday. My office at work was all organised (quite out of character!) and the students I met with were wonderful (bar one pimply apathetic first year male who clearly thought he'd take the world by storm at uni and now that he's realised that a BA requires you to think for yourself and he's not done so well on that front, has decided it's 'not for him' and wanted advice on switching to something more 'useful' like a mgmt degree...I couldn't even muster sufficient giving-a-shit-powers to try and win him back to the Mass Comms world). I even got a gift of a bracelet from one student as well as a lovely thank you card - not that I am more prone to liking students who shower me with gifts, I swear, but it is nice to know you're appreciated. I work in an industry where critique is an essential part of what we do, and that's good - I recognise the value and appreciate the feedback, of course. But there is something to be said about finding inspiration and enthusiasm from the likes of students you've taught who actually seem to have gained knowledge during your classes and who - shock of shocks - value your help in them reaching that new level of understanding. So, Blue Monday - that's 1 for the students and me and 0 for you!

Anyway. I digress. Or do I? No, I don't think I do. Blue Monday could kiss my ass I decided! I was embracing the happy. There were red carpet pics to view (and mock), students to chat with, groceries being delivered by my new obsession Ocado (somehow having groceries delivered makes the whole process more of a treat - like a present!) and I had eaten healthily all day (not that this was a NY resolution - I've been gyming and attempting to eat less crap for months...I am not on a band wagon I tells ya). Blue Monday - 0, Me - 3!

I had a visit by one of my lovely NZ-based friends last week (le Francaise) and she too has helped to inspire in me just a little bit more motivation. Le Francaise is one of those people who, although armed with a biting wit and capable of as much scorn and criticism as the best of 'em, is almost always able to find the humour and positive in things. I hadn't ever really realised this about her, but after spending the day together I realised that she has a wonderful way of embracing madness which might ordinarily keep you down. It's such a refreshing approach and puts you in a good mood, so I have resolved to try and do the same. (Eek. I sound scarily positive. I'm sure a spiral of doom is just around the corner!)

Oh, and we ate wonderful home-made Mexican food (with proper corn tortillas - thanks again online shopping and Cool Chile Co.!) and drank large volumes of margaritas...making the very pleasant discovery that tequila makes us happy. Not boozed or flailing, but genuinely happy. Thomasina Myers has a theory that tequila makes people happy because it's made from a cactus which grows for years in the desert and she thinks anything that has spent so long growing in the sunshine has to be naturally imbued with joy. What a wonderful theory. Pass me the limes and salt...!

Sarah Palin and minced pork

Ah the joys of marking. One of my students actually used the phrase, "As mentioned by Sarah Palin, Gramsci argues that..." in their essay yesterday. This tickled me so much that it completely made up for the fact that I'd had to spend over an hour trying to read and comprehend said student's (rather awful) paper. What do you think the odds are that A. Sarah Palin has heard of Gramsci, B. She has read and understood Gramsci, C. She can comment on Gramsci's contribution to the debate on American hegemony from the perspective of high vs low culture or D. She knows what hegemony is?? Snort.

On the Magimix front...last night I stuck to my own recipe instead of trying another one from the ill-fated Chinese cookbook and all was well. It's my version of pork larb I think, although I have never called it that. You blitz lime leaves, chilli, coriander, garlic, ginger, spring onions and depending on how lemony you like it, lemongrass together then add that spice paste to minced pork as it is frying. Once it's had a few mins, add some fish sauce and dark brown sugar, let it caramelise and you're done. We typically eat it on jasmine rice with stirfried vege, but it would be equally delish if wrapped in a crunchy iceberg lettuce leaf. The Magimix performed wonderfully when blitzing the spices and also 'made' the minced pork.

This weekend we're going to test the egg white beating function and see if we can muster a decent pavlova from it. The machine claims it can do it...no other food processor I've seen can, so it will be interesting.

And that's all folks. Now back to the grind of marking. Perhaps today Homer Simpson will comment on Stuart Hall's arguments on national identity?

Procrastinators' Guide to the New Year

In the lead up to Christmas, I had planned to be oh-so creative in the kitchen, whipping up a frenzy of sugared treats and the like. And indeed, one day of the 4 I had off was spent lurking over a pot of bubbling sugar and fat in an ill-fated effort to test several varieties of fudge recipe (none were successful. Here endeth my efforts at fudge making without a candy thermometer. I'm pretty sure I've said that before though, so there's every chance that there will yet be a third effort sans practical equipment). Other than that, I did bugger all. I should probably feel guilty about that, but I don't. I don't actually remember what I did, but suspect that I spent quite a bit of those precious 4 days on the couch. One of them, I remember distinctly, was spent in consumer/snow-hell when I decided to go and do the Christmas shopping (nb. This year I WILL be doing all my Christmas shopping stupidly early and online. Shops be damned). A total of 2 hours shopping and 3.5 hours of travel time (for a round trip that ought to have taken 35 mins tops. Damn ye snow and shoppers of Milton Keynes of similar organisational skills to moi. Damn ye I say). Horrifying.

Anyway. I'm faffing about even now. I meant to write about the fact that it's the 5th day of the year and I am already woefully behind on pretty much everything which seems to me to be fairly impressive an effort in uselessness. What I should have been doing on my precious 4 day holiday, it would seem, is ignoring the fact that I'd taken annual leave and settling down to some industrious marking. I didn't, and as a result now have 2 days (including today) to do all my sodding marking. And write an assignment reflecting on my teaching practice in light of theory (gag). And I've now spent more than my allocated 10 mins of web-surfing time, so I had better go to it and keep reading obscurely written attempts to discuss the role of NGOs in global society.

Oh. I knew there was something else to say. I got a Magimix food processor for Christmas (am v v spoiled and feel that such a treat is not really deserved given my total lack of useful kitchen activities of late.) It is red and incredibly shiny and ever-so pretty. Since I have had to force myself to Do Some Work Dammit and thus can't play in the kitchen for hours, I sort of just stand in front of it gently patting it. At some point, however, I will use it and will regale you with truly exciting tales of blending and mixing (a New Years' treat that I bet you can't wait for). I will say that aside from fondling it, I've also made a smoothie in it so far and the sauce for last night's dinner (nb. Chilli Chicken from my new Chinese cookbook by Ching-He Huang. Result? Seriously seriously average. This is why I don't try new recipes more often. It sounded delicious with promises of 'tangy, sweet and just the right amount of spicy' and was instead bland, not sweet and certainly not tangy. It managed to be both just about too spicy and yet lacking in any actual flavour. Now I'm dubious about the rest of the recipes in the damn book. So disappointing).