let's cook: carrot cake

We managed to do six cooking challenges in 2017, and our fifth was carrot cake.

It's great that we've had more participants this past year and we had three entries again for this one; me, my mum and Audrey (photos above in the same order). Unfortunately I don't have that many photos of this challenge, which is often the way in the autumn and winter, when it's dark outside.


The cakes

Audrey made her cake first, and actually made two different versions, both as birthday cakes for Ben's dad, John. One had cooked and pureed carrots mixed with walnuts and coconuts and the other had raw grated carrots with sultanas and orange zest. She took them along to their Ramblers meeting and said she got some favourable comments! Her only slight disappointment was that the cream cheese frosting went a bit runny out of the fridge.

My mum went next, and used a Mary Berry recipe. She said it was nice and moist, which she thought was probably because the recipe used oil rather than butter in the mixture. She also went for a cream cheese icing, topped with walnuts, which she said was really delicious.

Also, look at this artistic photo she sent through for me to use... bonus points deserved maybe?

I was a bit slow off the mark this time and actually had to have two attempts at my cake. I used the same recipe both times, from this 'Easy Vegan' book my mum shared with me. On my first attempt I think I took it out of the oven a bit too soon, so it was beyond moist and more like a soft sponge pudding than a cake (better with a spoon than fingers). 

Ben actually really liked my first attempt, but I don't think it was quite cakey enough, so I didn't bother icing it and decided to try again. 

My second attempt had a much better consistency and was more cake-like, although still nice and moist. I decorated it with a lemony non-dairy butter frosting and chopped pistachios, which was delicious but very sweet. I'm actually not normally a big fan of carrot cake or the cream cheese frosting and it wouldn't be my cake of choice but I did enjoy this one, although perhaps one slice was enough for me.

The results

The scores awarded were as follows...

• Audrey's carrot cake was scored 8/10 by John - a very good score!
• Ben tried to give my first failed attempt a 10, but I overruled him, and he gave my second attempt a solid 9/10.
• My mum was the star baker this time and was awarded an excellent 10/10 by my brother, who called out the icing as the best bit.

What a successful challenge! I feel like we've had a pretty good run of them this year.

Our final challenge of 2017 was festive themed and we decided to do mince pies this year, with a combined judging held on Christmas Day.

Write up to follow soon....

let's cook: swiss rolls

I was tempted to change the title of this post to 'let's fail to cook: swiss rolls' as I'm afraid this challenge wasn't our finest hour. We actually completed this bake-off way back in April, but I've been holding off posting about it as it was such a disappointment.

Here goes though...promise not to laugh too much.



All I can say is that swiss rolls are harder than they look.

My effort is shown on the left (no amount of icing sugar can cover up that sorry mess), and my mum's is on the right.

I actually had two attempts here and this is the best of the two, which is really saying something. With my first effort I attempted a cake with no refined sugar but boy was that a mistake. The recipe used stevia as a substitute which I found out after baking has an aftertaste that will make you need to scrub your tongue (I actually had to do this).

Ignoring the taste, my first sponge came out pretty nice and fluffy. It cracked a bit while rolling but wasn't a complete disaster. But of course I had to start again, because of the stevia. I used a more traditional cake recipe for my second attempt, but think I rushed the whisking part and didn't get enough air in the mixture as my cake came out of the oven very flat and rubbery (with a distinct eggy aroma). Awful!

I also failed with my filling as I was aiming for something tropical, yoghurty and light, which instead ended up sloppy, oozy and gross. Oh well! You can't succeed at everything.



My mum's sponge actually looked ok, although she also reported a slightly eggy taste when freshly baked. I think her troubles were caused by baking for slightly too long, leading to this interesting geometric swiss roll.

You can't go wrong with a traditional jam filling though - sometimes it pays to play it safe!

We actually had an extra entry into the challenge this time. My brother Tim decided to take part too, and just look what he came up with:



A rather perfect looking swiss roll, which rather steals the show.

It totally looks the part, although both him and my mum confirmed that it was a bit dense and eggy too. Why are swiss rolls so hard?

And to the results...

Ben was very sweet and tried to give me a score of 2/10 but I've overruled that and awarded myself 0 marks as we had to throw the whole thing in the bin.

If I remember correctly my mum was awarded a 3/10 for her effort, and of course Tim came in first, although still with a fairly low score of 5/10.

I think we'll all have to give them another go one day, once the disappointment has worn off.

Next time we'll be making sushi. I'm looking forward to this one!
We can't do much worse...

let's cook: cheesecakes

This instalment of our cooking challenge is dedicated to cheesecakes.

You can see our results above. My mum made the strawberry cheesecake on the left, and I made the blueberry one on the right. What a feast for the eyes they both turned out to be!

I enjoyed this challenge a lot. Browsing for recipes was a real pleasure, and when I stumbled across this purple delight shared by Kelly of sass & veracity I was sold.

I found the recipe a tad fiddly, as it was from a Scandinavian book and a lot of the ingredients were measured in volume rather than weight - it's tricky to know how much a litre of blueberries is!  I was also feeding a couple of vegetarians so had to substitute the gelatine for a vegetarian alternative.

That meant I ended up changing some of the measurements so it was all a bit of a gamble, but it paid off I think! The cheesecake had a very light mousse-like consistency (possibly down to the gelatine), and I think it would make a great dessert for any summer dinnertime.

The reviews were pretty positive too, with the only downside being that the biscuit base was a bit on the soft side (I think this could be rectified by chilling the mixture a bit more before constructing the cake).

My mum wasn't entirely satisfied with her one. The base was a bit on the solid side, and ended up extremely hard to slice through. She reckons it looked better than it tasted, and unfortunately my dad (head judge) agreed.

So the scores are in:

I got awarded 9/10 with one point deducted for a soggy base.
My mum got a 6/10 from my dad - not a bad score!

I'd say that was a pretty successful one all round!



If you fancy making a purple cheesecake of your own, here's my adaptation of the recipe:

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Blueberry cheesecake
(using a 23cm cake tin)

Ingredients

For the base:
200g digestive biscuits
80g melted butter (unsalted)

For the filling:
470g blueberries
100ml water
1 sachet vegetarian gelatine
500g cream cheese
300ml whipping cream
160g fine golden caster sugar
1½ tablespoons vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice

To decorate:
Icing sugar
Fresh mint

Instructions

Crush the biscuits into crumbs and mix with the melted butter. Press into the bottom of a parchment-lined cake tin. The layer should be about 5mm thick.

Pour the water and most of the blueberries (save some to decorate the top!) into a saucepan. Squish the blueberries with a pestle or rolling pin and boil for a few minutes. The colour should now be a lovely deep purple.

Strain through a sieve to give a clear juice, and then pour the juice back into the pan.

Soak the vegetarian gelatine flakes in a little cold water to dissolve them a bit, then add to the blueberry juice and heat at a low temperature. Once it's all mixed in with the juice allow it to cool. Add the caster sugar to this mixture while it's still a little warm so that the sugar also dissolves.

Whip the cream, then mix with the cream cheese, vanilla sugar, lemon juice and finally the blueberry mixture.

Stir until the mixture becomes a nice even purple colour.  I would then pop it in the fridge for a little bit (approx. half an hour) to cool the mixture down before adding to the biscuit base - hopefully this will avoid a soggy bottom.

Cover the base with the mixture and smooth over the surface with a spatula.

Keep refrigerated overnight (or for a minimum of 4 hours).

When you are ready, remove from the tin, decorate with the remaining blueberries, fresh mint and icing sugar. Then serve.



Yummy!

Next time the challenge is to make two different dips and some dipping sticks. Summer snacks.

plenty of purple

I've noticed a bit of a purple theme around me in the last week or so.

Clockwise from top left: Brodiaea, a treat to myself // Blueberries on a homemade cheesecake // Flowers that remind me of rainbow drops // A near-finished knitting project.

I wouldn't usually put purple near the top of my favourite colours list, but these things are doing it for me!

an orange battenberg

Success for mother! 

She managed to make a Battenberg cake where I failed.

There was still a bit of trouble with the food colouring so she ended up with an orange cake instead of a pink one, but that's much closer to the end goal than I got. Well done mum!

We went on a walk on the downs on Sunday and took the cake to enjoy at the top of Ditchling Beacon.

It got a bit squashed on the way.

It was very tasty - our independent adjudicator gave it a 10 out of 10.
Next month: Samosas.

move over Mr. Kipling

Last night I attempted to make Battenberg cake for this month's cooks challenge.

Unfortunately, it did not go so well for me this time. It turns out a pink cake mixture does not necessarily make for a pink cake. The first batch I made was very subtle in colour so I wasn't incredibly surprised when it came out of the oven looking identical to the uncoloured half, but then I made a second batch and added much more pink food colouring - still no luck.

Take 1: slightly pink.                                                     Take 2: VERY pink.

I've since done some research and it looks like red food colouring is the way to go in order to achieve a perfectly pink cake. I think I'll have a second try next weekend.

In the meantime I had a lot of sponge to use up so made some mini cake slices with jam filling. The white iced ones have almond sponge and the pink iced ones are the 'supposed-to-be-pink' sponge.

Tasty. But not what I'd planned. Maybe my mum will win this month...

Herman the friendship cake

Following my bread-making class the other week a friendly fellow at work donated me some sourdough yeast called Herman. You may have heard of him, he's been around a bit.

He came with a friendship cake recipe and after cultivating the yeast for 10 days it was ready to make into a big cake! And a very tasty cake it is. Apple and cinnamon and raisins is always a winner in my book.



There was a lot of sugar involved (the brown sugar on the top is definitely the best bit).

Before baking the cake, the yeast was divided up into four: 1 portion for the cake, 1 to keep and grow, and 2 to pass onto some friendly folk over tea and tasting (hence the friendship cake).

Matt and I even did a trade: some yeast and cake for a knitting file. It's good to share! And I only have to wait another 10 days until I can do it again...

...I might make bread next time though. A slightly healthier option.

27

It was my birthday on Thursday.
Rosie made me the best cake I think I've ever seen & I received lots of treats from other friends & family (including this owl mask from Brian).

I also ate lots of Polish food. A favourite.

storm clouds and sunny skies

Just when we were thinking this house hunt was going to be impossible we stumbled across a spacious palace of a flat around the corner and said yes within the hour.

Quick decisions make me nervous, but then again so does everything, and I feel very sure that this is a good decision.

No more sleepless nights worrying if the storm is going to collapse our roof.

No more wiping my ceiling and walls with a tea towel.

And no more mouldy kitchen cupboards.

New year, new house!

Above are some treats I prepared for Rosie's birthday at the weekend.
A birthday card with help from my favourite new book & a teapot cake (see it post-decoration here).

We had an AMAZING time at lucky voice on Monday, followed by an awful couple of days filled with rain and house viewings (and the aforementioned pigeon incident). Blue skies are here now though, and I hope they're here to stay.

a cherry on top

I just ate a particularly large bakewell tart and now I feel rather ill.

I think it was worth the discomfort though, just like many things are.

Today I made some christmas cards.

Too early? I don't think so.
Whilst making them I discovered the 's' button on my typewriter is a bit hyperactive.

Which led to a lot of mistakes, and me beginning to think I was spelling christmas wrong altogether.

cook-alikes

At the weekend Rosie and I (but mainly Rosie) made these face cakes for our friends joint birthday celebration. Derek's was especially easy as we based it on his Wii character.

Our dream is to one day get paid to prepare for parties. So if anyone out there is in need of a party planner we have the following skills:
• Cake-baking
• Decorating
• Costume-making
...and many more.

Party themes are our dream!

baking & making

For the first time in ages I've got some free time without the worry that I should be doing MA work. Unfortunately time rich = money poor so I'm trying to be as productive as possible with minimal spending money.


On Sunday I baked a birthday cake (with the guidance of Rosie, as I was fearful of another biscuit style cake disaster). It turned out delightfully though and got eaten within about 5 minutes of being presented, phew! Maybe I'll experiment with my baking abilities this winter. Yesterday I got my hands on a Jane Asher party cakes book which I'm very excited about!


I've also been doing a spot more knitting and am halfway through mitten no.2 - which I'll hopefully finish off tonight. They look a bit like they are custom-made for Barry Manilow's freakishly long fingers but they seem to fit me ok (maybe because I have man-sized hands...)

Nice things have been dropping through my postbox this week too.


Firstly, a lovely gocco print from Jen which I was very excited to be the recipient of. I've hung it up in the kitchen and it's quite a treat. Thanks once again Jen!

And today I received the most pleasing pigeon photograph from Simon. A very sweet treat indeed (especially as I was fearful of my results arriving today).

On Friday I also received an amazingly BIG bunch of flowers (luckily not posted through the door). No one ever gives me flowers so it was a very nice surprise. They are sitting in the kitchen looking impressive.


I feel spoilt.

Especially as I also now have a wii fit to keep me busy. Defined calf muscles here I come! Today it told me I was a muscle legend for doing some lunges (I don't believe it, but it's a good confidence boost). Though it does mean that we'll probably have to keep the curtains in our lounge drawn most of the time from now on for fear of people in the pub seeing us hula-hooping.

A small sacrifice.

I now have an afternoon of invigilating ahead of me. Do pop down if you're around.

3 birthdays & a thank you

LET'S CELEBRATE ! ! ! !

handmade cards • a forgotten banner • some beautiful, but very VERY sweet cupcakes

pots

On Friday night I went to a dinner party & yumi made a rather delicious japanese curry pot for us all to enjoy. I promised I would bring pudding and cobbled together these mini blueberry cheesecakes (after first going on a charity shop trip to find some suitable pots).

And I think it was a success! Everyone finished them at least. Much better than the time i made the disastrous peppermint creams, or when me and Chris made a cake that was as thin as a biscuit.

I'm learning...