Breads

My dress is progressing slower than I'd like at the moment, so I thought I'd post about my bready experiments instead. At the upcoming Norse event, the feast will be a potluck, with a simple system to tell attended what they should bring for a good variety on the day; my item was bread. So I got it into my head to try a vaguely period recipe.

Given that sourdough has been around in one form or another for several centuries, I decided to try that. I used the Paul Hollywood organic grapes recipe to make up my starter, and the hardest part of getting that going was trying to find somewhere to sell organic grapes. I learned since that any organic fruit of veg that tends to develop a white film can be used to seed the starter with wild yeast, but having spare grapes to snack on was no hardship. It took about a week to properly dial in on the recipe, to get the water temperature and flour quantities right, but my starter seems very happy with me at the moment, with a scent that varies between natural yoghurt and home-brewed beer. I don't follow exactly the feeding measurements given in the recipe above. I vary my flour and water quantities on any given day to keep the mixture at a thick batter consistency.

After the requisite four day start up time, I started using the "discard" in the Classic Sourdough recipe to make up my loaves. I brought two loaves down to CoLD with me, where they were promptly devoured, and I got many compliments on the flavour and tang of the bread. My oven is a little on the old side so my loaves are coming out a little dark. I almost have my cooking time perfected.. maybe just a little more work so they come out golden rather than mahogany...

But uplifted by the reception at CoLD, I decided to try and a little experimentation, and sought out some sweet flavours to try. The white chocolate & raspberry loaf was again one of Paul Hollywood's recipes, though the walnut & apricot and the chocolate & berry loaves were my own inventions, taking the basic classic sourdough recipe and adding the extras. The chocolate loaf also has some added dried yeast, as the cocoa can inhibit the natural yeast and sometimes a booster is needed. I think I may have added the fruit too soon in the kneading step, and this has resulted in a rippled effect, most noticeable in the white chocolate & raspberry loaf.

Overall this is a really interesting experience. Though I love baking, I rarely do it everyday, but now that I have the starter stable, and am using it roughly every second day, it means I'm baking enough to really dial in on what the starter and the bread dough need to come out perfect. Clearly there's more science to be done.. tasty, tasty science...

Layered Mint Cheesecake

Recently I shared a picture on my facebook page that seemed very popular indeed. Certainly the physical cake didn't last long at all.

Now, I shall preface this recipe by stating that it is not mine. It was generously shared some time ago on another social media long since abandoned, so I can't find the user name of the original poster. That said, should the owner find this recipe and decide they'd prefer it not to be posted, please contact me and I shall dutifully remove it. And on to the recipe:

Ingredients:
Base
287g chocolate cookies, crushed
57g butter

Cheesecake
3 x 227g packs of cream or soft cheese (this time out I used the lactose free philadelphia, which seemed to work quiet well)
172g caster sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
100g semi-sweet chocolate, melted (I prefer to use 70% cocoa chocolate)
1/2 teaspoon mint extract
Green food colouring

Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180oC and grease a 9" loose bottom cake tin.
2) Melt the butter and mix in the crushed biscuits. Press the mixture firmly into the tin and put into the freezer.
3) In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar together well. Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and beat well.
4) Take out a third of the mixture and mix mint extract and green food colouring into this portion.
5) In the remaining two thirds, add in the melted chocolate and stir well.
6) Spread a little less than half of the chocolate half of the mix over the cheesecake base and allow to chill for 10 minutes.
Note: This chilling is the magic step, this is what allows the layers to be poured separately to give that wonderful look when cut.
7) Add the mint layer, making sure to spread it gently so it covers the bottom chocolate later without disturbing it. Chill and add the final chocolate later in the same manner.
8) Cook the cheesecake for 44-55 minutes depending on your oven, but you may want to check it after 40. When cooked the cheesecake, insert a knife into the cake; if cooked, the knife will come out clean. Make sure to allow the cheesecake to cool somewhere warm (on top of the oven would be ideal) as if it cools too quickly, it may crack. This doesn't harm the cheesecake or the flavour, just takes away from the aesthetics.
9) Last, but most important, enjoy!

You can see from the recipe above, it would be very easy to substitute other flavours into this cake to make a variety of cakes.. must get around to trying a chocolate orange flavour one of these days...

A&S Champion of Lough Devnaree

Continuing with posts of activities from last year, and one which really shouldn't wait much longer, is that of the A&S competition from the Champions of Lough Devnaree event. 

This was my first proper A&S competition entry at this event (a previous last minute entry of a re-created necklace with portrait inspiration does not proper documentation make), and the theme chosen by the previous winner, Lady Agnes des Illes, was "Paradise".

Initially, I wasn't quite sure where to start with this one, but I browsed Wikipedia a bit and eventually came across a reference to the land of Cockaigne, or Cloud Cuckoo Land as it is known in modern terms. Using this page and reference as my springboard, I found repeated reference to small honey cakes sold at fairs being the origin of the phrase. An A&S entry about research and baking? Sounds ideal for me!

I chose to make three types of cakes from period recipes; gingerbread from a 15th century recipe, a simple Lebkuchen recipe, not having the moulds for anything but a simple recipe, and a perhaps slightly less period Elizabethan almond cake recipe, because I just adore almonds.

Cakes made, I delivered them up for the competition and waited anxiously for the judges to judge, trying not to watch them all the while. I'm not sure I'm really able for the waiting. It's the anxiety that keeps me from entering in more competitions I'm sure.

Results weren't announced until feast was over, and it was difficult to eat on top of that many butterflies. My thanks to Lady Sela for enduring my steel grip as I waited for the winner to be announced.... and I won! I was so utterly delighted!

I asked Lady Agnes to go through the comments on my scoring afterwards, and I can see where I failed to take into consideration the strength of modern spices compared to what would have been used in period (except for the gingerbread. I think that may have been a personal taste thing, as it was perfect for me). And my referencing is a bit rusty. But both very workable-on things. 

Next year's CoLD is due to be held in early September, and I get to keep the staff of office and the title of A&S Champion of Lough Devnaree until then. I've restrained myself from carrying around the staff too much though, given how I almost knocked someone over in the first half hour of holding it... *ahem*

Heraldic Cookies

At an event recently, the birthday of a viscountess of my acquaintance was celebrated. As is my custom, I decided to bake something for her as a gift. And I just couldn't resist the though of making cookies decorated with her heraldry.

To start with, I made up a batch of butter cookies using my favourite recipe; that is, the one from Cookie Magic by Kate Shirazi.

The next layer was one of shop bought fondant, rolled out and cut out with the same size of cutter I'd used for the cookies themselves. These were set in place by simply wetting the back of each piece and pressing gently, bur firmly onto the cookie. I do intend to try making my own fondant for future baking efforts, but time was short on this one, so I couldn't afford failed attempts.

While those were setting, I make up a batch of royal icing (also detailed in the book above) and coloured it purple to get that Argent and Purpure look I needed for the heraldry. Little tip here; if, like me, you don't have purple food colouring available, make sure to mix your colours before adding to the icing. This makes it much easier to achieve an even result. 
 
For the first application of icing, I added dots along the scalloped edge of the icing, and drew out a basic heraldic lily in the centre of the cookie. It's important to let the icing outline dry before filling in the shapes. Filling in the petals too soon would have resulted in a leaking of the icing from the shapes and a messed up cookie. I found that outlining about 10-12 cookies at a time meant by the time the twelfth outline was complete, the first cookie could be filled in. 

Also, be sure to give the icing plenty of drying time. I left them for almost 24 hours on the rack and even at that they were inclined to stick together when stacked in a box. 




Voila! The finished cookies. Pretty and as I understand, quite tasty, and they were very fun to make. 

Classes and Cakes

With Kingdom University only two weeks away, I'm up to my eyes at the moment, trying to get my class notes written. This will only be the second class I've given (the first was only taken up by my householders, so the panic level was considerably less), so I'm a bit nervous. A lot nervous. Hold me.

This means of course that I'm not getting much else done. My in-progress black linen kirtle keeps making neglected noises in my direction, gently reminding me it needs to be finished for only two weeks after Kingdom Uni. That and the rest of my costume.

No, I don't like this concept of "free time", why do you ask?


But I have been baking.

These are a simple chocolate maderia cake recipe, with some grated chocolate I had left over thrown in, along with some fresh raspberries, divided into bun cases and baked for about 20 minutes.

They're lovely and moist and kind of falling apart with the juice from the raspberries. They'll likely firm up a bit more overnight, but the tartness
of the raspberries just goes beautifully with the chocolate cake.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with a photo editing programme and a good deal of crumbs.

Plum and Ginger Crumble

I don't often mess around with baking to make up my own recipes. There's so many out there already to try it's enough to just try and get through the pre-existing ones. However, with company today I wanted to put together something simple and tasty and this is what resulted.

Plum and Ginger Crumble (gluten free)

Ingredients
16-18 small plums
2-3 pieces candied ginger, in syrup
200g rice flour
130g butter
65g golden brown sugar
100g ground almonds
Ground cinnamon

 Method

• Pre-heat oven to 180oC and grease your baking dish with butter. 
• To prepare the plums, cut them in half and place in a bowl. Pour boiling water over the plums and leave for five minutes. This blanches the plums and makes it easier to remove the skins. Chop the plums and layer at the base of the baking dish. 
• Chop the candied ginger finely and sprinkle over plums. Drizzle the syrup from the ginger over the plums to sweeten. 
• To make the crumble mix, add the flour, sugar and butter to a bowl and rub the butter in until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the ground almonds and a teaspoon of cinnamon and mix well. 
• Spread the crumb mix over the fruit and bake for 20mins.  Enjoy!

The end of my week was much busier then the begining, meaning things got done, but I didn't get time to load the pictures. And I do prefer to update with pictures.

The first thing worth sharing is the cookix christmas tree I made for the first xmas party of the season I was invited to. I love getting to make this at least once a year, and this years variation was butter cookies with glacé icing, with a dusting of icing sugar. Unfortunately it was a good deal more battered by the time it reached it's destination, but the Leaning Tower of Biscuit was still appreciated.

This impressive structure is made using a set of progressively sized star biscuit cutters that are stuck together with dabs of icing to create the tree effect. I'm not a very technical baker, I prefer to make things that are tasty. But tricksy cookie cutters like these can give even me the chance to make something impressive looking.

I've also managed to impress myself this week by making steady headway on my day garb! I picked up some linen scrim for the interlining and used it on the double, so I could have the added stiffness of the linen without too much added bulk or warmth. I've been sewing the back and both front pieces together seperately to create shell pieces which will then be sewn together. This will also make it easier for me to attach the wool strips to the bodice panels.



The picture above shows the back panel, finished but unpressed, and one of the front side pieces, sewn with backstitch, and still inside out.The one to the right, yes, the one with the really poor contrast going on, are my sleeves in progress. With these, I've sewn the upper and cuff seams and am finishing the side seams with a french seam to keep the edges need and hard wearing. I intend this dress to see a lot of wear, so I want to be sure if lasts.

Saying It With Cake...

Occasionally I like to rely on my natural talents and thank someone who's done me a favour with baked goods. My baking may never win any awards for finesse or presentation, but it is, so I'm told, consistently tasty.

With my car being off the road for over 2 months now, I've been relying on a cousin for a few lifts. So this evening I made him a fresh cream victorian sponge by way of thank you. I was in no mood to wrestle with greaseproof paper, so I decided to use a more traditional method of preparing my tins. This involved coating both tins with an even layer of soft butter. Then I sprinkled a spoon of flour into the tins and rotated the tins until the butter coating on the base and side were covered with a film of flour, as shown. It's important to make sure there's no gaps in the covering or any uneven butter patches which may affect the batter.
 
And it turned out beautifully! Even edges, no burned fingers trying to peel off red hot paper! Finished off with whipped cream and a little icing sugar, I hope my cousin enjoys it!