Buche de Noel disasssster

I've been feeling pretty rotten lately.  On Sunday I was feeling somewhat better and decide to really challenge myself (mistake number one) so out came the cookbooks...and the search began.  I was searching for something chocolately, something to test, something that could be shortlisted for my Christmas meal.  I was flipping through my books, my clippings and my basket of mags...and then I came across Stephane Reynaud's Buche de Noel from 365 Reasons to Sit Down and Eat. Perfect! Buche de Noel...with a choice of fillings- chocolate or chestnut cream.  

Done done done! The filling had to be chocolate...David's request and well...my mum doesn't like chestnuts and I am already putting them in the stuffing and with the brussels...so she needs a break! The cake was easy to make (even after I realised that I had bought XL eggs...grrrr) and it rolled up really nicely.  So...once cooled I got onto the chocolate cream filling....and this is where it all went wrong.  

The instructions in this cookbook are minimal.  For the most part there isn't much cook's intuition needed, but man I was waaaaay off on Sunday.  The instructions say to melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler and then add in whipped cream.  Not a word about letting the chocolate cool...I should have realised...I mean I kinda did...I let the chocolate cool a little...but well...I guess you can imagine what happened.  The chocolate was too warm and totally melted the whipped cream!! So I tried to rescue it by whipping it all up again...but the butter made it a little bit greasy.  Anyway, I managed to spread enough on the cake and roll it up, cover the top and get it all in the fridge to cool and set.  

While it looks presentable it is not going on the Christmas dessert shortlist...back to the drawing board I go! 

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Baking Disaster...Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

Oh dear...

The oven wasn't set high enough...I don't know if I looked at the fan temperature but didn't set the oven to fan...or just didn't set it high enough...or what. Needless to say...these gorgeous Blueberry Cornmeal muffins didn't rise...they spread...and they spread faaaaaar.  What a disaster! 

At least they still taste good...sigh. 

Complete disaster!!!

My parents have been in the UK for the last month and came to stay last night en route to London.  They've been entertaining and eating out and driving around and eating out...and eating out...and....so I thought, instead of EATING OUT I would cook something here and we could just hang out, chat and not have to...eat out.  The main was easy...Nigella's Praised Chicken...no fail...crowd pleaser and...totally inexpensive.  So that was done, it was easy.  Dessert was a little bit harder to decide on...cake...pie...buy...make...

In last month's Olive magazine there was a little insert about Sunday dinners, and in it...is a recipe for Norfolk Treacle Tart...PERFECT! My parents have been in Norfolk this past month...it seemed like destiny...

well....it wasn't meant to be.

The tart pastry is more like a cookie dough, it is soft, it has cream in it...the butter is soft when you make it...it has to chill and then warms up very quickly after being taken out of the fridge...it didn't roll out very well...and...it tore very very very easily.  ugh ugh ugh...BUT the filling was easy to make, it smelled amazing (treacle, golden syrup, double cream...can't go wrong...oh and oatmeal) so I thought...this wacky crust MUST make sense...

Into the oven it went...intact...and out of the oven it came...

Not QUITE what the picture looked like in the magazine...not quite set...and...did the crust actually MELT off?? It did...incase you were wondering...all over the floor of my oven (thank you very much).

You should be very proud of me...I didn't cry, I didn't sulk...I just put it on the cooling rack and waited for my mum to arrive.  She will know what to do...

And she did...after both mum and dad tasted the filling (yum yum) we decided...we would just scrape it out of the crust (totally raw still on the bottom) and have it...over...ICE CREAM!

Norfolk Treacle Tart Ice Cream 

Shortbread Sunday (and Saturday)

I've made my Christmas Menu list....what I am serving, what I need to buy, what I need to make in advance...all that jazz...and I've been going over it and re-writing it practically daily for the last week.  Now that it is well and truly December it is time to get my act together and do...do...do!!!

This year David and I are hosting our first Christmas Day Lunch...here at our house...only four guests, mind you, but...it's gotta be perfect and it's gotta scream Christmas...We are having a turkey (as much as I tried to convince David of Beef Wellington) and...all the trimmings of course!!  The thing is...I have a tiny tiny tiny kitchen and a tiny tiny tiny oven...so there will be juggling, and reheating and most likely a small mental meltdown.  But for now, I am trying my hardest to bake what ever will keep in advance, and the few things that I can freeze...

Friday I bought the butter....let it sit out (in the tv room....the kitchen is freezing), let it soften....let it get ready...to be creamed (by hand, of course)...to be turned into a batch of fantastic, smooth shortbread cookies.

Cept that didn't happen.

Saturday...the butter softened, it was creamed (by hand) and it was patted out and cut into cookies and baked and...what came out of the oven were certainly buttery...but they most certainly were not lovely Christmas shortbread...instead I found somesort of flattened buttery flakey disks with crispy edges. 

I have no idea what happened.  In a frantic instant message conversation with my mum she assured me (and that my grandmother agrees) that sometimes, with the shortbread, the first batch doesn't quite work....hmmmm...perhaps it was the flour? perhaps it was the butter? perhaps it was my freakishly warm hands?

I decided to blame the butter...the quality, the fat, the cows...and I so rushed (as carefully as one can on the icy pavement) to the corner store, bought some totally overpriced brand butter and sat it out...in the tv room...to soften...

And so, Sunday...and new day...a new cookie! NO spreading, no crisping...no disaster!

sometimes disasters still taste good

fact one....fresh pumpkin puree is different every time you make it
fact two....i don't understand baking enough to create my own recipes with success
fact three...gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

today...a three alarm disaster took place in my kitchen...and....i was totally 100% to blame! i accept all responsibility for the ruining of the scones, i am the one who chose to go off course, i was the one who got all creative in the kitchen...i was the one who....oh......it is just so embarassing! I totally overworked the scone mixture, it was too wet....it was too sticky...it needed more flour....but as little kneading as possible....gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

let me take you back to the beginning...to yesterday when I bought Nigella's new book and honed in on her pumpkin scone recipe.  They are gorgeous...they are bright orange and tall and look ammmmmazing.  I had to make them, I had to eat them...I HAD TO HAVE THEM....AND....I was ready for them.  I managed to buy a couple of small pumpkins at the grocery store yesterday and was ready to puree and bake....

Ready, Steady....GO! All evening I had images of pumpkiny scones slathered with cinnamon sugar butter....mmmmmm cue sugar coma....one problem...the recipe is for SAVOURY scones! GAK! chili oil and parmesean cheese and lea & perrins....no no no this will not do! I love you Nigella and I want to make your scones....I do I do I do...but since I finished my last slice of Butternutsquash pie on Wednesday I have been craving its substitute....a sort of pumpkin pie scone?!!

My vision wasn't entirely realised this afternoon...using Nigella's proportions and method I simply swapped savoury for sweet...but with very little success.  She has you mix all the wet ingredients together into which you add the flour and rising agents....in hindsight I should have added the wet into the dry a little bit at a time...but, of course, that is the benefit of hindsight.  So the scones didn't rise, I know I overworked the mixture, I know i didn't roll them out thick enough, I know it was still a bit too wet because of the pumpkin...I know all that...I don't know if I can really fix it, but I will give the proper recipe a go in a few weeks once my ego has healed. 

The taste verdict?? oh....they tasted really good with their crispy sugar coating and the yummy cinnamon sugar butter I whipped up, but with out the rise and scone-like texture I just couldn't find that much joy in the three I managed to eat!

Meatless Monday Mushroom Disaster!

Monday night's dinner was a full blown thumping D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R...and TRUST me!  I am NOT over exaggerating...

Over the weekend the 16 carefully packed and labelled boxes I had shipped from my parents' house in Toronto FINALLY arrived...leaving our front room looking like a cargo hold.  Boxes, paper and styrofoam chips EVERYWHERE.  Ideally I would have left the boxes until David was at work during the week to systematically tackle them....unfortunately the recylcing pickup due on Tuesday was for cardboard and paper (not that the cans, bottles and plastic that were supposed to be picked last week have been)...and due to the temperamental weather I couldn't be sure what would be picked up (if anything) or when the recycling men would be back again....so Saturday was largely spent unpacking boxes...filling bookshelves and dressers..leaving all the boxes and paper to be sorted and organised on Monday in preparation for recycling pickup on Tuesday morning.

Whether I was just too excited by the arrival of my "stuff" or totally in good-housewife overdrive...I made a fatal error...Saturday afternoon I ALSO decided to wash all of David's light coloured shirts, along with my gigantic table cloth and 12 matching napkins, new duvet cover and pillow cases, AND two bed sheets...not to mention various socks, undies and soccer stuff.....leaving a HUGE pile of ironing for Monday!!!

During the cold months and living in a DAMP country, with NO dryer and LIMITED space to hang up laundry means that EVERYTHING needs to be ironed after being hung for one day to dry...or risk smelling like damp dog....ick

So basically Monday I spent HOURS and HOURS ironing and HOURS uncrumpling paper and dismantling boxes for the recycling...totally losing track of time and was completely surprised when David's came home after work...I was totally frazzled by the time it came to make dinner....ending in a DISASTER to the nth degree. 

Over the weekend I had decided that for Meatless Monday I would make a Hungarian feast of Mushroom Paprika with Spaztle...two delicious looking recipes from the World Vegetarian Classics book I got from the library. 

Mushroom Paprika is similar to a stroganoff...except that there is a deep paprika flavour in the sauce...It is made by sweating chopped onions and mushrooms chopped quite chunky together in butter until the mushrooms lose all their moisture...then you add paprika and cayanne and cook until the oils are relased from the paprika....THEN...IF YOU ARE ME YOU CREATE A DISASTER WORTHY OF A TOM CRUISE MOVIE....you are supposed to add either sour cream, creme fraiche or natural yoghurt....I opted for yoghurt as we had bought a huge tub for our veggie curry over the weekend....WHAT I DIDN'T NOTICE WAS THAT IT WAS LOW-FAT......NO NO NO!!!!!   When I added it to the pan it immedietly split and all the HUGE amounts of water totally evaporated leaving a total mess, which looked like (I am sorry to say it) a pile of sick....WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

So after a mild breakdown and the reassuring words of calming David...through sobs and sniffles and "Dinner is completely ruined" and "I can't eat that shhhhhh**"....I managed to make pretty decent looking and tasting Spaztle, which are like a cross between noodles and dumplings made by pushing a thick batter through a colendar over simmering slated water.  It took FOREVER...but definetly saved the day!

Please ignore the disgusting looking mushrooms...They actually tasted really good...but I can imagine they would taste WAY better with the creamy sauce! I just wanted to show you the funny little Spaztle!

Spiced Butternut Squash Loaf with Cream Cheese

A few weeks ago I went totally gaga over a recipe for Pumpkin and Cream Cheese Swirl Bread posted by Karine over at Food Gourmand.  First of all...I go gaga over everyone of Karine's recipes, and second I was totally craving some good North American Pumpkinny baked goods.  The problem you ask? Finding canned pumpkin is near impossible on this side of the pond, let alone in little Chelmsford!  I know there are a handful of places where I can get it in the capital...but am hard up to find anything here where I live. 

Mental note: stock up on canned pumpkin next time in London. 

Well...to my pleasure and total joy we got an itty bitty butternut squash in our veggie box last week! I had already been toying with the idea of substituting butternut squash for the pumpkin in the bread recipe...and low and behold there it was this morning just sitting there on my couter begging me to work my magic. 

I don't really know if it was magic that I ended up working, as the loaf didn't turn out quite like Karine's gorgeous picture, or that from Boys n Biscuits...but it is probably all down to the consistency of the pureed butternut squash, the fact that I halved the original recipe and my sheer desperation to have something to snack on.

I have been baking Christmas gifites for the last couple of weeks and it has been total torture having the gingerbread and shortbread sitting in the dining room taunting us.  We can't can't can't indulge and it has been really difficult.  So I partially blame the loaf oddity on the baked goods withdrawl I have been suffering.

For some reason the cream cheese layer (supposed to be a layer of squash batter, cream cheese swirl, layer of squash batter) didn't work, the top layer of the squash batter just sunk right through the cream cheese stuff.  I am going to give it another go, I think that perhaps the cream cheese mixture wasn't thick enough, and the squash batter was a bit too heavy...but the taste of the finished porduct is yummy....will be made better by a creamy cheesy centre next time!

Spiced Butternut Squash Loaf with Cream Cheese
*makes one 2lb loaf

for the butternut squash puree:
Peel and de-seed 1 small butternut squash (I didn't even weigh mine...you need a big enough squash for 1 cup of puree).
Cut into cubes and boil until tender.
Drain and mash sqush into a puree with potato masher
Cool

for cream cheese layer:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
3 Tbsp white sugar
1/2 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla

Put all ingredients in bowl, mix with beaters until smooth and creamy.

for cake batter:
1 1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup butternut squash puree
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
1 2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup water

Pre Heat Oven to 350f
In large bowl (or stand mixer) combine sugar and vegetable oil until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, mix
Add butternut squash puree
While mixing add baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and mixed spice. 
Slowly add half of flour, mix to combine
Add half of water
Add remaining flour, mix to combine
Add remaining water

Pour 1/2 of batter into greased/llined loaf pan
Spread cream cheese mixture ontop
Pour remaining batter on top

Bake in pre-heated oven for 50-60 mins, until tester comes out clean ( I think it took me a bit longer than that....just keep checking!)