At some point on Friday night – I may or may not have been at the pub - I had a eureka moment (I feel that to grammatically correct that that should be an eureka moment but that doesn’t seem at all right). Baking on the weekend has to be carefully planned. Outside of work I get minimal opportunity to get rid of the piles of baking that are a side effect of the project. So, I say to myself, how do I get rid of all this baking? I have an afternoon tea party. Very 1966, no?
We all sat around and drank tea, some drank coffee, much to my distaste of course. I have a feeling that tea is about to have its day again. Not being a coffee drinker might colour my opinion on this a little. I feel a great compulsion to go and buy one of those little tiered cake stand things but my logical side still has visions of trying to find somewhere to put it.
So I still had a little baking leftover from the end of last week, my generosity is such that I actually jammed the shewsburys myself rather than making my guests do it. It’s quite a step I know. So I had a little plate with shewsburys, date shortcake and duskies all set up.
Naturally this was not enough – I needed more baking. I decided on chocolate éclairs. Chocolate éclairs are one of those things that would be a nightmare to take to the office, fresh cream etc, it all just gets too difficult but they are perfect for afternoon tea. I love making choux pastry, there is something very soothing about it. Possibly not so much when you are nursing a shoulder injury but I managed the manual beating somehow. Gosh I’m a trouper!
While I was making chocolate éclairs I also turned out some cream puffs – cream puffs just being short éclairs it made sense to multitask. I love watching choux pastry in the oven – it’s like magic. When everything was out of the oven and cool I filled them with cream and covered them in chocolate icing. They received rave reviews naturally.
Now I still didn’t think I had quite enough so I also decided to make cheesecakes. Now these might not be the cheesecakes you are thinking of. For a start they contain no cheese. Not even anything particularly cheese like. They are little pastry cases filled with raspberry jam and then covered with sponge mixture.
I remember my Dad being very fond of them. He used to buy them from a little bakery in Panmure, beside the post office – ahhh those were the days. The lovely bakery, also in Panmure although not purveyors of cheesecakes as far as I know, made what I still consider to be the best steak and cheese pies I’ve ever had. Sadly I discovered when I moved back up to Auckland that the lovely Lovely Bakery was no longer there. Probably shut down for poor hygiene standards knowing my luck.
Anyway, back through the mists of time, I make cheesecakes. They were pretty good, the husband liked them but the inclusion of jam made me less than crazy about them. I thought this project might change my opinions about such things as jam and raisins but apparently not. This does not bode well for the cooking of organ meats…
I realise that I have been putting off the offal parts of the book. I have looked at offal in various supermarkets and butchers at various times and thought about it, but not very hard. I think maybe if I just leave it closer to the end perhaps when there is a deadline. Like ripping a band-aid off quickly I suppose.
After all the afternoon tea guests had long departed and dinner had been made and eaten I decided to make egg nog. Now I’ve made egg nog before but this method was a little different – and a little scarier. When I’ve made it before I’ve made a meringue mixture and them mixed that through the hot milk, sugar and egg yolk mixture. That seemed pretty good – like liquidy custard if I can manage to bring custard into it. This was somewhat different.
The Edmonds recipe does not involve whipping the egg fist – just a little beating is all that is apparently required. Unfortunately this meant that when you drank the egg nog there were long mucousy strands of egg white. Not good, not good at all. What’s even worse is that this is supposed to be fed to invalids. No wonder only the strong survived!
We all sat around and drank tea, some drank coffee, much to my distaste of course. I have a feeling that tea is about to have its day again. Not being a coffee drinker might colour my opinion on this a little. I feel a great compulsion to go and buy one of those little tiered cake stand things but my logical side still has visions of trying to find somewhere to put it.So I still had a little baking leftover from the end of last week, my generosity is such that I actually jammed the shewsburys myself rather than making my guests do it. It’s quite a step I know. So I had a little plate with shewsburys, date shortcake and duskies all set up.
Naturally this was not enough – I needed more baking. I decided on chocolate éclairs. Chocolate éclairs are one of those things that would be a nightmare to take to the office, fresh cream etc, it all just gets too difficult but they are perfect for afternoon tea. I love making choux pastry, there is something very soothing about it. Possibly not so much when you are nursing a shoulder injury but I managed the manual beating somehow. Gosh I’m a trouper!
While I was making chocolate éclairs I also turned out some cream puffs – cream puffs just being short éclairs it made sense to multitask. I love watching choux pastry in the oven – it’s like magic. When everything was out of the oven and cool I filled them with cream and covered them in chocolate icing. They received rave reviews naturally.
Now I still didn’t think I had quite enough so I also decided to make cheesecakes. Now these might not be the cheesecakes you are thinking of. For a start they contain no cheese. Not even anything particularly cheese like. They are little pastry cases filled with raspberry jam and then covered with sponge mixture.
I remember my Dad being very fond of them. He used to buy them from a little bakery in Panmure, beside the post office – ahhh those were the days. The lovely bakery, also in Panmure although not purveyors of cheesecakes as far as I know, made what I still consider to be the best steak and cheese pies I’ve ever had. Sadly I discovered when I moved back up to Auckland that the lovely Lovely Bakery was no longer there. Probably shut down for poor hygiene standards knowing my luck.
Anyway, back through the mists of time, I make cheesecakes. They were pretty good, the husband liked them but the inclusion of jam made me less than crazy about them. I thought this project might change my opinions about such things as jam and raisins but apparently not. This does not bode well for the cooking of organ meats…
I realise that I have been putting off the offal parts of the book. I have looked at offal in various supermarkets and butchers at various times and thought about it, but not very hard. I think maybe if I just leave it closer to the end perhaps when there is a deadline. Like ripping a band-aid off quickly I suppose.
After all the afternoon tea guests had long departed and dinner had been made and eaten I decided to make egg nog. Now I’ve made egg nog before but this method was a little different – and a little scarier. When I’ve made it before I’ve made a meringue mixture and them mixed that through the hot milk, sugar and egg yolk mixture. That seemed pretty good – like liquidy custard if I can manage to bring custard into it. This was somewhat different.
The Edmonds recipe does not involve whipping the egg fist – just a little beating is all that is apparently required. Unfortunately this meant that when you drank the egg nog there were long mucousy strands of egg white. Not good, not good at all. What’s even worse is that this is supposed to be fed to invalids. No wonder only the strong survived!
1 comment:
Debbie
I've been trying to source a recipe for Edmonds Cheese Cakes, without luck. Any chance you could post the recipe?
Regards
Maree
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