Boring biscuits and bad ice cream

Sunday Sunday… Sunday has traditionally – well for the last 9 months anyway – been baking day. Today was no different. I have trained my colleagues to expect baking on a Monday and I hate to think what they would be like on a Monday (which, lets face it is bad enough already) after dragging themselves into work and then finding that there is no baking. It would be very bad indeed.

Actually given that today is Sunday and I haven’t done any baking for tomorrow it’s entirely possible that I’ll be finding out in vivid detail what they are like sans baking. Gulp. Perhaps I can fend them off with the large box of little bags of chips that has been living under my desk – I’d like to think they wouldn’t turn nasty but I’m not willing to risk it.

Almond biscuits. Very boring. Flour, butter sugar and a little almond essence with an almond stuck on the top. The sort of boring biscuit that your flatmate’s Mum would bring around and you’d thank her but not mean it; and you’d wish she’s brought peanut brownies or possibly afghans. Beggars can’t be choosers but very poor students can.

I remember a time, and it concerns me that I am using that phrase at my age, when my flatmates and I used to eat for $20 a week each. We didn’t eat particularly well. I remember there being a lot of mince. We didn’t buy meat that cost more than $5 to feed 4 of us. Every now and then we’d splash out and buy one of those awful rolled roasts with the stuffing inside and as you cooked it the whole thing shrunk and the stuffing always used to get squeezed out. Stuffing munching was the cooks prerogative.

Cooking skills were dicey but not bad in most instances. In some instances they were bad. Like the first time one of my flatmates boiled potatoes – he was unaware the potato needed to be washed or cut up first so about an hour later they were soft and muddy on the outside and crispy in the middle. The same flatmate cooked fish in the oven for 45 minutes until the point when the fillet could be picked up from one end and still stay in one piece.

Enough reminiscing – back to the cooking. Vanilla biscuits. These were biscuits made with custard powder and sandwiched together with my most fabulous home made blackcurrant jam. They were ok, elevated to levels of greatness by the jam. Such good jam…

I also decided to do an experiment in ice cream. The first ice cream I had made from the book, Ice Cream (2), had been revolting. I was hoping from something better than revolting from Ice Cream (1) and (3). I was disappointed.

I called the Husband in to taste the ice cream. The poor man. He has become the culinary version of a beaten dog - he knows something awful is coming he’s just not entirely sure when. One recipe was elaborate involving custardy mixtures and egg whites and whipped cream. The other was simply blancmange and sweetened condensed milk. Both were foul – this was sweetened condensed milk in a form even Marcus Lush couldn’t love.

While I was at my ice cream making I decided to also make ice cream pudding. Mainly because I couldn’t figure out what the hell it would be. Turns out it’s near as dammit to being instant pudding. I love instant pudding; it’s like custard without the risk of boiling over in the microwave, however it lacks the basic versatility of custard so hence I love it less. Excuse me I’m just having a private custard moment now…