11 down

I seem to have fallen into the trap of too much baking resulting in not enough writing so I’ll give you the cornetto version – no boring bits. Well that’s something to aim for.

To start off apparently I did not state the true horror that was the chocolate filling. I’m sorry. It was very bad. I don’t know what else to say.

Now – for the weekend’s baking extravaganza. First off it’s almost Easter so I had to make a simnel cake. During the production of the Christmas cakes a lovely lady called Dawn so kindly offered to purchase (for the cost of ingredients and postage) my simnel cake when the time came. Simnel cake is a heavy fruit cake with a layer of almond paste through the middle. Traditionally it is decorated with a layer of marzipan on the top and 11 balls of marzipan symbolising the 12 apostles minus Judas. Knowing that semi useless piece of information won me a pub quiz once – I was the only one in the pub who knew!

Anyway, it baked the simnel cake and to my mind it was surprisingly small and dark. The almond paste also stuck to the sides of the tin and pulled out when I released the spring form. I only hoped that Dawn survives! If she does perhaps she can provide feedback via the comments function?

Now as well as being Easter it was also St Patrick’s day and St Patrick’s day is the Husbands birthday. It also happened to be the day that I started a new job – internal promotion so thankfully they were already aware of my baking proclivities. All of this meant that much baking was required. I decided it was a worthy reason to crack into the sweets section which had so far remained un touched.

Russian fudge – who doesn’t love Russian Fudge! I did make the mistake of buying Home brand sweetened condensed milk though. Personally I think this is (as Marcus Lush would say) a condensed milk crime. I think of condensed milk as milk which is condensed. Duh, right? Home brand sweetened condensed milk is water + milk solids (read really rubbishy whey powder) + vegetable oil + sugar. It’s just not right.

Anyway the Russian fudge turned out fine in spite of inferior ingredients. I put it into an ice cream container because I think all home made sweets should be served out of ice cream containers. Because I had to split the fudge between two ice cream containers (one for me, one for husband) the fudge looked a little insubstantial and lonely. So I made Coconut ice

Coconut Ice is one of the Husbands favourites – just why, we aren’t sure. I have the theory that it is because it is pink and he loves pink food. It is revelations like that that explain why I don’t refer to him by name – no man needs everyone knowing he has a penchant for pink food.

Stop me if I’m wrong here but I’m sure coconut ice is normally two layers, one pink one white. Apparently in 1966 there was coconut ice apartheid. One recipe for pink, one for white. I tried to layer them in the tin but they split right apart when I cut it up. Now what is the hidden meaning in that?!?

Now that I have a reputation to uphold I couldn’t just turn up for my first day on a new job with one ice cream container – no matter how full. I had to also fill the biscuit tin, and the biscuit tin is a sizeable beast

Highlander biscuits and sante biscuits – very similar except the second had chopped up chocolate in it – which naturally made it far superior. They were both quite round, I am tempted to call them cookies rather than biscuits.

And that didn’t seem quite enough so then I made raspberry delights. Except I couldn’t be bothered digging out the raspberry jam so they were fruit salad delights. This is one of those awfull recipes where it says “cream 2 tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of sugar” and you try to chase the tiny quantities around the bowl. I made a whole 8 fruit salad delights – they were like very thin flat cupcakes. Would not try again.

Because we cannot live on baking alone I also ventured into the meat section and made two recipes over two nights. Beef stew and dumplings were first and most fantastic. Everything that is good about old style home cooking is encapsulated in this recipe. There should be more dumplings in our diet – especially when you make them with lard – so so good. So good.

Now the other recipe was french steak – a little more unusual. Take your largish pieces of stewing steak, knead with seasoned flour in the casserole, add onions and carrot on top, pour in viegar and water – cook over low heat. I thought that the vinegar might be a good thing but it wasn’t! Also all the flour seemed to get stuck down the bottom in big lumps and the sauce never thinkened. All in all not great – would not repeat.

The upside of the french steak was that I also made baked custard. I love custard. A lot. I am slightly confused though as it said to cook in a pie plate and the custard completely filled the pie plate, yet when I made the pumpkin pie the pie plate was far too large! I assumed that if you aren’t going to give people specifics – eg shallow or deep pie plate – that there would be only one. How wrong I was.

So that was everything! 11 recipes! Slightly reminiscent of the 11 apostles perhaps? That should help me get back on track. and it’s easter this weekend, more baking I think.