A piece of cake?

This week it's been my son's birthday, and he wanted a Mario cake, and firmly told me "a made cake, not a bought cake".  Now I'm good at many things, but I have my failings (for example reverse parking, geometry, and I'm "not very good with cabling" according to my husband)  but I am very, very bad at drawing and not artistic in the slightest.  So the prospect of somehow getting Mario onto a cake filled me with trepidation. It was time for some creative thinking..

I made the cake on Saturday, a traditional Victoria Sandwich with raspberry jam and buttercream in the middle, and covered with a layer of buttercream and sugarpaste icing.  The background colour was cream, it couldn't be white as Mario has white gloves, and the flesh colour of his face had to show up too.  I piped a row of swirls in chocolate icing where the cake met the board, and left the difficult part to the next day. 

Google images provided me with a copy of the picture he wanted, a nice simple one which happened to be the same as the picture on my son's pyjama top - as below:

 

 

I copied and pasted it into Word, then used print preview and 100% to get it to actual size on the screen, holding up the base of the cake tin to the monitor to get it to the correct size to fit on the top of the cake. Next I printed it out, and traced the individual components (cap, face, arms, hands, overalls and feet) onto baking paper.  I cut them out, and by placing the paper on rolled out coloured icing and cutting round them with a sharp knife, it all worked beautifully.  I got the effect of the fingers and ears using a cocktail stick to make indentations on the icing.  The eyes were really fiddly but came together in the end.  Here is the result, with a number 7 piped on to the overalls:

 

 

I was supposed to pipe "Happy Birthday" at the bottom, but I was terrified of spacing the letters wrong and ruining it after all the hard work of getting Mario right, so I sat my son down and explained to him and he didn't mind at all.  We just had seven blue candles in a semi circle at the top.

 

I've had other birthday cake challenges.  When he was six he wanted an under the sea cake in the shape of a number six, and when he was five he wanted a farm cake with three fields separated by chocolate fencing (fun with piping!) including a duck pond.  He has also had a snake with shiny green snakeskin effect (green edible glitter) and a construction site... 

 

 

This might be something to do with a book on celebration cakes I have, which he often spends time looking through. Luckily my daughter doesn't have such specific requirements, and usually wants something easy like a tower of red velvet cupcakes.  When my sister was alive, she made amazing cakes that made those above seem extremely amateur, and the daughter got quite a few of those when she was younger.  When my sister was ill, I made a seventh birthday cake for my niece as she wasn't up to it, it was the first cake I ever made out of the aforementioned book.  It was a cake shaped and decorated to look like.... a piece of cake!

 

 

 

It just seems a shame to eat them.

 

I'm all inspired at the moment with lots of ideas of topics for posts, so more soon!

 

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share with anyone who might be interested.

 

Caroline :-)

 







Rhubarb, rhubarb!

I love rhubarb, which is just as well, because my Dad is quite literally growing it by the dustbinful!  Last year he harvested over 400 sticks, and this year looks like being just as successful. 

Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) grows well in cold wet winters and is a native of Siberia, so this years English winter suited it down to the ground.  "Forced" rhubarb is grown in the dark, and Dad uses several upturned dustbins to both keep out the light and encourage warmer temperatures, thereby increasing growth. At one time 90% of the world's winter forced rhubarb was grown in sheds in a small area of West Yorkshire known as the "rhubarb  triangle" and in February 2010 Yorkshire forced rhubarb was awarded PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status by the European Commission. But luckily for me it grows well in Northamptonshire too, and it's one of my favourite ingredients.  It's actually a vegetable, rather than a fruit, as the edible part doesn't contain seeds, but in 1947 the USA decided that it was classed as a fruit for the purposes of regulations and duties (something to do with reducing import tariffs).

Dad's pride and joy - well, some of it.

Today, I've made rhubarb sorbet and rhubarb crumble muffins.  Looking back, I've made a lot more rhubarb recipes than I thought I had...

The simplest thing to do with rhubarb is to stew it gently with some sugar and have it on some muesli or granola with yogurt.  Sometimes you get a bit too much juice with this method, so I strain it and use the juice as a sort of cordial mixed with sparkling water to make a refreshing drink.  It can also be roasted in the oven, and makes a lovely crumble, either on its own or mixed with other fruit.

Rhubarb goes especially well with ginger.  One of the first rhubarb recipes I ever made as a child was stewed rhubarb layered in a wine glass with raspberry yogurt and crushed ginger biscuits.  Adding ground ginger or grated root ginger is a nice way to enhance the flavour, or you can use stem ginger in syrup, such as in a Jamie Oliver recipe I once made out of a booklet sold in aid of Comic Relief in 2011 - sticky rhubarb and ginger cake:

The cake is made with ground and stem ginger, and the rhubarb is poached with stem ginger syrup and arranged on top of the cake before cooking.  More rhubarb syrup is spooned over the top of the cake when it comes out of the oven.

Rhubarb & custard cupcakes (see above) are one of my all time favourite cupcake recipes, they're a bit fiddly to make but worth it! There is finely chopped rhubarb in the cake mixture, the cakes are hollowed out after cooking and custard spooned into the centre, then topped with pink and white swirled buttercream flavoured with rhubarb syrup and decorated with an oven baked rhubarb stick. 

The sorbet was a recipe I found in the Meat Free Monday cookbook, and couldn't have been simpler, just cook the diced rhubarb with water, sugar and lemon juice, freeze and whisk to break up several times during the freezing process.  It didn't say to puree it, but as an experiment I pureed some and didn't puree the rest. It's still freezing at the time of writing, but it looks as if they will both be nice, the non-pureed one will just have more texture to it.

The crumble muffins were a BBC Good Food recipe, they looked a bit rustic, but straight out of the oven in a bowl with a bit of cream while still warm they were delicious, they're still cooling but I think will firm up as they do.

Other recipes with rhubarb that I've made over the last few years include a puff pastry tart, with a layer of sweetened cream cheese underneath the rhubarb; rubarb, macadamia & white chocolate cake; and rhubarb toasted marshmallow puddings. The latter involve a base of cooked egg and breadcrumbs with lemon zest, then a layer of baked rhubarb and finished with meringue.  I've used rhubarb puree set with gelatine as a topping on a vanilla cheesecake too.  Recipes often suggest adding grenadine liqueur to it to make it pinker, but Dad's is pink enough without it.

Dad and I were talking to the man at the garden centre about rhubarb, recipes and my blog on Friday, he later found us at the till and asked me for the blog address so he could tell his customers about it. :-) 

In other news, some friends are running the London Marathon as I write this -  and I've promised to make macaroons for them to enjoy afterwards, they've asked for coffee shells with a chocolate filling so I've designated them "marathon mocharoons".

My son has a birthday in the next few days, so I have been requested to create a super Mario cake, next job is to deisgn that...

Thank you for reading, more soon, here is a picture of my alter ego.... a different kind of Roobarb! 

I have this picture on my kitchen wall :-) 

Caroline x

The price of convenience (or "Blame the packet!")

I have to admit that sometimes, love cooking as I do, it's nice to have a day off, and either get the hubby to cook (see previous post) or have something leaning towards the convenience meal...  and one of those semi-convenience meals that we do sometimes have is pre-cooked mussels in a sauce that you just have to heat up and serve with bread and a salad.  Or chips.  I have done a grand tour of the different packets of mussels in sauce and found one in particular to be the best, garlic butter sauce is better than white wine, though I've mixed two packs of garlic to one of white wine successfully. Anyway this week we tried mussels in a Thai sauce.  I was really looking forward to them but they were a bit boring if I'm honest.  Not terrible but any means but a little bit of a let down. 

And that is the problem, I can't even have a day off without subjecting my family to second rate dinners. However, my lovely teenage daughter, sometimes wise beyond her years, just said "Hey Mum, it was a packet dinner.  It's not you.  Blame the packet!!"  And I felt better.

On a happier note, since the last blog there have been lots of successful new recipes, including new potato, blue cheese and rosemary (tomato-less) pizza; sausage, macaroni and bean stew with greens; jerusalem artichoke risotto; and today's pudding, sparkling rose syllabub.

There's a story behind the syllabub.  One of my two blue recipe wallets (see cookery book heaven post for more details) was very bulging and got to the point where it would hardly shut due mainly to the amount of cuttings in the pudding section.  So I decided to get a new expanding wallet in a delightful shade of pink and sub categorise my puddings, as it was getting difficult to find specific recipes.  On Tuesday evening I sat happily at the kitchen table with the radio on and a cup of tea and went through them all, dividing them up into tarts, flans, hot puddings, mousses, fruit, chocolate, cheesecakes, roulades, merigues etc.  I only managed to discard four out of over 130.  One recipe in particular caught my eye and I kept the recipe out to make this weekend.  It was very simple but turned out really well. Start with 100ml of sparkling rose wine, I used  a Spanish Cava Rosado, zest and juice of a small orange and 75g caster sugar.  Mix together and leave for fifteen minutes.  Then add 300ml chilled double cream and whisk to soft peaks.  Divide among glasses and top with sliced strawberries and orange zest and serve with the rest of the bottle of wine. I did add just a sprinkling of edible glitter on the top too, to make it sparkling in more ways than one...

I got these glasses ages ago, they are just the right size for a pudding.

 

 

The second annual Laxton Pudding Challenge will soon be upon us, and I am starting to compile a shortlist, I might do two again, we will see...

 

Until next time, thank you for reading,

 

Caroline x

Sunday Dinners

There is nothing I like better on a Sunday than spending the morning pottering about the kitchen in my dressing gown creating a Sunday lunch for my family, and often parts of my extended family too.

We do love a traditional roast dinner.  If it's chicken, it has to be free range. Partly because it tastes better, partly because I prefer knowing the chicken has had a reasonably happy life and got to see the outdoors rather than sitting in it's own urine all day. Other meat is usually high welfare too.  I buy half a lamb now and again from a local farmer, and I bought half a pig from a friend of a friend.  If I'm cooking beef, (which is hardly ever) then I go to the butcher rather than the supermarket.  More expensive, but worth it for a treat. 

To be honest, I'm a little bit scared of cooking beef, because it does cost a lot I have to do the cow justice and I'm always worried I'll overcook it. I did once cook a massive rib of beef that only just fitted into the oven and cost £55(eek!) and it was successful.  Also I am not great at Yorkshire pudding, it's a bit variable, but if you cook it round the meat at least it tastes nice, even if it doesn't rise so well.  Individual Yorkshire puddings are just a bit boring.

Speaking of boring, there are ways and means of turning a plain roast into something a bit more interesting.  If it's a chicken, instead of the usual veg and roasties, we sometimes have chips and a Greek salad as an accompaniment.  Or I marinade it in a coating of spices, cream and yoghurt, and have it Indian style with naan bread and raiita.  Or make a creamy sauce with butternut squash, creme fraiche and tarragon.

Chicken legs are a good alternative to a whole bird, nice roasted with garam masala and black onion seeds with chunks of parsnip.  One of our favourites is a Jamie Oliver recipe for chicken leg portions roasted with cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil and chilli.  We had this yesterday, but I took the meat off the bones after cooking and mixed it with all the juices, tomatoes etc into cooked spaghetti.  Poaching a chicken is another alternative to roasting, and healthier as you don't eat the skin.  I mentioned in a previous blog post how I poached one in Asian stock and had it with salad and homemade chilli jam.  Roast duck is good too, I like to make a warm duck noodle salad with pak choi and sugar snap peas. Or duck legs with crispy potatoes and a fennel salad.


Pork can be jazzed up too, with five spice or crushed fennel seeds rubbed into the crackling with salt, the secret to good crackling is to remove it from the joint once roasted and put it back into the oven while the meat is resting.  Belly of pork can be slow roasted, I love another Jamie Oliver recipe for pork belly with brasied fennel but it's a bit extravagant as it uses an entire bottle of white wine in the sauce, worth it though! I've also made "pulled" pork, so called because it just pulls apart when slow cooked for a long time, we had it in bread rolls with hubby's delicious homemade coleslaw.

Five spice pork with crackling.

Gravy is a bit tricky sometimes, I can't use the traditional method of putting the roasting tin on the hob as I've got a ceramic hob which would be scratched by a tin; and I usually use my stoneware baking dish rather than a tin anyway. I deglaze the baker or tin and pour the juices into a pan, with stock, wine, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce or whatever flavourings I want, and thicken if required, and I do add gravy granules sometimes (shhh).

Recently though, we have gone off roast dinners somewhat.  Maybe it's because the wintry weather has been going on for so long it feels like we will never be eating a summery meal again! In the sumer we often have a lighter Sunday dinner at the garden table, or a barbecue... but those days seem to be gone forever. I've almost forgotten what it's like to sit outside in a sleeveless top with ice tinkling in a chilled glass of something.  Roll on some warmer weather and a Sunday lunch al fresco...

Today I'm cooking at my parent's house.  I often do that to give my Mum a break from cooking.  They can't come to our house so easily because they live with my great aunt who is 99 and needs someone to be there all the time, so if they go out they need to arrange cover.  Hence it's easier for me to go there.  Today they are going out for lunch to a special event in their village so I'm taking the children and cooking for us and GA.  We're having chicken with creamy sherry and chorizo sauce, followed by baked bananas with ginger liqueur, maple syrup and pecan nuts.  Sundays are a time when we usually have a pudding, as there's time to create one, and I can indulge myself with something out of a new recipe magazine.

More soon, thank you for reading,

Caroline :-) x