Scones for breakfast

This morning; no bread in the cupboard, the girls wont eat cerial. What on earth could I give them for breakfast?

"Scones, Mummy!"

"Scones?"

"Yup"

"Hmm, okay... scones"

So we made scones. Flower shaped scones. (Don't you just lave little girls :) )

This is a recipe I've used forever, I don't believe in changing what already works. For variation you can double the sugar and add a 3//4 cup of dried fruit, like sultanas.

I don't like fancy-shmancy scones, I suppose thats why I've stuck to the same recipe for so long.

I'm also too lasy to rub the butter by hand so I use a food processor to blend the flour in.

Age Old Scones

2 cups self raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

30g butter

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup water

Place in a food processor; flour, butter, salt and sugar. Process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Don't over process. (Now is the time to add extra sugar and 3/4 cup of sultanas if you choose)

Tip flour into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Gradually add the combined milk and water stiring with a knife in between. Be careful not to add too much liquid, but if the mixture is still too dry add a little extra water bit by bit untill it all comes together.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and kneed untill it's smooth.

Pat the dough out to about a 2cm thickness and cut into rounds, place them closely on a greased tray and brush the tops with milk. Bake at 210 degrees C until golden, about 10 minutes.

Brownie Buzz

While crusing food blogs I came across a little jem called Brownie or Die. This is one hardcore brownie-lovin' woman. I raised an eyebrow at her claims of a low-fat brownie that actually tastes better than shoe leather. Her Butterless Buzz Brownies, despite claims of being low fat, certainly did look better than shoe leather.

I bit my lip and spent the afternoon (okay about half an hour) baking them with Miss Baker.

They smelled good, they looked good, they tasted... well pretty darn good. I decided to give them the over night test. They got denser overnight, and were quite chewy and moist dispite the lack of butter. Made with dark chocolate, and a fair bit of coffee they're more a grown-up brownie than most, and they pack quite a punch. Pa Baker, a died in the wool coffee addict admitted he got a good buzz from them when he knocked off four brownies at once at work yesterday.

Lets just say they were good enough that they didn't live to see 48 hours old.

Butterless Buzz Brownies

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tbl. coffee grounds

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. baking soda

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips

2 tsp. olive oil

1/2 c. packed light brown sugar

1/4 c. sugar

2 tbl. light corn syrup

1 tbl. brewed coffee

2 tsp. vanilla

2 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease an 8 x 8-inch pan. Whisk together first four ingredients.
In a medium-sized saucepan over very low heat, combine 4 oz. chocolate chips and olive oil. Stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat.
Stir into chocolate mixture until well combined the brown sugar, sugar, corn syrup, coffee, and vanilla. Add egg whites and stir until the mixture is smooth, not grainy. Fold in remaining chocolate chips.
Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread to edges. Batter will be sticky. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean if a little fudgy at the bottom. Let cool. Consume and be caffeinated.

Sugary Deep-fried Things

I’m not crazy about doughnuts, I’ll say that straight up. But yesterday, while recovering from a very late night (read early morning) I really felt the need. The need for, well... sugary deep fried things.

Now on top of my general aversion to baking anything with yeast (this is a phobia I am slowly recovering from) I just felt too damn tired and lazy to do all the mixing, needing, proving, cutting, and so on, that is associated with actual doughnuts. And don’t even suggest getting them from the shop, ‘ew!
So I went online hunting for some easy doughnuts, okay, so 'easy' and 'doughnuts' should not even be in the same sentance. No doughnuts that would take less than 3 hours. I need doughnuts NOW, damnit!
Finally I found a recipe for Churros, here,
Churros are a Spanish dessert that happens to be exactly like doughnuts! Wow!
Except they are a stick and have no yeast. The recipe sounded easy, and quick. What did I have to lose? I gave it a shot.
Oh my goodness. :o They were mouth-watering, fantastic. Slightly crisp on the outside and soft, sweet, squishy dough on the inside.
Churros are intended to be piped out with a piping bag into long star shaped sticks, but not having a piping bag I simply rolled them between my hands into long ‘logs’. Keeping them quite thin as they expand as they cook. Churros are deep-fried, just like doughnuts and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar.
Where doughnuts can take over to two hours to cook including proving, the churros took me no longer than a batch of pancakes, 30 minutes at the longest.
They cured my craving and have earned a permanent place in my recipe box.



Churros
Ingredients:

Oil -- for frying
2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Milk
1/4 cup Melted Butter
2 tablespoons Baking Powder
4 cups Flour
Cinnamon And Sugar For Sprinkling



Directions:

Fill a deep fryer with 3 inches of vegetable oil and heat to 375F.
In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, milk, butter and baking powder.
Add the flour slowly, 1 cup at a time, stirring well between each addition.
Roll or pipe dough into logs about 15 - 20 cms long and no more then 1.5 round
Fry dough, 2 or 3 at a time, in deep fryer for 7 minutes, turning so all sides are browned.
Remove from the fryer with a frying basket or slotted spoon and let drain on paper towels.
When all churros are ready, place on a serving platter. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and serve warm.
I put castor sugar an cinnamon in a container and rolled the churros in it till they were coated all over.

Happy 18th Birthday

My youngest sisters 18th birthday certainly deserved the title 'special occaision'. How often does ones a baby sister reach legal age? She can now vote, and more importantly (in her mind) buy her own booze. And this she did -buy the booze I mean - quite often on Saturday night. Some time around 4am Sunday morning I managed to convince her that enough was most definately enough, I and a few helpers hauled her slightly-more-than-tipsy backside into the car and off home.
After seeing her safely to bed, with a bucket, I took my sober self off home to my own bed. And woke up not three hours later, quite the worse for wear, to joyful cries of "MUMMY your home!" Yes I was home, hurray! *yawn*
And it was time to start work... on the birthday cake that is.
After much uming and ahing I had finally settled on a Strawberry Mirror cake, thanks to all the Daring Bakers for making it look so delicious, and to Ellie at 'Kitchen Wench' for making it look so easy.
I followed Ellie's recipe, and made a poor attempt at copying her decoration, and I was quite pleased about how it turned out. The sponge was light and fluffy (so I can cross that off of my list of cooking fears) it was moist and perfect. The Bavarian Cream was tangy and not over sweet, firm enough to hold the cake together so the layers didn't separate. And the jelly 'mirror' was not as tricky as I expected and well worth making from scratch to complement the bavarian.
The danger with this cake is that it is so refereshing, and light you really could just keep eating it. Unlike, say, a chocolate cake that leaves you with a certain 'I'd better stop eating or my jeans wont fit tomorrow', feeling.
To say it went down well would be an understatment. The whole family enjoyed it and most had seconds. And well it's just an awesome looking cake, isn't it?!
I recomend making this cake with plenty of time on your hands. I did it all in one day, and it was a lot of work all in one hit. In hind sight I would make the sponge a week ahead and freeze it untill I was ready to do the bavarian, and then the jelly the next day.

Strawberry Mirror Cake
(From Kitchen Wench http://www.insanitytheory.net/kitchenwench)

Cake Ingredients
3 eggs
3 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp sugar
2/3 cup sifted cake flour
1/2 cup water
1/3 cups sugar
2 tbsp kirsch or strawberry liqueur

Strawberry Bavarian Cream
2 1/2 tbsp unflavoured gelatine
1 1/2 cups strained strawberry puree (approx. 1 1/2 punnets)
5 egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tbsp lemon juiceseveral drops of red food colouring
1 3/4 cups whipping cream

Strawberry Mirror
1 tsp lemon juice1 tbsp kirsch
1 tbsp water1 tbsp unflavoured gelatinefew drops of red food colouring

Strawberry Juice
510 g strawberries (approx 1 1/2 punnets)
3/4 cup sugar3/4 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 230 C. Butter and flour the sides of a 25 x 40 cm jelly roll pan (rimmed baking sheet). Line bottom of pan with a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit bottom pan exactly.

2. Beat eggs, egg yolks and 3/4 cup sugar together in a medium bowl until thick and light. Beat in the vanilla.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy, add cream of tartar and beat until whites begin to form peaks. Add the 2 tbsp sugar and beat until the whites hold stiff, glossy peaks (do not over beat).

4. Sift flour over the egg yolk mixture and fold in. Stir in one fourth of the whites. Then carefully fold in the remaining whites.

5. Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake until light brown and springy to touch (7 to 10 minutes). Cool in pan 5 minutes. Run a knife along edge to loosen. Invert cake tin to cut out 2 x 20 cm circles of cake. Wrap the cake layers, separated with waxed paper, and set aside. Cake may be frozen at this point.

6. To make soaking syrup: Combine water and the 1/3 cup sugar in saucepan; bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Cool to room temperature; flavour with liqueur. Set aside or refrigerate in glass jar until ready to use.

7. To assemble cake: Brush sides of 10-inch spring form pan lightly with flavourless salad oil or almond oil. Cut out a cardboard circle that is exactly the same size as the bottom inside of the pan; cover cardboard with aluminium foil and fit into bottom of pan. Centre one layer of the cake bottom of pan. Brush the cake with some of the soaking syrup to just moisten (not drench) the cake; set aside.

8. Prepare Strawberry Bavarian Cream. Immediately pour about half of the Bavarian Cream over the first layer of cake in the pan. Set the next layer of cake on top of the cream. Pour remaining Bavarian Cream over cake and smooth top of the cream with spatula. Refrigerate until the cream sets (1 to 2 hours).

9. Prepare the Strawberry Mirror.

10. To serve - wrap a hot towel around the outside of spring form pan for a few minutes. Run a small sharp knife tip around the edge of the Strawberry Mirror to separate it from the sides of pan. Mirror will tear when sides are unlatched if it is stuck at ANY point. Slowly unlatch the pan and slide it off the cake. Slice cake in wedges and serve in upright slices.

Prep Work

Strawberry Bavarian Cream

1. Sprinkle the gelatine over the strawberry puree in a small bowl and set aside until spongy. (Note - this didn’t work for me, so I slowly brought my strawberry puree to a boil before quickly whisking through the gelatine and setting it over a bowl of hot water to keep it liquid.)

2. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl’ beat until light. Bring milk to a boil in sauce pan. Pour hot milk into yolk mixture and stir with a wooden spoon (it doesn’t say so but I would temper the egg mixture first to be safe). Return this mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until your finger leaves a clear trail in sauce when drawn across the back of the spoon. (Do not boil or mixture will curdle.) Immediately remove from heat and stir in softened gelatine mixture. Pour into a stainless steel bowl places over a bowl of ice water. Stir in lemon juice and a few drops of red food colouring. Cool over ice water, stirring occasionally, until mixture thickens to the consistency of softly whipped cream.

3. White gelatine mixture is cooling, whip the whipping cream until it holds soft peaks. When the gelatine mixture resembles softly whipped cream, fold the whipped cream into the gelatine mixture.

Strawberry Mirror

1. Prepare strawberry juice.

2. Place lemon juice, kirsch, and water in a small bowl. Sprinkle gelatine over this mixture; set aside until spongy and soft.

3. Measure 1 1/2 cups Strawberry juice into a small saucepan and bring to a simmer; pour over gelatine mixture and stir to dissolve gelatine. Tint to desired colour with red food colouring. Place bowl over bowl of ice water and stir occasionally until the mixture is syrupy and just beings to thicken (do not let jell); remove from ice water.

4. When mixture is syrupy, pour a 3-4 mm layer over the top of cake. Refrigerate until set.

Strawberry Juice

Wash and hull strawberries; coarsely chop. Place strawberries in saucepan; crush to start juices flowing. Place over low heat; add sugar and water; simmer slowly 10 minutes. Pour juice and pulp through damp jelly bag or cheesecloth-lined colander and drain into a bowl for 15 minutes (do not press down on fruit).

A Begining to Blogging

Welcome to my food blog - my first blog. My first delve into techno-exhibitionism. My frightening foray into food fanaticism. A daring display of delicious delicacies, designed to delight something, something, something...
I’ve run out of alliterations.

Anyhoo. This blog is somewhat of a project not only of blogging, but to encourage myself to be more adventurous with my cooking, also the reason I joined the Daring Bakers. It’s also a project to keep records of my baking with photos and a commentary. As an added bonus I can share it with friends and family, most of whom I share the food with too. :)

I named the blog – after the song. But I don't got no sons (just two cute daughters), and what I know about guns... well lets just say I'll stick to what I do know... baking.