Anzac biscuits for a misadventurer

Legend has it, or maybe its real history, that ladies sent these biscuits to Australian and Kiwi soldiers fighting at Gallipoli in WW1. I made my ANZAC biscuits for an Australian friend who is recovering from a fractured jaw and black eye which he acquired when a couple of good-for-nothings biffed him by the marketplace on the way home. He is not a soldier but he is definitely being brave at the moment, far from home and having to have surgery.

Here is a rather official recipe for ANZAC biscuits (.gov = reliable source no?) from the Australian War Memorial website. That recipe is in cups (boo hiss cups) so I will give you the recipe I followed in metric from the trusty W.I.

Ingredients:

115g plain flour, 115g caster sugar, 80g oats, 80g dessicated coconut, 115g, butter, 2 tbsp golden syrup, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda, 2 tbsp boiling water.

Method:

preheat oven to 180 C - mix the dry ingredients together - melt the butter and syrup on a low heat - dissolve the bicarb in the water and stir into the buttery/syrup mix - [watch it go whoosh] - pour the bubbly liquid into the bowl of dry stuff and stir - place spoonfuls of the crumbly mix onto a greased baking tray - bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown - cool for a few minutes on the tray before cooling completely on a wire rack

I have mixed-feelings about Australia but these biscuits are a wholeheartedly good thing. They are are beyond Hobnobs and that statement comes from someone with a pretty serious Hobnob habit. They have both crunch and chew at the same simultaneously and I recommend you bake a batch soon!

Production line

Keep soldiering on Dave! This sort of thing is not supposed to happen in Norwich and it certainly shouldn't of happened to you.

Drink tea. Eat soggy biscuits.

Not being able to chew Dave perused my soup recipe book and 'Team Rave' (Rachel and Dave) made Tomato and Plum soup. I thought it sounded a bit wacky but it tasted really good. Tomatoes are technically fruit so this is just an extra fruity soup. We were rather pleased with the results but especially proud of...

the garnish, look at the garnish!

P.S Thanks to the sunshine I have been late posting this up and in the meantime Dave has been recovering well. Too woozy-headed to stray far from bed for a few days Dave has started a new blog called The Irony Mark, take a look right here.

Also, my current favourite place for a along the Wensum offers this view. I find these cars piled up as if about to fall in to the river rather captivating. Who put them there? What for?

Eating like a Princess

My Mum and sister were in New York last week and I had a craving for bagels. Norwich is not New York but the festival is on and loads of exciting things are happening, so lets pretend! I have been volunteering, spending my time helping out at events like Electric Hotel, a really ambitious contemporary dance piece, and the Red Ball Project. The other day I got to control a carousel - I was actually in charge of pressing the buttons to make it go round - childhood ambition achieved!

I followed a suitably authentic recipe in Denise Phillip's The Jewish Mama's kitchen. The results did not taste any worse for me being neither Jewish nor a Mama. I got to use the dough hooks on my whizzer for the first time whilst mixing together the flour, egg, oil, sugar, water and yeast. Dough hooks are part mesmerising and part ominous-looking. Whirr-whirr-ooh-err. The only hiccup in the procedings was that the first batch I baked got well and truly stuck to the greaseproof paper that the recipe had told me to place them on. The boiled bagels created a glue-like effect and thats how the first 6 lost their bottoms. Oh and also, the bagels were supposed to float to the surface after 2-3minutes in boiling water but they were floating when I first put them in the pan so maybe they got even more buoyant? I have no idea, answers on a postcard please.

Smoked salmon, cream cheese and cucumber bagel for my eating like a Princess tea!

We are in the middle of asparagus season so I treated myself to a lovely bunch. Boiled and twice-buttered, following the 'if you can't see it then it isn't there' rule that also applies to crumpets, this is the classiest way to eat your greens. Om nom nom.

My little brother turns sixteen this week. He has already overtaken me in the height stakes, anything could happen next! I baked him some chocolate chip cookies and posted them first class, haste post haste. I think the cookies tasted best still warm from the oven and the girls and I were super-restrained in not eating them all before they made there way to the letterbox.

P.S. I had my first and final exam last week so I am free from university commitments for over three months, an intimidating expanse of freedom. I've made a ludicrously ambitious list of things I want to learn to bake over the summer. Bagels were top of the list. Big tick. Watch this space!

Scot-ter-land, shortbread and my first soufflé

I spent a right Royal few days in Edinburgh with my Ma last weekend on our second sleeper train adventure. We we wandered along the Royal Mile, peered with curiosity and wonder at plants in the Royal Botanic Gardens and went aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia where we were surprised by the Queen's taste in interior design and perplexed as to why her and Duke-y have separate beds.

I like the unassuming flowers best

Edinburgh was full of tourist tat shops crammed with tartan paraphernalia, bagpipes and knitwear. But Mum, on her best behaviour, spared me a trip to Edinburgh Woolen Mill's flagship store - phew.

A good pun at least

So, since I didn't get my self a new sporran, I baked some shortbread to commemorate our little excursion. This was a perfect opportunity to I test out the new electric whisk my grandma gave me. Mechanised baking equipment feels like an industrial kind of progress. Perhaps I really will be selling biscuits on the pavement just as children sell lemonade from their front gardens in the movies come summer! Butter and sugar from zero to pale and fluffy in under 60 seconds...

watch out woman with baking abilities and a new whizzer in the kitchen!

I baked shortbread using the recipe from my trusty Best-kept Secrets of the W.I book. I got a bit worried when after I added all the flour and cornflour the mix looked like breadcrumbs rather than dough. But once I had pressed the mix into a tray and baked the result was... pretty alright! After thinking about it, the 'short' bit of the word shortbread is old-fashioned baking-speak for crumbly so that explains it (go etymology go!). I only regret not poking it with a fork with a bit more conviction to make those authentic little holes.

Shortbread Jenga anyone?

For dinner, with only broccoli, eggs and cheese in the fridge I was going to make an unenterprising omelette but the electric whisk enticed me into trying my hand at a soufflé. Can't be that tricky can it? I found this recipe for cheese and broccoli soufflé and off I went.

Guess what? It soon went fl-oo-mph. Soufflail. Better luck next time.

Also, not being keen on salad in winter because its cold and lacking in calorific content, I made my first salad of the year today. Sadly lacking in tomatoes but a tasty mix of leaves, cucumber, olives, feta, sautéed potatoes and dressing nonetheless.

Greco-Irish salad inspired by my mother's love of the potato

Not so 'one a penny' Spiced Stout Buns

Hot cross buns are one of my favourite seasonal foodstuffs so when I came across Dan Lepard's recipe for Spiced Stout Buns - hot cross buns with the addition of Guinness and tea - I couldn't wait to try them out. Please note: I am convinced that the stout adds a certain 'depth of flavour' (it isn't just that I revel in baking with booze). After reading the recipe over a few times I realised I would have to start mixing up the dough the night I arrived home to Petersfield from the 'fine city' so the buns would be ready in time for Good Friday "keep your nose tidy" breakfast with the family.

Shaped dough ready for the final prove, too many raisins?

Peel does not appeal to me (or Dad) so I used apricots instead. That seemed like a good idea except that finely chopping dried apricots is a beyond sticky process. I'm not sure if I would do that again. Something I do enjoy though is the thrill of watching bread dough bubble. Waiting for dough to prove leaves you with delightful amounts lots purposeful yet idle time. Whilst I was kneading, waiting, kneading and waiting Dad 'fed' the rhubarb with compost our heap.

This week rhubarb plants are mainly eating worms and egg shells.

As things got messier I enlisted the help of my favourite Norwich fan and little brother. Thanks Bob for preparing the baking tray whilst I was covered in dough and sorting out some music to bake by.

Bob's thumbs, the city and hot cross buns are on the rise!

Cupcakes silent movie style

The honourable Maud hosted a fabulous silent movie themed party on Saturday night. Highlights included Izzy's utterly convincing Charlie Chaplin get-up and creating captions on blackboards whilst striking poses to match. The look I went for was swooning-heroine-cuts-the-drama-and-calms-her-nerves-with-a-pint-of-Guinness. Not sure how well I pulled it off. For the occasion I baked black-bottom cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes with a dollop of cheesecake with chocolate chips mixed in. Good stuff.

The Guinness-grin and the baked goods.

On the ball City! A football-inspired pie

I took a gaggle of girls (and a boy) to the football last week. They were predominantly lured there by the promise of Delia's pies. Thankfully, the pies did not disappoint and the football wasn't so bad either. We (Norwich) won 2-1 with a final goal in the last minute of extra time. Take that Southend!

Match pie was steak and Woodforde's ale. The gravy was incredible and the meat was good quality too (lucky, because I can be quite suspicious of meat in pies... anything could be lurking under the pastry). The vegetarian option was Mediterranean vegetables in a tomato sauce and even featured pieces of aubergine. I reckon that is highly exotic for a football pie.

Post-match I couldn't help but wonder why I had never made a pie. So, I took inspiration and instruction from a recipe for parsnip and steak pie in Gregg-cuddly-cockney-of-MasterChef-fame-Wallace's A cook's year in order to come up with a Norwich city "match pie" of my own. 'ere we go...

Ingredients:

a dash of sunflower oil, a knob of butter, 450g stewing steak, 1 onion finely sliced, 1 tbsp flour, 250ml vegetable stock, 150ml Broadside ale, 1 tsp thyme, 1 teaspoon Colman's wholegrain mustard, 1 tsp Marmite, 450g mix of parsnips and carrots thickly sliced, 250g puff pastry

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 C - melt oil and butter - brown meat - remove meat and place in pie dish - sweat onions - add flour - fry for a few minutes - add stock and boil - add ale, thyme, mustard and marmite - bring to the boil and pour the sauce over the meat - braise in the oven for an hour - meanwhile blanch parsnips and carrots in boiling water for 3 minutes - drain - [time passes] - add vegetables to the meat - braise meat and veg for a further hour - leave for a few hours or overnight to cool - [did I mention this is a delayed gratification pie?]

This recipe seems to have left me with nigh on a pint of ale to drink, what's a girl to do? Glug.

- preheat the oven to 220 C - roll out pastry on a floured surface until it is larger than the pie dish - cut 2.5cm strips and stick these to the edge of the pie dish with water - place the pastry on top of the pie - push the pastry together firmly at the edges to seal - make pastry leaves to decorate if you fancy (I did) - glaze with milk or beaten egg - bake for 30 minutes.

A little over-golden brown perhaps but I don't mind. Look, I made a pie!

Treats on turning twenty

Raspberry cheesecake brownie

I am a little (very) prone to indecision so deciding what to bake to celebrate my 20th birthday was a bit tricky. Until, a recipe caught my eye which seemed to combine all the good things in three layers: brownie topped with vanilla cheesecake and finally, raspberry whipped cream. This is a pudding with only one problem, it is heavy on the washing up. I think I used almost every bowl and spoon in the kitchen. Washing up aside, it was definitely worth the effort. Possibly my favourite birthday moment was the is the impromptu Mexican wave of appreciative noises, closely followed by sugar-laden silence, that occurred as I served this up to the gang.

Waves of cream leading the way for waves of delight...

It has been too long since I have made a butterfly-shaped anything so, I just had to.

Lush.

Raspberry and almond cupcakes

I added 3 tablespoons of ground almonds and 3 tablespoons of raspberries to a basic cupcake recipe substituting vanilla essence for almond essence. The batter turned a lovely purple colour which was a bit of a surprise. When I removed them from the oven my housemate remarked, "pretty cement cakes". A compliment from a poet?

Cross section!

Also...

Thank you so much to Izzy for making me such tasty custard tarts and Mutti for trekking to Norwich bearing rhubarb and custard tart from Paul patisserie.

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

Custard custard custard.