Thursday's cookies

I was making a somewhat unexpected and somewhat sombre trip eastwards. This would involve seeing friends and I thought that a gift of some baking (to both the sombre and non-sombre parts) would probably be appropriate (although I was unsure about the appropriateness for the sombre part).

What I decided that I wanted to cook was something featuring peanut butter as I had a fairly good idea that this would go down with well with all my hosts. I had cooked some peanut butter cookies a while ago for Matt's workmates (they were not universally well received due the nut allergy issue), but was not entirely satisfied with them so wanted to try a different recipe. The previous batch had been tasty enough but were a bit too crispy – I wanted something a bit chewier (this is unusual because usually I like crispy things). The solution I envisaged would involve jam. I would try to recreate the classic peanut butter and jam on toast, but within a cookie. I found a recipe along these lines (it was actually for peanut butter and “jelly” cookies but I refuse to refer to jam as jelly, even within a recipe that is probably American by concept).

I started off by making the cookie dough, fairly straightforward and only requiring one bowl which was pleasing. I didn't have enough crunchy peanut butter so had to top up 40g with smooth and I didn't have any dark brown muscovado sugar. The recipe said to use a combination of this and caster sugar but I figured that if I used all soft brown sugar this would sort of make the average.

You were supposed to bake the bake all the cookies and then sandwich two together with seedless raspberry jam. This was going to require deviation. I was adamant that I wanted to include the jam in the bake. We didn't have any raspberry jam and, even if we did, seedless jam is something that seems almost morally wrong to me. After deliberation I opted for my mum's gooseberry jam:

• This is my preferred jam to go with peanut butter on toast
• I fancied its chances as the most adhesive of the jams available to me, which would be important if it was to be successfully integrated into the bake

I decided that I would sandwich the layers together pre-baking, which would hopefully facilitate successful transport. I'd used the roll into balls and squish with a fork method to form the cookies so there were convenient grooves in which the jam could be applied. I resisted the temptation to pile on loads of jam, having enough foresight to realise that it would just pour out and make a horrible sticky mess so that I wouldn't be able to get the cookies off of the baking tray.

Due to the increased mass per unit compared to the recipe (mine were of course by now double decker cookies) I increased the cooking time slightly – I wanted chewy but I didn't want raw. I took them out of the oven when they were starting to go golden. A trick I have found with baking cookies is that they harden up a bit after you've removed them from the oven, so not to worry if they seemed too soft to start with. First impressions were good but we'd have to wait until they'd cooled for a taste test – tongue burnt via hot jam is to be avoided.

I was on a roll now and thought that I would augment these slightly experimental peanut butter cookies with a batch of tried and tested chocolate melting moments – my granny's recipe. Probably my favourite of all the things she used to bake. Therefore slackery wasn't in order, just a conversion from ounces to grams (I don't get on too well with imperial) and maybe a bit more cocoa powder than is traditional. Granny would often melt some chocolate on the top of each one and finish off with a cherry, but I didn't have time for that last night. So maybe I was a bit more lazy than slack, but I did the rolling them in oats thing. I resisted the temptation to try one of these – knowing full well that this is a recipe for guaranteed deliciousness. But I did put one by for Matt.

Just before bed we shared one of the peanut butter / jam sandwich cookies. This too met my requirements for deliciousness. I just hope that my hosts like them.

Wednesday's gratin

We had ended up with another high veg situation in the fridge. This included:

• Courgettes – bargain in the shop the other day.
• Mushrooms – seemed like a good idea at the time but I haven't had a chance to use them yet and they were almost getting to that horrible slimy stage.
• Spinach – I have no recollection of acquiring this. On questioning Matt said he picked this up some time ago when I was away and he didn't think there was enough green stuff in the house. On further questioning he didn't have any particular plan for it.
• Broccoli – because broccoli is really good.

We were talking about what we might have for tea whilst in the changing rooms at the swimming pool. But in terms of other useful ingredients we were somewhat depleted. When I say other useful ingredients I mean cheese – the last 60g having gone into some scones at the weekend. We did have some branded cheese triangles but these have limited culinary application. I suggested that with a bit of cheese I could do anything. Fortunately Matt had to take a trip out to the sorting office so was able to tag on a trip to the shop.

In the meantime I got on with cutting up the courgettes. I still had no idea what I was going to cook. A pasta dish would have been the obvious choice but I didn't really fancy pasta.

I put the courgettes in a large oven proof dish (I actually chopped up more courgette than needed to line the bottom of the dish – the rest will keep in the fridge for another day).

And then in a moment of inspiration decided to cook some sort of gratin. This not only provided the potential to use a lot of the vegetables but also:

• sour cream – purchased as a bargain at the same time as the mushrooms and surely not going to last in a healthy manner much longer
• bread crumbs – finally a use for the vast quantity we have in the freezer following the purchase some months ago of some extremely cut price sliced bread.

The question mark remaining over the meal now was protein. It would be quite acceptable to have some fish fingers or veggie sausages on the side but I didn't really fancy that. I decided to integrate some butter beans into the gratin. We have lots of tins of beans and pulses in our cupboards, most commonly they go in casseroles or curries and I was rather excited about using them for something different.

I narrowly avoided making a significant omission. Fortunately Matt called to ask if we needed onions. We didn't, but this did remind me to chop an onion up and put that in. I used a red onion, which I have subsequently learnt contain more quercetin than other types of onion (although how scientific this fact is I'm not sure and what the benefit of quercetin is I'm not sure). And for good measure I added some cloves of garlic too.

By the time I had layered up all the veggies (and beans and sour cream, intermittently adorned with black pepper and herbs from the new herb grinder that Matt's mum had brought us back from her holiday), Matt returned with the cheese. I grated a generous amount and mixed it up with the bread crumbs (and some more black pepper) and then poured this over the top of everything else.

I had no idea what temperature to cook this at, so I went for the default of 180ºC. I had no idea how long it would take, but long enough at least that I could hang up pretty much our whole household's worth of underwear and socks. I decided it was done after about an hour when it the top was starting to look a bit crispy (I love crispy things) and then put the broccoli on (I decided that would be better as a side than in the main dish).

I was a bit worried that it would be a bit soggy (I had poured over just a little bit of hot stock before it went in the oven) so got bowls out just in case. But it held together remarkably well. It tasted great, although I'm not sure what the sour cream added, but then I don't know what it would have been like without the sour cream. Maybe it would even have benefited from more sour cream. I had cooked vastly more than was needed to feed the two of us – probably more like enough for 6. So we both had some for lunch today (leaving it in a lunch box in a hot car is actually a rather effective (and free) re-heating method) and there's some more for picnic tomorrow.

Sunday's Thai experiment

The mange tout peas are proving to be one of my most productive crops. Very nice straight off the plant, or stir fry would be my usual default cook but I wanted to try something different.

Somehow I got it in my head that I would do a Thai curry. I have never done a Thai curry before and to be quite honest I don't really know how it differs from a non-Thai curry, except that I think it should have lemongrass in it. So I picked up some lemongrass at the supermarket the other day, as well as some spring onions which I thought would be appropriate, and hoped that I be able to cobble the rest of the ingredients together from the fridge/freezer/cupboards.

I thought that it would be a good idea at least get some sort of recipe to work to. I found one about how to make a Thai curry paste but had barely any of the components, and another for Thai vegetables with coconut milk. As it was I basically ended up making something up. We are trying to clear a bit of space in the freezer for more ice-cream so I decided to use up some of the white fish that we have stored away from various bargain purchases. Matt kindly helped out by defrosting.

The curry also had in it (in addition to the mange tout, lemongrass, fish and spring onions):

• Groundnut oil – in preference to olive oil, I thought it would be more authentically Thai (or at least more Thai than olives)
• Red pepper – I sliced this thinly and put it in to fry off before anything else. Red pepper never seems to cook enough so I wanted to give it a fighting chance
• Celery – the recipe had this in. I wouldn't usually put it in curry but didn't see that it could do too much harm
• Chilli – I put a whole one in (chopped) and just had to hope that this wouldn't make it too hot. Following my most recent chilli incident I am being most wary of touching my eyes / lips etc
• Cumin – Matt's favourite spice
• Ginger – my favourite spice
• Sweet potato – grated. The recipe suggested one and a half cups
  
  of grated pumpkin. I didn't have any pumpkin but was intrigued by this kind of thing so used a sweet potato instead. I don't like using “cups” as a measurement because it is not specific as to what size cup it should be or how densely packed the ingredient should be in it. So I used one medium sweet potato. It looked just like grated carrot and I am contemplating its possible role in a cake.
• Coconut milk, lime juice and vegetable stock – added as it was all looking rather dry.
• Broccoli – probably not very Thai but I love it. I put this in right towards the end so it steamed in all the vapour.

Due to my inability to reliably cook rice I would have been quite happy to eat the curry without any accompanying carbohydrate, but Matt volunteered to do some rice for us. As usual his rice came out perfectly. When I try to replicate his method I still fail.

We were a bit unsure as to how edible this would be – Matt suggested that it would be somewhere on the spectrum between average and excellent (it did smell good). I had barely followed any recipe and all the quantities were guesstimated. With the lemongrass I had used an ingredient that has never before graced my kitchen shelves, I sliced it up a little bit and crushed it a little bit before putting it in the pan; we decided that we wouldn't eat it and pulled the little woody bits out as we went along. But now I'm kind of curious to know what it would have tasted like.

The verdict on the whole thing was that it was towards the excellent end of the spectrum, but that it could have taken a little more spicing. Matt may regret saying that as next time I'll put two chillies in.

Saturday's scones

Yesterday was a bit of a weird day feeding wise. Breakfast was reasonably normal (although Matt doesn't usually make a fire in the toaster) and then we decided to go out for a walk. But we didn't plan the walk very well from a catering perspective. Matt had packed one packet of prawn cocktail crisps which he ate within about 10 minutes of leaving the car park. So three and half hours later we were pretty hungry.

We had purchased some cut price sardines the previous evening and the plan for lunch was to have these cooked on the barbeque (apparently this is not the correct spelling but I prefer it). Since it was outdoors cooking Matt was in charge. It would theoretically have been a quick process but

• We had to get a barbeque fish cooking implement – the first place we tried had sold out of nearly everything barbeque related but we were successful at our second detour
• Although apparently the fish were gutted they needed quite a bit of fettling up before they met Matt's strict culinary requirements. This involved cleaning and stuffing with lemon and capers.

So it was nearly 6pm by the time we ate our lunch (we had had a snack of mushroom paté on crackers). It was delicious but we weren't going to want a big meal later on (I had planned to make a curry); instead Matt persuaded me to make some scones. This would be a nice way to conclude our Devon day. These were going to be sour cream scones (since I had some cut price sour cream to use up) but I fancied something savoury so deviated somewhat and embarked upon some cheese scones.

This would finally give me a chance to use up the butter that smelt of cheese in something that it wouldn't matter if it tasted of cheese. Amazingly the recipe required 50g of butter and this is exactly how much I had left. I love it when things like this happen. I had 60g of very strong cheddar (I don't know where the other 340g has disappeared to so quickly), which was only 10g more than the recipe called for. I find that recipes tend to under cheese things so put it all in (after grating). I also added some un-reciped chives. I had been inspired to do this when Matt had asked me earlier if what was in the pot by the barbeque was chives. I don't know exactly how many chives I added, I suppose about 12 of average length chopped up small with scissors.

The recipe says to roll out the dough to 1cm thick but I find that it always sticks to the rolling pin so I just sorted of patted it out instead. And then it says to use your 6.5cm biscuit cutter, but I only have a 7cm or 6cm biscuit cutter so I chose the 6cm on the basis that more scones is better than bigger scones. They bake at the hottest the oven goes until risen and golden. I nearly forgot about them but was reminded by the smell of cooking and got back to them just in time, after about 10 minutes.

So that was our tea last night. I had one with butter substitute, then one with half yeast extract and half cream cheese with garlic and herbs, and then a final half with butter substitute. Personally I think they could have done with more cheese (even though I did use what purports to be very strong cheddar) but Matt described them as pleasantly cheesey. We had another one each for breakfast this morning. And then one more as a mid-morning snack. Scones taste best fresh so it would have been wasteful if we hadn't eaten them up.

Thursday's challenge

Matt, my husband, had requested no more cake until August 10th. I was a bit disappointed but was happy enough to encourage him in a mini-health kick; it would just have to be inventive salads for a few weeks. But I was thrilled when my friend Katie requested a bake to celebrate her birthday.

Katie doesn't live close to me, but a happy coincidence meant that I would have the chance to see her just a couple of days after her birthday. The challenges of this bake were:

1. Katie had requested something chocolaty (not very restrictive) 
2. I would have transport the bake on a 4 hour, 2 change train trip across south west England (more restrictive) 
3. I left myself with limited time to make the bake due to a late finish at work and lots to do the night before the aforementioned train trip (not as restrictive as it should have been).

I decided that brownies would be the thing. The chocolate criteria would definitely be met plus they are not delicate and don't require icing so would be ok for the transport restrictions. I wasn't sure about the time thing. The brownies I usually make are gluten free, require significant separation of eggs and are not that quick. I wanted to try something different, probably with white chocolate. I felt reasonably confident that I could find something suitable. I also had it in mind that I wanted to use cranberries, in the belief that I had a pack at the back of the baking cupboard.

I found a few recipes for white chocolate brownies (I think the trendy name for these is blondies) and chose the one that looked both easiest and most adaptable for my requirements.

I made a start and swiftly realised that I had less than 50g of the 400g of white chocolate that I needed. On further inspection the main bake only required 300g; the rest was for chocolate chunks. Fortunately Matt was keen for a break from his DIY so took a walk to the local shop to get some white chocolate while I made a start on the tea.

The first phase was to melt the (300g) chocolate with 75g of butter. I was a bit worried about this because the only proper butter we had was the stuff that smelt like cheese, but I tasted a little bit that was left on the knife that I had portioned it with and it didn't taste at all cheesy. Very weird.

Once this has melted the recipe states that you should allow it to cool and then mix in the eggs (3, which was lucky as that's all we had) and sugar (90g) and vanilla. But I didn't fancy my chances of mixing in the bowl that I had melted. So instead I pre-whisked the eggs, sugar and vanilla and then whisked the butter / sugar into this. I wasn't really sure if I should have whisked or mixed with a spoon but whisking seems more efficient.

Next I added 200g plain flour. Since I already had the whisk out I thought I may as well whisk this in too. Finally it was time to add the chocolates chunks and cranberries. I decided to use plain chocolate here. And what I thought was a bag of cranberries was actually a mixed bag of raisins, sultanas and cranberries, but this wouldn't really matter. I laid off the whisk for these final additions and stirred gently instead.

The recipe said to pour the mixture into a lined baking tray. As time goes by I am becoming less and less convinced about lining baking trays so I just greased it thoroughly and hoped for the best.

A significant challenge with brownies is that you can't use the skewer test to see if they're cooked as they're supposed to be a bit gooey in the middle. The recipe said to bake for 20 minutes, but obviously every oven is different. I think mine were in for a bit longer than this, just until the top looked a little bit cracked.

It would have to wait until the morning to be chopped and removed / chiselled out of the tray, I still had my packing to do and it was only 10 minutes until bedtime.

Fortunately the copious greasing was satisfactory and the brownies packed beautifully into a tin ready for transportation (with one little bit left for Matt - his health kick isn't that extreme!). 

And they made the journey ok. It was lovely to see Katie, and I think she and her baby girl both enjoyed the brownies (although the baby did seem determined to put the whole lot on the floor). A few crumbs were dropped on the ground which were dealt with by my mother-in-law's Yorkshire Terrier - I just hope it doesn't poison him as I think that both chocolate and dried fruit are bad for dogs. I suppose if it does poison him there are worse ways to go.

Saturday's alternative cake

Not being quite sure how many people to expect to Matt, my husband's, birthday luncheon and knowing to expect two under 7 year olds I deceided to make another sponge to augment the black forest gateau. Time now pressing on I decided to go for the simplest sponge going. This is very pleasing mathematically:

For every egg you use:

• 50g of butter / butter substitute 
• 50g sugar
• 50g self raising flour

It is also very pleasing in terms of simplicity. You just put it all in a bowl together mix it up a bit with a spoon and then whisk it all together with the electric beaters (you only have to mix it up a bit with a spoon first if you don't want the ingredients to fly everywhere, you can omit that step if you don't mind a lot of splattering). I started off with 3 eggs (and 150g of everything else) but once this was whisked decided that it would insufficient for 12 fairy cakes and 1 round sponge so added another egg (and another 50g of everything else). I also added a few drops of vanilla extract (this protects against it tasting too eggy) and a splash of milk to loosen everything up.

Then I spooned it into my cases. I was particularly excited to be making fairy cakes as I'd got some rather attractive new fairy cake cases (I chose to use red stripy ones today). It cooks at 180˚C until golden brown, confirmed by skewer test. The time depends on the size of the cake so the fairy cakes took about 20 minutes and the larger sponge about 25.

I was not about to go doing anything fancy with these cakes - I had had enough of that with the gateau and I thought I should leave them fairly simple for people with more of a delicate pallet. I cut the big round cake in half and sandwiched it together with cherry jam. This would go with the spare chocolate cake that I had sandwiched together with chocolate hazelnut spread to create the effect of one whole cake.

I intended to make butterfly cakes with the small ones, but instead of using butter icing I would use lemon curd. Unfortunately when I came to deploy the lemon curd I found that there was considerably less left than when I last opened the jar. So instead I used various preserves that I found in the fridge and made 3 of each of:

• lemon curd
• loganberry jam
• cranberry and orange jam
• gooseberry jam

(all preserves courtesy of my mum)

I constructed a cake stand (doilies and all) and we were good to go.

Jammy butterfly cake

An array of cakes

I must say that this good basic sponge was much more to my taste than the gateau - much less rich but equally (in my opinion) delicious - helped almost certainly by the vanilla extract which meant that it didn't taste eggy at all.

Saturday's gateau

After a modicum of deliberation Matt, my husband, decided that the cake that he would like to celebrate his birthday was a black forest gateau. This would mean that the cherries preserved in kirsch could finally be deployed, although candles would prove tricky.

I didn't underestimate the difficulty / time rating of this so Matt went out to do the shopping for his birthday luncheon while I stayed at home to do the baking. If this turned out to be less taxing than I suspected it could always be interspersed with gardening (hopefully), other aspects of food preparation(ok), or household chores (although not if I could avoid it).

I searched my recipe books and cuttings for suitable recipes. There were only two and one of them required me to sieve butter which seemed ridiculous so I went with the other one. I could tell that this was going to be a recipe that created extreme amounts of washing up. But still, it was a special occasion. And we do have a dishwasher.

To start with you have to melt some butter (I used butter substitute as I didn't want to risk the butter that smelt like cheese on such a critical bake) with sugar, chocolate and coffee. The recipe stated 200g of plain chocolate. I used a whole 150g bar and half a 100g bar. Yet the scales told me that this was 216g. So either the scales were wrong or the chocolate was wrong. I decided to give the chocolate the benefit of the doubt (I might revert to analogue scales once I've conducted a few experiments to see if the digital ones really are dubious) as 16g too much chocolate was likely to be less detrimental than 16g too little.

Then you have to wait until this is cool before adding the rest of the ingredients. This gave me time to do something that I don't usually bother with - sifting. Maybe I had sifting on the mind after I'd declined to sieve butter. For the first time in my life (I think) I did a recipe that used both plain and self-raising flour and it seemed to me important that they were properly mixed (along with the cocoa powder).

The chocolate mixture still didn't seem very cool to me so I had a pause in baking and potted up some tomato plants. I just love the smell of tomato plants.

Mixing the gateau

On returning to the kitchen I whisked the sifted ingredients into the (now cooled) chocolate mixture. It was a good job I had an apron on as it splashed all over the place. And then you whisk 2 eggs in - I suppose the reason you have to let the chocolate mixture cool is so that you don't scramble the eggs.

The recipe indicated that you should pour the mixture into a large tin to bake, and that you then slice it up for your layers. But I am useless at slicing (as evidenced by the frequent mess I make of slicing up bread) and decided that the safer course of action would be to bake the layers separately. I dug around in the tin cupboard and found three the same size and ladled three ladles into each. There was still some mixture left over so I got another tin out (slightly smaller) and poured that in to make a potential 4th layer.

Oven mess

One of the pitfalls of this type of runny cake mixture is that it leaks through the bottom of loose bottomed tins. So I got a bit of chocolatey mess on the worktop (not really a problem) but some also dripped onto the bottom of the oven - I am unlikely to be able to delay the cleaning of the oven for much longer.

The benefit of baking in smaller tins was that it would take less time (I am an impatient cook), the disadvantage was that I had no long how long it would take. So I had to stay close to the oven and this meant that really I had to do some household chores. After about an hour the cakes started to smell cooked and the skewer test confirmed this to be the case. I whisked up a tub of cream but was wise enough not to do any gateau assembly until it had completely cooled. In the meantime I chopped up some veggies to have raw. We needed some healthy food of some sort. 

I had no intention of following the recipe for the filling / stacking, which required me use normal jarred cherries and to thicken the juice with arrowroot. Instead I planned to use a combination of the kirsch, followed by cherry jam (of which, after my first application of kirsch, I discovered we had none - fortunately Matt was still at the shops so I was able to direct him to a suitable product), followed by cream, followed by the cherries themselves. My rationale was that the kirsch would flavour the sponge, the jam would make the cream stick to the sponge and the cherries could then be nestled into the cream. 3 layers looked precarious enough so I didn't risk the 4th. Instead I would fashion this into something for the youngsters we were expecting. 

One layer

3 layers

We all had to wait a while before trying out the completed gateau. I was successful in persuading the youngsters that they wouldn't like it and they seemed to be quite happy with their chocolate hazelnut spread filled sponges. As predicted candles were off but we did all sing 'happy birthday', accompanied by the musical cake slice. Between six grown-ups we devoured half the gateau - some people with considerably larger portions than others. I had a small to moderate sized piece and was overwhelmed by it. So rich, so boozy and so delicious but I wouldn't have managed it it if hadn't have been for the nice pot of tea that we had with it. Being full of fresh cream I wasn't optimistic for the gateau's survival beyond another 24 hours at most. Fortunately our guests were only too keen to take home a party bag.

Half down, half to go

Where to start?

Friday's team pizza

As is becoming somewhat of a tradition on a Friday night we were going to have pizza. It was Matt, my husband's, birthday so I had offered an array of alternatives to the usual (him making pizza) including:

• Going out for pizza
• Going out for something else
• Me making the pizza
• Me making something else

But Matt was pretty sure that he wanted to do the pizza and I wasn't going to argue too strongly (he makes a delicious pizza). So the ingredients for the dough went into the bread maker. I don't know the details of these ingredients - the bread maker being well and truly Matt's domain. Whilst that was whirling the plan was that we'd take a walk in the evening sunshine to our 3rd most convenient convenience store to top up on toppings. That plan was thwarted slightly because we became enthralled with a tennis semi-final. We finally made it to the shop once the dough was ready and we realised that we should use the pause function on the TV otherwise we would not be enjoying any of the late evening sunshine. And as it was getting late Matt decided that I'd better be his sous chef.

Almost anything else for the pizza could be improvised but clearly cheese is important. We had chosen this 3rd most convenient convenience store because it is the best source of grated mozzarella. After selecting a few mushrooms and some spinach we got to the cheese section. There was grated mature cheese; but no mozzarella. A shop person just happened to be going by at the point at which I was incredulously examining the cheese shelves. Upon questioning he told me that they no longer stock mozzarella. I muttered a few words of incredulity at him, but had to accept that there would be no mozzarella this evening. Never mind, it would just be a new type of pizza experience.

My main (or possibly only) role as sous chef was the preparation of the toppings - this involving chopping it is well and truly my domain. The dough recipe that Matt uses makes enough for two pizzas. He wanted one as a Greek and one as a multi-veggie. So for the Greek I pre-cooked the spinach (4 minutes on medium in the microwave) and chopped up some feta and tomatoes. To this Matt also added some pine nuts and black olives. The tomato sauce was half a jar of chilli pasta sauce that we had left over (worryingly I can't recall from when). For the multi-veggie I had more chopping. As well as the mushrooms I chopped up some green pepper. This is notorious for not cooking quickly enough on pizza so I pre-fried it in the little fried egg pan. There was some sweetcorn leftover from the previous night's jacket potatoes so that would go on too. As for the cheese (we may not have had any mozzarella but there was plenty of other choice) we went for a combination of goat's cheese and garlic and herb soft cheese. These should have been straightforward to prepare, but in doing so I managed to break a knife. It was from the notorious range of bubble cutlery which I frequently have bad fortune with. The tomato sauce was half a jar of basil pasta sauce, the other half of which will now most likely be forgotten in the fridge for a number of weeks.

Multi-veggie pizza mid topping addition

The demise of a bubble knife

The pizzas bake at the hottest the oven goes until the toppings looked cooked. This is very imprecise but the base always seems to come out ok too. I suppose you are basically baking bread. We were very restrained and had just a slice of each each - plus a load of hummous, the crusts are ideal for dipping. The mozzarella-less pizzas were a revelation - even to a cheese lover such as myself. We'll just have to see if they pass the cold pizza test at Matt's birthday luncheon.

Thursday's birthday baking

In keeping with tradition, Matt, my husband, planned to take some high energy feed to his workmates to help celebrate his birthday. This plan mostly involved me constructing said high energy feed. Matt's requests were for paradise slice and oatcake and being the good wife that I am, after a short effort to try to persuade him that something more cakey might be nice I acquiesced and set to on these two tray bakes. 

The oatcake is a recipe of my mum's. It's not the healthy sort of oatcake on which you might apply cheese, rather it consists of equal parts of sugar / syrup, butter / butter substitute, plain flour and oats. I used 150g of each. The sugar / syrup combination I selected was 100g golden caster sugar and 50g golden syrup. It also works with any other type of sugar and any other type of syrup (e.g. black treacle or molasses if you want to add a tiny bit of nutrition) in any proportions. 

1. Melt the butter / butter substitute and the sugar / syrup together over a low heat. I did this on the hob but you can do it carefully in the microwave. The microwave is my mum's preferred option but I'm not really careful enough. 

2. Stir in the flour and the oats. At this point you can add some spice or dried fruit or anything else you fancy. I wanted to keep it fairly simple today (the paradise slice would be the thing for Matt's more gastronomically adventurous colleagues) so added just a little mixed spice (not to be confused with allspice). I would have added cinnamon but shockingly I could not locate any in the kitchen.

3. Press it into a tin. I lined it on this occasion but really, if it's a non-stick tin you probably don't need to.

4. Bake at 180˚C for about half an hour. 

 

The basic oatcake

That would usually do but since this was a celebration I decided to top it with some chocolate. 

5. Melt some chocolate (I used a 150g bar of milk chocolate) using whatever method works for you. The only method I have ever found that works for me is over a pan of boiling water. I added a little bit of butter because I've seen them do this on the television

6. Spread the melted chocolate over the oatcake.

 

Chocolate covering

And maybe I could have stopped there but this was a celebration so I decided to finish off with some sprinkles. Matt was keep to apply these and since I am generally quite clumsy with the application of decoration I let him take charge of the pot of coloured sugar strands (it was his birthday after all).

 

Adding the finishing touches

I made the paradise slice while the oatcake was baking. This was basically a reprise of what I made a few weeks ago as sustenance for a team building event. I did the old classic of not having the butter soft enough before creaming it with the sugar and duly made a terrific mess all over the work surface. But most of it stayed in the bowl.  I was a bit worried as a did this bit as it smelt of cheese (I love cheese but this was out of context). It is possible that the butter was a little past its best before but it had been unopened in our very cold fridge. So I tasted just a little bit (it tasted more of butter/sugar than cheese) and carried on.

 

The paradise mix

We resisted the temptation to test the creations last night and sliced them up for transportation to Matt's work this morning. We saved the slightly dud bits for ourselves (the bit of the oatcake where the greaseproof paper didn't come off properly and the disintegrated bit of the paradise slice).

Ready for feeding

The bits that I might get to eat

The feedback from the engineering gannets (as Matt refers to his workmates on occasions such as this) was good. Apparently the lack of cinnamon wasn't noticed in the oatcake. And apparently the other was "truly a slice of paradise" (someone genuinely said this!).

So all that remains now is to make the birthday cake proper. 

Wednesday's boozy mushrooms

I got excited when I got a text from Matt, my husband, the other day asking me what I'd like for dinner. The reason that this is exciting is that when he cooks it often involves cheese and I was in the mood for cheese. Nonetheless I responded suggesting potato (jacket) or pasta as we needed to be pretty swift about getting out of the house.

So I was surprised when I got home to be greeted not by the smell of cooking, but by the smell of burning timber. Apparently Matt had only asked my dinner preferences in case he needed to buy anything, by the time I replied it was too late, and he had busied himself with the skirting board project. Still, I was pleased that the skirting board project was progressing and was sure that I could concoct something for us with what we had.

It would be pasta and it would probably be mushrooms. Although there were some other possible ingredients the mushrooms looked most in need of consumption.

I had brought a 600g "family" pack of mushrooms at the supermarket a few days previously after using a little bit of algebra to calculate that this was the most economical way. I'd guesstimated that this was the case but felt the need to do the maths as usually it's better to buy things loose.

How these got named a "family" pack defeats me. An important lesson in mushroom cuisine is that that they cook down to hardly anything so this 600g would serve just Matt and me (and only for one meal). They were clearly not a family themselves (being all of approximately the same size and age) and the only family I could imagine them feeding would be one that doesn't like mushrooms very much. I suppose technically you could call a married couple who occasionally borrow a dog a family, in which case the pack description is not so misleading.

Anyway, I quartered approximately half of the mushrooms and sliced the rest (I've found this to give the best consistency to the finished product).

Prepared mushrooms

I added these to some onions and celery that had been sweating (if only there was a nicer word to use there, but I suppose it does describe the process accurately), along with some of that slack pre-chopped garlic that comes in a jar preserved in vinegar (we were out of proper garlic and this is just fine). And then you can leave it until the juices have come out of the mushrooms & they have, as predicted, cooked down to a fraction of their original volume.

So I pottered about for 20 minutes or so and then added the finishing touches:

• Some herbs from the garden - I'm pretty sure it was thyme

• Some vegetable stock powder

• Some tomato puree - a tip from my mum when I first started cooking with mushrooms

• Some crème fraiche - at least that was the plan. But what I thought was a whole pot in the fridge was less than a dollop so I augmented this with some low fat cream cheese.

• Some sherry - this wasn't the plan. I would probably have used white wine but the sherry was open.

And at the same time as the sauce was being completed I boiled the pasta. We went for the fun pasta again. There was a little less fun pasta than originally planned because I lost some in the sink in the draining process.

Sphinx passa

When it came to the eating I found a penguin and a koala in my pasta shapes, as well as a reappearance of the sphinx and some less fun shapes like apples and bows.

Penguin pasta

Koala pasta

Based on the boozy aroma coming from the pan I was a bit worried that I might have taken the finishing touches a splosh too far but it was too late to worry about that now.

 It turned out that the sherry wasn't a splosh too far. I think it turned what might have been a rather ordinary mushroom sauce into something rather more sophisticated.

 

Sherry mushroom stroganoff with fun pasta

And it was all done quickly enough that we didn't too much of our samba lesson.