Saturday's festive catering: part 4

Part 4

(You can read part 1 here, part 2 here and part 3 here.)

Now the catering was all done I could leave the kitchen (admittedly in a dreadful state) and spend some time with our guests. We variously enjoyed cheese and biscuits and soup and bread and other savoury snacks as well as some mulled wine that Matt had made (not for expectant types) or soft drinks or tea. And then I remembered the mince pies, or the pastry at least. I am currently in possession of a large quantity of cooking apples so was planning on making a mixture of mince pies, apple pies and mince meat + apple pies. (I had prepared the apple earlier in the day by peeling chopping and whizzing in the microwave for a few minutes. The mincemeat was not home made this would just be one ask too many.) Once I had rolled out the pastry (by now there was a bit more space as the chocolate on the biscuit had set and they were all stacked up) there was a further delay in proceedings because I couldn't find my round cutters. After emptying the baking tin cupboard (again) and finding they weren't there I had a search through various other drawers and cupboards. I eventually found them (I say eventually but in reality it probably only took about 5 minutes, but it was a very frustrating 5 minutes) and used my newly discovered trick of dipping the cutter in flour before cutting 12 pastry discs to fit in my fairy cake tin. I also cut 12 little stars to go on top of the pies.

I don't know a lot about pastry but what I have learnt is that if you want to avoid a soggy bottom you should blind bake. What I learnt today is that blind baking tiny pastry cases in a fairy cake tin is not very easy. They sort of “grew” so that there wasn't much space for the filling so I took the executive decision to sort of reshape the partly baked cases with a measuring spoon (it has a nice, smooth spherical aspect to it). I added the fillings, topped with the stars, put them in the oven and returned to spend more time with our guests (this after all was the main aim of the day).

I had had enough of the kitchen now so delegated to Matt the important task of taking the pies out of the oven when they were ready. This was risky:

* Matt gets easily distracted

* The light in the oven is broken

* I think that the thermostat is not working perfectly which might explain why the biscuits were done in super quick (in fact quite a few things about the oven are broken, we might get a new one depending on the financial situation in the new year, or maybe I could get an oven manufacturer to sponsor me!)

But Matt, did a good job - they looked just right.

Time was flying by and some of our guests soon had to leave, but not before we had had the ceremonial first eating of the Bûche de Noel. I didn't partake of the first round but I was assured by those who did that it was very good. I would wait until later in the evening to find out for myself.

I did however fancy a mince pie. Unfortunately, despite careful greasing of the tin they proved somewhat difficult to remove, but with a bit of digging with a teaspoon they mostly came out in tact (thanks again to Matt). The weird semi blind baking / reshaping didn't seem to do too much (if any) harm and they tasted pretty nice. (I must say that I am start to enjoy the whole home made pastry thing; it seems to give a bit of kudos amongst other bakers too!) Sorry, I neglected to take a photo but I have plenty of witnesses to attest to the mince pies' existence.

After a bit more savoury snacking ('tis after all the season for my favourite wafer and processed cheese ball shaped snack) I decided that it was time to try the Bûche for myself. I wasn't disappointed and I'm not usually a big cream fan. I had been concerned about how to store the leftovers but it didn't seem that this was going to be much of a problem. It would certainly be gone in another 24 hours. And I must say that the cherries were a wise addition, it added a nice fruity dimension.

So after all that I had sort of achieved 50% of what I had hoped to bake:

* Cheese straws: none made. These would have to be done for another occasion.

* Mince pies: 12 made. Including some apple pies and mixed mincemeat and apple pies.

* Celebrity chef (the one who does all the “science”) inspired gingerbread Christmas tree: not made. But there were a whole lot of chocolate decorated multi-spice biscuits. The full on tree will have to wait for another year when I either have more time or am more organised.

* Brandy snaps: none made. Probably no bad thing, I would probably have made a ghastly mess.

* Yule log: 1 Bûche de Noel made. Very nice it was too. So nice I'm going to make another at my mum and dad's house, mainly because it's the best thing I can come up with to use the other half tin of chestnut purée. Apparently mum has the right sized swiss roll tin so I will finally find out what one of these looks like. But I'm going to put a bit more of my own twist on it next time so maybe it really can be called a “bouche (mouth) de Noel”.

Saturday's festive catering: part 3

Part 3

(you can find part 1 here, and part 2 here)

After a day mostly spent in the kitchen with a brief trip out to buy cream, and an not insubstantial amount of time spent chatting my festive catering now amounted to:

* some chilled short crust pastry (destined for mince pies)

* some undecorated multi-spice biscuits

* a big pan of unblended soup

* a bowl of sugar and eggs

I was now on a mission to make my Bûche de Noel, this would require focus and I must reveal that I was rather neglectful of visitors 3 and 4. After a quick hello I left them in Matt's capable hands, I could hear one of my favourite board games being played so had no concerns. I finally whisked up the sugar and eggs, for quite a while on the highest setting of the electric whisk. Then I carefully added the self raising flour (65g) and cocoa powder (40g). In a most unusual display of care I actually sifted these into the egg / sugar mixture – I don't know why but it seemed particularly important not lose all the air that I had whisked in. When it came to pour the mixture into the tin (you haven't missed an ingredient, this is a fat free sponge) it looked basically like a chocolate mousse.

While this baked (at 220ºC for 10minutes) I started the filling. I whisked 150ml of cream. In another bowl I whisked (this recipe uses a lot of bowls and a lot of whisking) half of the tin of chestnut purée (I did cut a corner here as the recipe said you were supposed to sieve this but this just seemed crazy) with 3 tablespoons of hot milk, 1 tablespoon of hot coffee (you're supposed to use coffee essence but I don't have any and there was a little bit of coffee left in a cafetiere that Matt had made for himself earlier) and 50g of caster sugar. You're also supposed to put brandy in but not being sure of the alcohol consumption practices of our expected (and possibly expectant) guests I left this out. Then you fold the cream into the rest of it. And that's the filling.

The next bit of the recipe seemed like it was going to be the tricky bit. You have to take the sponge out of the oven and immediately turn it out, remove the greaseproof paper and roll it up (the cake, not the paper). I prepared for this operation by covering a board in icing sugar to turn the sponge out onto. The sponge turn out subsequently resulted in an icing sugar bomb effect all over the work surface. It wasn't until I later re-read the recipe that I realised you were supposed to use caster sugar, which would probably have made considerably less mess. I worked quickly but the sponge rolling was entirely unsuccessful, despite following the recipe's tip of scoring where the first roll would go. I ended up with three separate pieces of sponge that sort of fitted together. You then have to leave it to cool before adding the filling.

I used this pause to decorate the biscuits. Time pressures meant that I needed to keep this simple. I melted some plain chocolate and used this to drizzle over the holly leaf shapes. We had reached the ominous 5 o'clock when I was actually expecting people to arrive. I had a lot of melted chocolate left and decided that I would cover the Christmas tree shapes with this and then put on a few silver balls. The timing was bad because just as my haphazard decorating was going on Matt's auntie who is an expert cake decorator arrived. But I was not to be deterred. After greeting our new guests I returned to the Bûche. But it was still not cool and despite my impatience I knew better than to put a cream based filling in a hot cake.

So I went back to the biscuits. I melted some white chocolate and used this to drizzle over the angels / fairies (to which I then added a bit of pink sprinkly sugar stuff) and to cover the snowmen (to which I then added some multi-coloured hundreds and thousands). Every spare work surface was now covered with festive biscuits covered in chocolate that needed to set.

But I just managed to find a space to work on (the now cool Bûche). I “unrolled” it, spread the filling all over and re-“rolled” (stack would be more accurate). The filling sort of spilt out of the ends but it didn't look too awful. I whisked another 300ml of cream (the fact that it is a fatless sponge is clearly no message about the lipid content of the recipe as a whole) to cover the top with – this would hopefully make it look rather more Christmassy. Now I did deviate from the recipe a little. I just had a feeling that it would be improved by something a little fruity so halved some glacé cherries and attached these to the cream at one end of the log (I didn't want to cover it in cherries as I know that they're not to everyone's taste).

Then I dusted with cocoa powder (back to the recipe). I was rather pleased with the effect but thought that it would look even better with a supplementary dusting of icing sugar (recipe deviation) – it did. The scene was completed by the application of the plastic Christmas figurines (holly, father Christmas, reindeer) that Barbara, my mother-in-law, had kindly picked up for me (don't fret I have paid her back). For a first attempt it looked good but, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

To be continued.......

(This would be a really far too long blog if I don't split it up; you are after all getting multiple recipes.)

Saturday's sweet things

Recently I've mostly gone off sweet things, and therefore haven't had them in stock. But this evening I really fancied a nice biscuit. I now faced a choice:

1. Get changed out of my pyjamas and make my way to the corner shop to take a chance that they had something nice in stock.

or

2. Make something myself.

I went for option 2.

Still not being in total sweet-toothed mode I was feeling quite picky about what sort of biscuit I was going to make. It would have to feature ginger or lemon. Having done a lot of ginger baking recently I opted for lemon. It being reasonably late I didn't want anything too complex so had in mind some sort of lemony shortbread. I found a recipe for orange shortbread and felt that it would be reasonably safe to substitute the orange for lemon.

Not wanting to feel left out Matt, my husband, decided that he wanted to take part in some kitchen based activity too. He announced that he was going to make a crumble (probably his second favourite non-chocolate pudding). We usually have plenty of fruit in the freezer, the current selection being cherries, gooseberries and raspberries (or maybe loganberries). After persuading Matt that none of these were likely to make a good combination (there's a conspicuous absence of apple which goes with everything in a crumble, a bit like yeast extract in savoury dishes) he settled on just defrosting the gooseberries.

Meanwhile he made the crumble topping. This is one of the most reliable recipes that my mum has ever given to me and requires just a little manipulation of ratios:

• 3 parts flour (you can substitute some with oats, but Matt didn't today)
• 2 parts sugar (a reasonably grainy sort, Matt used caster, granulated would probably have been fine or even including a bit of demerara. You can actually reduce the amount of sugar)
• 1 part fat (I think butter is best)

For a usual sort of size crumble 1 part = 50g is fairly good. Matt mixed the dry ingredients together and then rubbed in the butter.

It was a good job that my shortbread recipe didn't require the rubbing in of butter as this is to be avoided whilst in a dressing gown. Instead I whisked together the butter and sugar and lemon rind, stirred in the flour and only had to use my fingers to pull it all together into a ball. I tried a new technique for rolling out. On a popular television baking contest I have noticed that the contestants often use their rolling pin on top of a piece of greaseproof paper. Not wanting to waste greaseproof paper I used my rolling pin on top of a thin plastic chopping board (at least that's what I've always used them for before today, I think mum gave them to me). This worked really well to get an even roll and no unwanted stickage.

Matt was now concentrating on applying the crumble topping to the gooseberries and I was getting tired. When I get tired get very bad at making decisions so I slightly distracted Matt and asked him what shape lemon shortbread he would like: hearts. I can do hearts and not having totally lost my decision making faculties decided to go for smallish hearts – this would make more which would hopefully mean the whole lot would last longer.

Both of our creations were ready to go in the oven at the same time. The lemon shortbread were ready after 10 minutes or so. The crumble would take a little longer. Unfortunately my biscuit craving wouldn't be met for a few minutes yet as I had to wait for the shortbread to cool. But that few minutes passed quickly enough and the first test was with the mis-shapen bit that was left over after I made all the hearts. A little bit of warm lemon shortbread was just what I was after and then I was ready for bed.

But Matt was keen that I try his crumble, so I agreed to a spoonful. But spoons come in different sizes and the kind of spoon that Matt had in mind was clearly larger than the kind of spoon I had in mind. Still, it was tasty, not too sweet and the top was nice and crunchy (yet slightly gooey – in a good way – where it met the fruit), and I slowly made my way through my portion.

I was definitely ready for bed now and Matt agreed to package up the food. The crumble would make a good Sunday pudding. The recipe said that the shortbread would keep for 2 weeks in an airtight container – obviously the recipe does not take into consideration the resilience of the householders when faced with something delicious.

When it came to pudding time on Sunday I was slightly confused. When we went to bed there was definitely enough for a bowlful of crumble each. Now all that was left was some gooseberries. According to Matt the rest of the crumble had just disappeared somewhere. On further questioning it transpired that it had disappeared into his mouth. But I had psyched myself up for pudding so undeterred decided to turn the remaining gooseberries into a fool. I am not sure what the technical definition of a fool is but I basically added some crème fraiche and tinned custard (about the same amount of each) to the gooseberries, so that overall there was approximately a 1:1 ratio of fruit to creamy stuff. It was absolutely delicious. Possibly (but don't tell Matt) even more delicious than the original crumble.

As for the shortbread, I give them half a week max.

Wednesday's men and ladies

I had foolishly promised one of my work mates some form of ginger baking for today. This was a foolish promise because I hadn't really planned how I would fit baking into my evening – there were a lot of chores that needed doing. On the plus side baking is preferable to chores. My services were also to be called upon for a rehearsal of an imminent best-men speech (yes, there are two of them).

I fancied doing some sort of biscuits and had a browse of my recipe books. There were loads of recipes for different types of ginger biscuits so I opted for what seemed to be the easiest, involving the fewest ingredients, from one of my most trusted recipe books: gingerbread men. Thus far I'd managed one chore – putting away the groceries that had just arrived from a large internet order. I decided that in order to achieve my chore goals I'd need to do some multi-tasking so put a load of washing on before starting work on the baking.

The recipe said to melt 2 tablespoons of black treacle with 50g of butter and 15ml of milk. Thinking about it now I'm not sure that the milk is really necessary but the book has “dairy” in the title so I think they're keen to get as many farmyard products in as possible. I have found that it's very difficult to accurately measure any type of treacle or syrup product in any units apart from grams (or another actual weight I suppose). This was further complicated because the recipe seemed to indicate that 2 tablespoons of black treacle is equivalent 60ml. As far as I'm concerned one tablespoon is 15ml (no matter what the substance), so I was confused. I wasn't about to start working out the density of black treacle so I just went with 2 big dollops of black treacle.

While that was melting I mixed together 100g plain flour, 50g sugar (soft brown) and 1 (generous) teaspoon of ground ginger.

The next instruction was to mix the treacle mixture into the dry ingredients until it formed a soft ball. Once I'd thoroughly mixed the two sets of ingredients it resembled nothing like a soft ball. It was more of a sludgy cake mixture. In retrospect perhaps I should have just beaten in an egg and turned it into a cake but in my mind I was committed to gingerbread men. So I added a bit more flour in the hope of turning the sludge into a soft ball. After several additions of flour (just a little at a time) I worried that the ginger would be losing its potency so I added another shake of this. With a few more little additions of flour my soft ball finally formed.

The final part of the pre-bake was surprisingly uneventful. I rolled out to about half a centimetre and then cut out both men and lady shapes (with a clever double-sided cutter that I had acquired from my mum). They baked for about 10 minutes at 180°C and came out looking remarkably like gingerbread men and ladies.

Gingerbread men and ladies aren't the same without decoration. The recipe had said to apply currants for eyes, nose, buttons etc before baking but we didn't have any currants and sultanas were too big. So I decided to risk some post-baking icing. Icing is not my strong point. Cautious to avoid my usual mistake of making it too runny I tipped a load of icing sugar into a bowl and very slowly added water, just half a teaspoon at a time. It's on occasions like these that I would like to own some food colouring. But I don't, so we would have to make do with all white features. I was not about to start using a piping – this would require my full concentration and by now I was in full swing with the best men speech. Instead I applied the icing with a cocktail stick (or tooth pick if you prefer) and finished off with a few silver balls.

I don't think they were the greatest gingerbread men and ladies ever made – slightly on the tough side – but my colleagues were very polite and said that they enjoyed them and no-one lost any teeth.

Even still, next time I'm going to try a different recipe. And maybe I'll invest in some food colouring.

(In case you were wondering the best men speech went down very well).