Can you ever have enough......

.......baking books?
I really do not think so.
I make something, sometimes many things, from each of the books I buy, yet the compulsion to have more is always there.  First there is the 'noticing' of a book, whether it be by recommendation from someone (or by amazon - they get me every time). The imagining begins. I begin to wonder what delights may be inside, could there be the perfect recipe for something I already make and love? Something new I have never tried before and always wanted to? What photos are in there?  Will they make be drool at the very thought of the pressure of a pastry fork?
When a new book arrives I almost want to create a ceremonial moment, take the time to enjoy every detail of the book, the feel of the pages turning, the smell, the potential locked inside. It's all very much an indulgence!

Recently I have become obsessed with patisseries, windows full of shiny glazed delights, thoughts of delicate pastries and not so delicate slabs of bread, wanting to refine, to be precise, to hone my baking skills.  I love hearty classics, always, but I want the challenge of having to be more skilled.  Always wanting people to exclaim "you did that?".  You know that slightly insulting/impressed thing we all do? I want to get to grips with liquid fondant and make French Fancies. The book I recently bought by the amazing Peggy Porschen will help with that.  I want to get to grips with pastry so I  ordered this only the other day...

(image from Amazon.  Click here to see the book)

Just look at that cover!!  I cannot wait to delve into this book! I am not scared of pastry at the moment, a little bemused by it, not fully understanding it when I make it, not fully 'there' with it like I am with cakes. I want to become excellent and produce exquisite things. Things made of pastry.

I have that image of a tiered cake stand all prepared for afternoon tea and with that image I hear myself wanting to recreate it with things all made by me. 

You see why I *need* this book??

It may well be the fact that, in the main, it still feels wintry, but I have a notion for nordic baked things too so have my eye on this book...

(image from Amazon. Click here to see book) 

 This book sounds amazing. Those breakfast compotes and jams, those cakes and bread, mmmm cinnamon buns! Big amounts of *sighing*. I am so so so very tempted.

But for now, bring on the pastry making.

Always thinking about baking and loving the abundance of books. 

In my wee world, you can never, ever have enough!

X

P.S I'm always posting photos on Instagram so come and have a looksee, I'm jammypudding on there.

April showers of a baking kind.

For me, April hasn't showered rain so much as flour and icing sugar.  I've been a busy ol' bee with birthdays and things and when I look at my Instagram feed (I'm jammypudding on there by the way) there is an abundance of bakes.
Back at the beginning of April I turned 39 and had a lovely, lovely day which was made all the lovelier for having this...

 Lemon cake decorated with handmade daisies.  It tasted so so so good.  I'd take lemon cake over all others (maybe?...might have to think about that claim) and it was kind of nice making myself a cake for my birthday.  Eldest Biscuit was outraged by the idea!
My father-in-law's birthday quickly followed mine so I made him his favourite coffee and walnut cake but this time I used my cool tin from Lakeland.  It has straight sides for individual cakes so you can make small versions of large cakes.  I was very pleased with how they turned out and will have to make mini Victoria sponges soon.

 The lead up to the end of the Easter hols meant I had to re stock the freezer with some bakes for my boys' lunch boxes.

Banana bread and

marble cake cut up into ickle pieces.  Sponge freezes really well and even though baking ingredients can be expensive by the time they are cut up small and used up, they work out quite cheap and although not exactly health food, better than processed and I do think cake makes people happy.  In my head my Biscuits are able to get through an afternoon of school with the help of their little cakes of happiness made with love by me.
I also made chocolate cheesecake for a friend as part of his Christmas gift of bakes throughout 2012.  I couldn't encourage a heart bypass so he didn't get a whole cheesecake, a few pieces were leftover for us.

 Oh my this cheesecake from Nigella's 'Feast' book is simply heaven in every mouthful and whenever I have it I feel I am in one of those old Flake adverts, having a special moment in a field of wild flowers. So good!

Last week I made madeleines for the menfolk as an after school and work snack (and of course a few for me too).  If you have never made them or let alone eaten one, please do.  Apart from the specialised tin (Lakeland sell one for under a tenner) they are very very easy wee cakes to make and quick too.  You can pretend, if you have a need to, to be refined and delicate whilst nibbling on one. I find it essential to drink tea from a china cup and saucer whenever I have one. Look at them, *sigh*!

 And finally, Eldest biscuit turned eleven yesterday.  All you parents out there will understand when I say I do not know how that happened so soon after him arriving but eleven he is.  I managed to convince him not to have his usual novelty sugarpaste clad birthday cake ( a 3DS this year) in favour of a chocolate cake made with chocolate from Hotel Chocolat. It's surprisingly cheaper weight for weight than Green & Blacks.  The self sacrificing mother that I am had to go into their shop in Edinburgh, forcing myself to take their free samples whilst shopping for his cake.  The things we do.
I didn't want to use my everyday, all-in-one cake (again from 'Feast') so opted for a luxury buttermilk one from 'Tea with Bea'.  This book is really lovely with seriously decadent bakes. It isn't a book for beginners I think but if you are a confident baker it's worth a looksee.  Here's how it turned out...

 I layered it with vanilla buttercream (which to be fair didn't compliment the sponge I feel, you live and learn) and covered it with chocolate buttercream.  I sprinkled over fudge pieces, Minstrels, smarties and gemstone drops from Hotel Chocolat.  I also made the bunting to decorate and little flags for these...

...mini vanilla cupcakes.  Eldest Biscuit likes to share his cake with family and friends so these were for those not so keen on a rich chocolate cake.  Too cute!
And of course there were the obligatory and traditional number biscuits.

For Christmas 2000, whilst pregnant with EB, I got Nigella's Domestic Goddess book from Mr Biscuit (he wrote inside "who's to say you're not already" sweet or what?) and knew when I saw these biscuits that I wanted to make them [for our cooking baby + any more] every year for birthdays and so far I have.  We joke that as grown men, my boys will still expect them. I followed the 'Biscuiteers' way for the icing and am getting to grips with icing bags and plastic bottles.
Here's a photo of my boy making a wish.

Oh my what a calorific month!  Just as well it wasn't all for me.  Yet I am dreaming of more.  I got a new book yesterday to sigh over and consider "What to bake?".

Indeed "What to bake?" .

X

I've been a busy wee bee with birthday business!

For us, the last two weeks of October is abundant in birthdays which is fabulous really - love a birthday - but bugger it's exhausting!  I feel sorry for Mr Biscuit too as inevitably we spend his birthday preparing for Youngest Biscuit's the day after so we never go out or celebrate much.  I did make him Lamingtons which has scored me many many tens of points in the Good Wife department.  Just as well as I barely had a second to send him birthday wishes.

Traditions were kept, birthday age biscuits...

...made every year of both of my Biscuits lives and now, always decorated with a brother at hand.

And of course there was a cake...

...based on the PS3 game Driver: San Fransisco, Youngest Biscuit's favourite game.  I had to edit this photo in cinemascope to match the feel of the game's opening sequence, very dramatic!
My amazing friend from the States who lives near to SF got me the Golden Gate Bridge which we spray painted red and really makes the cake, don't you think?  She sent over oodles of chocolatey pretzels too, the star that she is!
The Dodge Challenger (hark at me with the car names) was made from Sculpey clay so it could be kept.  I have to say it's a lot of fun making cakes like this but the sugar paste was so soft it was a right pain! I was tired after I admit. It was a cake four days in the making and I think all that creativity and organizing is exhausting!  I get very sick of baking too which I really do hate to admit.
After all this effort I will be terrorized with a remote control tarantula and Nerf Guns, such is life, with boys!

 It was my friend's special day yesterday and I got to be girly...

...which I don't get to do very often!
 It had been a busy old time and I really did deserve this...

Two more birthdays this weekend and I have just had my two year blogging anniversary, which is just a bit mad.  I think my second post ever included Youngest Biscuits birthday.

I must be off, Biscuits are back at school today, beds are stripped and Stormy (my Dyson that 'looks like a Stormtrooper') wants to come out and play.

X

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A richt ol' blether!

...to you all and thank you to those of you who left a comment on my last post.  It is a common query as to posting about such sad things but life is sad at times so thank you for your kind words.

Our new - above - phone arrived today.  I knew I could have probably found a 'real' one of these but time was short and I am lazy shopper so characteristically hopped over to Amazon.  Our old one's internal battery had died again and it seemed a waste of money always replacing them (rechargeables are expensive!!).  It was under thirty squids so I'm not complaining..  I like it and yet, I will still ignore it ringing, it's quite gorgeous ringing, most of the time.  Don't want to hear voice recordings and have people 'fishing' about possible PPI's.

I am still hexed and planned a long loving post waxing lyrical about the joys of hand sewing but I thought I'd show you how I am getting on...

It really is a labour of love because it hurts, a lot!  Not my sewing hand but the other pressing two hex's together.  I'm about a third of the way there, it's only - did I say only? - for the bottom half of a king size bed and am very VERY addicted.  I can be found wandering around the house, hex's and needle in hand.  I am going to want to make another I can tell.  Also I am finding the irony in shouting at my cats to "keep off" when I have throws on our bed for them to sleep on.  It's easier to deal with hair and any mess on a throw than on a whole duvet.  Do you like it so far?

We have also been making jam, emergency jam. 

So called because at a recent sleepover at their grandparent's house we got a phone call from Youngest Biscuit saying "We picked too many strawberries by accident, do you want some?"  "eh....okay".  In fact they went for 4lbs and ended up with twelve.  We gratefully received four of them and got to work. Youngest Biscuit devours jam and was thrilled to make some. Can I mention again the joy of a huge wooden spoon in a huge, in this case 'jeely', pan.  Oh and it tastes wonderful.  Today it will be lavishly spread on a Victoria Sponge.  I need cake.  Part celebration/relief and part comfort food.  My period finally arrived today, a week late, and although I doubted a vasectomy reversal I wasn't finding Mr Biscuits round tummy jokes funny.  The VS will taste all the sweeter today.

I'm in a right blethering mood today, shame I've no friends to chat with!!  Also world war three is happening again next door.  They're loopy mental, always arguing, but luckily one or the other storms out so there's usually a ceasefire. Tis all quiet at the mo.  Cannae be doing with all that negative energy when I'm in a mischievious mood.

I shall leave you with my take on a harassed Woody running from the paps. 

 
I cannot resist taking photo of Youngest Biscuit looking cross in his Woody outfit, it makes me laugh so so much.  He, on the other hand, does not like it!!  Not one bit.

X

A list of one thing (so not really a list) that I hate. Hate more than....

...being late, U2, mediocrity, bad cake and hangovers.


1.  When I went to put lemon cake mixture into my only working oven to find, in the time it had taken me to put together the mix, the element had overheated and gone kaput.

Let me just clarify, No EFFING OVEN SO NO EFFING CAKE!!!!!!

Please someone take this blade from my heart. 
I am not exaggerating.  I am beyond devastated and am not even going to discuss that homemade pizza was on the menu tonight....
Ignoring the fact that Mr Biscuit is and Electrician and elements are easy to get a hold of etc etc....my heart is broken, I feel I have lost a limb.  My birthday cake- my wee gift to myself - is still sitting on the worktop wondering it's fate.  Will it make it into an oven- am considering the risk of moving it to my parent-in-laws - or never furfil it's telos and become sponge because of it hanging around in it's unbaked state for hours?  I admit it will be hard for the baker in me to risk moving and/or baking at this stage in the game!

I wonder do you, my fellow bloggers, know me enough to understand the gravity of  my loss?

Yes of course you do!! 
 Don't you???

"you go home and you cry and you want to die!" and "heaven knows I'm miserable now!"

Morrissey knows what I mean!

Today I am putting the 'drama' in Drama Queen, well because I want to *stamps foot*!

X

An invitation!

Sponge + buttercream icing = happiness

Next week is National Cupcake Week!  

Can you think of anything more worthy of celebration?  Well of course you can but still I invite you all to join me in praising this humble little sponge by baking up a batch or two or three for that matter. If you are not a baker then buy some and enjoy! I for one, need little encouragement but will use this celebratory opportunity to maybe try something new or that recipe Hubby Biscuit has been requesting or just to stare at the little beauties before I devour them.  

I love cake.  

It's really as simple as that.  I love the alchemy of it.  I love the word.  I love the smell of it wafting through my home as that smell is home.  The varieties are endless as is the choice to suit yourself and bake the cake that does it for you.  Aah, the disappointment of bad cake, of horridly hard chocolate cake, of a bland powdery muffin!  The heartache...

Now cupcakes...oh those itty bitty cupcakes...I love how the sponge looks like a really comfortable bed with it's buttercream duvet.  I want to crawl into one and nap!  Yes, I know, I sound like a loon but I am confident there are some of you out there who feel the same (not you Heather, I know, not you!).  I have a bad case of the smittens!

Please join me next week in celebrating by baking some cupcakes and blogging about it.  I'd love to see which flavours you choose and photos of your finished masterpieces because that's what each and everyone is, an ickle masterpiece!  And always, most importantly, made with love!

Have fun!

X

Tomorrow it begins!

145ml  Vanilla Extract

1.925kg  Caster Sugar

1.4kg   Self Raising Flour

28   Medium Eggs

1.4kg  Salted Butter

1kg  Unsalted Butter

1kg   Icing Sugar
Strawberry jam...

2.5kg   Marzipan

3.5kg   Sugarpaste

6"  cake board

8"  cake board

10"  cake board

13"  cake drum

15"  cake drum

9 plastic dowels

15mm white satin ribbon

35mm  pink  satin ribbon

Victorian Diamonte Brooch

Pearl Headed Pins...

Various already owned equipment

Peggy Porschen's Cake Chic

One whole day to bake

Five days to construct and decorate

One morning to deliver...

and me!

=

one Wedding Cake for the lovely Bride and Groom....

DONE! 

Or it will be come Saturday 1.30pm!  

This time last year when my friend and fabby Hairdresser, asked me if I would make her wedding cake,  I panicked and said "NO WAY! I couldn't possibly manage that!" before I realized I am forever proclaiming "give it a bash!" to my boys so really I should follow my own prompting.  I'd baked cakes with sugarpaste before for my Biscuits, the mystery machine, the T.A.R.D.I.S, faces of monsters etc and other 'playing - like I did with plasticine when I was a wee lass' cakes.   But nothing in the category of what I call 'proper' cakes, the kind you spend lots of money on from specialized bakers, the kind you ponder over the construction and execution of.  The kind 'you'd need training' to make. 

I found myself rising to the challenge and armed with Peggy Porschen's latest book (why not be instructed by the best?) I embarked on Project Wedding Cake!  Ever the practical I knew I needed to practice, I needed to build up to a three tier, one that will be on show to at least a hundred people, be photographed and be eaten by EVERYONE there ( I live in a world where everyone loves cake you hear me Heather!  I couldn't bear it any other way!) and had to look as good as any professionals or I wouldn't be satasfied!  

That cake could NOT be my first attempt.

I started off with a single tier for my Mum's 60th Birthday...

It went really, really well and I learned lots, mainly that 'yes I can do this' and more importantly it's fun.  It tasted so, so, so, so good!  Next I moved onto my parent-in-laws Ruby Anniversary two tier cake...

This one went even better and I got just a little [read a lot] over-excited and addicted to smoothing the sugarpaste and rubbing my hands all over it.  The compliments on the night boosted my confidence no end and this was my first ON SHOW cake, seen by over a hundred people who didn't laugh at it AND ate it AND came back for more!

So here I am about to start on the home straight of Project Wedding Cake and I am excited!  I can't wait to get started and in truth see my friends faces on the day and watch them get wed and then have a ball sharing in it all with them!

Wish me luck!

X

Acceptance of a truth?

Recently I gave my gorgeous Father-in-Law, as a gift for his 60th Birthday, a voucher for Tea For Two at a tres posh hotel in Edinburgh (I could be gracious and say 'we' but c'mon, who organizes all the gift giving in your house?) .  Lovely, I'm sure you agree and the very thought of a posh afternoon tea does sound delightful but I had a thought.......a thought that came to me as I was dabbing the coconut and cake crumbs from my plate with my tongue.....am I refined enough to go posh?  I want to dab and lick plates clean.  I like a cake fork, nice plates, stands and all the presentation paraphenalia that goes to showing and eating any kind of cake or pastry at it's best BUT do I need the privacy of my own home so I can scoff it in an Aunt Sally, unlady like fashion? Shoving in teeny sandwiches instead of delicate nibbling? I have eaten quite a lot of cakes and pasties at various establishments (I love that word but really you know I mean cafe's, coffee shops etc) and cannot remember if any dabbing and licking of plates has taken place out there in public ( I find it hard to imagine not!).  Is it the thought of being somewhere so posh that I would be so self aware that I was uncomfortable I was doing the 'wrong' thing or more likely become a bit rebellious and go for a dramatically defiant lick of a plate? Exaggerated and unnecessary (debatable?).

There are many more important dilemmas in life I am sure.

But still I ask am I refined enough to go posh and more importantly do I even want to be?  Is it still expected of us?  Isn't refinement a list of behaviours learned and dependent on whether your were taught that list or not?  Issues of Class, Etiquette and the 'done' thing?  It's not just eating cake and sandwiches though, is it? It's a venture laden with questions of worthiness or acts of pretense.  Acting like it doesn't matter and you don't care whether you 'belong'.........or is there even such a thing as 'belonging'......too much pondering either way.

Let's just call it a treat and have done with it.  Yet I know there is always a chance of feeling discomfited which says more about me than what I am partaking in.

Can you see how 'clean' that plate is?

X

Good Moorneeng!!! (bad attempt at policeman from 'Allo 'Allo)

I do love mornings, they are positively the best part of the day.  It's the potential they bring.  Of a morning after dropping my gorgeous Biscuits off at school, I potter for a little time and then I must have a cappuccino.  I don't do caffeine much, it doesn't agree with me, but I have this one caffeine ritual everyday.  I then force myself to sit and ponder the deeds for the day............

So today, apart from the usual (B.O.R.I.N.G!) necessary domestic chores like dusting and hoovering, I need to replenish our frozen baked goods as stores are running low.  Cakes, biscuits, tray-bakes etc freeze really well and it means each day I can put a little something the the Biscuits' lunch bags for a burst of energy to get them through the afternoon at school. Hubby Biscuit can help himself too!!  So a  peruse of baking books me thinks!  Also I'm feeling like a plateful of comfort food this evening, macaroni cheese with added cauliflower (Hubby hates it so will add after his is served) with lots of green veg.  That does sound nice, not that I need a recipe to work from, but I love the photo in Rachel Allen's Food at Home book.  I, like many of you have been making varying forms of macaroni cheese for years, with or without onions, spring onions, pancetta, mascarpone, gruyere, strong cheddar, peas. The variations are limitless!  Has to be Marshalls Macaroni though!  I am strict on that.   But in all else, it's one of those 'what do I fancy?' meals. Yummy!!  I can't wait!!

A couple of stitches here and there and a little looksy at my favourite blogs and I'm set for the day!

X

Fun at the Fayre!

It's Christmas!!!!

I am getting a little bit excited about Christmas now, when I say a little I mean ALOT and with yesterday being my boy's school Christmas Fayre I was definitely full of Christmas spirit.  I was let loose on the Home-baking stand and what fun, what joy, what a lot of concentration it takes to add up 20 and 50 pences over and over and over.  I just managed a few pictures before the masses decended........and they did really quickly.

 

 

 I do love a cake stand!

 

my knitted cakes- including the 'boob' 

(sorry the for the blurry photo - I was in a rush)

one of the mums made these; aren't they really cute?

 All of the above disappeared at lightning speed which is usually the way with yummy scrummy cakes and tablet.

I'll leave you with my little tigers, now don't be scared........

'raaarrrrrrrrr!'

Merry Christmas!

X

Just wanted to share...........

............these lovely photos of my boys enjoying sparkler fun.

 

 

My eldest out in the garden in his jimjams unable to go to his Cubs Bonfire Night because of being poorly, we made do.  He's never been ill for such a length of time before and although he's back at school this morn he is still not 100%.

I have no idea how my Hubby took these.  He used some mad setting on the camera.  I don't know what most of them do!

We also celebrated my mum's 60th birthday this weekend with a meal for her..............

I do love a laid table.  Don't you?

 

 

......of Chicken stuffed with Haggis and Black Pudding, wrapped in Bacon, Creamy Pepper Sauce, Roasters, Boilees and lots of Green Veg.  Followed by a Chocolate Lime Cheesecake from Nigella Bites.  It was delicious, if I do say myself!  The napkin rings are a purchase from chachkedesigns at Etsy.  I love them and managed to find the perfect flowers to go with them.

I also baked her a cake which felt like my first 'proper' one.  I have made many a novelty cake for my boys in the shapes of things like a Tardis, the Mystery Machine, a Ben 10 Omnitrix and the like, but that feels like playing with plasticine, this was from a Peggy Porschen recipe and even had marzipan in it for goodness sake.  I am very pleased with how it turned out and it tasted really good.

I have been asked to make a wedding cake for a friend next summer so this was a starter cake and I will be baking a tiered one for my parents-in-law's ruby annniversary in January as another practice run.  I have to say it's not something I would like to do as a living or set up as a business.  It's fun but only, I feel, for friends and family.  I don't think I'd enjoy the pressure of exacting standards required by the public.  I like knowing if it's not perfect my loved ones won't mind.  I have never had a disaster but am a bit of a perfectionist and am never completely satasfied with the end result.  I always think I could have done something better.  I bet I'm not the only person out there like that!!

It's a beautiful, bitterly cold, frosty day here in my part of Scotland today and I took lovely photos to share on my way home from school but my camera batteries died so I will show them tomorrow.

Ali X

Birthdays and hangovers!!!

Now do not be mistaken, it was not MY birthday!!

It was my youngest Son's sixth and after two cakes (one home, one party; it made sense at the time) biscuits and a party I was in need of refreshment.

Unfortunately I was distracted from the quantities of red wine consumed by my large glass, (this is my default excuse!) my knitting and Jason Bourne. Suffice to say, today I am a little hungover and I am too old for hangovers!!!!!

Aren't the colours beautiful?

My dearest friend has a birthday tomorrow and I still have lots of knitting to finish and a huge cupcake to bake courtesy of my new purchase from Lakeland and it's still the October break from school so my boys' are around distracting me.............so I went begging to my beloved Gaggia.....

.....and ate the obligatory slice of party cake.

Now I must not let myself get distracted by my favourite blogs or my favourite drug... sorry I meant site, Etsy! If only!!!!!!!

Ali