I purchased a posh looking tart case in CoinCasa, an awesome home shop in Lucca. Last year I left 80 euro there, this year a bit less, could easily have ruined my credit card there!

The first tart from the case had to be summery one, with strawberries from my own patch in the garden, some raspberries, shortcrust pastry and creme pat. For the pastry I used 110 g of cold butter, 175 g of plain flour, 25 g of icing sugar, 1 egg yolk and a bit of water to bind it. Once in the case, I chilled it for 30 minutes then blind baked for 12 minutes, beans away for another 15 in about 180 degrees.  Tasty pastry, but so short, that handling it was quite difficult, might try a different ratio next time.

The creme pat was a disappointment, which is shocking, as I used Mary Berry’s method. Might be that I cocked it up! It tasted great, but was too runny even after a  night in the fridge.  I used 3 eggs, 70 g of vanilla sugar ( Mary’s recipe called for 90), 60 g of plain flour and whisked it up, while 400 ml of milk was heating up.  A splash of this milk helped loosen the egg mixture a bit. Hot milk got added slowly to the eggs, altogether returned to the pan and stirred for a few minutes until thickened- was the plan, but it didn’t thicken sufficiently. I also found it quite grainy, but not an issue a sieve couldn’t take care of.  Fresh fruit on top and then a strawberry jelly, half a portion, which I also hurried a bit and it resulted with half  of it messing up my fridge shelf.

So overall I had a good looking tart, at least until I sliced it! It tasted great, but will need more patience next time and a different ratio for the creme pat. Will be done again and improved.

Mary Berry’s. Saw her making it on telly, checked the recipe and had the base in the oven before taking Pizia for a walk. That’s how efficient I am. 🙂

I’ve made half of Mary’s portion, just to taste and see if it would make a nice pud for Christmas, I think it has a potential. The ingredients here are for my small round tin.

So, 13 g of cocoa powder was mashed into a paste with some hot water, then I added 50 g of margarine, 50 g of caster sugar, 50 g of self raising flour,1/2 tea spoon of baking powder and 1 egg all whipped into a cake, baked in a lined tin for 20 minutes in 180 degrees.  When making it next time, I’ll cut off some of the base, as in some places the base was nearly bigger than the layer of the mousse. What would also make the cake more fancy, I think, would be a thin layer of jelly maybe, instead I followed Mary’s suggestion and brushed the hot cake with whisky. Couldn’t taste it at all.

Once cooled, I made the mousse of 225 ml of whipping cream and 150 g of melted cooking chocolate. Mary recommends no more than 50% cocoa, but I found it lacking in excitement. Something has to be done next time to make that mousse more attractive. It looked great though, when the mousse set in the fridge for 5 hours, dusted with cocoa, a tower of raspberries on top, finished with icing sugar. Very nice, will be Olutafied next time.

 

Zuzia made it first and sent me the link to www.mojewypieki.com, an awesome website with lots of lovely stuff, that will follow here shortly.

Zuzia’s bread was well risen and she reckoned it was really easy to make and tasted great, so I bought some seeds and stuff and got cracking this afternoon.  I planned to make a simple supper with homemade bread, some antipasti and Pinot Gris, to nicely finish a day that featured looking at tiles, floors and bathrooms that will soon be fitted in our new, our own home.

For the bread I used 500 g packet of wholemeal bread flour, 25g of dry yeast ( next time I’ll try fresh), 1tsp of salt, 3 tbsps of sugar, 3 tbps of sunflower seeds( lovely flavour!), 1 tbsp of sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds, a small packet of Aspen porridge- that’s instead of wheat bran the recipe asked for. And finally a handful of pecan nuts, after Zuzia who threw some too. All this was bound together by 250 ml of like warm water,  Kitchen aid did the hard bit, then I proved it for 20 minutes. Then knocked it down, put into 2 small buttered tins, worked it again for a moment and then proved again for 20 minutes. Finally into the oven in 230 degrees. The recipe said about an hour in this temperature. It wouldn’t have worked for me, either because of the old, shitty oven, that was slightly smoking because of the full whack, or for any other reason, I had to turn it down to 200 degrees after 25 minutes.

The result was slightly low, but very tasty (sunflower) bread with very crunchy skin. Very filling too. Will be done again with fresh yeast and maybe worked by hand. 🙂

 

 

It has not been a good day in the kitchen.  I’m glad I tried that recipe before Easter, not only there is room for improvement, there is also time for improvement.  The recipe I used comes from The Ultimate Chief, Nick, who knows his food and I’m sure those buns in his hands are amazing, mine are shit.

Also, I’ve done something to my Kitchen Aid, my treasured, most beloved piece of cooking gear. I think that dough might have defeated it, which is annoying, cause it’s an American tank for this kind of jobs, maybe too high gear or something? I’m waiting for my own private engineer to come home and diagnose the problem. If I’ve damaged it, I’ll kill myself.

So here’s Nick’s recipe;

1 (7g sachet) fast action bread yeast

 

180ml warm milk

 

500g plain flour

 

80g butter or Stork margarine

 

pinch of salt

 

60g caster sugar

 

2 teaspoons mixed spice

 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

 

1 egg, beaten

 

1(100g bar) dark chocolate, broken up

 

extra flour for dusting

For the crosses

 

75g plain flour

 

75ml water

 

Few drops of almond extract

 

Add the dried yeast and warm milk to a large bowl. Cover and set aside for 5 or 10 minutes, until it looks frothy.

 

Sift the flour into another bowl and use your fingers to rub in the margarine, until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add salt, sugar, spices and candied mixed peel. Pour in the yeast-milk mixture, and add beaten egg and chocolate pieces. Mix to form a dough (it will be sticky).

 

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 5 – 10 minutes.

 

Rub some cooking oil around the surface of a large mixing bowl and place the dough in it. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about 1 to 2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Knead again for a few minutes, then cut into 12 even sized buns. Place in a deep-sided, lightly greased or lined 23cm (9 inch) baking tin. Cover with tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise again (about 30 to 40 minutes this time). Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C / Gas mark 6.

For the crosses: mix the flour and water together to form a soft paste. Flavour with almond extract (optional). Spoon into a clear plastic sandwich bag. Seal and snip off one of the corners, then pipe crosses onto each bun.

Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

Two things that went wrong with my version – the dough hasn’t risen enough, which makes the end product more like a rock cake than a bun. Also, I think they definitely need more sugar. And a glaze, which Nick’s recipe omits, I used apricot jam.

So, the plan is, I’ll make them again tomorrow, but I’ll use strong bread flour, fresh yeast, to increase the chances of the dough rising nicely, as it should do.  And I’ll use more sugar. I’m looking at another recipe, for the more traditional buns, might give that one a go, but I’m determined, there will be home made hot crossed buns this Easter and I’ll see to it. The only thing that can stop me is Izzie deciding to be born.

To be continued.

 

Yum, just finished the first piece of it. Very nice indeed, if only I could be bothered to get dressed and go get some cream cheese to make the proper topping and make it look great. I decided I can’t be bothered though, as it’s raining, while at home it’s lovely and I have my tea and will just leave the cake  the way it is.

Recipe from GF, picked for its numerous 5 star reviews- that always helps. I’m glad it’s risen nicely and is as light and tasty as promised, I cocked up a few carrot cakes in my life before.

For this one I used 175 g of muscovado sugar, 150 ml of veggie oil, mixed it with 3 beaten eggs. Then I added 175g of grated carrots, a zest of one orange, plus some of that sweet, cooked orange peel I still have from my Mum’s visit for Christmas. 50 g of raisins and same amount of chopped walnuts. Then 175 g of self raising flour with an extra tsp of bicarbonate soda and finally a big fat tsp of cinnamon and a bit less of freshly grated nutmeg. Once I combined all that, I added yet more cinnamon, which I adore on everything, apart from my kitchen rug- I had an accident yesterday and even Dyson didn’t manage to get all of it off.

The cake baked in 180 degrees for 45 minutes, filled the house with great smell. When it cooled a bit, I made the frosting out of some icing sugar, orange juice and the remaining Cointreau I had in the pantry- that bottle lasted me years! The recipe said that it should be as thick as single cream, I don’t like stuff sickly sweet though, so I stopped adding sugar when close to that point.

Very nice cake, the recipe is a keeper, next time though- proper creamy frosting.