A Way to the Boy's Heart

The boyfriend isn't really one for desserts (crazy, I know! but I love him in spite of this awful affectation), all he really likes is an apple crumble or apple pie. Now, as we learnt from a previous blog post I have not yet mastered pastry, so I had to resort to an old classic that is his only other preferred dessert: Victoria Sponge.

When I was younger, for some reason, I could never manage "big cakes" despite very little difference in technique from their smaller counterparts, but I thought I'd throw caution to the wind and attempt it anyway.

Something must have changed over the years, as it was quite a success. I did have one major issue, the first half stuck to the tin and i had to break it a bit to get it out, but I used that one as the bottom so no-one would really know. For the second half I lined the tin with greaseproof paper and it came out with no worries.

The only cream I had was a week old, and pretty questionable, so I just used raspberry jam for the filling, and topped it with the classic sprinkle of icing sugar.

I actually surprised myself with how good it tasted! Even the week old left overs got eaten by my housemates family, so it must have been good.

Most importantly it got the thumbs up from the boyfriend. So, until I can master an apple pie, or failing that a cake based model of Bruce Springsteen, good old Victoria Sponge will have to do.

The Great Workplace Bake-Off

At work I sit on a pod (or booth as it has once been called, much to the amusement of the rest of the pod) with a couple of other keen amateur bakers, so last weekend we decided that we would all bake something delicious to share with everyone at work on Monday.

I've gained the nickname of "the biscuit queen" at work due to the fact that I mostly make biscuits rather than cakes; this teamed with the fact that I knew that one of the other girls was going to be making cupcakes, meant that I decided to make some kind of biscuits. I had white chocolate left over from the chocolate orange cupcakes so decided to make white chocolate cookies.

I've never made cookies before, but thought it was worth a shot, if they turned out horrendous I still had time to make something else, that I wouldn't be embarrassed to present at work. I followed a recipe found online, however it turned out to produce a dough that was far too wet, so with trepidation I added some more flour until the dough was a workable consistency and then just refrigerated it for a long while.  I wanted the cookies to have a rustic look so I didn't use a cutter, I simply rolled the dough into balls and then flattened each ball down with my fingers.

They looked pretty good, and they tasted great. They didn't hang around long at work, that's always a great test of how good they are. If they are still on my desk on a Tuesday, then I know I did something wrong!

After the success of my cookies I decided to further push the boat out and tackle something that I could never master as a child: pastry

It turns out I can't master it as an adult either. I tried to make jam tarts and they turned out, well, shit, is probably the most accurate word. I think I overworked and then overbaked the pastry. I also put too much jam in so that it overflowed. Even the boyfriend said they tasted bad, that's when I know it's a disaster!

They looked pretty shit and tasted pretty shit, but you live and learn.

There's always next time.....

All quiet on the blogging front...

This blog has been pretty quiet of late, I didn't realise just how long it had been until I saw the date of the last post! It doesn't mean I haven't been getting my hands dirty in the kitchen it's just that my camera was out of action for a while.

Quite the opposite in fact, I've been baking pretty regularly, my workmates now pretty much just expect treats on a Monday morning!

A couple of the highlights created over my quite period include, orange chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate icing and my own version of jammy dodgers. The cupcakes took two attempts to get right, the first time I followed a fancy recipe on-line that included melted chocolate in the cupcake mix, these turned out pretty disastrous, so in the end I fell back on the old faithful cupcake recipe I always use, and they were great. It was my first time using a piping bag to decorate too, whilst they didn't look amazing, the icing tasted amazing!

My jammy dodgers went down an absolute treat at work, I've had requests since to make them again, so I definitely will be at some point. They were just a slightly modified shortbread recipe; i cut out circles and then cut smaller circles into half of them, then when cooked sandwiched them together with raspberry jam. They were great but I know I can make them better, in terms of both taste and appearance!

Sorry, no pictures due to my dead camera, but the pictures return in the next post!