Tom Cruise has been filming some scenes for the latest Mission Impossible movie about 15 miles away from here. Doing the usual spy capers….fighting on top of a speeding steam train.
Usually he’s trying to save the world from apocalypse….
If he’s braving the Yorkshire weather then it must be a really big world threat this time. Something truly horrifying must be going down in Yorkshire. In a separate note I’m about to bake a cake.
Warning this post contains some disturbing baking images.
This house had an idea. Some next level pancakes….
Not content with messing up normal pancakes let’s go a stage further. Pancake sandwiches. So what filling could we go for?
Chocolate biscuits. Carefully warmed chocolate biscuits. How hard could that be.
First Try….
Erm…. As Spock would say ‘it’s a chocolate biscuit filling Jim but not as we know it’.
After a number of other shocking tries we finally produced this….
We can officially call this a warmed chocolate biscuit filled pancake sandwich.
The message here. If keep throwing punches, you might be the worst boxer ever, but eventually one will land.
It is a beautiful planet.
What is never beautiful is my food skills. What words are more appropriate.
Abomination
Shocking
Horrible
Disaster
Dreadful
Petrifying
Well today I almost outdid myself. Nearly messed up the easiest thing. All I had to do was make strawberry jelly. The supermarket didn’t send the Jelly Cubes but that was not a major issue. I had rather cleverly put aside a packet of the powder jelly just in case.
So I came to make the said jelly. All I had to do was add boiling water, stir then put the bowl in the fridge. So I emptied the powder into the bowl, added the water and stirred.
Ok why is strawberry jelly brown coloured……
I continued to stir expected it to turn red eventually. No that is definitely brown. Now it was time to check the jelly packet. Ok ot was the same shape as a jelly packet. The same colour as the normal brand of jelly we buy. BUT the words STRAWBERRY JELLY did not feature that prominently. What did feature prominently was the words CHINESE BROWN GRAVY.
In my defence why would you put Brown Gravy in a bright Red Jelly looking packet…
Jelly is off today’s menu, Stir Fry is strangely very much on….
Oh no it’s pancakes. I have been let back into the kitchen. How can I wreck the pancakes this year. Like most things baking – they don’t come naturally to me. So this year the ingredients are ready. Carefully measured out.
What could possibly go wrong…
AND the results…..
Where do I start….
Not exactly round. Not exactly fluffy and light think putty. Either to thin or verging on a bread loaf. The taste well I thought ‘delicate, unobtrusive flavouring’ while Hawklad thought ‘tasteless mush only saved by mountains of sugar’.
So somewhere between 5 out of 10 to 1 out of 100. But here’s the thing. Pancake Day was special this year. Really special. It made the day DIFFERENT. In these lockdown times that makes it special.
The sky that keeps on giving.
That’s so unlike our kitchen which certainly does not keep on giving. We are not having much luck with shopping over the last week. No pumpkin for Halloween and now no toffee apples for bonfire night. Our local store is only stocking essential items. Clearly they don’t have children – toffee apples are most definitely essential. Our supermarket is not stocking them this year. But most helpfully are stocking toffee apple flavour breakfast bars (not very good on a stick) and toffee apple flavour strong alcoholic cider. Actually cider might work for some teenagers but again not very good on a stick.
So the only option was to try and make them ourselves. I’ve had major issues with toffee apples before. Looking good as we had golden syrup and caster sugar in stock. Attempt 1 and 2 arc welded to the pan. Attempt 3 had the stickiness factor of water (even after 20 minutes boiling away).
Attempt 4 produced a little bit of stickiness so we took that one.
“Dad I will get the wooden sticks, where are they?”
Oh no I forgot to get them. We can just use forks stuck in the apples….
“What a muppet.”
Sorry Son.
“Dad where are the apples.”
Pants I didn’t get any apples as well….. We’ve only got the ones from our tree. They taste super sour.
“You are a gigantic muppet”
We could just eat the toffee with a spoon….
AND THATS WHAT WE DID….
An apple crumble. One of my apple crumbles. Actually not a bad one at all. Very tasty.
Unfortunately not all crumbles are the same. Certainly not mine. Like the one I made a couple of nights back. All seemed on track. Apples picked from the tree. Apples cored, peeled and cut into pieces. Placed in a bowl and seasoned – generous helpings of sugar added – these are sour apples. Then a fine gluten free crumble was made and applied lovingly to the pie dish. The crumble was cooked at the right temperature and for the right time. A beautiful custard was prepared. Just perfect. What could possibly go wrong.
“Dad I can’t taste any apples. In fact I can’t find any apples in my portion!”
Nonsense must be there Hawklad. Your just imagining that……
Oh hang on I can’t find any apples in my portion as well, just crumble and custard….
**** So I went into the kitchen and there on the table was the unused bowl of apples. I had made Apple Crumble Surprise. The surprise being that it contained no apples. ****
See the sun does shine in Yorkshire – occasionally.
How can baking be so hard. Everything seemed to be going so well and then you end up with very odd shape bread. One day, one day.
Maybe I can blame these baking woes on a lack of sleep. At least it ended up tasting ok. So it’s kind of a result.
I was sat drinking my herbal tea and having my misshapen bread with some hummus. Really, is this what life has become….. sudden urge for proper coffee and a sausage roll. But that is life currently for me. I might wish for something else but circumstances dictate otherwise. Wow that feeling could cover so many things. But at that precise moment my eyes wandered to a book on the table. A book about Ski Jumping. One small dream is remembered.
I have always wanted to go to and see just one Ski Jumping competition. Have never got round to doing that. Circumstances have repeatedly prevented that. Now as a single parent with a son who struggles to get to the front gate of the house, those circumstances seem to be even more insurmountable. Another winter will pass. It’s definitely not happening this season. Maybe not for a number of years.
Yes it’s a little deflating but don’t get me wrong. That dream hasn’t died. It’s still there. Still cherished. The future still offers hope. Just have to deal with the here and now. In all likelihood autumn and winter will see no real change in our circumstances. The next 6 months will be largely restricted to our house and garden. Very few social encounters. Single parenting day in day out. More days of dodgy bread and hummus lunches. But it is what it is. Will just deal with that. But I won’t forget those special dreams. That what keeps me going.
Yesterdays announcement of my new signature dish – The Pizza Cheesecake – seemed to be as popular as Trump announcing that he would be starting to model revealing beach costumes…. So I have decided to slightly tweak the dish. Just a superficial change. I’ve kept the base and ditched the rest of the cake. So it’s goodbye pizza and hello to strawberry, blueberry and marshmallow cheesecake.
It might not look much but wow it tasted good. Definitely my new dish.
Warning… if you don’t like this version of the cake then I will may be forced to model beachwear. Trust me that’s a step you don’t want to unleash on the world. The last time I took my shirt off on a beach, I was quickly surrounded by whale specialists. Buckets of water were then thrown over me until the tide came in, so they could attempt to refloat me……
It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-off this weekend. Let’s get baking. All the tremendous creations and my awful ones are appearing on Mel’s wonderful site.
Remember to send in your creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….
crushedcaramel@gmail.com
Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities (in my case).
All the great chefs of the world have a signature dish. Gordon F###### Ramsey has his Beef Wellington. Thomas Keller has his smoked salmon crisps. Heston Blumehthal has his snail porridge. So clearly I need one. After much thought. Much ‘thought means’ looking at what I’ve got in the cupboards, I may have mine now. It needs tweaking. When I say tweaking I mean it needs to be made edible……
I give you the Pizza Cheesecake. Sweet base, Turmeric whipped cream, Tomato Ketchup and Yorkshire Cheddar Cheese. With a secret spice ingredient. Would tell you but the label has dropped off that spice, so I have literally no idea….
Remember to send in your Great Bloggers Bake-off creations to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….
crushedcaramel@gmail.com
Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities.
When you get a day of homeschooling disasters then you might as well add to the mayhem. Baking mayhem.
First up a simple sponge cake. It rose about as much as my bank account balance. Not at all. But a bit of homemade whipped cream came to the rescue. At least it tasted good.
Then it was a flour free mini chocolate cake. Ok it started off as a soufflé. In temperatures over 170C it did rise beautifully. Anything lower – who let the air out….. Sadly even whipped cream couldn’t really save it. At least it tasted almost ok.
The Great Bloggers Bake-off is fast approaching on the 18th-19th July. Why don’t you join in the fun. Whether you can bake or not. Let’s have fun.
Remember to send in your creations (you can start early) to Mel (CrushedCaramel). Maybe your entry is not baking just something for a picnic like a sandwich, drink or salad….
crushedcaramel@gmail.com
Let’s see if we can literally blow Mel’s and our wonderful judge Jeanne’s (A Jeanne in the kitchen) socks off with our creations and monstrosities.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 