It’s Autumn here in Yorkshire and Autumn means lots of really sour apples from our creaky old tree. What to do with them….
A few years back I would descend on my mum’s with bags laden with apples. She knew exactly what to do with them…. Make the most perfect apple crumbles.
So why not.
Not as good as mums but not bad at all. It’s amazing what difference shed loads of sugar and honey can make.
If I can do it…..
It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-off real soon.
Why don’t you have a go…..
You can find more details at Mel’s wonderful blog.
All I had to do was bake 12 fairy cakes. Even I can do that surely. All was going so well. The cake mix passed the Hawklad eating it from the bowl test.
I just had to put it into the oven for 12 minutes and remember to take it out. No need for a timer, I just have to focus for 12 minutes. I can do that. I can avoid being distracted.
TWENTY EIGHT minutes later….Pants…..out the abominations came from the oven. A tad CRISPY.
Attempt two, this time with TIMER.
And the results. The great taste test from Hawklad.
“Well it’s not terrible”
I will settle for that. Eat your heart out Gordon Ramsey, that’s a review.
Just a few weeks to raise my game for the 2022 Great Bloggers Bake-off. Mel has all the details and all the proper, delicious baking results.
Time to don your aprons, time to get passionately whisking, time to tend your cobblers. The Great Bloggers Bake-off is coming back on the 15th and 16th of October. You know it makes sense.
So in the buildup to the big weekend I will be donning the full HazMat protective gear and baking an item a week. This weekend Frankenstein’s Monster will be a Sponge Cake, sounds simple. However let’s remember some of the high end cuisine this kitchen has yielded in the past.
It’s been a few weeks since the Great Bloggers Bake off happened. It was wonderful and so much fun. Along with all the great baking bloggers, two people need a real shout out for all the work they put into this. Mel (CrushedCaramel) for putting this all together and Jeanne (A Jeanne in the Kitchen) for judging the entries.
You can check out all the fabulous entries on Mel’s site. So many fabulous entries and a few other rogue ones……
Sometimes going rogue works….
The Bake-Offs awesome judge Jeanne has awarded me an effort star. That feels like a Michelin Star to a baker like me. I am on the United Nations Baking Crimes list. So a star is a huge win for me even though it might technically not have been awarded on baking talent in my case. 😂😂😂😂😂 You can check out all the true baking stars here.
The next star I need is in POETRY. Again I am on the International Poetry Crimes list. I am Bad at poems, real BARD. I have been asked by the authorities to Cease and Desist on rhyming. Who am I to argue. I have tried to stop but as a one off, Mel asked if I would write a poem with her for the Bake-Off.
So can you spot the lines that someone with talent wrote (Mel) and the ones that a truly appalling poet like I did’eth pen.
As I dream then what better time can there be to try to make some homemade ICE CREAM. So after a hunt I located one of those random impulse purchases that never made it out of the box. An Ice Cream Maker. Then the panic. How on earth am I going to fit that big bowl which needs freezing for 8 hours into a rammed freezer. I can’t remember that bit on the glossy advert. It just said make delicious ice cream easily at home….. So an hour later the freezer is bursting at the seems. The lid is weighted partly down with my heaviest kettlebell.
Wait patiently for 6 hours….. I’m sure two hours won’t make that much difference.
So in went the dairy and gluten free ingredients. Lots of tinned coconut milk, vanilla, decaf coffee and maple syrup. That kinda thing. Plus cookie dough….. why does my attempt at cookie dough look like rabbit droppings 😳😳😳😳😳
Then the press the machine button and it stirs…..why didn’t I just use my food mixer and save the money.
The end result…..
Not sure the famous ice cream brand will be too happy being associated with my attempt. But it is recycling….
Whisper it. It was nice……. WOW.
We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
Time for more baking. Yes time to play some ominous Hammer Horror music. It started off as just a standard gluten and dairy free loaf of bread. Then I remembered, it’s all about LOVE.
What could I add to the bread dough.
Without enough thinking time I went for it. Sunflower seeds. Ok that’s sensible. Dairy free cream and Strawberry Jam. Not so sensible.
So I give you Strawberry Jam Bread….. Looks ok. Tastes different but not unpleasant. That almost worked and I do love a Cream Jam Scone. So yes bread love.
Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part in the Great Bloggers Bake Off Festival of Love. Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
There is nothing better than sneaking into the open washing machine as it’s being loaded with clothes. Select a lovely sock and then leg it outside. Once the sock is outside then it’s lost to the wilds…
If only some other things could be lost to the wilds.
With the Great Bloggers ‘Festival of Love’ Bake-Off fast approaching it was time for another creation. Yes it was time to move to Def Con 3.
I tried to keep this simple. A basic sponge cake. Dairy and Gluten Free. Well it started well, with carefully measured out ingredients then the first disaster. For some reason my mind mixed up 20ml of tepid water with 320ml…. Talk about a mucky swimming pool. Not quite the smooth batter I was looking for.
I’m sad to say I panicked. I grabbed the flour jar and just poured. But why was the flour brown…. Yes I had grabbed the cocoa tin. Then I checked the next tin, this one had white contents. But as I poured it became clear this was caster sugar. By the time I had found the proper flour tin the cake mic was looking a right mess. Hawklad recommended that the best course of action was now just to randomly add more ingredients. So we added cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, orange peel and maple syrup.
The end result. Well it looks like a cake. Bizarrely it’s feels like a cake. As for the taste….. Well love can take many forms, but this cake probably isn’t one of those…
Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and baking ideas into:
CRUSHEDCARAMEL@GMAIL.COM
Already Mel is receiving so many fantastic submissions and the occasional disaster 😂😂😂😂.
Yes it’s fast approaching. Do you feel the baking love.
We would love you to take part as well!! Please send your baking photos and ideas into:
crushedcaramel@gmail.com
Already Mel is receiving lots of recipes, photos, poems and song suggestions. Please remember this is an INCLUSIVE festival. If it’s wonderful baking, we LOVE it. If it’s a baking abomination, we LOVE it.
Talking about abominations it’s time I got going. Baron Frankenstein has erected the lighting rod and has started bringing to life baking monsters.
Today’s horror is a loaf of bread. A cheese loaf. A loaf with the light, moist, tender, soft, airy and springy nature of weapons grade reinforced stainless steel. It might be a bread horror but it’s LOVED.
Oh yes it’s back. This August sees the return of an old friend. The Great Bloggers Bake Off. This times it’s LOVE…
See you in the kitchen.
As you can tell from the quality of the design photo– it’s not mine. The wonderful Mel is doing a shed load of awesome work for this event. Check out her site for so much more.
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 ourwonderfuljudgeJeanne’s(A Jeanne in the kitchen)socks off with our creations and monstrosities (in my case).
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 