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.
Some days the brain just won’t engage. Some days like that merge into some weeks. Some weeks even merge into some months, then you find the seasons feel the same. I try not to admit it but that’s what happens when your tired. You learn to push through it but your still tired.
It does strange things to you.
Hawklad fancied a cake today. The type of cake doesn’t matter, let’s just say it’s one I haven’t tried to bake before. But what could go wrong. I had a step by step recipe and I had all the ingredients.
So I started. Carefully following the steps. Initially felt like it was high end baking but then nagging doubts set in. This seemed an odd recipe. The ingredients seemed right but the measures seemed very odd. Very random. Then the brain fog parted briefly, but just long enough. It’s not random, the measures are going up in order.
1 measure of lime juice
2 measures of melted butter
3 measures of brown sugar……
Ok but now it’s 6 eggs. How can it be SIX eggs.
Oh pants. I was misreading the recipe. What I thought was measures was in fact the STEP numbers. It wasn’t SIX eggs, it was STEP SIX which if I had read it correctly would have required TWO eggs. Definitely OH PANTS…… Well in for a penny. Might as well stick to the mistake. So yes I used 6 eggs and continued with the sequential measuring system.
The end result. An absolute DISASTER.
A rather sickly tasting bread. Definitely more bread than cake. Sickly might be stage 7. Ended up with 7 measures cinnamon. Well at least the Birds enjoyed it.
Yes tiredness does strange things to the mind. Messing up baking is one thing, I just hope I’m not messing up much more important things.
It’s been a while. Too long. But fear not. Baking is back. As Spock would say, it’s baking Jim but not as we know it…. I like to call it Weaponised Baking.
I know so many of you wait for those Michelin Standard baking tips. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
So here goes.
I was about to bake a loaf of bread but I wanted to spice it up a tad. Maybe add some cheese, or a few Mediterranean herbs. But it just didn’t go far enough. What could I find in the fridge or cupboards which was game changing..
A few hours later we have……
I give you gluten and dairy free, no added sugar – BLACK FOREST FRUIT BREAD.
The end result, just a bit different from cheesy bread. The taste, well it’s different. As Hawklad described it
“Well it doesn’t taste poisonous, it’s a unique sensation. Its like my taste buds are being assaulted…..”
Another dusting of the white stuff. It’s such a wonderful world filled with the best dreams and breathtaking beauty.
It’s bizarre how tiredness works out in practice. Yesterday on a few hours sleep I was a walking single parent zombie disaster zone. Bogged down in the minutiae of life. I couldn’t even make bread……
That was my bread after 3 hours in the poor bread making machine. Not sure if I should butter it or use it as a facial exfoliating rub…..Yet today on even less sleep I feel fine. Feeling like I’m almost competent at this parenting gig. I could even explain Calculus and Ionic Bonds this morning. Definitely NOT at home to Mr Zombie Head today.
So is even less sleep good for me? No not really. What is good for me is focusing on what is truly important to me. Doing that makes me realise just how beautiful this world is, just how wonderful life can still be. All the ingredients to happiness and fulfilment are there, just need to remember to us them.
It’s makes such a difference when you use all the ingredients in gluten free bread making 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Same bread just with added water……
The snow has gone but it’s still cold. It’s rush hour again here…..
In the Black Friday sales I bought a bread maker. I had just been looking for a couple of new loaf tins. It was a rush of blood. Thankfully a much cheaper rush of blood than it could have been. So far so good. Much easier and much much easier. Almost fool proof…….
It’s been a tired day today. Hawklad is tired of school, I’m just tired today. Shall I show you just how tired, tired is. I present to you Exhibit A. It’s a delicious and wholesome traditional French herbal loaf…..
That’s what a traditional loaf looks like when you don’t add any WATER. As the faint sweet slightly burnt smell filled the house my brain pondered what that could mean. My bread never messes up these days, certainly not with my bullet proof machine. Maybe it just means a slightly more crusty loaf. Maybe it’s just the herbs infusing the dough. At no stage did the tired brain think ‘Huston we might have a problem here…..’. At no stage did the brain encourage this Muppet to get up and check upon the baking disaster unfolding in the bread maker……
Poor Hawklad was trying to do his school at home lessons. A teacher had uploaded work to be done online. That’s always a good thing and most welcome, unless you are Hawklad. The work kept referring to ‘review the key information on page 264 of your text book’. What text book….. Apparently the text book those in class use each lesson as a key part of the teaching programme. The class share copies so there isn’t one available to be sent home, so Hawklad did know that one even existed. At least we know now.
It’s cold. Not as cold as some countries but it’s cold for us. It’s definitely a two wooly jumper day.
It’s the kinda day for hot chocolate, soups and stews. It’s been a bit of a STEW fest recently. I can obliterate baking but I can do a might fine stew. What’s the secret to my STEWPENDOUS creations. Well I discovered that last night. Out of date herbs. Seriously out of date. We are taking Best Before A Very Long Time Ago. Best before ran out during Obama’s presidency (and not his second stint….). Oops….
The ageing adds to the flavour. As my parents would say when food hit the ground when I was a kid. Days when the food was quickly wiped on a sleeve and handed back for consumption.
“It will put hairs on your back son”.
Now a few millennial later and it certainly has done that….. If only my parents had put all this useful information and knowledge into a parenting textbook. I’m sure it would provide much reassurance on the use of out of date food items. It might even enlighten us to what key information can be found on page 264….
Empty shelves in the shops, no petrol anywhere across the area, limited availability of blood test container tubes for Doctors resulting in the rationing of patient tests……..Another day in the Brave New World after Brexit.
As Hawklad rather adroitly put it this afternoon “this is what happens when a country needs leaders but votes in CLOWNS. Really nasty clowns.” As one commentator put it – the kinda clown who would happily pull out the plug on your life support machine so they could charge up their mobile phone.
It’s all going very dystopian here in Britain. To make the Huxley story link then we need a bit of genetically engineered trickery. What follows is the lamest link ever. Genetical engineering in the form of baking. My baking. Yes that is my latest bread loaf. Cheese topped Gluten Free, Dairy Free Honey and Sunflower Seed Bread. Huxley would be proud of me – it tastes rather fine. BUT…
“Dad that’s all very well but weren’t you supposed to be baking a sponge cake .”
Oh yes, I wondered why I was making bread when I already had a full homemade loaf still to eat. I must have got confused.
“That’s what happens when a kitchen needs a parent who knows what he’s doing and ends up with a MUPPET. Admittedly a muppet who can now bake bread.”
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.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 