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Bread making

A few weeks back I was in the loft trying to find some old papers. In a corner I found the old bread maker neatly packed away in its old box. No papers but I did decide to bake some bread.

So a few days later I bought the gluten free bread ingredients and went back into the loft for the machine. Wow it was heavy. So I opened the box. Pants…..

Ok, no it wasn’t full with pairs of my big pink pants. But no bread making machine. A box full of papers. The papers I was trying to find. My plans had gone a RYE. Homemade bread was now TOAST. What was I thinking about, I’m BUTTER than this. But at YEAST I found those papers.

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No

A pleasant walk across the farmers field. It’s good to expand the world beyond the usual constraints.

We were sent a practical science test to try at home. I presume it was just for information. Test requirements included a Bunsen Burner, a Fume Cupboard and various rather explosive chemicals.

Or just maybe the teacher has heard about my baking and just assumed I would have these facilities in the kitchen.

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Mission Impossible

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.

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

It’s cooking Jim but not as we know it

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.

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Searching

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….

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Pancakes

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.

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Say that again

Say that again…..

I so need to have a notebook which I carry around in my pocket at all times. Every time something is mentioned that has the slightest chance of becoming important then I could write it down. A permanent record to prompt my sieve like memory and stop those say that again moments.

Had a few too many of those over the last few days.

“Dad did you get the glazed cherries for our Christmas Eve treat?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you buy the Home Alone 4 dvd for our Christmas Day movie?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you phone school before they broke up to tell them that the Teams password isn’t working?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you remember to make a donation to the school charity appeal last Thursday?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you phone up XXXXXXX mum to get hold of their address so we can send them a card?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad you haven’t forgotten that we are having Salmon to eat on Christmas Eve?”

Say that again!!!!

“Have we got the sausage rolls, French sticks, onion rings, pineapple rings, Doritos and mango chutney in for our Christmas Eve buffet?”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you remember that you said that you would send a copy of the family tree to Auntie Xxxx”

Say that again!!!!

“Dad did you remember to take the bread out of the oven. It’s been in there for most of the day and it’s looking a bit burnt.

Say that again!!!!

“Mr Xxxxxxxxx did you remember to submit form 5a. It needs to be received by the end of this month or the service will stop.

Say that again!!!!

“Ok you will need to give your dog these nasal sprays at least once a day. Will your dog sit still to let you do that.”

Say that again!!!!

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Spectacular

Last nights fireworks. That’s as pyrotechnically awesome as the display got. But that’s the point. Some others in the village will spend huge amounts on expensive fireworks. Not here. The tradition is get the cheapest box set available and then laugh at the results. That makes for such a fun night. That’s basically the point of fireworks.

Then it was time for another crack at toffee apples. It went as badly as the previous night. Finally with the last drops of syrup (out of date maple left over from pancake day) we managed to kind of coat some apples. Kind of. Not enough to cover a full apple. We had to cut the apples up into pieces and hope for the best. I might have forgotten to boil the apples first so they didn’t like keeping the toffee coat on.

The end results can be best described in one word.

SPECTACULAR

Posted on by bereavedandbeingasingleparent · 63 Comments

Return of the muppet baker

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….

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Is the world crumbling

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. ****