Butty

Do you think I would get away with this in my garden as a bit of a water feature. You don’t think that it might be a tad pretentious. My current water feature is me walking about with a watering can….. Imagine the fun Captain Chaos would have with this.

We were in the garden (without a water feature) playing table tennis and trying to lift Hawklad’s spirits after a demoralising couple of hours revising. He was frustrated and dispirited because we had picked up that he had been using the wrong method to calculate something in mathematics. He’d apparently been doing it the wrong way for a couple of years but as the teacher hasn’t been looking at his submitted maths work, it wasn’t picked up until we spotted it.

He had an Easter Egg, I had a coffee with a BUTTY.

I came from a family that survived on Butties… Dad would always say only POSH people called them sandwiches. Most items could be placed between two slabs of bread for a tasty meal. Family favourites included

Fish Finger butties

Chip butties (My favourite)

Crisp butties (Mum’s favourite)

Baked Beans butties (don’t wear a white shirt eating this one)

Sausage butties

Yorkshire Pudding and Gravy butties (a particularly messy one)

Mushy Peas and Vinegar butties

Fried Egg and Tomato Ketchup butties

Last nights Pizza butties

Pork Pie butties (Dad’s favourite)

At one stage I even started having Pot Noddle butties

All things butties. I even once remember a debate about whether a slice of bread sandwiched between two other slices of bread counted as a Bread Butty or just three Slices of Bread. Whatever the answer to this philosophical point, we had so many butties as a family for one good reason. Bread was cheap, it was a cheap way of padding out our meals.

Now a thought has crossed my mind. Sitting in our garden, it’s summer, after the exams, next to that giant water feature, having a butty. That works…

Swiss Sunday

As I was trying to bake something just slightly edible for this weekends Great Bloggers Bake-off, my mind wandered to Switzerland. Memories flooded back in. Just how much we enjoyed the food there. Hawklad could be a really picky eater when he was a toddler, but it was never an issue in Switzerland. He loved the food there. He is not a great chocolate or cake eater but there he loved them. After every trip out from Spiez, we would walk past a small bakery restaurant on the way back to our hotel. Binoth on Seestrasse sold the most amazing cakes and confectionery. Hawklad would sprint into the restaurant to see what magical things he might try. They always had cakes designed like animals or really fun things. Happy memories. Is it really 2015 since we last tried those baking wonders.

There is something about having a beautiful walk then finding a wonderful cafe to sit outside, relax and take in the Alpine views. Definitely could do with that right now. New dreams are there to be had still.

I see the restaurant is temporarily closed at present … it better be open when we get back there……

Check out Mel’s wonderful site for more on the Great Bloggers Bake-off.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/10/15/special-guest-poet-christine/

Apple pie

It’s the Great Bloggers Bake-off this weekend. So here goes, time for a bit of homemade apple pie, made with home grown super sour apples. From this very rainbow tree.

After some very careful editing of which part of the pie to show you, it kinda looks edible.

And the official taste test….

“It’s reasonably decent but are you going to give the first attempt to the birds….” Shush… let’s not mention the first try.

Yes the birds will feed well tomorrow.

For all the latest on the Bloggers Bake-off go over to Mel’s great site.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/blog/

No monster this time.

Ok, it might not win any Michelin Stars but in the great culinary scheme of things, that ain’t too bad at all. The Yorkshire Baron Frankenstein can occasionally do some of that strange science called Baking….

If this muppet can do it…..

Go on, why don’t you have a go. This weekend, it’s the Great Bloggers Bake-Go on, why don’t you have a go.

You can find all the latest on the Bake-off and so much more on Mel’s wonderful site.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/10/12/a-bouquet-of-flours/

Alien 6

It was a good idea.

Make an Ice Cream cake. Not only that but make the Ice Cream to make the cake.

Well…….

This was the end result.

It only has two molecular states. Runny or Rock Hard Granite. Not exactly perfect material to build that cake.

As for the Taste Test. The official Tester refused – “it’s like something from Alien 6”. To me the taste and texture was somewhere south of ‘deeply disturbing’.

Come on, you surely can do better than this culinary abomination. Why not have a crack at this years Great Bloggers Bake-off happening this weekend. All the latest can be found on Mel’s wonderful site.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/take-a-snap-and-send-it-in/

You know it makes sense.

How much

I had high hopes. Such a simple baking task. Even I couldn’t mess up flapjacks. Well I kinda didn’t. Maybe…..

Enough flapjack to fill a big plate. Well it should have been.

If you like flapjack that instantly crumbles, falls apart, disintegrates, then this would be perfect for you. After several attempts of pressing and moulding, I managed to get just TWO pieces to stick together, just don’t get too close – their stability is severely compromised.

Whisper it. Just seconds later these perfect flapjacks had started to fall apart.

The rest well, I just let Hawklad spoon the crumbs into heaps of Maple Syrup, to form an Edible Mess. That’s our version of an Eton Mess.

Why don’t you have a crack at a bit of baking. Its the Great Bloggers Bake-off real soon. You know it makes sense.

To check on the latest, drop in on Mel’s awesome blog.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/10/01/two-weeks-to-go/

Crumble

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.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/10/01/two-weeks-to-go/

It’s…..

“Well Dad its ….”

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.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/09/24/so-many-questions/

If I can have a go, surely you can. You know it makes sense.

It’s back

It’s been too long.

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.

More details can be found at Mel’s blog.

https://crushedcaramel.wordpress.com/2022/09/20/more-details-to-follow/

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.

What could possibly go wrong.

Waters

Why is it that as I get older my body rejects more and more food and drink. More foods and drinks that it struggles with. AND why is it always the stuff I love. It’s never broccoli or cauliflower or beetroot.

When I mentioned that to Hawklad he simply sighed, shrugged his shoulders and reflected on life.

“It’s because you love the really unhealthy things…..”

There is that…..

Water is good but add shed loads of full on coffee and it’s not so good anymore. Ice is good but add bucket loads of Cream and …….

I guess it’s just like education. Learning is good but add too much British Schooling and sadly ……

Am I being unfair, probably so but it’s sometimes hard not to be. Up to 12 months ago Hawklad loved HISTORY. REALLY LOVED IT. He loved learning about History. He loved learning about details, facts, dates, people. He couldn’t get enough of it. But then the school HISTORY syllabus hit. He has zero interest in Victorian Crime and Serial Killers. He didn’t want to learn about the details of infamous crimes and punishments (month after month). Today I found him staring into space. School history lessons finally moved on from Jack the Ripper. Now he is having to learn about the development of the American Cattle Ranching Industry after the Civil War. Unfortunately that is just not Hawklad. He is rapidly falling out of love with History. He is falling out of love with learning.

That can’t be healthy or right. Is it so hard to tailor learning to the individual. Clearly so as this afternoon hours were spent trying to parrot learn Ionic Chemical Equations. Guess what

More hours of Hawklad staring vaguely into space.

Should it really have to be like this.