The Ugly Duckling

Everyone knows the story of the ugly duckling, who turned out to be a gosling and turned into a graceful swan. Well, this ugly duckling has a very similar story. He also was a gosling so of course, turned into a graceful swan. Wrong. He turned into an ugly swan. Poor him. Maybe he got dropped on his head..

So my big venture this time was making choux pastry swans. A pastry that you make in a saucepan and then cook in the oven. A pastry thats soft and airy. A pastry that kills your arm; seriously. 

First you bring water and butter just to the boil. Then you dump in ALL of your flour and beat crazily with a wooden spoon until you get a ball and no pastry on the sides of the pan. You want arm muscles? This is the workout you need. 

You then gradually add beaten egg once its cooled till smooth and shiny. Then pipe into your desired shape. This could be profiteroles, eclairs, swans or just a big blob. Then bake till cooked and fill with yummy whipped cream. 

Other Bakes:

 Banana Bread. My friends absolutely love this thing and kept asking me to bake it. I was more than happy to oblige. Its heaven and vaguely healthy! Perfect! It was even nicer with marshmallow spread on top (see below).

Chocolate fudge cake. Well, the recipe for the icing said it was fudge, but there was no fudge in it.. just chocolate, sugar, vanilla and cream. Confused much? Still, it tasted lovely even if the looks aren't gonna win any prizes. 

Marshmallow Chronicles:

 Peppermint Marshmallows dipped in chocolate ganache. Even I liked them, and I don't even like mint that much! The dark chocolate completely completed it. 

Spreadable Marshmallow. It was actually spreadable! But a tad too solid so maybe less gelatin next time. I spent some time looking at recipes for marshmallow fluff and they all contained egg whites which I didn't want to use. Instead I decided to experiment with using half the normal amount of gelatin from my normal batch. 






Thanks for reading,
Somnium x

The Weird Named 'Flapper' Pie

The humble Flapper pie. I'm sure you've heard of it.. no? Well I'm not surprised, I hadn't until the other day when I was watching TV so I did some research. It turns out that it is from Canadian prairie culture. The pie consists of a buttery biscuit base (try not to think of the song it'll be in your head for hours) filled with custard and then topped with meringue. 

It was.. different. It was definitely tasty but the texture was weird to get used to, but I did come around to it. Its made me want to try the more well known cream pie, where you use whipped cream instead of meringue. That would be wonderful. I cant remember the exact recipe that I used but I based the majority of it of this website: http://www.thekitchenmagpie.com/flapper-pie-the-lost-prairie-pie

Other bakes this week:

Chocolate and cheesecake brownies. Don't they just sound like little cubes of heaven? They were totally epic, my mouth rejoiced, and demanded that I made more, and soon. I will mouth, I will!! If you want to make these (you really should) here is the recipe: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4320/marbled-brownies My Boyfriend and I changed the recipe due to ingredient availability; less chocolate, and one tub chocolate Philadelphia. 

Onion and Spinach Quiche. I had completely forgotten how easy it was to make quiche. The pastry was just equal butter and flour and a bit of water, The filling was just one egg with enough milk to make one cups worth. To customize I added unknown amounts of cheese, spring onion and spinach. Then cooked (after blind cooking the pastry case) to perfection. Blissful. 

Marshmallow Chronicles:

 ChocolateChocolateChocolate... CHOCOLATE MARSHMALLOWS. They were quite dense, as far as marshmallows go anyway. They were like marshmallow brownies, It was quite hot so the cocoa covering kind of melted so they were very sticky. 

Carrot cake marshmallows? Why yes, I spent an hour juicing a carrot without a juicer to find that you couldnt actually taste the carrot in the finished product. A surprising number of people when told to guess the flavour guessed gingerbread; there's no ginger in there guys!? So I think I'm going to rename them spiced marshmallows as they contained dark sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. So there is my spiced marshmallow. 

Thanks for reading,

Somnium

x 

Super Awesome Dairy and Wheat Free Chocolate Cake

Hi Peeps, hope you're all well. This week I'm going to tell you how I made the awesome dairy and wheat free chocolate cake I showed you a few weeks ago. I remade it and discovered that its even nicer with served hot with ice cream. hmmmmmmm. You can find the full recipe here: http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/CHOCOLATE-OLIVE-OIL-CAKE-5551 

This recipe uses ground almonds instead of flour and olive oil instead of butter. You mix up cocoa powder and boiling water and set aside along with a bowl of the ground almonds, salt and bicarb. Then beat together eggs, olive oil and sugar and add the chocolate and dry ingredients slowly. The batter is extremely runny and I would advise using a paper casing in your cake pan if you have one, especially if there's more batter than pan like in my case!

The cake does sink once you take it out of the oven but don't fret, you haven't done anything wrong. Let the cake cool a bit and then gobble it all up!! 

Other bakes this week:

 Fifteens. I discovered these whilst at Uni as one of my flat mates is Northern Irish. She got sent some by her Gran and I fell in love! They're so simple but so delicious. The recipe is: 15 crushed digestives, 15 large chopped marshmallows, 15 chopped glace cherries and enough condensed milk to combine. Roll into a sausage and over some desiccated coconut, chill and slice.  

 Meringues. Classic summery meringues. Good think I baked them in the morning as I didn't think to check how long they took to cook, 2 hours!! It was worth the wait to eat with strawberries and cream. Hello? Eton mess? You're amazing, thanks x

Ribena Ice Lollies. If you've been in England this week you wont be surprised by the fact that its been over 20 degrees and not cloudy!! How out of character, but how awesome. It is perfect weather to put my new lolly moulds I got for my birthday into use. And they're just so cute! :)

Marshmallow Chronicles:

This week's flavour is.. *pause for effect* ..Lemon meringue!! 

Just look at the pie slice made from many squishy pillows of epicness. The bottom layer has fresh lemon juice and zest and some natural lemon flavouring to give it a bit more of a kick. The top layer is the normal vanilla marshmallow. They complement each other perfectly and it actually tastes like the real thing without the pie crust. Simply Divine, definitely a make again. 

Thanks for reading, I'm gonna go out and enjoy this strange English weather.

Toodles,

Somnium x

Cinnamon and Caramel

Hello people of the world wide web. I've not left you hanging for once and actually got this post out the week after the last! Success and all thanks to making a blogger pact to write once a week with a friend (check out her blog which will hopefully grow week by week along with mine: http://thescientistcaptain.wordpress.com/). 

Not much has happened this week baking wise, however I did turn 19!! I celebrated by watching World War Z in the cinema. Good overall zombie film but much better as a book; they changed too many parts for my liking. 

So since the last post I kicked off by cooking up some quick cinnamon swirls.. rolls.. spirals? You know what I mean. I got some left over puff pastry from tea and mixed up equal quantities of butter and sugar into a paste then added what I believed to be copious amounts of cinnamon (I was wrong) and then spread over the pastry, rolled, chilled, sliced, egg glazed and then cooked till golden. They turned out wonderful and were eaten so quickly I didn't have time to get a photo, although they could have been more cinnamonny. 

I also whipped up some salted caramel using sugar, butter, cream and of course, the salt! To make it you're meant to melt the sugar to the right temperature, add in the cubes of butter, whisk, take of the heat and whisk in the cream and salt. Did this happen perfectly for me? Of course not. I managed to start melting the sugar, but chose a pan that was too small so by the time some had got the the right temperature some still hadnt melted and it went over temperature. Then of course the butter took ages to mix in and by the time I added the cream I had to keep it on the heat as it was a gloopy mess. However I carried on and it came out looking and tasting well, tasty! except for a few blobs of solid caramel at the bottom, ah well :)

 

 

Marshmallow Chronicles:

This week on Marshmallow Chronicles I used the above caramel to make caramel marshmallows!!! I whipped up my usual vanilla mallow, removed around a third, mixed with some caramel, then swirled through the rest of the marshmallow to make a marbled-ish effect. The taste was awesome but unfortunately I forgot to add extra gelatin to counteract the extra liquid of the caramel so they were extremely soft and not that good a texture. However, I will learn from my mistake and hopefully remember for future attempts at new flavours! 

Thanks for reading,
Somnium x

Big Catch-Up

Sorry that I have been neglecting you guys! I've really gotten out of writing these but that is ending. From now on I'm going to add a new post every WEEK!  So hope you're looking forward to that. 

This is only going to be a photo journey with what I've done (that I can remember) since my last post. Only just realised that it's been half a year! oops..

One of my friends got me a cake pop maker for Christmas so I made chocolate cake pops and jam filled doughnut balls! 

 

Lovely buttermilk pancakes with ice cream and raspberries = heaven. Baking a milkloaf in a soup tin, why ever not?

 

The bread was nice and soft and a nice one person portion. I also made some honeycomb which I mixed with dark chocolate to make 'Crunchie' cakes.

I've also started my own sourdough starter, called Sammie. Which created this lovely sourdough loaf which I ate with ham and some soup. 

Not too long ago was World Baking Day, so I put away my revision and made something I never had before; Gluten and dairy free chocolate cake! The last is my raspberry ripple ice cream, the first I've ever made with a custard base. 

Before I stop this post I have a new section that is going to be in every post from now one (or so). Its my...

Marshmallow Chronicles!! 

I'll save how I make these for a later date, for now here are the pictures of these squishy pillows of sugar. 

The first are plain vanilla so that I could sort out my base recipe, after some advice from the batch beforehand I included more gelatin which worked out well. The latest ones I made last night, which are raspberry marshmallows with a strawberry powder top, looking very lush! My first gourmet mallow, hopefully ill get more comments when I give them out at the pub tonight!

Love you and leave you for now, but I'll be back soon,

Somnium xx

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone, hope you're enjoying the festive season with lots of mince pies and hot coco next to somewhere warm. Or in my case, eating my cake whilst procrastinating in front of my laptop instead of revising for my exams. At least the cake makes a nice break :)

I decided that this year I was going to have a white Christmas and decorate a completely white cake with white icing. A proper fruit cake covered in marzipan and royal icing; grand indeed. I chose to show the classic sleigh being pulled by reindeer. Here it is!

And here's how it was made:

First I had to make the actual cake. I decided to make a fruit cake, but I didnt have enough time to make a proper Christmas cake, so I cheated and made a simnel cake, ah well :) It taste just as nice, if not nicer!

                    

I then covered it in marzipan which involved me flipping the cake (covered in apricot jam) over into the middle of it in one movement, I prayed to god that my aim would have improved since P.E. My fears were not needed and it worked perfectly.

The next step was to cover it in royal icing, instead of my usual fondant. The making of the royal icing went well given I only had a hand beater. My hopes were high that I would get a perfectly smooth professional finish in only one coat. How wrong I was, but for my first attempt and for only doing one coat I'm fairly happy. 

The next step was planning my decorations that I was to make out of the royal icing. I got out my pen and paper and drew, and drew, and drew. In the end I came up with the following designs that I than drew to nice proportions and then piped. Multiple Times.

All that I had left to do was to assemble the pieces and arrange them on the cake using balls of un-clinging cling film as support. 

                                                  

And there it is, my finished masterpiece. Hope you enjoyed it, and I wish you a very merry christmas!

Bye,

Somnium xx

P.S. So Tasty!!