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