Christmas Crackers

It has been far too long since I posted. Apparently since almost this time last year nothing has reminded me on London worthy-enough to be blogged. But today, being Christmas, my mother managed to procure a set of Christmas crackers for us to enjoy. I pulled on three of them, and won all three times. Undefeated! Christmas crackers are so much fun--complete with hats, jokes, and toys. I actually got some reasonable toys. I did share with those others in my family who managed to lose all their pulls, but I still ended up with a nice set of tangrams. It was pretty exciting.

Hopefully I will think to post a little more frequently during this next year. In fact, I have a post in mind, so stay tuned--I worked on a delightful project for my Victorian Literature class this past semester.

Catching Up

Well, it has been a very long time since I have posted, so I will try to get myself caught up on all the cooking adventures that I have had in the last 3 months or so. First off, in October I tried my hand at making fortune cookies. They are surprisingly easy, and quite tasty. When I read the recipe it seemed weird that you can only cook 2 cookies at a time, but when I tried it myself, it is indeed a true statement. If you cook anymore than that there is no way that you'll get the cookies folded before they harden. It is so cool, when you first take the cookies out of the oven, they are soft and quite malleable, but they start to harden almost instantly; nevertheless, it is quite possible to fold them to actually look like fortune cookies.

Then, a little late in the month, I tried my hand at Portuguese Custard Tarts. They utilize two of my favorite ingredients: custard and puff pastry. And they cook in a muffin pan, so they are perfectly bite-sized. Finding the custard to fill the tarts with took a little doing, but eventually Macey's pulled through and helped me out. The tarts turned out so well, that I've made them once since my original attempt and took them to a party, where everyone loved them.

Then November came, This month I tried my hand at my first mousse, a White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse. It turned out quite nice. This time, I decided that instead of putting my dessert in the same old boring ramekins, that I would try putting it in a champagne flute so that you could get the nice effect of eating the mousse out of a nice dessert glass. Really, I suppose that I was envious of the pretty picture in the cookbook.

Finally, after thanksgiving, I decided to try my hand at cooking a pot roast. As you can probably tell, I mostly cook desserts, but man must not live by dessert alone, so I made my first pot roast. All my life my mother has made roasts sometimes for Sunday dinner, but she has always prepared hers in the crockpot while we were at church. I decided that I wanted to cook it in the oven, in preparation for a school project I was preparing for. The recipe that I was following didn't have much instruction regarding seasonings, so I just sort of made it up as I went. But if I do say so it turned out quite tasty. I also made some roasted potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding. My Yorkshire pudding even came out of the pan perfectly--nearly unheard of! My mother always served the juice that was left after the roast cooked as that--juice. But I decided that I would try and make a more proper gravy out of it, and it was to die for, I am so glad that I did. The gravy really made the roast, and with it poured over the potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, it was absolutely delightful! It is always fun to find out that you can cook regular food too, and not just desserts.

Flummery and Buttercookies

Flummery is a sort of 17th century soft pudding. Typically it's made with oatmeal and stewed until it reaches a nice gelatinous consistency. My flummery turned out very much not like that. Based on what I knew about flummery I figured that it would have some sort of pudding-like consistency. Mine was more like a melted smoothie, but that's ok. I was pretty nervous about this dessert since I'd never had it or even heard of it, but I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted delicious. It was a nice strawberry flavoured flummery and it was so light, and yet rich enough that you didn't need to eat tons.

Since I figured that the flummery wouldn't be terribly filling I also made buttercookies. I was a little nervous about them, they were very crumbly when I made them but they turned out quite well, though they took forever to brown. They tasted very much like Royal Dansk buttercookies. Next time I'll have to figure out how to make them in more shapes than just squares or circles.

Spongecakes and Turnovers

Well allow me to say that contrary to popular belief I have been cooking this last month, but what with school and the internet at home being totally unreliable I haven't been able to post. But an exciting month it has been. I started off the school year by making "Blueberry Spongecake" though since I made it with raspberries I suppose it would be better called "Raspberry Spongecake." The spongecake turned out really well, I found a recipe online and I really liked it, and the raspberries were really nice. If I could change one thing I'd vote on the raspberries not having seeds, but somehow I don't think I can change that.

Then about two weeks ago I had a Sunday afternoon where all I did was cook. I made Lasagna, French Bread, and Peach Turnovers. Of course I wasn't thinking and so only took pictures of the turnovers. I had never made french bread before but it's not any more difficult than making any other kind of bread. Spreading the egg white on top was a little bit of a challenge, but only because I was using the back of a spoon and not a pastry brush. Some things are simple fixes. The lasagna turned out, but I had made it before so I'm not too surprised that it worked out well. The turnovers were delicious. The recipe was for apricot turnovers, but finding cheap apricot jam turned out to be harder than you'd expect so I used peach. We served them to some boys who live nearby and they seemed to think they were delicious. This recipe uses frozen puff pastry, and I am a complete fan. Puff pastry is so incredibly easy to use, and it makes for such delicious desserts, I can't wait to make something else with it.

I've also made several batches of Zucchini Brownies this week. Zucchini brownies taste pretty much exactly like zucchini bread, only chocolatey and brownies. They're absolutely delicious. The first time I made them I followed the recipe and made chocolate frosting to go on top and everything. They were good. The second time I made them I ended up with 2/3 of a cup too much grated zucchini, and about half as much cocoa powder as I needed. So I made do the best I could, and since I didn't have frosting ingredients left I just dusted them with confectioner's sugar at the end. They still turned out amazing. Whoever thought to put zucchini in baked goods was brilliant. Though I think that whoever thought that we should spell zucchini with two C's wasn't thinking too well. Courgette is much easier to spell, and just sounds cooler too.

Panna Cotta

Well, these aren't exactly the long awaited pictures of my Panna Cotta, but they are pictures from when I made it about a week ago. I went up to my grandmother's house last weekend and together we made this delightfully creamy and light, yet rich dessert. Panna Cotta is an italian dessert, much like France's Creme Brulee, or Spain's Flan, though it contains no eggs. I think that custards are one of the finest desserts. Panna Cotta is rich enough that a little will suffice and so a nice ramekin size is perfect. This Panna Cotta we served with a warm strawberry coulis, though it is also quite nice with fresh peaches and blueberries. I think that by far this dessert has been my favourite one I've made this summer. It is always just so cool and creamy.

The Last Cake

Well. Last night was the very last night of m last cake decorating class. I have now spent 3 months of my life learning to decorate cakes, and what is the result? Ta da! One day I may be able to make truly lovely wedding cakes, or something like that. I think I've made a good start, and I've certainly learned a lot this summer. The top layer is a yellow cake with a cream cheese frosting filling, and then the bottom is a spice cake with the same cream cheesy filling. Now to find time and occasions to practice my skills...

Thai Desserts

I realized on Wednesday that I haven't cooked anything new in several weeks and decided today that it was time to remedy that. I have long enjoyed Thai food, perhaps because my dad made it a lot growing up, and so today I decided to experiment with a Thai dessert that I first tasted a few months ago. Sticky rice with mangoes is a delightful treat in Thailand and it is a delightful treat at my house. It turned out quite spectacularly and I already am looking forward to making it again. This dessert is ridiculously easy to make. You make rice, and boil some coconut milk with a little sugar and mix the two together. Let it sit, serve with some mangoes, and some additional coconut milk. It is a sweet yet refreshing dessert. I'm sure it's especially nice on a hot night, though I can't say for sure since we're having lovely cool weather this weekend. With luck it will turn out as well next time I make it. And maybe that time I can procure some nice Filipino mangoes.

Cake Number 5

Well, last night was the 1st time that I have ever worked with Fondant. Fondant is not as hard as people make it seem. Certainly I imagine that the horror stories are true, but still, it wasn't that bad. Now of course it still took me three tries to get it on my cake, but hopefully next time will be better. The bow is actually quite easy to make, but I got rather impatient and didn't wait long enough for the bows to dry, hence the flatness... I used butterscotch pudding for the filling in between my two very flat layers. It turned out pretty tasty.