When nothing else will do

Have you ever had an inclination to want something in particular and nothing else will do? That was me in the kitchen on Sunday afternoon.

I was preparing my breakfasts and lunches for the working week ahead – this week its biscoff pancakes for brekkie and thai chicken salad for lunches – and I remembered that there was a little homemade lemon curd and some buttercream in the fridge. I was set on making a good ole Victoria Sandwich cake but lemony.

When I took the lemon curd out it had set solid. I thought it would loosen up a bit to a more spreadable consistency once it had warmed up a little so left it on the side whilst I made pancakes and salads. I went back to it half an hour later and it was still solid. It wasn’t going to spread at all. In fact when I ran a spoon around the bowl, it came away in one solid disc.

Now I have jam of different flavours and biscoff spread in the cupboard that would have made a more than adequate alternative, but I had in my head that it would be lemon. And nothing was going to change my mind.

Rather disillusioned I didn’t bake anything in the end. That meant we had no treat to go with our afternoon cup of tea.

I need to get my baking a**e back into gear. I keep looking at cake designs thinking that I could actually do some of them but haven’t got the motivation to do them. It seems a bit of a waste to spend ages making an awesome cake only for the two of us.

I’ve been looking through my baking books and cake magazines and thinking yes, I’ll do that but then never get round to it. More forward planning required to make sure I have all the ingredients in ready to go when the bug bites.

For now, there will be no lemon cake. Maybe something next weekend.

Where do you get your baking inspiration from?

I realise that this blog is called Bells, Bakes and Bettering Myself and that most of what I write about is predominantly #bellringing or something to do with learning a new technique, learning more about myself and the world I’m in, and there is very little to do with baking. Occasionally I’ll mention the latest BakedIn green box that has landed on the doormat. I did say a while back that I was going to get in the habit of baking something from series of magazines that I’d invested in and I did make a start but didn’t get very far. The trouble was some #bellringing activities took over which meant most of the time that I could put aside to bake was taken up with meetings. This is now starting to lessen so regular baking can resume.

I do have a few things in the cupboards that need using up such as flavours icing sugars that make great buttercream icing or you can use them in the cake batter to flavour it. I have a cinnamon bun kit in the cupboard that needs using up, and quite possible a brownie kit too. Then I need to get some inspiration and start getting creative again. I have all these tools and things at my disposal but I just don’t get to use them often enough. I need to get some practice in, and I do still have a voucher for a session with my friend Sarah, of The Cupcake Oven. But I need some inspiration.

I follow several cake decorators on Instagram and Facebook. Many of them are way too advanced for me, or I look at what they’ve created and think that I could actually do that if I had the time. I’m not very imaginative so I need a plan to follow or use something someone else has done for inspiration. I used to follow Paul Bradfield and I have used some of his tutorials in creating versions of Star Trek Enterprise, or standing up Santas. They are really good step by step guides.

In fact it was through following Paul that I met Sarah. I had been to a different cake making class and one of the other students in the class mentioned Paul. I googled him and found that he was due to give a demonstration at my local Sugarcraft Guild (never knew they existed). In order to get a place on the workshop, I joined the Guild for a while. Sarah was a member, and may have been on the committee at the time too, before she moved further away. I stopped going to the Guild as I found that a) I was by far the youngest in the room b) they all sat in cliques and c) when one of the committee members came up to me and said “Welcome, is this your first meeting”? to which I replied “No, I’ve been coming here for over a year”, I realised that this wasn’t the group for me. And to be honest, I wasn’t really learning much. The people they had in to do demonstrations where far beyond what I could do, or indeed I had already mastered several techniques and didn’t learn anything new.

It would be good to see Sarah again for another class, but I’ve done most of hers now and need to find other excuses for a visit. I need some inspiration for your average hobby baker, who can make a reasonable tasting cake, and can make it look quite good with sugar flowers and bits.

Any suggestions?

Back to Baking

The last week has been very much taken up with #bellringing activities. Every evening there have been a webinar to attend, giving some great insights in to getting back to ringing after the pandemic. I’ve also had the customary two virtual #bellringing sessions. It was rather nice to get back to my other free time love, baking.

The green box from BakedIn arrived very promptly after dispatch, and for once I was ready for it. All the extra ingredients needed were already in the fridge or cupboard. Due to the postponement of a regular Friday afternoon #bellringing meeting, I actually had a spare couple of hours to indulge in some baking therapy, and for possibly the first time ever I actually made the bake on the day it arrived.

It was a simple bake. Cupcake batter, a cinnamon syrup, then some runny icing and sprinkling of pecans. The Cinnamon Bun Muffins were very quick to knock together. They smelled absolutely lovely whilst baking. In no time at all they were done, iced and ready for taste testing.

I was disappointed however that the taste of cinnamon wasn’t very strong, I would have personally liked it much more noticeable. The bakes themselves though were incredibly light and fluffy, not the usual stodge that shop bought muffins can sometimes be.

I am calorie counting at the moment and trying to make more healthy snack choices, but the pull of the muffin with my afternoon cup of mint tea was too great. I did however manage to restrict myself to one, although could have quite easily gobbled two or three. I used my MyFitnessPal app to calculate the calories per muffin and was rather pleased that I hadn’t succumbed to more than one. They worked out at 248 calories each.

I only had coffee for breakfast and a slice of bread with light Philadelphia and an apple for lunch, we had Pinch of Nom Simple Chicken Curry and rice for dinner, so I had one bottle of beer during the evening’s virtual beer tasting and snuck in a mint magnum as a treat.

That leaves ten muffins between the two of us for the rest of the weekend.

Bank Holiday Baking Bonanza with a bit of Bellringing

In ordinary times May Day Bank Holiday would be fully taken up with the #bellringing AGM. We would need to be at the Cathedral by 9am, usually C would be running the pre-service #bellringing, then the service and then the meeting, following by a quick lunch somewhere and the afternoon towers to ring at in whichever district’s turn it was to host, and the epic bellringers tea.

As we are having our 2^nd lockdown AGM over video conference, it meant none of the before meeting activities, no lunch out somewhere nice and no towers to ring at afterwards, although someone had organised a virtual #bellrinigng session for anyone that wanted to join.

This has however, afforded us time to do some other stuff. Before the AGM started, I made a batch of lemon viennese whirl biscuits with homemade lemon curd (see yesterday’s blog entry) with white chocolate buttercream. Utterly delicious. I have also made some tuna scotch eggs that required eggs to be boiled, potatoes to be boiled and mashed, bread to be crumbed, and then all assembled before baking. These will be for my lunches for the rest of the week, with some salad.

In the meantime, C perpared and baked some bread rolls. He put the ingredients in the bread machine first thing, and once mixed, rolled them, proved them then baked.

The oven was well utilised.

After the meeting we adjourned to Ringing Room for some virtual #bellringing. We tried some rounds on 16 just for funzies, but it came a cropper, so stuck to 8 bell ringing after that with a plain course of Stedman Triples, just over half a course of Cambridge Surprise Major (didn’t quite get to the end), then a course of Bristol Surprise Major which was pretty good. I then ducked out as I still had some things to get done and other Central Council bits to get out of the way today. C said that they ran some Double Norwich Court Bob Majory after I’d left.

Without the afternoon ringing tour and tea, I had time to make Biscoff pancakes I do in advance ready for my breakfasts for the week ahead. I ping them in the microwave at work for about 1 minute 30 seconds to warm up again. If I’m working from home, I add another dollop of Biscoff spread so it goes all runny and adds extra yumminess.

All in all a Bank Holiday baking bonanza, with a bit of #bellringing business thrown in for good measure. Quite an enjoyable day.

When life gives you lemons

My next Bakedin bake is lemon viennese whirls. I didn’t get my box until late as you may have read previously there was an issue with my subscription. Anyway, the box is here and my Bank Holiday afternoon will be time to bake.

My first issue was buying a lemon. The supermarket only sold them in bags of about 8, I only need one. And the ones in the bag were tiny. Fortunately we have a marketplace in the High Street and there’s an epic fruit and veg stall. I was able to buy one giant lemon for 40p.

The good thing about getting the box later is that everyone else has made them and posted their pictures on the Facebook page. They’ve also told you about any problems they had and any recommendations. A few people had mentioned that their lemon curd didn’t thicken and other suggested making it the day before and putting it in the fridge. I had some time on Sunday afternoon so decided to take that advice and make the curd early.

I’ve never made lemon curd before and I do like it. It was so simple. Caster sugar, zest and juice of a lemon, butter and a whisked egg. Heat it all gently until it thickens then strain out any bits. Only took a few minutes. So simple. Naturally I sampled it before putting it in the fridge and my word it was delicious. I may never buy it in a jar ever again.

I shall use it in the biscuit bake as instructed and if there’s any left I may just slather it on a slice of bread.

When life gives you lemons…. make lemon curd!

And then there was chocolate cake

As well as everything that has been going on since Friday, I did manage to bake a chocolate cake as well. The smell of the cake batter baking was incredible. There’s something about it that seems magical. The recipe I used produced a soft, light sponge, deep chocolate colour and flavour. Its been said that we eat with our eyes and that food should be aesthetically pleasing to look at to entice out appetite, but I figure smell plays just as important a role.

Our sense of smell comes from the stimulation of special cells in our nasal cavities which transmit a multitude of senses to our olfactory bulb in the brain which identifies a smell https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-human-nose-can-sense-10-basic-smells-1355489504 Apparently there are 10 dimensions to what humans can smell:

Fragrant – florals and perfumes;
Fruity – all non citrus fruits;
Citrus – lemon, lime, orange etc
Woody and resinous – pine or freshly cut grass;
Chemical – bleach or ammonia;
Sweet – chocolate, vanilla, caramel
Minty and peppermint – eucalyptus and camphor;
Toasted and nutty – popcorn, almonds, peanut butter;
Pungent – blue cheese, cigar smoke
Decayed – rotting meat, sour milk

Smells like baked bread and brewing coffee are an amalgamation of dimensions.

Dark chocolate has a particularly strong smell and German scientists claim to have found the fragrance that we love so much by testing 2 different sorts of distinctive whiffing dark chocolate and analysed the chemical compounds. These chemicals are released when the chocolate is at room temperature. In a previous study, it claims that the aroma of cocoa beans, the main ingredient in chocolate, individually smell similar to crisps, human sweat, earth, cooked meat, peaches, raw beef fat, cooked cabbage, cucumber and honey.

Those aromas on their own are enough to put you right off, but apparently, when some alchemy is done, the smell of chocolate is irresistible to many.

Thankfully, my cake did not smell of any of those pungent pongs, but of chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache frosting, with chocolate curls on top. And tasted bloody lovely!

Planning Ahead

Spent today planning lots of things that aren’t happening yet.

Been asked to make a wedding cake for July and because of the rest it’s all been a bit of a rush and things still aren’t really confirmed, as it all depends on how restrictions are lifted, they have no idea what kind of cake they want. I need to get some idea soon. Fruit or sponge? How many for? Buttercream or fondant? How many tiers? What colour scheme? What sort of decorations? Any many more questions spring to mind. The trouble is, they can’t really answer them yet as so much still hangs in the balance. But I need to get my thinking head on and design it, order whatever I need to order, maybe practice some elements of it, and give myself plenty of time not to panic over it.

After that, I started thinking about a meeting that I had later that evening. Who was due to attend? What do we need to think about? There are several things that are coming up in the #bellringing world that will require some PR work, and it would be good to have a team working on it, rather than just one person. It helps spread the coverage wider, and also helps different parts of the country and world chip in on how it affects (or not in some cases) them.

I’ve written several lists of things that we need to and could ring for, but it all depends on what restrictions are still in place at the time. Some have a much longer lead in time, and others are in the next few months, but need to have a co-ordinated plan.

Then, kicking off next week is the elongated Essex Ringing Course. I have arranged 2 talks and a Bellringers Question Time and opened them out to anyone to register to attend, not just Essex ringers. I need to contact the speakers again and check everything is ok. I need to make sure that everything is set up and ready. I am also helping in one of the groups and the practices are spread out over the coming 2 weeks, so I’ve got to get my brain in gear for ringing lots of Stedman and possibly some Cloisters.

Then at some point in the next day or so I need to make my breakfasts and lunches for work. Albeit only a 3 day working week, as Monday is Bank Holiday and being an office role at the hospital, I don’t need to work Bank Holidays, and of course, I don’t work Fridays as I cram it all in to a 4 day week normally.

And I need to get some housework done. Ah well, that can wait.

Bank Holiday Bells and Baking

There’s something that goes hand in hand with bells and baking really. Many a #bellringing meeting takes place after some actually bellringing, but more importantly what is known as a Bellringers Tea.

A bellringers tea consists of a mountain of sandwiches, savouries, the rare sighting of a salad, but the most important ingredient, and one that teas are often, silently judged on, is cake. Lots and lots of cake. Preferably homemade cake at that.

I’m not sure what came first for me, bellringing or baking? Probably baking actually. Watching my grandad bake and mum having a Sunday afternoon bake up. I do remember a sibling competition on who could make the best choux buns. I seem to remember winning that one!

Anyway, today I did a bit of both.

As usual for Friday mornings, I joined my sister’s group as we practiced some more Wells Surprise Minor and Cambridge Surprise Major, the methods of the month for my Thursday night sessions, that she wants some extra goes at.

As part of the BakedIn baking club, I sent off for the Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Bun kit, and they really had to be made today for the Easter weekend. They were quite straightforward to make, and I cheated by using the kneading hook on my Kenwood rather than busting a wrist trying to knead the dough. C and I decided to go whole hog and add the chocolate chips AND the raisins that were part of the kit as an alternative.

Whilst the buns were on their second prove, I attended a virtual bellringing meeting with the survival and recovery steering group. Lots of good things coming. During the middle of that I had to check on the buns, so before I muted my mic and video, I declared that the answer to everything whilst I was away was “no”, just in case they had any funny ideas about giving a load of actions whilst I wasn’t there to defend myself.

Buns were now in the oven and meeting resumed. Lots more good things discussed and planned. Then I had to rescue the buns from the oven and glaze them, so made another hasty disappearing act. I was quite disappointed that the buns had spread rather than risen too much. They looked ok. They smelled ok. And when we taste tested them, they tasted ok too.

Someone suggested toasting them and slathering butter all over them. That sounds quite disgusting, but then I don’t like butter, or similar, anyway.

Planning the week ahead

I have another week off work, to use up some annual leave. I’m writing reports, presentations, planning and attending #bellringing meetings, writing articles, and promoting #bellringing events. At some point there’s a bunch of household things that need doing, I would like to do some baking this week (I have chocolate orange hot cross buns, and chocolate easter cake to make), and I would like to spend some down time going for walks etc as the weather is supposed to be good this week. My to do list is quite lengthy.

C and I have just planned the week out based on what the weather forecast has in store. We have a lot of annual report deliveries to do and plan to splice that with some walks out along the coasts and picnics, so have made a plan based on what we need to deliver where and how many loads can we get rid of in as few journeys as possible.

We went to the wholesalers today, so there was a long shopping list of things to restock the freezer with. Along side that sat the list of reports that we could drop off en route. We dropped the Southern District ones off on our way.

Back home and it was unpacking the shopping and portioning it up into meal sized bags. Our freezer is well and truly stuffed now. We didn’t get home until nearly 3pm so lunch was a bit on the late side, meaning dinner will be even later today. For lunch I tried one of the pasties I made yesterday, they were quite tasty actually.

After lunch, a bit more promotional preparations ahead of tomorrow’s release, then I had a play on Ringing Room, now that I have Wheatley installed, I can ring on my own whilst it does the rest. I plugged in my e-bells and had a go at some plain hunt minor on each pair of bells. I finally got the hang of 3-4. Then I tried some plain bob minimus. After several goes I finally “saw” what I was doing with the 3,4 up dodge. Then I moved on to having a go at some plain hunt major. I found very quickly that I tuned into the rhythm and it sounded pretty good, even if I only did it from 1-2.

For some explicable reason I decided to get my weighted hula hooping out for the first time since 1st January. It took a few minutes to remember how to log exercise on my fitness watch. I did manage about 6 minutes on the first go. I could certainly tell my middle has gone soft.

Whilst C cooked dinner I did some preparations for a meeting that I have on Saturday so that I have everything I need to hand and can share my ideas with the rest of the group.

Only then did I sit down to read a book and watch tv, and fall asleep on the sofa. Until tomorrow’s adventure.

Sweet and Savoury

I don’t often bake savoury things, I’m more of a cake, cupcake, pudding, desserts kinda gal. However, I must get back on the diet train so decided that for my lunches this coming week I’d make some pasties from the first Pinch of Nom book.

Now they cheat because they don’t use pastry, which is fine by me as I’m rubbish at making pastry. They day someone invested Ready Roll pastry sheets was the day the world became a better place. However, these particular pasties use tortilla wraps. I followed the recipe almost exactly, swapping the stewing steak for minced beef (as we have some available) but I included the carrot (yuk), as I figured that they’d be small enough chunks that I’d swallow them whole without having to taste them.

I must admit, I had reservations about how they’d turn out. I didn’t think that they would seal properly as they kept smooshing about when I was using a fork to seal them. However, they did, and there was no leakage. I baked them for a little while longer than the recipe said until I decided that they were nice golden-brown colour. I do think they look pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I guess the proof will be in the eating.

I think that as I used mince instead of stewing steak there was more mixture to do around. The recipe said that it would make 4 pasties but I managed to get double that. Maybe I was a bit cautious about filling them and the one that I did put more filling in was the hardest to try and seal. So now I have 2 whopping great pasties for lunch Monday – Thursday next week.

I only ever seem to make lunches for the 4 days that I’m at work. Friday lunches are usually make do and mend with whatever is in the fridge or cupboard, which has resulted in some interesting combinations, although if there’s enough of C’s bread left I’ll quite often do cheese on toast.

With a bit more planning I should lose some weight before a wedding in July.