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!

Its beginning to smell a lot like Christmas

I finally got around to baking the BakedIn Winter Spice Cake. Its a test of biscuitery and cakery. Gingerbread houses, trees and stars and a cinnamon flavoured cake and icing.

It was, as you might expect, quite time consuming. Need to make the dough for the biscuits, then whilst that’s chilling in the fridge, make the cake batter. Then when the cakes are baking its time to roll out the dough and cut out the shapes. Then bake them whilst the cakes are cooling. Then make the icing while the biscuits cool. A little bit fiddly in parts but otherwise quite satisfying to put it all together.

The smell of the cinnamon and the gingerbread is just like its Christmas cooking all over again. Christmas food is just about the best.

Food smells, like any other smell, has the ability to transport us to the past, to experiences and periods of our lives.

There’s always been a smell, that I can’t really describe, that always reminds me of my grandads kitchen and the massive panty/cupboard where he kept all the crockery and some tins (peaches, pears and spam generally) and packets of food. I can’t really remember a particular smell from my nanna’s, but I do remember the food. She’d get enough in for tea that “whatever you don’t eat now you’ll have to take home with you”.

I wonder what olfactory memories our daughter will have of our house. There’s certainly been a lot of baking. I know she came in from her evening job when she was doing her A levels, and always said that whatever was cooking for dinner smelled lovely. Usually something like chilli or spaghetti bolognese.

What smell memories do you have?

Keeping us guessing

As you know I subscribe to BakedIn Baking Club. Each month I get an email telling me fresh ingredients to buy ready for the box with the dry ingredients and recipe card to come through the post. But you’re never told what the recipe actually is. This was the email that arrived this week ahead of distribution. Then there’s a frenzy of comments on social media about what it could be.

This one really has me stumped though. Eggs, cream, milk, butter, oil. The dry ingredients always seem to contain a flour mix of some kind and some nut or other. Google is generally not much help.

I’m hoping that the box will arrive by Saturday. I really missed out on baking last weekend, partly because I was quite busy, and partly because C had purchased 2 boxes of mince pies, so I thought we had enough snacks in (not that they lasted very long). I fully intend to bake something this weekend. I need the distraction after a difficult week at the office.

If the box doesn’t arrive in time I’ll have to think about what to bake. I’m torn between biscuits, cranberry & orange biscotti, cinnamon buns, chocolate brownie or biscoff cuppies.

I found an online quiz called What Should I Bake? After asking some obscure, and some unconnected questions, the results suggested that I should bake cookies. The chart however suggested my responses showed 40% cake, 20% cupcakes 20% pie, 14% muffins, 4% bread and 2% cookies.

I’m hoping the box arrives so I don’t have to make a decision.

Hard or soft?

The BakedIn subscription I have really is worth every penny. Each month I get sent some dry ingredients and a recipe card, and with any fresh ingredients required it encourages me to try my hand at something different.

This months bake was lemon & blueberry biscotti. Never made biscotti before. When I first read the instructions it sounded like a bit of a faff as you do need to take it out of the oven at one point, wait for it to cool off a bit, cut it up, put it back in the oven for a bit longer, then take it out again to turn them over and back in again. However, when you’re in the throws of creation, it didn’t seem to take too long, nor was it as much of a faff as I first thought.

From what I’ve read from people who were much quicker at their baking when the box drops on the mat, these biscotti are a bit softer than the almond biscotti you tend to get in coffee shops, but I guess you could bake then longer, on a lower heat to dry them out more. I don’t mind if they’re a bit softer, I’ve always thought that shop bought biscotti was an attempt at keeping Dentists employed because it was so hard it would break your teeth.

The good thing about this recipe, like so many of the BakedIn boxes, is that you can adapt it with different flavours. I’m thinking orange and chocolate, or nutmeg and cranberry for a Christmas vibe.

I keep saying that I’ll make some of these recipes again but so far I haven’t. However, this one is firmly on the “do it again” pile.