Baking Mad

Iced Daisy Biscuit

I may have mentioned once or twice that I find baking to be therapeutic, in much the same way as any physical task that fully occupies the mind and hands. I used to do embroidery for this very reason - the detailed work and the focus required prevents my mind from racing in circles around a problem or issue that is stressing me out. A session of yoga, a walk along the beach or a hike in the mountains gets the endorphins rushing in, renders me calm and creates a sense of well-being, but sometimes energy levels, poor time management, or the lack of opportunity means I can't do any of these things. 

A crackle of honeycomb

As someone who finds true meditation a near impossible task (all the more reason to keep trying no doubt), I seek a meditative state through the kind of precision, detailed work that would drive most people insane - the repetitive needlework for an embroidery piece, moving tiny stitch by tiny stitch, or piping delicate lace or bead work in royal icing onto a cake or biscuit. Both require a steady hand, patience, a calm focus and a willingness to take one small step at a time. It can only be achieved by keeping your mind in the present and not allowing the size of the task to overwhelm you. In a more general sense, baking requires a similar presence of mind, for as soon as you allow other thoughts in, you can find yourself making mistakes (which also happens if I'm baking whilst very tired, a lesson I never seem to learn!). 

Chocolate Biscuit Cake,
set and ready for action

As I had started out Easter week full of rage (for reasons I won't bore you with here), energy sources sadly depleted and a mountain of baking ahead of me, I had neither the time nor the requisite oomph for a session of yoga or a nice long walk. Given the levels of rage and frustration, all of the baking I had to do was probably very well timed indeed (I don't think even the Dammit Doll could have withstood a session with me). There were orders to fill for Easter, a promised birthday treat to make for my niece and a wedding cake and biscuits to create the following week. 

I love Jammie Dodgers

By the time Good Friday dawned, I had rolled and cut biscuit dough, iced little Easter bunnies, lambs, chicks and eggs, stirred fudge into submission and made enough chocolate fudge cakes that the whole apartment was scented with vanilla, chocolate and the aroma of freshly baked cakes. Although exhausted, I arrived safely at the Easter weekend feeling markedly more calm and content (and quite possibly with a dusting of cocoa powder and icing sugar still coating my hair). Refreshed by some Coffee & Walnut Cake (thank you kindly No.1 Sister) and a glass of Prosecco, I was ready and able to face the challenge of a three-tier wedding cake without complete melt-down.

...and all is well with the world again.

Maybe this could be the start of something big - the newest in a very long line of self-help books (well, why not?). If you can't afford a therapist or anger management course and a good bout of physical activity hasn't done the trick, might I recommend some baking? You can even adjust the type of baking therapy to your particular issue. Serious rage would require lengthy, vigorous kneading and pounding of bread dough. Mild frustration could be handled with a spot of biscuit dough rolling and the methodical cutting-out of shapes (roll and repeat until all of the dough is used up, the delicious biscuits are baked and your frustration is gone). A busy, frantic mind can be calmed by icing beautiful (or otherwise) decorations on biscuits or cakes. Need to acquire a focused mind quickly? Get out your digital thermometer and make some honeycomb - it happens fast and furious, so you have to concentrate, but is oh so very satisfying once you add the bicarb and watch it bubble! 

And if all that fails and you just want something sweet to feed the demon inside, no baking required, then melt and stir-up a deluxe chocolate biscuit cake (recipe below) - satisfaction guaranteed. If it worked for me, it can work for anyone - from Incredible Hulk (all green, furious and rage-y) to mild-mannered baker / archaeologist once more. And it was all thanks to baking. 

Mrs Santa Claus

Groom & Bride iced biscuits

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, which I can only hope, since I have indeed been absent for a few weeks now. My world of crazy got even crazier, with baking and archaeology colliding, leaving me in a sad little heap on the floor (No.2 Sister talked me safely down off the ledge). I had an early order of puddini and gingerbread men to get ready last weekend, a large order of iced-biscuit wedding favours to make during the week and spreadsheets of archaeological sites and monuments to sort. I was firing on all cylinders until finally, my brain hurting from the academic work and my hands cramping from all the piped-icing detail, I reached this weekend. Oh the relief!

Not that all work here ceased. I wanted to get ahead with some of the Christmas order prep, but thankfully No.1 Sister appeared like an angel at my door to lend a much-needed hand. We made sugar-paste stars and crowns (now dry and ready to be sprayed with edible gold paint) and cut out lots of little Christmas tags. What with the extremely busy couple of weeks and the early batch of puddini-making bringing me firmly into festive mode, I am considering a name change to Mrs Santa Claus (without the physical festive upgrade to plump, grey-haired and red-cheeked please). I even had the able-assistance of a little elf in my workshop yesterday (a.k.a. my sister). But even Mrs Clause needs a break every now and again and while my plan for today is to relax, read the Sunday papers and recharge my batteries for the week ahead, already I can feel the cogs in my mind starting to turn, listing all of the things I really should be doing instead...the Christmas cakes need feeding ... biscuit dough to make ... Gingerbread men to get ready... next batch of puddini to prepare...

Just in the nick of time of I spoke to No.3 Sister, who has ordered me to expel all such thoughts from my mind and camp out on the sofa for the rest of the day. So the Tiny Christmas cakes can wait (that's them in the photo, fresh from the oven last month - it feels slightly wrong to be displaying them naked, without even their marzipan underwear on, but I promise, the next time you see them, they will be fully dressed) and so too can all of the other chores I could or should be doing. Given that it's the first of December and XmasFM is broadcasting live once more, I think it's time to stop and smell the roses (or the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg). In the spirit of all things festive, I thought I'd also post a picture I took of the last piece of that chocolate gingerbread biscuit batch (now more aptly named the Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Biscuit). It's a Christmas tree shape and I was playing around with some icing to plan out a design for this year's Christmas biscuits. I hope it infects you with some of my Christmas spirit. Yes folks, it is indeed beginning to look alot like Christmas!

New beginnings, no worries

In an unintentional follow-on from last week's wedding post, I find myself ruminating on new babies and new beginnings. My next-door neighbours have a brand new little girl and her arrival coincided nicely with my iced-biscuit trials. I've been toying with the idea of launching a whole iced-biscuit range, with themed biscuits to suit any occasion, and tiny baby Jane offered me the perfect excuse to get out my cookie cutters and stencils. Not content with prams, booties and ducklings, I also cut a batch of summer-themed biscuits. After all, little Jane has an older sister, and I couldn't possibly leave her out of the iced-biscuit extravaganza, could I? Naturally, none of this had anything to do with my inner child clamouring for some pretty summery designs to colour in!


I'm afraid I never grew out of my love for the colouring book and a fresh set of colouring pencils or markers. (I never much liked crayons; they always turned into horrible waxy stubs, making it very difficult to colour within the lines.) Oh the joy of a brand new colouring book, with pages of different drawings all ready to be coloured in. Was there anything better than that as a child? And while I'm on the subject, was there anything worse than opening said colouring book only to find your younger brother or sister had 'decorated' half the pages with random scribbles? Or worse again, someone had committed that heinous sin of colouring outside the lines - for shame!

Now I've simply replaced the book with biscuits and the pencils / markers with royal icing - guilt-free colouring in for adults. But childhood pleasures aside, I'm not surprised to find that I enjoy the intricate nature of icing biscuits. To some it may well be tedious and fiddly, but I've always found these kinds of tasks to be the most calming. While the hands are busy and the mind is concentrating on the details, there is no time to worry.

Tradition

I was icing a batch of biscuit wedding favours last week and pondering the advent of this relatively new trend in Irish weddings. A large cluster of my friends got married, all around the same time, about ten years ago now. It was a frantic cycle of hen parties (restricted to one night thankfully, not the weekend odyssey it has become), clothes shopping, gift shopping and generally enjoying a good ol' knees-up while haemorrhaging money. For all the frills and fun of those weddings, however, there was not a wedding favour in sight (nor were they missed it has to be said). Fast-forward a decade or so and no right-thinking bride would be without them. As I iced the little bride and groom biscuit hearts, I became curious as to how it all began. I confess, I was a bit sniffy about the whole concept. Was this, as I had assumed, simply one more in a long line of trends that make their way from the US to our shores? 

 

A lull in the icing process provided enough time for a spot of research (isn't the internet marvellous?). Much to my surprise, it seems that wedding favours began on this side of the Atlantic, long before the arrival of the white, multi-tiered wedding cake in fact (which is a whole other blog-post). Apparently (the internet is marvellous but not always accurate, so don't quote me on this), a bonbonniere was given to each of the guests at aristocratic weddings in Europe. It was a small trinket box, often highly decorated and filled with sugar cubes or delicate confections. Sugar was a luxury in Europe prior to the 18th century, available to only the most wealthy, so this was bling at its best (think Kim Kardashian and whoever her current beau is). Of course, bling at a wedding is nothing new and neither, as it turns out, are wedding favours! I can now bake and ice my little wedding favours safe in the knowledge that they are no mere trend, but instead hold a well-earned place at the top table of wedding traditions.