Chocolate

One of my closest friends turned forty last week (she doesn't look a day of it). She's a girl after my own heart who loves a bit of chocolate. We first met in college, where we spent many an hour sitting in the Coffee Dock in Trinity's Arts Block, drinking coffee and eating chocolate biscuit cake or some other chocolatey confection. So, as part of her birthday present I came up with some new chocolatey treats, just for her.

It's ridiculously easy to make (the hardest part is waiting patiently for it to set) and if you're put off by the home-made honeycomb element, you could simply purchase some Crunchies and smash them up. But really, you haven't lived until you've made your own honeycomb. With the addition of plain old bicarbonate of soda to caramelised sugar, suddenly you have a golden mass of honeycomb bubbling up from the bottom of your pot - much like the porridge in The Magic Porridge Pot story. I admit the bubbling mass of molten sugar rising up to greet you is a little bit scary, but it is exciting every time and even though I know better, I like to think of it as magic (to my eternal disappointment it is, in fact, just chemistry and is probably as close to being a scientist as an archaeologist / baker like me will ever get). 

 

The first was a dark chocolate and honeycomb crunch square - basically a variant on the chocolate biscuit cake or chocolate fridge cake, but with home-made honeycomb as the star of the show. For those of you who love dark chocolate and also have a place in your heart for a Crunchie (which is of course milk chocolate) give this a try. The intensity of the dark chocolate is tempered slightly by butter and golden syrup, but as I started with 85% dark choc, it still stands up well against the sweet honeycomb - the secret ingredient providing additional crunch and a nice maltiness was the humble Corn Flake.

The second chocolatey treat was a chocolate and peanut-butter truffle. I hadn't intended making truffles of any description, but that morning I remembered that I had stored some left-over peanut-butter mix in my trusty freezer. The mix usually forms the base of my chocolate and peanut-butter cups (essentially a home-made Reese's Peanut-Butter Cup), which are dangerously addictive. Given that there is no better marriage than that between chocolate and peanuts, I wondered if I could use the base in another way. It's a yummy mixture of peanut butter, icing sugar, butter and brown sugar, so I thought I'd try adding melted chocolate to it, let it set a bit and see if it tasted truffley.

It did. And sinfully good. On a very bad day, I might even spread it on my toast (well, it's not too great a leap from Nutella, is it?), but on this occasion I managed to restrain myself. Instead I scooped out little truffles with my melon-baller (everyone needs a melon-baller) and rolled them in chopped peanuts (rinsed of salt and dried in a hot oven). As it happens, the quantity of base mixture I had resulted in a larger number of truffles than I could fit in the gift bag, which meant plenty left for 'trial tastings' (quality control and taste testing is very important!). Poor me, eh? I'm off for a coffee now and maybe just one more truffle to make sure they really do taste good.

Carpe diem

With the amount of baking I do, there is always something sweet around the apartment. Between trials of new cakes and left-overs from orders (I always bake extra in case of a kitchen mishap - the good ol' Baker's Dozen), if I ate everything from the cake box I'd be the size of a house. There is such a thing as (never thought I'd say this) too much cake. Even as I write that I'm cringing. It feels blasphemous, like a betrayal of all the cakes I've lovingly made.

So what's a girl to do? I certainly can't eat it all and I wouldn't countenance throwing it in the bin. It's beautiful cake, not rubbish! Besides, my inner Thrifty Queen is very disapproving of waste. Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to my freezer: champion of the cake and saviour of my waistline. When I have doled out samples and left-overs to my willing guinea pigs (thank you family), anything remaining goes straight into the freezer. Happily, there are very few cakes that don't like freezing. Simply defrost those with icing or filling until they come to room temperature, then eat. For scones, muffins, pastries and the like, defrost then refresh for about 5 minutes in a hot oven (the microwave will make them unpleasantly rubbery). Hey presto, freshly baked yumminess with no effort! Not that most people need this little nugget of wisdom. I once told one of my regular customers that if her family didn't get through the whole chocolate fudge cake, she could freeze the rest. She just looked at me, completely bemused - why wouldn't they get through the whole cake?

All this talk of freezing cake was by way of introduction to my lovely afternoon with a chocolate fudge cupcake, a cup of coffee and the Sunday papers yesterday. I overdosed on cake around Easter and haven't been eating (or dreaming about it) quite as much as usual lately. Then my sister told me she'd just had one of my chocolate cupcakes that were stored in her freezer (I'm not the only one, see! Must be a family thing), which reminded me that I had some in my freezer too. I was a little late in taking it out to defrost (countdown: approximately two hours till coffee time), which caused a little pang of disappointment; now that I'd embraced the notion of cake and coffee, I was loath to give it up. At approximately one hour till coffee time the cake was almost there; it felt slightly soft, though still cold and undoubtedly a touch solid in the centre. As it had a buttercream icing, it couldn't go in the oven to speed up the process, so I tried a different approach (desperate times). I stood the cake on a plate, which was in turn balanced on a bowl of hot water (not as precarious as it sounds).

Success! The cake sponge was still moist, perfectly soft and warmed through, and the fudgy icing was just squidgy enough. Even better, it was exactly what I wanted at that particular moment. I'm a planner (OK, control freak) and normally, I would decide the day before to have some cake, remember to take it out first thing in the morning and allow plenty of time for it to defrost and come to temperature. (I confess, this sometimes results in a lovely defrosted piece of cake that I no longer want.) Yesterday's burst of spontaneity culminated in the perfect cake moment, with a delicious cupcake and a nicely brewed cup of coffee, both served on pretty china that I normally save for a 'special' occasion. I learned a very valuable lesson years ago when my brother died of cancer aged only 18. He was someone who squeezed every last drop of joy out of life and I swore I would always try to do the same. Life, or rather, the daily routines of life, too often distract and make me forget my promise to myself. So this perfect cake moment was my reminder, straight from the Book of Cake Revelations - seize the day!

The little rolling pin

Once upon a time there was a little rolling pin called Little Red. He was made of wood, like most rolling pins, but instead of plain wooden handles, his were painted red. Now the little rolling pin was very proud of his handles. They were red, a most fabulous colour, and they had enough of a shine to make Little Red stand out amongst all the other rolling pins in the shop, even if he was the smallest.

 

Every time a customer came in, Little Red was sure that he would be picked to go home with them and take pride of place in their kitchen. He would dream of his life there, rolling out pastry for an apple tart on a Sunday afternoon or watching from the side of the flour-dusted table as biscuits were cut from the dough he had just rolled. As the customer approached the shelf, his pin would give a little roll as he settled back into the box with the others, delirious at the very thought and brimming with excitement. 

But nobody ever chose Little Pin and each time someone moved him aside to get at another rolling pin, his disappointment grew. Most customers never even noticed him, despite his shiny red handles. He finally gave up hope one day after a particularly nasty woman carelessly pushed him aside, while muttering to herself, 'What a piece of rubbish! Too small to be of any use and those handles would get scratched as soon as you picked it up'. Little Pin shuffled his way to the bottom of the box, hiding beneath all of the bigger rolling pins, unable to face any more disappointment. His dreams were dashed. There would be no kitchen where he would be used and loved for his role in bringing tarts and pies and biscuits to life.

Then one day a lady walked into the shop looking for something in particular, a rolling pin for her young daughter. She had been searching everywhere and despaired of ever finding a rolling pin that was small enough for her little hands to manage. Not expecting success, she half-heartedly poked through the box of rolling pins, seeing nothing but the usual large wooden pins. Just as she was about to give up, a glint of shiny red paint caught her eye. Pushing the other pins out of the way, she saw a little wooden rolling pin with beautiful red handles. It was perfect! Smiling in satisfaction, the lady carefully picked up the pin and took it to the counter to pay. And so Little Pin found his home and lived happily ever after with the little girl who loved to bake.

Yes, Readers, that is me in the photo, transfixed by the little rolling pin while Big Sis grins obligingly for the photo. I came across this old photograph recently and was very amused to see that my love of baking (and fancy kitchen utensils!) goes back quite a way. Sadly, I don't know where Little Pin is now, but he certainly left an impression on my two-year old self, and while I have no idea how he came to be in my possession, I like to think that this little story holds a grain of truth and that it was meant to be!

Pretzel wars

I had no idea, when I first embarked upon the idea to bake pretzels for No.3 Sister, just how high tensions ran in the world of pretzel making. Freshly baked, salty pretzels are one of her favourite things and it just so happened that there was a recipe for pretzels in my newest baking book, Scandilicious Baking by Signe Johansen. Well, I say new, but I actually got it from my Dad for Christmas and I'm only now getting around to trying out the recipes.

All was going well as I gathered everything together and started mixing the dry ingredients with some honey and melted butter (which I thought would have more flavour than the listed oil). Then I looked to the recipe to see what the liquid component was and how much to add... nothing!! Puzzled and assuming an editorial glitch in the ingredient list, I read through the method once more to find that there was none. Sigh. Nothing upsets me more than poor editing, whether it's typos or (more critically) missing ingredients. As none of my other books had a pretzel recipe, I turned to my trusty friend, the internet. I managed to find what purported to be an 'Authentic German Pretzel' recipe (more of this later). It was similar to Johansen's but crucially, it added a mix of milk and water (that's more like it!). The result was eight soft, salty pretzels that were rather tasty if I do say so myself. Authentic, though? That, my friends, appears to be the million dollar question over which wars are currently being fought online.

When I made the pretzels, I followed both the Johansen and the 'Authentic' recipes' instructions to boil the pretzels in water and bicarbonate of soda before sprinkling with salt and baking in a hot oven. Curious after the recipe book fiasco, I went back on line to research some more pretzel recipes and methods to see what, if anything, I might change the next time I make them. I came across a pretzel blog-post on The Fresh Loaf (a fantastic site for amateur bread-makers / enthusiasts), which sparked a heated debate over whether or not the boiling water bath for the pre-baked pretzels should contain bicarb or lye (caustic soda to you or me). Apparently (at least according to some of the more vitriolic posts), if it's not a lye bath, then it's not an authentic German pretzel (though this was in turn debated by one poster whose German grandmother never used lye). Most people seem happy to compromise on authenticity for the safer and easier option of bicarb, as using lye requires rubber gloves and safety goggles and includes lots of caveats (e.g. don't use parchment paper to line your tin as it'll burn right through and it'll also take the non-stick layer from your non-stick tins). Yikes!

Bicarb or lye issues aside, I thought the pretzel twisting, then the boil / bake scenario would be terribly fiddly, but it was all much simpler than expected. The rather plump pretzels were declared a success by all of my sisters when we had them that afternoon, accompanied by cold beers and unusually hot Irish sun. Authentic? Who cares? Delicious? Most definitely. No.3 Sister, a connoisseur of pretzels, has requested more of the same for her birthday celebrations in a few weeks time. Perhaps, if I'm feeling brave I might even don goggles and gloves and get out the caustic soda. Stay tuned!

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.