Scottish Shortbread Christmas Edition

So Thankgiving came and went in the blink of an eye. I decided I was going to make some nice Thankgiving shortbreads in the holiday shapes as a gift for our dinner hosts. Alas that was not meant to be as every shop I went in to had not one thanksgiving shaped cookie cutter so in the end I decided I would preserve just in Chistmas theme instead! I think the last time I had made short bread was in school and I had grievously overlooked them. So I little hunting through the cook books and the lovely interweb! I found myself a good combination for my recipe.

Ingredients:

225g softened butter

110g caster sugar plus extra for dusting

225g all purpose flour

110g corn flour/corn starch 

Pinch of salt

You will also need a couple of sheets of baking parchment, a rolling pin and rather cookie cutters or a round tin depending what you want.

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light and fluffy. I recommend using an electric whisk to save your arm muscles.

Sift in the flour and the corn flour with the salt and mix into the butter/sugar mixture.

Tip the mixture out onto a lightly flour surface and bring together while kneading to a soft dough. (It will more then likely be extremely flaky and likely to fall apart this is a good thing don't worry)

Using two pieces of baking parchment roll the dough out between them to about 1/2 an inch thickness.

Remove the top baking parchment and prick the dough all over with a fork. You can now cut the dough out into the shapes of your choice. 

Any dough you have left over you can re-roll out and cut too.

When moving the cut out shapes to the baking tray use a flat spatula and very gentle pick them up and move them over to prevent them from falling apart at this point.

Bake in a preheated oven at 170C for about 20 mins you want them to be a light golden brown.

Once then are cooked again using the spatula move them to a wire rack to cool and dust with caster sugar.

These really are super super tastey as they are but you can always vary the recipe up by dipping the finished cookies into chocolate. Adding chocolate chips to the recipe or dusting with a cinnamon sugar at the end. The choice is yours.

Enjoy Tara 

Home made Baileys

Well

After I decided a few weeks ago to clean my laptop up so I wiped back to factory settings after saving all of my important info into my hard drive. 

I figured I would remember all my passwords and such for the different sites I use. What I neglected to remember was that I hadn't written down the user name for this blog..... That has posed a problem for possibly two weeks now and eventually today I played the guessing game. After possibly an hour of trying to log into other people's accounts and a really old account I didn't even know I still had I found my username! My apologies to any other Tara Prendergasts out there I was not trying to hack your gmail accounts! 

Anyways now I have found my way here I should probably adjust this one to the married name so I find it easier in future. 

So today I am going to teach you about how to make your very own homemade Baileys. 

I never even knew that this was a possibility until myself and Rob stayed in a BnB near Oban in Scotland about a year and a half ago. It was a really lovely little place with big glass windows and beds that you seriously sank right into. I honestly think it may have been the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. Anyways they had some really sweet little treats for us during our stay including complimentary homemade Baileys and the local whiskey. Hence how this post has now come to pass.

You may think this might be difficult but it is seriously one of the easiest recipes you can possibly try.

Ingredients:

1 cup Double cream(heavy/whipping) 

1&3/4 cups Whiskey

2 tbsp Chocolate syrup

1 tsp Instant coffee

1 can Condensed milk

1 tsp Vanilla extract 

Method:

Put all of the ingredients into a blender or your prefers mixing tool and whisk.

Whisk for 20 seconds for a nice light texture or whisk for up to 1 minute for a nice creamy texture. 

I prefer the ridiculously creamy if I'm honest.

This honestly is one of the tastiest Baileys you will ever try and it makes an excellent gift for friends when going to parties over the holidays. 

Enjoy Tara x 

Homemade Dungeness Crab Cakes

So it has been forever since I updated the blog!
Life has been hectic with getting married and everything. All the parents where here to help us celebrate our wedding, and I got to practice some of my blog posts on them which was really nice.
We had many nice meals including some fresh crab from Pike Place Market which is what inspired this blog post.
I am probably going to go away from Baking sweet things for a little while and work more on the cooking end of things due to my new get health kick before christmas.
I have this post and another one ready to come up to but I will leave them a few days apart to keep me busy.

You can use pretty much any type of crab you like for this we used Dungeness but Brown Crab or what ever is local is fine for you to use.



Ingredients:



2 Fully Cooked Dungeness Crab (de-shelled and use the meat only)
3-4 Medium sized Potatoes
1 Small Chilli
1/2 Bell Pepper (color of your choice)
5-6 Scallion Stalks (green onion)
Breadcrumbs
2 Eggs whisked
Oil for Frying





Method:

• Peel and boil the potatoes for making mashed potato
• Dice the chilli, bell pepper and scallions up nice a small
• Once the Potatoes are ready mash them up with a potato masher and mix in the crab meat and the diced vegtables.
• Shape the mixture into small flattish balls and then dip into the egg mix and them roll in the breadcrumbs until completely coated. 
• fry the crab cakes on a frying pan with a small amount of oil on both sides until golden browned.
• Serve up with sweet chilli sauce or seafood sauce and enjoy.

Enjoy Tara x

Molten Chocolate Volcano Cake

Again we have another ship inspired recipe! Another favourite past time of mine onboard was going to the signature restaurants for dinner. It was again lovely on occasion to go and have a sit down meal and actually be served, and for the food to be beyond delicious!
I could say one of the best deserts but I think it may just be THE BEST DESERT, the chocolate volcano cake. I hunted about online and eventually found a fair few variations of this recipe. Whether if it 100% the same of not I will never know but I tell you I think it takes incredible!
If you like a ridiculously rich chocolate cake with a gooey hot centre then this is the perfect desert for you. A word of warning though. this recipe makes 8 portions, and I would highly recommend separating it into 8 portions unlike me who halved the recipe (4 portions) and then forced all the mix between two portions. Me and the other  half only made it half was through 1 portion and we could not fit in another bite for love nor money.

So you will need 8 ramekin or another type of oven safe dishes for this recipe.

Ingredients:

Butter                            1 lb (there are 16oz in a pound)
Bittersweet Chocolate  11 oz
Sugar                             7 oz
Salt                                1/2 tsp
Flour                             4 oz
Cocoa Powder              2 oz
Baking Powder             2 tsp
Grand Marnier             1 oz
Orange Zest                 1 tbsp
Whole Eggs                 3
Egg Yokes                   3
Egg Whites                  3    

Preparation:

• Melt 12oz of butter and all the chocolate together and set aside to cool. 
• In a separate bowl mix 4 oz of butter and 7 oz of sugar until pale and fluffy. add on egg at a time and 1 egg yoke at a time while mixing.
• Once the chocolate mix is lukewarm add this to the mixture and then all the Grand Marnier and the Orange Zest

• Sift in the flour, cocoa, salt and the baking powder and continue to mix for about 3 minutes after it is fully incorporated.
• Using the Egg whites and the remaining sugar create a meringue mixture and then fold into the chocolate mixture.
• Fill each of the ramican dishes with about 7 oz of the mixture and bake in a Pre heated oven at 375F or 190C for about 15-20 minutes.
• You want to serve these hot in there dishes. There fore if you are having them after a meal don't put them in the oven unit you main course is already finished.

My Recommendation for serving them is with a side of Vanilla ice-cream as the flavour and the cold compliment the hot richness of the Volcano cake! I had way too much fun making this dish to be honest and I still have half of a dish in the fridge which I think won't be there by evening fall today!
Enjoy baking and most of all Enjoy Tasting!

 Tara x

Bagel or Beagle

When I was young I always confused the two spellings. Well in all honestly I confused a lot of spellings but I definitely know the difference now..... Today I am focused on Bagels rather then Snoopy!
While I worked at sea I just loved having the chance of having room service! No having to be polite and smile at the guests. I could sit down in my PJ's curse and give out about the world and I no guests are around to hear me! And what was always a constant on my room service order! Smoked salmon Bagel with Cream cheese! Yum Yum Yum! My absolute favourite! Unfortunately most of the time they usual forgot one of the vital ingredients, some times it was the cheese, some times the salmon and sometimes they managed to forget the bloody bagel! Well now I am the master of my own kitchen I won't be forgetting anything any time soon!

I decided to go with poppy seed bagels but you can pretty much sprinkle what ever your favourite topping is, over the top.

Ingredients:

7 g dried yeast
4 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
450g bread flour
poppy seeds

• Tip your yeast and 1 tbsp of sugar into a large bowl and pour over 100ml or warm water. Leave to the side for about 10 minutes until it is nice and frothy.
• Pour another 200ml warm water into the mix and stir in the salt and half of the flour. 
• Keep adding more and more flour until you have a soft but not sticky dough. Use your hands for the mixing otherwise you won't be able to feel when the sticky-ness is gone out of the dough. 
• Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes or until you have a nice smooth elastic dough.
• Lightly oil a bowl like with the Previous baguettes and tip in there and lightly cover with plastic wrap until it has doubled in size. This will take roughly an hour. 
• Pre heat the over to 220C or 430F - Now on a floured surface divide the dough into 10 pieces. roughly about 85g each. you can make them smaller if you only want mini bagels instead. Shape each piece into a flattish ball and using the end of a wooden spoon (dust it with flour) create a hole in the centre of the dough and then spin it around the spoon to widen it to about 3-5cm. 
• After you finish each bagel wrap each one lightly in plastic wrap until they are all complete. 
• While you have been doing these it is best to make sure you have a large pan of water coming to the boil. Add the remaining sugar to the boiling water and then tip in up to 4 bagels at a time.  
• Cook each bagel for 1-2 minutes turning them over in the water until the bagels have slightly puffed out and a skin has formed over them.
• Remove and drain each one and place on a lined baking tray. Sprinkle with poppy seeds or your chosen topping.
• Bake for 25 minutes or until browned and crisp. The base sound sound hollow when tapped.

Voila you have bagels! They have been super tasty and to say the least more then half of them are gone already! If you aren't into smoked salmon you can just put cream cheese and salon or you can make it a sweet bagels with Nutella and peanut putter and bananas. Where ever the flavours take you I hope you enjoy! 

Cookie Bites

So being that the blog is called the Cookie Tray I am slowly getting closer to making some actually cookies! I have taken a big interest in Pinterest lately and I have found some really great cookie idea and recipes. Today I decided to go for the cookie dough truffles. The end results looks fantastic and tastes AMAZING! The only thing I would have done differently is, I would have made the dough balls smalls, more one bites size as they are super sweet.

Ingredients:

Butter softened           - 1/3 cup or 75g
Brown Sugar              - 1/3 cup or 55g
Vanilla Extract           - 1 Tbsp
All - Purpose flour     - 1 cup or 140g
Milk chocolate chips - 1 cup or 100g

Decoration:

Semi sweet dark chocolate chips  - 1 cup or 100g
White Chocolate chips                  - 1/2 cup or 50g

Method:

1. Cover a plate or tray that you can fit into your freezer with tin foil (aluminium)
2. In a medium sized bowl combine the softened butter, the sugar and the vanilla, next add the flour and mix until everything is smooth.
3. Mix in the chocolate chips. You may find it easier to do this with your hands as the mix is quite dry. 
4. Now roll the dough into bite size balls and place them onto the tray and but it into the freezer for 30 minutes or until they are nice and firm.
5. Melt the chocolate in separate bowls. It is your choice if you only want to use the dark chocolate or use a mixture. To roll the dough balls use a fork to help and then shake off any excess and place them back onto the foil covered tray. 
6. Place the covered balls into the freezer again until all the chocolate is set and then you can store them in an airtight container in the fridge until you are ready to eat them.

Some other ideas for these truffles, you can sprinkle a little salt over the top of them to bring out the chocolate flavour. Also you can melt some toffee and drizzle over the top, sprinkle some lime or orange rinds or chilli powder over the top of the chocolate before they go into the freezer for the final set. It is entirely up to you what flavour you feel like creating in your truffles. They are super tasty and really don't take very long at all to create! 

Enjoy

Tara 

 

Break your Fast

So Leah Kelly requested some healthy additions to the blog in the form of a health bar. I have trailed around online looking at many and many different recipes for health bars, protein bars and breakfast bars. I prefer the idea of doing a breakfast bar as all of the health bars or at least the majority seem to include protein powder in them. I am not one for working out so I really didn't like the idea of including that sort of a recipe.
I have adapted pretty much a big group of recipes to create a Very Berry Crunch breakfast bar. You can adapt this recipe completely to make it more healthy for you or to include different flavours and tastes to make it just as you want.
Here is my adaption but I will include some exchanges for your own try down the end.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups  -  315g Cornflakes
2 1/4  cups  -   315g Flour
1 1/2 cups  -  255g brown sugar
1 cup        -  225g butter
3 cups       -  450g frozen mixed berries
1/4 cup       -  50g sugar
1 cup        -  175g semi sweet dark chocolate (optional)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp corn starch/arrowroot or any other type of thickening agent.

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 350ºF or 175ºC
• Combine in a mixing bowl the cornflakes, flour, brown sugar, baking soda and the salt in a bowl. 
• Melt the butter down and mix into the mixture until it is completely combined and looks like crumbs.
• Now take a square tin and press 3/4 of the mixture down to about 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch thick.
• In a pan over a medium heat combine the berries and the sugar and thickening agent until it begins to look like a nice thick lumpy syrup, this will take a little long when using berries that are still partially frozen.
• Pour the berry mixture over the base mixture and then crumble the remaining dry mixture over the fruit.
• Bake in the over for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
• Leave to cool completely in the tin before cutting into nice sized bars.
• Melt the chocolate in an oven proof dish over a simmer pan of water and then drizzle over the bars in a fashion that suits your taste.

So basically you can swap out of of these ingredients or anything else. 

The cornflakes can be changes to any other breakfast cereal, oats granola, bran ect. 

Instead of using butter you can use maple syrup which is actually fairly good for you. If any of you have tried the awful lemon detox diet, you will know that maple syrup is put in that. Reason being it contains all the nutrients your body needs in a day which is necessary since you don't eat during the lemon detox. I lasted like 2-3 days and that was the best I could do with it! Use golden syrup if thats the taste you like to go for, you can also just change the type of butter you use. Almond butter and peanut butter are a going to give you a nice taste difference. 

Change to different types of fruit or berries. For apples or solid fruits I would defiantly recommend stewing them a lot to soften them. Also what would be delicious is apple and toffee. So you can use small toffee pieces with the apples or you can make a full on toffee layer, maybe throw in some cinnamon too! Oh and your fruit doesn't have to be frozen it can be fresh. I just decided to go with what ever I had in the kitchen today.

And obviously you can change the chocolate to milk or white chocolate or omit it completely. But remember dark chocolate is full of anti oxidants, so in small doses it is good for you!

I may have used a little too much chocolate! 

Oh and one last thing on this recipe obviously if you are trying to be healthy you shouldn't be intending to eat all of these in one sitting. Therefore if you are going to eat them within 3 - 4 days then store them in the fridge in an airtight container. If not freeze them in the container and defrost a few at a time.

Enjoy the pictures and definitely give this a try yourself. 

If anyway has any other requests just comment on the blog or on the Facebook page and I will let you know if it is in the realms of possibility.

Tara 

Death my Chocolate

So moving continents and bringing completely no furniture with us we spent a lot of time in Ikea creating our home. One of the things we found to really enjoy about Ikea was the restaurant. In specific the lovely lovely chocolate overload cake! It is incredible! Really moist and then has like a mousse of some sort filling and topping! Amazing!!

So since then I have been scouring online for something that would be the same or at least close in the Ikea cake.

I ended up making this cake in stages and I never actually took the time to take pictures of the whole process but I have included a slice of the delicious cake or too.

Cake ingredients:

Sugar                                        2 cups

All Purpose Flour                    13/4 cup

Cocoa Powder                          3/4 cups

Vegetable Oil                           1/2 cup

Milk                                         1 cup

Boiling Coffee                         1 cup

Eggs                                         2

Baking Powder                        11/2 tsp

Baking Soda                            11/2 tsp

Salt                                          1 tsp

Vanilla Extract                         2 tsp

Method for the cake:

• Preheat the oven the 350F or   C.
• Grease a small/medium sized springform pan.
• In a large bowl mix in the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt until it all combined.
• Add all the rest of the ingredients into the dry mixture and mix on a medium speed until you have a very liquid mix. You can now pour this into the springform pan and place in the centre of the oven for about 40 minutes or until a cake stick can come away clean.
• Once the cake is cooked let it sit in the form for about 15/20 minutes and then turn it out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

Chocolate Mousse Ingredients:

Separated Eggs                 3

Semi-sweet chocolate       6oz

Cold Heavy Cream           1/2 cup

Sugar                                1/4 cup 2 tbsp

unsalted butter                  3 tbsp

Vanilla essence                 1/2 tsp

Cream of Tartar                1/2 tsp

Method for the Mousse:

• Put a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water and place the chocolate and butter into the pan and let it melt slowly mixing it with a whisk. 
• Once complete remove it from the heat and whisk in 1 egg yoke at a time and set aside.
• In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until light and fluffy and slowly add the cream of tartar and the 1/4 cup of sugar while whisking until they form stiff peaks like with a meringue. Set this aside also.
• So now you will need a bowl that has been kept cold in the fridge and also the whisk. If you are running short of time just add them into the freezer for about 15 minutes and they will be good to. Whisk the cold cream now until they start to foam up and then all the rest of the sugar and the vanilla essence until the cream holds nice soft peaks.
• Hopefully at this point the chocolate mix will have cooled some if not you may want to put the complete mixture into the fridge for like 30 minutes or so. 
• First fold the egg white mixture into your the chocolate mixture and then fold the whipped cream into it. Try your best not to overwork the mixture but it does need completely combined.

Method to create the Cake:

• Once everything is ready and cooled you need to slice the cake into 2 or 4 layers depending on what you are looking to achieve. 
• Cover each slice with a thick layer of mousse and layer the cake on top until it is complete. cover the cake in the rest of the mousse and refrigerate until you are ready to eat it! 

Honestly this is probably one of the tastiest chocolate cakes I have ever made! And I am seriously contemplating on going for another slice right about now!

Pane al Cioccolato

There are not enough ways or words for me to explain how completely excited and happy I am about how this bread has turned out! I literally don't want to leave it alone! 

Between staring and the beautiful look of the three loaves, smelling the decadent chocolate smell wafting out of the kitchen and cutting slices layering butter on top and chowing down, I cannot think of anything better!

I am so excited to cook this again. Bread can sometimes feel like way too much work because of the waiting for it to rise/proof/rest ect, but there are no results like perfectly baked fresh loaves of bread, especially when chocolate is included.

So which this recipe your Sour Dough Starter from the "Hunting for Wild Yeast" comes in handy.

Firstly beginning the Sour Dough Starter sometimes referred to as the Big a Naturale.

Ingredients:

Starter of (50% hydration)                               - 1oz

Bread Flour                                                      - 1.2oz

Room temp Water                                            - 0.7oz

Method:

• Mix all of the ingredients together until a nice thick batter.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap lightly and let the yeast sit for 8 hours a constant room temperature to ferment. 

The Biga Naturale

So once your Yeast has had time to ferment you can begin the rest of the process with the bread. I generally suggest you get the yeast started the evening before you want to make your bread otherwise your whole day will be consumed by bread, which some times is more frustrating instead of fun.

Ingredients:

All of the Wild Yeast you had left our to ferment, if it has gone slightly rubbery or hard just cut it up into small pieces and you are good to go.

Bread Flour          - 3 cups

Water                    - 1 1/8cups

Honey                   - 4 tbsp

Vanilla extract      - 1 tbsp

Cocoa Powder      - 4 tbsp

Salt                       - 1 tbsp

Instant Yeast        - 1/4 tsp

Chocolate Chips  - 3oz

Method:

• But all ingredients except the chocolate chips and the water into a bowl and slowly add the water and mix together until completely evenly incorporated. I use the dough hooks for this otherwise the dough gets caught up in the mixer. However if you don't have dough hooks you can still do this, it will just be a little more messy.

• Flour up a surface and knead the dough for about 5-8 minutes 

• Let the Dough Rest for about 5 minutes  and then add the chocolate chips while kneading for about a minute or until all are incorporated in the dough.

• Now just like before in the Baguette blog lightly oil a bowl and and place your dough in there to ferment for about 2 hours or so.

• Again lightly flour a clean surface and split your dough into 2/3/4 even pieces. It is completely up to you, but if you intend to share it with people not living in your home or to freeze it cause it won't be eaten split it more rather then less, this way you will have less food waste.             Lightly Ball the dough up and leave to rest for about 10/15 minutes. 

• Now you want to shape the dough balls into a nice smooth round ball or go for a more oval shape. Again this is completely your choice of what you fancy going for and I have decided on a nice oval! You can now place these on the tray and cover with a tea towel and leave to proof for about 3 hours. 

• About an hour before the bread will finish proofing preheat your oven to 400F/204C and place a oven tray filled with water in the bottom of the oven, this will help to keep the crust softer. 

• Score the top of the loaves 2/3 times each. Bake for 20 minutes and then rotate the loaves and bake for about 10/15 minutes. The smell will be completely divine while they are cooking and keep in mind that when you open the oven the steam will rush out at you so step back and don't get burnt!

• Once the Loaves are ready let them cool on a wire rack until completely cooled if you can resist it! I didn't manage to resist it! I ended up going in for the kill while it was hot and I just don't even regret it!! Delish!!!

Yum Yum Yum!!! Happy Baking People!!

Tara 

 

On the Hunt for Wild Yeast continued.......

So just to finish of this epic journey of the discovery to wild yeast(Sour Dough Starter), let me finish off the ingredients and day to day of the how to.

Day Two:

The mixture was looking good and bubbly already which is great, it also had a fairly sweet smell when you removed the lid. 

So I measured out in a large bowl

• 4 oz of all purpose flour
• 4oz of filtered water 

And the current mixture

I now mixed everything vigourosly into a good smooth paste, and then transferred it back into the mason jar. The jar at this point was only just past half full, however about 4 hours later I walked into the kitchen and the mixture had bubbled and expanded on mass and was completely over flowing and rolling down the side of the fridge. So now I have split the mixture between two mason jars now.....

Day Two Results

Day Three:

The mixture is more then doubled in size today. I ended up splitting the mixture between three jars as it actually started to overflow. It smells distinctly yeasty and sweet today.

Today like yesterday add

4oz flour
4oz water
current mixture

Mix vigurously and pour into three separate jars and place onto of the fridge to work it's magic.

Day Three

Day Four:

As it turns out I am completely underestimating the Starter. Every recipe I have found has said it will double in size....... More like quadruples in size! Seriously! the amount it has risen is ridiculous. I went to Victoria overnight and I had placed a plate under the jars just in case and a good thing I did! the Started was everywhere again!! The jars where jammed shut with starter after exploding out of them! To say the least the kitchen stank of yeast when we came home from Victoria!

Anyway moving on we do!

Same as everyday before combine the below in a bowl

4oz flour
4oz water
and the remaining starter
Mix it all up smooth and separate into four jars this time.

Day Four

Day Five:
So the starter raised plenty but thankfully did not go madly out of the jars today. While it expanded it became lovely and airiy and bubbly looking which is a brilliant result for the starter.
Today is the last consecutive day of having to feed the starter (hopefully)

So once again,

4oz flour
4oz water
Remaining Starter
Mix the same as previous days and split between all 4 jars again.

Day Five

Today once your starter has fermented well and is ripe, you can place it into the fridge after a few hours of sitting at room temperature until you are ready to use it. If your starter is not showing the signs of being ripe continue on day by day using the same technique until you have a ripe starter.

Once per week you will need to maintain the started by either using half or disposing half and then adding the 4 oz flour and water mixture.

If you are wanting to minimise the amount of starter you are using you can dispose of half and use only 2 oz of here. Or if you are going to be away or not intending to use the starter for a few weeks then use double the amount of flour and water.

So not that I have a healthy ripe starter I am ready to create some Italian Chocolate Bread! 

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice cream (Orange Sorbet Edition)

One of my new favourite toys is the ice cream machine I received for my birthday in July.

Since I received it myself and Rob went on a complete ice cream binge for about two weeks! We had icecream every single day with our dinners and I'm sure if this continued we would end up the size of the building. Thankfully we have slowed out icecream intake down, however I do love creating new flavours,so the Orange Sorbet is born.

Unfortunately if you don't have an ice cream maker you won't be able to try this one out. Therefore I highly recommend buying an ice cream making.

Ingredients:

2 cups of orange juice (it took me 8 medium oranges)

1/2 cup of lemon juice (two large lemons)

5/6 tbsp of sugar

2/3 tbsp water

Preparation

Method:

Squeeze the orange ensuring that no bits or seeds are included in the juice, sieve it if nessasary.

Squeeze the lemons and ensure the same. Combine both juices and cover and refrigerate.

In a small pan combine the sugar and enough water to dissolve it over a low heat. Once the sugar is dissolved add this to the juice mixture and continue to refrigerate for up to an hour or until cold. 

Once the mixture has cooled add it to your ice cream machine following the machine guidelines. Mine took over an hour to become frozen but it was extremely warm today.

Serve the mixture straight away or store in a sealed container in the freezer until needed.

Enjoy!

On the Hunt for Wild Yeast

About a year ago I was on my first management contract up in Alaska onboard the ms. Zaandam. To say the least that contract brought me all matter of challenges and some fabulous memories too. Plenty of these memories were made in Juneau AK (The viking lounge to be precise the he). After an evening in Juneau the onboard acupuncturist told me she found an amazing bakery (http://wildoven.com) and that they do many different types of bread. On the menu she showed me the one that jumped off the page was the "Italian Chocolate Bread". The next week when we got back to Juneau I went looking for this fabulous bakery and it turned out to be right around the corner from my regular watering hole!
To say the least the chocolate bread just amazing. They cut me a nice big slice and I got it toasted and buttered!

Delicious Chocolate Bread

After all this Alaskan excitement when I got back home aka mammy and daddy's house in Roscommon and I went on Google and found a recipe! The catch was that they wanted me to use something called wild yeast(Sour Dough Starter). I had never heard of it, I hadn't got a clue what I was doing, so I did what we all do when in doubt and I googled. Google told me it was going to take FIVE DAYS!!!

FIVE DAYS

I want my chocolate bread NOW. So, I cheated and used regular old yeast..... The bread wasn't amazing, nice but not like I had hoped. I guess needed to teach myself how to make this crazy wild yeast.

Once I moved over to Seattle I decided to give this whirl. The first recipe I found said it was easy -they lied. I tried my best to follow the instructions, but after 3 days I had a foul smelling liquid which had grown extremely furry. I dumped the top half of it and continued on anyway but them I ended up with this solid ball....... None of which the recipe had mentioned I should have. So in the end I threw it all out and called it a bad job!

Seattle

Today however I am trying again with an extremely simple recipe. Flour and Water!! Wow Wee! Now that's not to difficult. It will take a total of 5 days to see if I am successful but if I am, it opens up a whole world of new recipes to me! Here is me counting for a success cause I am seriously wanting me some Italian Chocolate Bread!

So for those of you interesting I have added the recipe for below.

Day One:

4oz All Purpose Flour
4oz Filters Water

• Measure ingredients and put into a plastic or glass bowl and mix vigorously until you have a smooth batter. (It will look similar to pancake batter)
• You can now cover this with cling film or loosely with the lid or if you are me you can transfer it into a small glass container. 
• Now you need to leave your mixture somewhere with a constant temperature of 70˚f-75˚f or 21˚c- 23˚c.
• Leave for 24 hours.

Day One Wild Yeast (Sour Dough Starter)

Stay tuned for how the next 4 days go and hopefully next week we will be starting some tasty chocolate bread!

Tara x

Let Them Eat Bread

Today I have gone for one of my new favourites to bake.
The Baguette! Or at least the mini baguette.

The baguette for all of us will bring thoughts of France and the french baguette, history dictates that the baguette has been used in France from as long ago as the time of Louis XIV.

A Traditional Bakery

Back in the early 19th century the baguette was baked in a deck/steam oven. This Oven used various steam injections to create the proper baguette that we know today. Using my own conventional oven I generally fill a baking tray with water and leave it in the oven while the oven preheats. This creates enough steam for the inside of the baguette to be light and fluffy while having a nice shiny brown exterior.

The modern day professional Deck/Steam Oven 

In the beginning when I decided that I wanted to create my own baguette so they would be super fresh from the oven. I had limited amount of knowledge and due to this obviously there was some hiccups. When we say the word baguette we think of round, long and nicely crisp yes?
Well unfortunately for me the first time I did this it looked more like a Ciabatta...... Long, Flat and Hard. I do not have any pictures of this sorry event! I tried to find a google picture of one but it looks like nobody else felt confident to post pictures of there failed baguettes either and I am sure that I am not the only person in the world to have gotten this wrong!
So you are probably wondering what went wrong with my baguette...... Two things turned out to be the problem, firstly when it says in the recipe to grease a bowl lightly with oil use a bowl the oil actually sticks to and rub it on with tissue. The first bowl I used I rubbed it on with my hands and it all just kept sliding down to the bottom of the bowl in a puddle and sides remained dry......... Well I didn't know what I was doing so I persevered.
Unfortunately this lead to the ball of dough sitting in a puddle of oil and raising only slightly. The second problem was the recipe said to lay the baguette shaped dough in to baguette tins or onto a baking tray. I didn't have baguette tins so i lay them on a regular baking tray, this was a major fail, as my baguette grew and expanded they also flattened out.... In honesty they where flatter than Ciabattas by the time I went to put them in the oven, I did try to do some rescue and roll them back up together but it wasn't working. The end result tasted nice enough even if they where extremely crunchy and rather flat.
I think we where lucky to survive it with all our teeth still in tact!

So now to move onto how to create these successful baguettes.

Let them Eat Bread Video

Ingredients:
250g strong white flour
5g salt
5g fast action dryer yeast
30ml olive oil, plus extra for greasing
180ml water

Tools needed:
Mixer with Dough hooks
Two Large Bowls
Cling film
Baguette Tray

Method:

• In a bowl add the flour with a 4 wells, for salt, yeast (Do not let the salt and the yeast touch before mixing), Oil and most of the water. 
• Using your mixing with the dough hooks start on a slow speed, adding the rest of the water until you have a smooth dough. This will take 3-5 minutes depending on your mixer. 
• Take a separate bowl and lightly oil the sides. Tip the Dough in here and leave to raise for 2 hours.
• The Dough will be roughly double in size. Lightly Oil a clean work surface and tip the dough out onto this. Dust your hands with some flour as necessary.
• Divide the Dough in two halves and begin to Knock back the dough, stretch and fold for 1-2 minutes roll out into a baguette shape and repeat with both halves.
• Place onto the baguette Tray and cover and leave to double in size. 
• Now Preheat your oven to 425˚F/218˚C in a non-fan oven place a roasting dish filled with water in the bottom to create steam.
• When baguettes are risen slash the top of each 3 times and place in the oven for 20 - 30 minutes until golden brown with a slight shine. 

Voila! You have two perfect mini baguettes! 

Welcome

Okay welcome to my second attempt at a blog.
Apparently when I make life altering decisions I get this urge to create a new blog!

My last attempt was at the beginning of my career at sea, working in the spa department. Little did I know that I would really be working 14 hours a day and spend my evenings partying like a rock star. Being that was how life turned out to be, it did somewhat deter me from my task of blogging and keeping the family and world updated on my new life!

Well 4 years on and ship life has eventually been laid to rest and there it shall stay. The thing is now that I no longer work a ridiculous amount or hours a day I find myself at somewhat of a loose end these days with trying to find things to occupy my time.......

One of my favourite hobbies that I have maintained over the years is baking which has progressed to cooking and ice cream making as time has gone by. I love to spend my time scouring over the internet for new recipes and something different to create (not that my waistband thanks me for it). When I see a bookstore I love to go straight in to there cookery section to see if they have anything different. I like to think Baking and Cooking and Ice Cream making is an art form that you can get progressively better at with practice!

What I want this blog to be is the "how to" of the different things that I decide to create (like WikiHow only classier). I will add in different time-lapse videos to show techniques and how things should look at the different stages and at the final stage.

I am however not perfect and this is a hobby having never gone to any form of professional school to learn any of this. Therefore there will be mistakes and failed attempts and I will post those along with the successes because no body is perfect and sometimes these things will help to bring a laugh to our lives.

Looking forward to baking on here in the future

Tara