52 Cookbooks #8: Gingerbread

This week I'm going sweet and using an American cookbook that I've not cooked from before: All Cakes Considered by Melissa Gray.  It was another Christmas present (are you spotting a theme yet?) and was chosen alongside my bundt tin present and it has lots of bundt cake recipes. I've used the tin, but not the book...

Being an American book, that brought its own challenges with the recipe calling for vegetable shortening, all purpose flour and baking soda. I discovered that Waitrose sells Crisco which satisfied the need for all-vegetable shortening. I've not used this before so that was quite an experience.

Despite coming straight out of the fridge it was supersoft, which I can see being a major advantage for anyone like me who forgets to take the butter out of the fridge ahead of starting to bake... With Google as my friend I translated the other ingredients to plain flour and bicarbonate of soda. 

So, game on.

It was unusual to bake using the American cup measurements, and I wasn't sure how it would turn out. The recipe calls for 1/2 a cup of boiling water and provides a handy tip for beginners to boil more water than 1/2 a cup and measure the boiling water... Right, got that :)

The book itself - despite being square (why do publishers do that? It means the book doesn't fit neatly with most of my other cookbooks on the shelf) - has a good number of recipes I'd like to try, so it's definitely a keeper. The chapter names also made me chuckle:

1. Easy cakes for early enthusiasts 
2. Bring me bundts and bring me more spice and vice!
3. Break from cake
4. Layer cakes, angel food cakes, moderately sinful cakes, all on the road to heaven and hell 

It didn't look too impressive when it came out of the oven though it had risen a fair bit while it was cooking:

I left it to cool and to be honest forgot about it. Much later on when I remembered it I decided to cut it into squares, trying any that sort of crumbled...

The verdict:

• It tastes good, although is a bit unusual as it has the taste of a gingerbread man (or woman) but is a cake. 
• It would be good with either some simple water-based icing, or even some buttercream (or cream cheese topping maybe - I've only got the type with garlic and herbs, so will give this a miss!)
• I'd make it again (and add a topping of some sort) and it'd be good to have with tea or for a cake sale. 
• I now need to explore further recipes in the book as I've got some all-vegetable shortening on the go!

Oi! Mr Fox hands off!

http://keynko.com

52 Cookbooks #7: Fish and artichoke pilaf

This week I've chosen a recipe from the cookbook that filled me with dread the moment MOH presented it..

Yes, MasterChef everyday. Now don't get me wrong I like to watch the programme (all the varieties) and marvel at what's made - mostly in awe, but sometimes in horror - it's just that I'm not that keen on replicating them in my own kitchen. Perhaps due to a lack of patience, or something...

I would, of course be pretty happy to eat any of the creations from this book if anyone would care to cook them for me. ...Did I mention that some of the recipes last for 3-4 pages? Yikes!

Just when I was beginning to think looking for a recipe I'd consider attempting was a bad move, I discovered the end section of the book which contains more manageable recipes. And to be fair these were much more appealing and so I became spoilt for choice. 

I chose this fish and artichoke pilaf as the ingredients listed matched my store cupboard (bar the parsley). 

My pilaf looked a bit slushier than the picture in the book, so I spent a little longer cooking it out than the recipe suggested. Next time I'd go more carefully adding the liquid, but it was too late for that this time round. 

The verdict:

It looked ok, and tasted ok too. I'd halved the recipe as I didn't need a recipe serving 4-6 for just the two of us. The portions were generously sized as we had a smaller second portion and there was still enough left to freeze some for a later date. 

I think there are other recipes (towards the back of the book) that I'd try, but I don't think this will become my "go to" cookbook, and I think it highly unlikely I'll ever try any of the lengthy recipes, or even any of those that have been "reworked" so they're suitable for a home kitchen.  

I will of course continue to watch MasterChef and critique the food from the comfort of my sofa!

Thanks Mary at Keynko for hosting this challenge. 

52 Cookbooks #6: Cheese and sun-dried tomato scones

Like Mary from Keynko (who's hosting this challenge) I've also chosen a Nigella book this week. I've chosen her How to be a Domestic Goddess book, which has a great title but I one that I rarely manage to achieve!

And I definitely didn't while cooking these scones!  I love scones. And unusually fancied something savory. Liking the odd deviation from a recipe I was pleased to see that Nigella had given variations at the bottom of the recipe so it could be pimped any which way. I fancied some cheese scones and not content with the single variation chose to add some chopped sun-dried tomatoes too.

I decided to use my food processor and use the pulse button so the dough was still light and didn't become over-worked. The square scone I ate at the V&A earlier this week was very light and fluffy and nothing like the dense supermarket versions, and I'd forgotten how good light and fluffy scones are. 

It was going well, too well. 

I added my cheese which I'd cleverly also grated using the food processor before starting, then bang... I'd knocked the jar of sun-dried tomatoes over. The ones in olive oil. I now had sun-dried tomato olive oil spreading everywhere over the work top, so needed to stop, mop up and clean this up regretting my genius idea to add them to the recipe at all...

However I got there and ended up with a baking tray full of lovely delights of varying sizes as I'd used each of the cutters to make the best use of all the dough. 

And yes, I'd cut two of the largest size before realising I was using the wrong sized cutter! Unfortunately my work top looked less impressive than the scones. 

With their egg wash on the scones were in the oven and they only needed to cook for ten minutes (this could have been a really speedy recipe if it weren't for the oil incident!) I snuck a peek at them and wow, they were definitely doing their own thing in the oven!

In the recipe Nigella warns that they look as if they have cellulite. Before they went in the oven I was feeling a bit smug as mine didn't seem to. And as we all know, smugness gets us nowhere. Not even close to domestic goddess status. But I'm glad she warned me, look how they turned out:

There's a definite whiff of homemade about them, which I think is a very good thing!!

The verdict 

• They taste fab and are... light and fluffy! Yay!
• I'd follow this recipe for scones again as it was quick and easy
• I'd use the food processor again too
• I'd probably try to avoid knocking sun-dried tomato olive oil everywhere 
• I'd take extra care to ensure the top of the scones were flat, rather than ignoring steps in the dough, as I think this could be why some have "risen" so wildly. 
• Yum, yum, yum!