baked!

i got a prezzie in the mail! it came a little late but boy was it a surprise!

my dear friend out in california had sent me two lovely cookbooks from the baked! bakery in new york! the perfect thing to keep this blog running.

i am determined to make every recipe in both books (even if it does take me all year) and test them on my darling boyfriend. now, the second book has some proper nice adult recipes - things like sweet & salty cake, nutella scones, whiskey pear tart, shortbread with fleur de sel, cowboy cookies, (no, srsly that's what they're called. they have pretzels!) rosemary apricot squares, and salt & pepper malted milk chocolate cookies (as shown on the cover). OH I CAN'T WAIT.

here is their website, with pichas and all.

it's my birthday!

well, it was on monday.

every year, my birthday also happens to coincide with pi day, albert einstein's birthday, and this.

so in an attempt to celebrate, i made myself a cake. now, rather than trying some preposterously difficult recipe that looked delicious, i decided to go with something tried, tested & true. i recalled making a cheesecake a while back from the hummingbird bakery cook book. it was a simple, new york style cheesecake with cream cheese & a crumbly base.

i also remembered it tasting DELICIOUS.

so my project was set. i found the recipe scrawled on the back of an envelope & away we* went. first we got everything ready.



then there was some mixing & stirring, as usual. and also as usual, it resulted in a very dirty jf.



however, midway through my baking project, i realised a horrible thing: the cake needed to be cooked in a baine marie, otherwise it would burn. not having a container large enough for it, we settled for a wok.

then we waited.





& waited.





& waited.




however, i am not a very patient person. so, after about an hour (i decided it was time to go & we would finish the cake at my boyfriend's house. so away we went - still wobbly, we wrapped the cake up warm & made the bus trek over. once we got there, he didn't have a baine marie big enough either, so we just settled without one, popped it in the oven & waited some more.

in the meantime, don julio & i made a mean linguine carbonara...

(ta-daaah!)



...played a board game with the don (ticket to ride!)

in so many ways, it was a perfect birthday. i even had a cake with candles (so what if i made it myself & it didn't quite turn out? a cake is a cake) :D

*: we= el presidente don julio & master houdini

lemon drzzl (baking post no. 1)

from time to time something odd tickles my fancy & i decide to watch a program on bbc iplayer. as a general rule, i don't watch television - have never had much interest for it, and even less time - but sometimes i have the urge to 'get with society' and come out from under my rock so i turn on bbc iplayer with this incredible urge of finally understanding who doctor who is or why everyone at work is always talking about top gun or top gear or whatever it is. but then i see a video of sir david attenborough and i can't help but click. like dr strangelove's arm, my cursor involuntarily makes its way to the videos of lemurs or sharks or giant eggs. (i want david attenborough to read me bedtime stories. no, seriously. he is that golden).

this time, something else caught my eye. i had, by this point, either forgotten and given up my endeavor to be socially 'with it'. there was a picture of a grinning raymond blanc with a loaf in his hand. a famous name in these parts, his was sharing his kitchen secrets. & so i clicked : BBC iPlayer - Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets: Series 2: Cakes and Pastries

i have never seen a man so excited about his own baking. i was so fueled by his enthusiasm, that by the end of the episode i felt like a pastry sous-chef, ready to go, whisk in hand. monsieur blanc, here i come!

the first thing he made was a lemon drizzle cake. my boyfriend loves lemon drizzle, so i decided this was going to be my weekend project. (also, all the other things he made looked really difficult. lemon difficult.) i went to the store, bought some lemons &tc, and away i went.

i squeezed & peeled & mixed & sifted & cooled & glazed. ( i may add i sifter through a tea strainer. i couldn't find a proper sifter. after i did about half the flour in tablespoon amounts, i switched to a colander. of course i found a sifter once the cake was done) and came up with this:



this is what raymond blanc's lemon drizzle looked like:




now, how come raymond was able to make a lovely, loaf shaped cake with a smooth, clear icing, while mine was topped with some sort of strange, bulbous growth, covered icing that looks like something died & melted over the loaf, and was probably the ugliest baking project i could have imagined. that is not what i pictured in my head.

while the cake was in the oven i went through a clean ALL the things mode, daydreaming about my loaf. it was supposed to look like this:


it was supposed to be lovelier than raymond blanc's! it was supposed to be the loaf of all loaves! beautiful & perfect! it was supposed to be shiny & smooth & perfect.

but i had to make do with what i baked, & so i presented my monster loaf to my boyfriend, who greeted it with utmost enthusiasm, which made me happy. & guess what?

IT WAS DELICIOUS!

it was more delicious than the one in the picture. and the lemon drizzle was perfectly zesty. and the cake soft & moist. it was the most delicious lemon loaf ever! HURRAH!

with my baking skills confirmed, i will now work my way through raymond blanc's list of patisseries. next on my list is his chocolate eclairs. but first, i believe i owe someone a banoffee pie...