Salaric Cooking

I made these ring cakes to celebrate the Olympics today – I put cake mix in our doughnut maker.

250 g of caster sugar

250 g of softened butter

250 g of self raising flour

4 eggs (I only had two unfortunately which maybe why my didn’t rise correctly)

4 table spoons of milk

1 table spoon of vanilla extract

I creamed these ingredients together and snipped the end off of a disposable piping bag and filled it the cake mix. I then pipped this into the doughnut machine. I had to do a bit of trial and error to work out a good amount. I found filling the troughs up and closing the machine for 7 minutes worked best. I had an issue with them falling to pieces as I was trying get them out of the machine but found that if I slightly over filled so that an apron of escape mix surrounded each ring then I could use this to pull the rings out. I then snipped the excess cake off with scissors.

I then poured out a bit of fondant icing mix into five bowls and added food colouring for each of the different rings of the Olympic flag. I then added a bit of water to each until I got the correct consistancy. I then duked the rings and popped them into some nice cake cases that I thought matched the abstract sporty look I was going for.

I decided to make cup cakes to celebrate the Olympics as they are about to start here in the UK.

I started by baking vanilla cupcakes.

Then I made up some butter icing – in this case I used goats butter as it tend to be a lot paler and so gives a whiter icing.

300 g of icing sugar

150 g of butter

1 table spoon of orange extract

A little milk

Blend the sugar and butter together, add the extract and drizzle a little bit of milk in at a time until it goes a nice creamy consistency.

Then prepare the icing bag. I use the easy grip, ultra strong disposables as I found weaker ones brake and the non disposable ones kept splitting after one use anyway.

I cut the end off and popped a large nozzle with lots of thing spikes on it (hopefully I will add a photo later as trying to describe it is hard!). I then placed the bag nozzle down into a tall glass. I then dipped a wooden skewer into gell food colourings representing the five colours of the Olympic Rings and dragged them along the inside of the icing back in a line (one at a time!). This ment I ended up with a five coloured star coming up from the nozzle. I then spooned the icing into the bag, twisted the end shut and began icing.

I started at the edge of some of the cakes and came round in a spiral to created a mounded ice cream effect. Others I started in the middle and worked my way out moving the nozzle around relatively fast to create a flowery effect.

It think it worked really well.

I mixed them in with other sporty influenced cakes.

Since moving we are currently restricted to pots for our veg but I have still been harvesting some tasty salads.

Everything in the bowl is container grown – mostly from seeds except the sorrel which we transplanted from grown to pot to bring with us.

The main flower of this salad is the chive flowers which I had not realised until about month ago were edible – they give a delicate onion flavour but are not over powering and they give a lovely look to the bowl.

Ingredients:

Sorrel

Rocket

Golden majoram

Assorted leaves from the French Salad mix you can buy

Four chive flowers per person

Cucumber sliced and quartered

I added some colsaw but a honey and balsamic vinigarette would have worked well with it.

I made these cake pops for a competition in the hope of winning some Lakeland goodies but also as a practice as I want to hold a Creativi-Tea which will be a little garden party with knitting and poetry and the like. The cake cases came from Lakeland and are silicon and therefore re-usable though I would actually like to get hold of some paper cases shaped like this made out of the thicker stuff.

My husband baked the cake pops using the vanilla sponge recipe but he put goat butter and milk in instead of cow. I mixed up some royal icing adding green food colouring – I made the icing relatively thick and dipped the cake pops and then put them on the sticks. I then twizzeled them around against the side of the icing bowl to get rid of excess icing. I then began placing the little sugar flowers onto them – these were from a Barbie cake decorating shaker.

I used a damp cloth to whip any icing dripples off of the stick.

The plant pot cup cases I baked a chocolate orange sponge in and left to cool whilst the icing on the cake pops hardened. Once the cakes had cooled I pushed the cake pop sticks into them and added the bow.

It was only a thin shell of royal icing – be aware that it can be very tough on teeth in thicker amounts but as the cake pops are sort of lolly pops anyway I just wanted to see how it worked.

EXPLANATION OF FRENCH TERMS USED IN MODERN HOUSEHOLD COOKERY.

ASPIC: A savoury jelly, used as an exterior moulding for cold game, poultry, fish, &c. This, being of a transparent nature, allows the bird which it covers to be seen through it. This may also be used for decorating or garnishing.

ASSIETTE (plate): Assiettes are the small entrées and hors-d’oeuvres, the quantity of which does not exceed what a plate will hold. At dessert, fruits, cheese, chestnuts, biscuits, if served upon a plate, are termed assiettes. ASSIETTE VOLANTE is a dish which a servant hands round to the guests, but is not placed upon the table. Small cheese soufflés and different dishes, which ought to be served very hot, are frequently made assielles volantes.

AU-BLEU: Fish dressed in such a manner as to have a bluish appearance.

BAIN-MARIE: An open saucepan or kettle of nearly boiling water, in which a smaller vessel can be set for cooking and warming. This is very useful for keeping articles hot, without altering their quantity or quality. If you keep sauce, broth, or soup by the fireside, the soup reduces and becomes too strong, and the sauce thickens as well as reduces; but this is prevented by using the bain-marie, in which the water should be very hot, but not boiling.

BÉCHAMEL: French white sauce, now frequently used in English cookery.

BLANCH: To whiten poultry, vegetables, fruit, by plunging them into boiling water for a short time, and afterwards plunging them into cold water, there to remain until they are cold.

BLANQUETTE: A sort of fricassee.

BOUILLI: Beef or other meat boiled; but, generally speaking, boiled beef is understood by the term.

BOUILLIE: A French dish resembling hasty-pudding.

WHILST THE COOK IS ENGAGED WITH HER MORNING DUTIES, the kitchen-maid is also occupied with hers. Her first duty, after the fire is lighted, is to sweep and clean the kitchen, and the various offices belonging to it. This she does every morning, besides cleaning the stone steps at the entrance of the house, the halls, the passages, and the stairs which lead to the kitchen. Her general duties, besides these, are to wash and scour all these places twice a week, with the tables, shelves, and cupboards. She has also to dress the nursery and servants’-hall dinners, to prepare all fish, poultry, and vegetables, trim meat joints and cutlets, and do all such duties as may be considered to enter into the cook’s department in a subordinate degree.

Last year for Halloween we put our red Christmas table cloth on the table with a spider web black table cover we picked up in the Pound Shop. I then laid out the merangues me and my four year old had made – they were supposed to be ghouls, ghosts and witches in green, white and purple but where generally splodges with more icing splotches on them!

We also had biscuits with spider webs and bats on that she had decorated as well.

We had two different punches, one in a skull bowl and one in a hollowed out pumpkin!

We also had a pumpkin pasty and a pumpkin pie to add to the party!

The jelly molds didn’t work which was a shame as I had wanted some nice orange pumpkin shaped jellies for our Halloween things 🙁

Not sure if this is a me issue or the mold :/

A hot non-alcoholic drink for Halloween!

Ingredients:

1 liter of mixed berry juice or ribena
1 liter of water
1/2 liter of orange juice
2 table spoons of muscovado sugar
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
2 cm of crushed ginger root
1 cup of chopped pumpkin
1/2 lemon sliced
1/2 apple sliced
1/2 orange sliced
2 cups of berries like blackberries and elderberries

Put the orange juice and water into a suacepan and put on a moderate heat. Add the cinnamon, gloves and sugar, stir to stop sugar burning to the bottom of pan before it disolves. Add the fruits and bring to a rolling boil careful not to boil over and turn off heat. Serve in mugs of heat proof glass, fruit garnish for cups is optional.

Ingredients:

1 liter of orange juice
1/2 liter of water
1/4 liter of brandy
2 table spoons of muscovado sugar
1 cinnamon stick
10 cloves
1 cup of chopped pumpkin
1/2 lemon sliced
1/2 apple sliced
1/2 orange sliced

Put the orange juice and water into a suacepan and put on a moderate heat. Add the cinnamon, gloves and sugar, stir to stop sugar burning to the bottom of pan before it disolves. Add the fruits and bring to a rolling boil careful not to boil over and turn off heat. Serve in mugs of heat proof glass, fruit garnish for cups is optional.