Too much fat in my pear cake

Posted on September 28, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Butter, Cake, Cooking, Eggs, Flour, Food, Gas mark four, Pear cake, Pears, SweetenerLeave a comment

Tasty but a bit too greasy.

I decided to make a pear cake with a couple of large pears off the tree. I didn’t have a recipe to hand so followed the one on the back of my bag of self raising flour.

The ingredients were:

150 grams each of self raising flour, butter and sugar.

Three medium eggs

A small amount of water

This was to make a Victoria sponge. I decided I would add raw sliced pears into the base of my glass flan dish (I don’t have a cake tin or grease proof paper).

Method. It said cream butter and sugar together till its light and fluffy, then add the eggs and a bit of water. Then gently fold the self raising flower in.

Problem. I can’t eat sugar. So I used sweetener that you can bake with. The amounts were questionable. 150 grams when you don’t have scales. So I guessed the amounts and I think I put about 200 grams in. The sweetener said 200 grams was five tablespoons, so I used four instead. Then the eggs? I used three, but they were large. Finally I guessed a mug full of flour would be about right….

I creamed the butter and sweetener together and made it softish and fluffy. Then I slowly added the eggs. The mix started to curdle. I tried adding a bit of flour and it started to look like undercooked scrambled eggs! I got my hand whisk out and tried to beat some of the lumps out. Then I folded in the flour, I made a batter, but still saw flecks of butter in the mix.

So I spooned the mix over the pears in a well greased Pyrex flan dish. I put the cake in the oven on gas mark 4 (medium heat) initially for thirty minutes. When I checked it, there were bubbles of gas coming out of it and it was still pale. So I put it on for another twenty minutes. The bubbles were still happening but the surface felt fim and was golden brown. When I tapped it, it sounded hollow, and when I pricked it with a knife that came out clean.

I eased the cake out of its case. Some of it broke up because it had stuck in the dish. It was greasy, but I cut a section out and it held its shape.

It tasted eggy but nice. The pears had cooked through.

Next time I might start making it with flour, then rubbing the butter into that till its like breadcrumbs, adding sweetener, then making a hole in the flour before adding the eggs. I wish I’d remembered that before I made this cake.

Hubby making apple bread?

Posted on September 25, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apple bread, Baking, Cooking, Flour, Food, Hubby, Loaf, Oats, Random, Rye flourLeave a comment

An explosion in the kitchen? No hubby making apple bread. There was flour over the draining board, the crockery drainer, in the sink, on the floor. He got me to scrape the dough off his hands it was so sticky. He had added oats and rye flour to a bag of breadmaking flour which had added yeast. It wasn’t rising very well but he added cooking apples to the loaves.

Now they are in the oven, cooking, I wonder how they will turn out? In half an hour I will know.

Pineapple

Posted on September 22, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cooking, Cream, Custard, Food, Fruit, Fun, Juicy, Life, Poem, Poetry, Short poem, Taste2 Comments

A pineapple

Spikey

Neither apple nor pine

Grows on a bush

Causes a hush

When you see it

Juicy and sweet

Packed with yellow pulp

Delicious with cream

Or in an upside down cake.

Pineapple sponge

And custard

Delicious.

Just out the oven

Posted on August 23, 2020August 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Bran, Bread, Bread and cheese, Cooking, Eating, Home made bread, Loaf, Oats, Oil, Water, YeastLeave a comment

It’s looking OK. Bread made from a kit, added a few rolled oats and a bit of bran.

I used oats on the outside once it had proved and been knocked back. When I took it out of the bowl to put into a Pyrex flan dish it had trebled in size. It only shrank slightly when I put it in the dish. The kit I had used contained yeast and had mixed seed in it. It was cooked on gas mark eight (high heat) for twenty five minutes. Now it needs to cool. The loaf needs turning ouf of the flan dish but it’s too hot at the moment. I don’t have any oven gloves so will use a tea towel. Will have a bit later on with bread and cheese if it’s OK?

Making bread

Posted on August 23, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Bran, Bread, Cooking, Flour, Oats, Poem, RisingLeave a comment

Bread rising

Expanding,

Uplifted with yeast

Oats and wheat

Water and oil

Flour and salt

Warm and gassy

Bubbles rising in dough.

From a packet

But added bran,

Round in a bowl,

Dumpy little round

Expanding

Growing

Ready to bake.

Full English breakfast

Posted on August 12, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Breakfast, Cafe, Colourful, Cooking, Food, Full English, Hot food, TastyLeave a comment

We went out to meet the art group this morning, but after half an hour in the hot sun on our own we went up to the local cafe. We both ordered full English breakfasts (you get a choice of ingredients, I had egg, tomato, hash browns, bacon, sausage, black pudding and mushrooms. That came with toast. We both had coffee and I had an orange juice. Not the healthiest food I know, but on the odd occasion its delicious (apologies to vegetarian friends). I appreciated not having to cook in this heat. After the meal we went and waited for our friends again but they never arrived. So we came home.

Chicken and lentil curry

Posted on August 11, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cooking, Curry, Dinner, Food, Lentils, Medium and hot curry powder, Recipe, TastyLeave a comment

I cooked this tonight, lentil and chicken curry with tomatoes, ginger and garlic. ingredients

Two chicken breasts

A cup full of lentils

Chopped tomatoes

Spring onions

A sweet pepper

Two garlic cloves

Grated ginger.

First I boiled some red lentils for ten minutes, then fried some chicken pieces, a couple of spring onions, a sweet pepper and four large tomatoes. I added a small teaspoon of hot curry powder and the same of medium curry powder. I added a pinch of Fenugreek and then grated about an inch of ginger and two cloves of garlic into the frying mix. I’d cooked the lentils for a further twenty minutes then added it to the stir fried mix, covered it over for a few minutes more. It ended up being really tasty.

Hubby cooking!?

Posted on July 9, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Brick, Cake, Cherries, Cherry cake, Cooking, Food, Fun, Help, Hubby, Humour3 Comments

For most of his life he’s not been interested in cooking. He doesn’t like me to explain what to do. When he roasted a chicken once he added a whole big bulb of garlic. He can cook poached egg on toast, he does cook bread, he tries to cook bacon by frying it for a minute then microwaving it.

Today he wanted to make a loaf out of self raising flour. With no yeast. I explained that would be more like pastry, and that you use self raising mainly for making cakes. I told him he could use about eight ounces of flour, four ounces of butter, four ounces of sugar, but as we had none he could use a couple of heaped spoons of sweetener. This is a granular one you can cook with. A couple of eggs, and milk, not water, which he was going to use.

I went upstairs on the computer while he went out to get butter.

I was going to explain. He knew about Crumbling flour and butter together, then I told him to add sweetener, then the eggs and milk, then some de-stoned cherries if he wanted to.

I was upstairs, and it was terribly quiet. A friend rang so I came downstairs. Hubby was just about to put the cake in the oven. I looked around, he’d used about twelve ounces of flour (not weighed it out) three quarters of a tub of margarine. Two eggs a bit of milk and a teaspoon! of sweetener. To this mix he’d added half a bowl of cherries and then kneaded the mix! I tried to explain you need the mix to be more liquid and that you gently stir in the milk to keep the cake light.

Well he tried. The cake is cooking, gas mark 4,initially for 45 minutes in the centre of the oven. I’m worried it will be a bit heavy when it comes out.

Who’d think, cherries in coleslaw.

Posted on July 8, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cherries, Cherry, Cherry tree, Cooking, Crop, Food, Fun, Gardening, Jelly, Life, Poem, Poetry, Salad, TrifleLeave a comment

With such a large crop,

bowls full to the top,

I tried-

To decide-

what to do with them?

Each cherry on a stem!

Salad with cherries

fills my belly.

Coleslaw with cabbage

with cherries added.

Now I’ll make jelly

with added cherry,

summer fruit,

so much loot.

Birds are merry

They have cheery

Cherries too!

🍒

Eggs… Pancakes?

Posted on July 2, 2020July 2, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cooking, Eggs, Flour, Food, Heat, Lemon juice, Oil, Pan, Pancakes, Recipe, Sugar, SweetenerLeave a comment

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My hubby keeps buying eggs but we are not using them up. They are getting towards the end of their life so I will be making an omelette for tea or even pancakes with blueberries and lemon juice.

If I’m making pancakes, I will make a batter from eggs, milk, and flour. I tend to use self raising flour because the pancakes puff up. I’m not one of these thin, crepes, type of pancake people. My mom used to make pancakes in February for Shrove Tuesday. She would add snow water to the batter (yes it used to snow in February!)

So if you want to make them I will try and write a recipe.

First get 2 mugs full of flour. Plain or self raising, this is for a few people so reduce amounts in proportion for one. Put in a mixing bowl.

Then add two or three eggs depending on the size of your mug. (Make a little well in the flour and break the eggs into it.)

Mix together and slowly add around a mug of milk. Add it slowly and stir it in. Keep an eye on the consistency, you want it pourable, like double cream, (heavy cream in America I think?)

Once it’s mixed just put it aside to rest in the fridge (I don’t know why?)

Then get a frying pan, coat the bottom with a small amount of oil, or a spray frying oil or butter. Heat the pan up quite hot and carefully pour the batter in. Tip the pan to spread the batter out till it covers the base of the pan. If there is still wet batter on the top you can pull the pancake away from the edges of the pan with a spatula and let the batter spill into the gap. Turn it over with a spatula when it’s gone golden brown and cook for a few more seconds on the other side. ( You don’t have to toss it).

Sprinkle with sweetener or sugar and lemon juice when it’s on your plate. Add fruit to taste. When you’ve done one heat the pan again. You might not need to add oil as there should still be some left behind.

Continue till you have used all the mix. You can vary the thickness depending on how hungry you are!

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Cooking