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So its been even longer than a while. I'm not even going to explain but I felt the urge to blog again and show off the cake I made for my nephew's b day party.
They were having Jungle Dave a party entertainer who has lots of live animals for everyone to hold and enjoy! .....
So the cake is a spider sitting on a turtle sitting on a snake.
A bit like the song there was on old lady who swallowed a fly.
mmm.. Crumpets. I don't know why I fancied making home made crumpets but I'm very glad I did. Gourmet Traveller online is a great site for finding good recipes you can rely on. Among other recipes I've used from the database are their hot cross buns. Both are/were delicious. The crumpets win on simplicity, they really were pretty easy to make the only fiddly bit is frying them in oiled metal rings, the resulting cute shape it makes them is well worth the effort. The crumpets while not being riddled with large holes, had a lovely light chewyness to them. Toasting them the next day seemed to even improve them, not a bad trait to have in my house.
Well why not an Easter chicken they are where eggs originate from anyway.... or are they the product..? That's another debate. I spotted these gorgeous hens in Cocoa Atelier. I'm delighted to report that they tasted damn fine, the poor thing lasted less than the day. Although I didn't buy it for myself I just had to help the recipient polish her off quick smart, in case she went off...!
It's funny where inspiration comes from. I am being re-introduced to nursery rhymes courtesy of my sons Christmas present. I obviously daze off while reading them, during the queen of hearts, I thought no-one makes just plain jam tarts anymore, so I thought I would. Very nice they were to!
For a bit of fun and also to sate my chocoholic nephews, I thought I'd make a chocolate log as an alternative to our Christmas plum pudding. I really enjoyed trying to make the icing look like bark, I don't think anyone would be fooled but hey it's not really meant to be a trompe d'oeil... I was quite shocked at the speed in which it was demolished they polished off the whole thing in 10 minutes flat! Far be it from me to stop them both of their parents were there.
I think I along with many others suffer from Cookbook fatigue. I have read/own so many that most of the time I just skim through them, rarely picking up anything very new. Every so often something catches my eye, an unusual method or ingredient or a term and it is this that I want to make a note of here. It's probably been in use for ages but it was a new term for me. The dish was garnished with a cheek of lemon. How cute is that. In fact I think it must be a fairly new term because using the "cheek" is a fairly new phenomon. I noticed the old lemon/lime wedge was out of fashion and that the edge was being used about a year ago. This superceded another fashion which was to half the citrus and then wrap in muslin to facilitate their squeezing without the pip getting through. Which although it looks great has to hurt for the person who does the prep. Imagine wrapping tons of lemons just before service! Anyway some bright spark solved that problem by thinking outside the wedge and used the edge, it looks cool, eliminates pip problem and aside from wasting the middle bit of lemon is pretty easy to do. Rock on the cheeks.
As the title says.. back to work 0-200 mph in the space of 5 days. I'm not moaning it was back working on a cookery TV show which although it was very stressful was also great fun. This time around it was on Neven Maguire's new series, Home Chef 3. We were fiming out in Avoca's Rathcoole branch. We were made feel very welcome and the staff were more than helpful they literally spoiled us.
Much to the amusement of everyone and just to make life a little bit more complicated, both myself and the Home Ec Sharon had to Express behind the scenes as we are both new-ish Mums and are still breast feeding... The show will be airing early in the New Year, I look forward to checking it out. There are some lovely dishes, look out for the Chicken and Bulmers recipe..
