Sweet Saturday and a Dreary Sunday!

In contrast to today, yesterday was a day of energy, sunshine and sweetmaking.

First up was Victorian creams, which I have been wanting to try for ages, but had to wait to find some rose water.
They are very simple to make and require no cooking as such. You literally mix sugar paste icing with golden syrup, food colouring (if colouring) and some flavouring. I chose rose but the flavour was so subtle as to be indiscernible. You shape the mixture into balls and leave them for a few hours to dry.

I suppose you could leave them like this if you wanted to. I coated mine in melted chocolate. Luckily, I accidentally bought mint flavoured chocolate and that made up for the lack of rose flavouring. Just before the chocolate solidified, I decorated the balls with a sugar flower.

Next up. I realised I had the right ingredients to make honeycomb. Dangerous. It's very easy to make-you just melt caster sugar and some golden syrup together and after they've simmered for 5-10 minutes, you take it off the heat and add sodium bicarb which makes the mixture fizz (this creates the aerated texture!). You quickly pour the mixture into a dish to set and then you can break it into pieces when it's set.

Today spring seemed further away than it has done recently. Grey skies, rain and a general feeling of malaise have dominated my day. I have however had a chance to nearly complete two more crochet projects so perhaps today has not been a total waste of time. The flowers I received last weekend look as alive and cheerful as ever and helped lift my spirits. Now to prepare for a busy week before a few days holiday at the start of next week.

Taken with my iPhone. I never tire of experimenting with the camera :)

Pretzels After Reminiscing About Germany

Many, many moons ago I lived in a town called Augsburg in Bavaria, Germany for a whole nine months. Uprooting yourself to live by yourself in a strange country is challenging but ultimately character building and I can definitely say that the me who returned from Germany was a little different, a little stronger than the me who left for Germany nine months previously.

I liked many things about Germany...but this blog is dedicated to just one of the those-the mighty Pretzel! I fell in love with Pretzels in Germany. Sweet, savoury, plain-they come in many guises in their homeland. My favourite was a savoury Pretzel cut open and filled with butter and chives and I have fond memories of eating them on the German trains when heading into the Alps. They certainly shame much of the fast food I've seen at many of the train stations in England.
.
So today we made sweet Pretzels, based around this recipe HERE.

A picture (not mine) of Augsburg

Bavaria is incredibly beautiful

Farewell to Summer Cupcakes

Waiting for the bus in the morning, there is a distinctly autumnal chill in the air. A smoky scent lurks in the breeze, brown leaves skitter across the grass. Summer is breathing its last. I think that every season has something to offer...but spring and summer are my favourite seasons and I am always very sorry to see them leave. I made some summery strawberry cupcakes and also some orange cupcakes to acknowledge the start of the end of summer.

These are cupcakes flavoured with strawberry. The icing glaze is also strawberry flavoured.

Orange flavoured cupcakes with orange cream cheese icing

The Christmas and Hallowe'en cupcake decorations have already started to arrive in the supermarkets and I'm already plotting themed cupcakes for both...

Rainy Sunday=White Chocolate and Mixed Nut Cookies

The BBC promised a day of light showers. The reality has been heavy, prolonged showers and weighty, overcast skies with only the occasional patch of blue to break up the cheerless nimbus clouds. There's only one thing to do on this type of rainy Sunday in my books: bake.

There is a great recipe for cranberry and white chocolate cookies in Nigella's Christmas which we adapted to mixed nuts and white chocolate cookies due to an absence of cranberries in the baking cupboard. We used a bag of mixed nuts (ours contained walnuts, peanuts-white-and red-skinned-almonds and hazelnuts). Satisfyingly crushed by my sister with a rolling pin.

The cookies are dead easy to make and take no time at all. They can also be enjoyed guilt-free for breakfast as they contain oats :D Recipe below.

Recipe

Makes 30Ingredients
150g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
75g rolled oats (not instant)
125g soft butter
75g dark brown sugar
100g caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g dried cranberries (we used a bag of mixed nuts in place of the cranberries and pecans.)
50g pecans, roughly chopped
150g white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180oC/ 350°F/gas mark 4.

Measure out the flour, baking powder, salt and rolled oats into a bowl.
Put the butter and sugars into another bowl and beat together until creamy — this is obviously easier with an electric mixer of some kind, but you just need to put some muscle into otherwise — then beat in the egg and vanilla.
Beat in the flour, baking powder, salt and oat mixture and then fold in the cranberries, chopped pecans and chocolate chips.
Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into a ball with your hands, and then place them on a lined or greased baking sheet and squish the dough balls down with a fork. You may need two baking sheets or be prepared to make these in two batches.
Cook for 15 minutes; when ready, the cookies will be tinged a pale gold, but be too soft to lift immediately off the tray, so leave the tray on a cool surface and let them harden for about 5 minutes. Remove with a spatula to cool fully on a wire rack.