practice bakes perfect

Say it with bacon

February 22, 2012

Just like last year…. the Mr & I are not big on Valentines Day.

But I just couldn’t help myself!

And everyone knows the way to a mans heart is through his stomach.

Take a pictorial journey of my gift to my love: BACON ROSES!

(Step 6: Pop into hot oven and bake till delicious. Get so overwhelmed by the smell of bacon wafting through your abode that you forget to take a photo of this step. And kind of mess up the whole point of a step by step blog…)

Finally, jam those little rosettes of bacon on to the tooth picks and TA DAH!

Love, Love, Love you ALL.

Bakermelz

‘merican munchies

January 17, 2012

America does everything bigger. And better. And sweeter.

We gave the world gumboots, they gave the world Oprah.

We gave the world fence wire, they gave the world Oprah.

We gave the world the Nek Minnit guy, they gave the world Oprah.

Anyway, keeping to true American form – here is some popcorn.. bigger & better!

Caramel Popcorn

1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup (OK, I can hear the haters already – Golden Syrup can be substituted but you can buy corn sryup in NZ Supermarkets now though…)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Popped popcorn (salted if you are a lover of such things)

Note: I’m not sure how much popped popcorn you need. It depends on how thick or thin you want your coating. I did three lots of 1 scoops batches of corn in to my popcorn air popping benchtop popper thing. I’m sorry, I will NEVER write a cookbook. Promise.

Directions

Preheat oven to 150 Degrees
Make sure you have your pre popped popcorn in the biggest dish you own. I tend to split it between roasting dishes.
In a pot on a low – mid heat melt the butter.
Add: brown sugar & corn syrup/golden syrup.
Bring to a boil. DON’T stop ~~believing~~ stirring constantly. Seriously, don’t stop for 3-4 mins or until it is a nice dark brown colour.
Whip it off the stove and quickly add baking soda and salt. Watch out, it’s like making hokey pokey in high school science all over again. It starts to expand.
Working quickly, pour over popcorn and stir to coat. You might like to enlist a helper to stir while you pour.
Eat a few bits, it is your bakers right.
Bake! Stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool completely before breaking into pieces.

It is really important to bake the popcorn for the full amount of time. Unless, like me, you get interrupted halfway through baking by the biggest earth quake you’ve ever felt. In that case, turn off the oven, run out of the house and be a bit upset.

Then return to the kitchen, ignore the recommended cooking time and eat straight away. Feed it to your shaken flatmates also.

Then realise that you should have baked it the full time the next morning when all the left over popcorn is soggy. Sigh.

If you want to be truly American, one up this recipe by adding M&M’s. Everyone will love you.

lemon zingers

January 14, 2012

I happen to know of a top-secret lemon tree that produces lemons all year round.

I’m told that one of the secrets to survival is that its owners fertilise it naturally *wink wink*

As New Zealand heads into summer (the locals should take note that I don’t think summer has actually arrived yet, what is with all this rain!) I begin to dream of baking summer fruits in pies, summer berries in tarts and suddenly have a hankering for refreshing, zingy lemony based creations.

While things I make with lemons usually contain soda water and vodka… here is a great mini lemon loaf recipe.

Adapted from the lovely recipe available at chelsea.co.nz – Lemon Syrup Loaf: http://www.chelsea.co.nz/baking-and-recipes/33/lemon-syrup-loaf.aspx

Mini Lemon Loaves

(Makes 6)

2 eggs
100g butter, melted
4 Tbsp grated lemon rind.
1 cup caster sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 sour cream
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup caster sugar

Pre-heat oven to 180°C and line 3 mini loaf tins (Mine were a gift this Christmas, best place in Wellington to score them is from Moore Wilson’s) with baking paper or sprink.

In your mixer beat eggs and butter until fluffy.

Then add lemon rind (making sure you have chopped it as finely as possible) and caster sugar until creamed.

Add in your dry ingredients and mix to just combined, and milk and mix again.

Spread evenly across your 6 tins, flatten out tops with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes, testing every few minutes with a skewer once the edges start browning.

In a pot, mix together the lemon juice and castor sugar with a wooden spoon.

Keep stirring on a medium heat until you have thick syrup.

Dowse the them straight out of the oven with the syrup and leave to cool.

For some people, the simple syrup is enough to dress up these delights, however if you are serving these cold or a few days later a simple lemon juice + icing sugar white icing drizzled over the top adds that final layer of lemon goodness… and perhaps an extra trip to the dentist!

Christmas Meringues

December 19, 2011

tags: food colouring, pavlova recipes, vanilla essence

Ok, so in an attempt to redeem myself after the ‘swirl cookie fail’,

I attempted another festive swirly recipe – with much more success!

‘Christmas Meringues’

3 eggs

175g castor sugar

1 teaspoon cornflour

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

Few drops vanilla essence

(In my hunt over the years for meringue and Pavlova recipes that KICK ASS, I’ve come across many many variations. Some without cornflour, some with. Some without vinegar, some with. Some with egg powder, some with cream of tartar, some with lemon juice… this recipe works for me! But I know that there are very many many ways to make great meringues.)

Pre heat your oven to 130ºC

Prepare a piping bag with a coupler and nozzle.

Whisk egg whites using an electric mixer on a low-speed and as they begin to froth increase the speed, eventually hitting maximum. Your eggs whites will get thicker and thicker, and creamy looking. Keep on Whisking until they form ‘stiff peaks’. To help you tell if its ready, you can scoop some up with a spoon, hold it upside down and see if the mixture stays put.

When you’ve got stiff peaks, add the sugar a little bit at a time, and whisk until it returns to stiff peaks.

Fold in cornflour, vinegar and vanilla essence.

Take a paintbrush and paint lines of red gel food colouring down the insides of your piping bag. Two lines were enough, but I applied several layers of food colouring.

Fill piping bag with meringue mixture and pipe in large swirls on your baking paper lined tray.

(Meringues are notorious for sticking to ANYTHING, so I sprayed my baking paper with SPRINK for that extra help!)

Cook your meringues at 130ºC for an hour to an hour and a half. Cooking time will vary. Depending on the size of your meringues and the size of your bags nozzle – keep a close eye on them after the first hour.

You’ll want to cook them until the meringue is firm and crisp on the outside.

I like em a little chewy on the inside! And, a few were sacrificed during cooking to check on the chew.

Once cool serve with fresh fruit and cream! Or…

Stick them together with melted chocolate and crushed candy canes for something extra special.

I spied this idea on www.pinterest.com – HAVE YOU BEEN THERE? You should. It is stealing hours and hours and hours of my life. HOURS.

Merry Christmas!

Love to all!

in-between-y christmas

December 7, 2011

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

My sister face-booked (is that a word now?) about putting up her Christmas tree, photos of work Christmas party’s are being uploaded and the girls one pod over from me at work are singing as I type this.

Christmas has changed a lot over the last few years, dare I say it “it’s not as much fun as it once was”.

I’m in the in-between-y stage of being old enough to get a bit Grinchy about how it’s not all magical now I’m all grown up… but not quite old enough to have started my own family and traditions.

This year we will have one gorgeous 6 month old and one pregnant sister in law at Christmas. Which I’m soooo excited about!!!!! No pressure future nephews and nieces BUT I expect having kids around will bring back some of the magic!

I look forward to hyping up my little nieces and nephews with goodies and really loud obnoxious presents that their parents will kill me for buying.

I can’t be the only one who is caught out this year right? SOMEONE out there agree with me?

Christmas is more fun a) as a kid or b) in the presence of kids.

RIGHT?

So, this weekend I tried making some Christmas goodies to get me in the festive spirit and feeling a little less Grinchy…

But two of my projects failed. And becuase I started this blog with the full intention of blogging the failures… I’ll share them with you. After all “practice bakes perfect”.

So, fail number one: Pimped out Strawberries.

I had a grand plan to TRIPLE dip strawberries. In christmas colours. That would have been pretty! And delicious. However, when you dip something in white, then green, then red. you actually get Italian flag inspired strawberries.

Next time round I’ll just dip them in green. Also, colouring white chocolate properly is something I still can’t quite get right. I don’t think using inferior white chocolate is helping. It’s all funny looking. And not the deep greens and reds I was after.

It is worth noting that while it didn’t come off LOOKING like I wanted. It tasted great! Who doesn’t love a strawberry dipped in chocolate? (heathens!)

And fail number two: Pinwheel Christmas Cookies

I wanted to make cookies that looked like these, or these or these.

And although I studiously followed the recipe and instructions you can find here: http://ashlemieux.blogspot.com/2011/11/handmade-holidaycookie-pinwheels.html

I had cookie fail.

I got so frustrated at my tearing, crumbling cookie dough that I just ended up mashing the dough together however I felt.

Which made me feel a little better. So did eating most of them.

This experience did remind me of a picture a good friend of mine LOVES:

(from: http://craftfail.com/2011/08/cookie-monster-cupcake-fail/)

So here is my version, just for her.

Remember team: PRACTICE bakes perfect. So I’ll let you know if I ever get them right.

Here is a sneak peek at my next blog, a Christmas recipe that is easy and looks stunning! and was full of WIN, not FAIL.

What recipes have you managed to mess up recently?

xxx BakerMelz

deep fried thankfulness

November 28, 2011

Remember that time I made 20 turkey cupcakes?

From Oreos, Candy Corn, Jaffas, Fondant and Pumpkin icing?

Remember that time we deep fried a turkey?

And a chicken just for good measure?

Remember that time I sat around a table of 20, shared an amazing meal and was thankful for everything I had?

(especially these two wonderful people)

Remember that time I discovered how fun it was to take photos in bathrooms full of mirrors?

Remember that time, I was still full and tired TWO DAYS after thanksgiving? So full and tired I cheated and only blogged pictures and questions?

xx Demelza

pac-man cookies

November 20, 2011

I’ve wanted to make these for a very long time, but I was very very nervous about royal icing!

Thanks to some fabulous tutorials, I managed to not completely mess these cookies up.

The geeks and I were debating if Pac-Man should have had eyes? In the game he doesn’t, but on the packaging and promo stuff he does…

I’ve been experimenting a bit with cookies and royal icing recently, so here is ten tips I’ve picked up so far:

1. Freeze, Freeze, Frees: Sugar cookies that are not baked from icy icy cold will spread, burn and lose their shape. Depending on how intricate the shape/pattern is you can either refrigerate or freeze your dough.

2. Cut then freeze again!: When using embossing stamps/cookie cutters, cut the cookie, emboss and then freeze.

3. Test cookies: Do a test two or three cookies, of varying thickness. The perfect thickness results in a perfect cookie!

4. Mmmmm vanilla: Spruce up boring sugar cookies by adding vanilla paste or pod to the recipe.

5. Edge & Flood: You need two kinds of Royal Icing consistency. 1) Edge – a bit thicker and firmer, use this to run around the edge of your cookie and outline it. 2) Flood – a bit thinner and smoother, use this to fill in or flood inside the outline/border you just made.

6. DON’T TOUCH: Do whatever it takes (for me, it was watching 3 episodes of The Big Bang Theory) to just walk away from the cookies once they are iced and let them dry out before adding any eyes/faces/accents. Otherwise you’ll end up with the colours bleeding.

7. Jelly Jelly Gel: Please, please, please invest in gel colouring. Pretty please?

8. Keep it cool: Leave cookies overnight to dry out – if you’ve got one, a fan is really helpful for a few hours.

9. Stay Calm: It took me a few attempts to get the knack of Royal Icing. Try out recipes that use egg whites, or meringue powder (you can buy it online in NZ) or store bought mixes too. New World has started carrying a ‘just add water’ mix that seems OK.

10. Save a buck: Glad bags make perfect icing bags when flooding cookies.