Ever Feel Like The Blogging Gods Are Conspiring Against You?!

Ok so it's half term now and feeling adventurous (despite now being nearly 41 weeks pregnant) I decided to bake a cake. In the spirit of Halloween, which is a big occasion in our family as it's my brothers birthday, I bought 2 'culinary' pumpkins from Tesco and decided that I was going to make a pumpkin feast for Halloween. I thought about using maybe one for a pumpkin pie and one for a pumkin risotto or veggie canneloni... I settled on the sweet recipe, a pumpkin chocolate chip loaf adapted from Baked: New Frontiers In Baking and enthusiastically set about making it this morning.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Loaf

First the recipe requires a can of pumpkin puree, obviously I was using the real thing but I had to cook the pumpkin before I could puree it and to be honest I hadn't really the foggiest as to which way was the best to cook my pumpkin. A while back I was sent a copy of the Abel & Cole Cookbook which helpfully has several pumpkin recipes in it and from the recipe for pumpkin pie I managed to extract the following way to cook my pumpkin:

'Preheat the oven to 190c. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Put a piece of foil on a baking sheet and pop the pumpkin onto it, cut side down. Cover well with more foil. Bake for about 1 hour or until the pumpkin is tender.'

This seemed to work pretty well, though be careful scooping the flesh out, the skin is very soft and you can easily end up scooping that out with it as well. It's also worth keeping the flesh in a sieve to drain for a bit before you weigh it so that it's not too liquidy. My pumpkin (about 1.4kg) had enough for the 1 3/4 cups with about a cup of flesh left over which I'm going to freeze for another time.

Now for the recipe:

Yield: 2 (9-by-5-by-3-inch) or 2lb (I think?!) loaves

3 1/4 cups plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp bicarb of soda
2 tsp salt (though next time I'll probably only use 1)

1 3/4 cups (one 15 ounce can) pumpkin puree
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) milk chocolate chips or chopped milk chocolate (I used 300g)

Preheat the oven to 350F (180c). Butter two 9-by-5-by-3-inch (2lb??) loaf pans.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

In another bowl whisk together the pumpkin puree and oil until combined. Add the sugar and whisk again. Whisk the eggs into the mixture, one at a time followed by the vanilla. Add 2/3 cup room-temperature water and whisk until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Do not overmix.

Divide the batter between the tins and bake in the centre of the oven until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a loaf comes out clean (about 1 hour 15mins to 1 hour 30 mins), rotating the tins halfway through the baking time.

Transfer the tins to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes then turn out the loaves onto wire racks and cool completely before serving.

** I prepared all the ingredients for the cake whilst the pumpkin was cooking, the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another (keeping the chocolate chips to one side). I then mixed the pumpkin into the wet and added the chocolate before folding in the flour mix **

***

I was really pleased with myself for managing to not burn my cakes, I always find loaves difficult to cook, how to get them cooked all the way through without incinerating the tops. But unfortunately for me, when I turned out both loaves the bottom third decided to stay in the tin. So I now have two loaves with seriously unstable bottoms...

It was probably my own fault, my chopped chocolate resembled chocolate chunks rather than chips and I think what happened is that they all sunk to the bottom and so the bottom half of the loaf was more chocolate than anything else. With no cake batter to hold it all together it just stayed in the tin :-(

Now had I been able to find the stupid USB lead for my stupid camera then I would have posted a picture of my two wonky loaves. I almost felt like not posting this recipe at all as I hate writing a post without a picture but I haven't blogged in ages and felt like I'd gone to such an effort to make the damn things that I wasn't going to be deterred by the fact that I couldn't post a picture of them, no matter how awful they look!

Ahhh never mind, whilst not about to win any beauty contests anytime soon (though I suppose the ugliness is in keeping with it being Halloween!) the cake still tastes pretty good so I do hope you'll embrace the pumpkin and try this recipe out!

Hey All!

Crikey, I realised it's been two months since I last posted! So I thought I'd give you a bit of an update as to what's going on with me : )

I'm still pregnant, pretty much the size of a small house now. Only four weeks to go, but starting to suffer a bit with all the aches and pains! I went to see Julie & Julia last week with my Dad, two and a half hours of sitting down made my ankles swell to gigantic proportions but very well worth it, it was a brilliant film! Am also currently trying to finish off Julie and Julia the book, about halfway through so far...

Chloe went off to 'big' school without a hitch, no tears (from her or me!) but the school run is taking its toll. I'm sooooo not a morning person and getting up at 6am is really hard : ( Have been so shattered I actually fell asleep on the sofa at half 8 last night! So I've just been trying to take it easy, putting my feet up when I can and making the most of the best foodie TV that's been on in a long time, currently have Rachel's Home Cooking, Bill's Food and Jamie's American Road Trip on my Sky+ box.

Sadly I haven't really managed much in the way of blogworthy cooking as I've been a bit uninspired lately. I've just been cooking practically more than anything, trying to get dinner on the table and stocking up the freezer for when the baby comes. Feel like I've been a bit restrained with the cookbooks lately so I've ordered Jamie's America, Caribbean Food Made Easy and Ching's Chinese Food in Minutes so hopefully a flick through a nice new glossy cookbook will get my mojo back in no time!

I also pre-ordered a book that I stumbled across on the Tesco website, The Joy of Eating, which I can certainly relate to right now! The cover looked really pretty so I had a closer look and it's described as 'A richly imaginative anthology of the best writing about food from women around the world and throughout history. Includes well-known and surprising names: Elizabeth David, J.K. Rowling, Claudia Roden and more'. It sounded really interesting and at 416 pages will no doubt keep me occupied for a while! Will let you know if it's any good...

Anyway, I'm off for now but I do hope to be back with something yummy really soon, but please do bear with me if I'm not!! Hope you are all keeping well,

Hayley x

P.S. Any baby name suggestions for boys are welcome, we still don't have a name!!

Where Does The Time Go?

Ow. I'm a little bit sad. It was my daughter's last day of nursery today, I can't believe she's going to be starting school in September! I feel so old! I just don't know where the time has gone...

Luckily it was only me that seemed to be upset about her leaving, right now she's just bursting with excitement about starting 'big' school. I got a bit teary today and I think I'm going to be a blubbering mess come September when she's in her uniform : (

I wanted to write this quick post as we made some malted chocolate cupcakes (suprisingly delicious) for her teachers, and apparently all the children too!

I also wanted to share with you what Chloe asked me to write in her teachers' Thank You card, she dictated it to me and I wrote it in for her, exactly the way she said it:

"Thank you very much for being my teachers and you are sweet and I love you and you are my best teachers in the whole wide world."

Bless her.

Abel & Cole

The very generous people at Abel & Cole recently sent me one of their yummy mixed fruit and veg boxes. Now I was very excited as my budget doesn't usually stretch to organic so I was really looking forward to giving it a try!

Let's see what I had in my box...



I had:

Apples
Bananas
Beetroot
Broad Beans
Carrots
Green Cabbage
Green Lettuce
Nectarines
Red Pepper
Salad Potatoes

...and a rather unexpected addition, a little caterpillar! (We set him free in our communal gardens in case you're wondering!)

Opening the box exceeded my expectations as people always whinge that organic produce is imperfect but all of it looked so bright and fresh, it was really lovely! I think it's quite romantic to have carrots with their green tops still on and all covered in dirt, so much nicer than the plastic wrapped supermarket stuff. Even Chloe embraced vegetables for a changed and had a whale of a time delving through the box and telling me what everything was!

It was really lovely to try some of the vegetables that I normally overlook in the supermarket. I think I've only had beetroot once and I'd never tried broad beans so it was a bit of a learning curve too! I wanted to make the most of my gift and I carefully selected recipes to make sure that I used everything in an imaginative way. Here's what I cooked:

Apple Pie

Red Pepper Frittata with roasted Baby Potatoes

Baked Nectarine Crumbles with Greek Yoghurt

Sausages with Colcannon and Gravy

Banana Bread

Curried Carrot Soup

Beetroot Brownies

and

Broad Bean and Feta Frittata

So a big Thank You to Abel & Cole, I hope I've done your produce justice!

My Love/Hate Relationship with Baking...

Urgh! Since yesterday I've been baking brownies and blondies for this charity fashion show... As horrible as it is to admit, the smell of brownies in the oven is actually starting to make me feel a bit sick : (

The first batch of blondies went terribly wrong (serves me right for not testing the recipe first), they were all hard and biscotti-like, which in itself isn't really a flaw but when it's blondies you want it kinda poses a problem. I made them in a swiss roll style baking tin (as suggested) and baked them at 170c for what was supposed to be 35-40 minutes but took them out as they were done after 20 minutes. Weird.

After some careful consideration and a bit of research from Rachel Allen's Bake I decided to alter the recipe and use self raising instead of plain flour to give them some oomph as they were terribly thin and that probably contributed to them being rock hard. I also made them in my 20 x 20cm silicone square tray in the hope they wouldn't cook too quickly as there would be a thicker layer of batter. Luckily the second batch turned out better and more blondie-like and it's a good job they did as by 10pm I was all ready to have a hissy fit and complete meltdown on the kitchen floor!

One thing that really bugs me about brownies is that good judgement is required in order to achieve the perfect brownie and good judgement is something I really don't have. For so long (and I still do it now) I have baked and cooked following recipes to the letter, too scared to change anything in case it goes wrong. I feel that at least if I follow the recipe to the letter and it turns out awful then it won't be because of something I did!

I have a batch of brownies in the oven as I'm writing this and for the past hour I've been hopping up and down to check on them, poking them with a skewer and covering them carefully with foil. I've only just taken them out of the oven after an hour at 170c (skewer came out clean), yet I still want to poke and prod them and make sure they're done. In my experience brownies are completely unpredictable. Yes the top is flaky, and yes the centre is still slightly soft, and yes a skewer came out clean but I just know that when I cut them they're still gonna look underdone. I still have the first batch on the side half wrapped in foil (that's them at the top) and I keep looking at them and thinking, will people say they're moist and dense or will they think they're undercooked??? And this is what brings me back to good judgement. All the signs may point to them being done but it's up to ME to decide whether they need another 5 minutes or not. And that's before I've even taken into consideration how much they're going to cook while they cool...

*Sigh* My brain hurts.

Ooooh I got me a certificate!

The Young Parents Group I go to are holding a charity fashion show and I've been put in charge of the catering, eek! So because I'm in charge of the food our group leader wanted to put me through my Food Hygiene training. So on Friday little ol' me was all geared up to go back to college. I had childcare arranged and a taxi came and picked me up at 8:15am (the earliest I've been out in a LONG time!) and we drove 45 minutes to get to the college. When I got there I went straight to reception, as the course had been arranged for me and I had no idea what it was called or where I was supposed to go. The lady then politely informed me that my course had been CANCELLED and had nobody called me? Apparently not... She did seem quite embarrassed as there was me this big whale of a pregnant woman with all my bags, sweltering in the sun and completely stranded. I was quite lucky as I got straight on the phone to the taxi company and managed to get the driver that dropped me off to turn around and come and pick me up again. He was due to pick me up at 4:15 so at least he got to go home early!

For some reason I just knew the course would be called off. I'd got a bit paranoid the night before and called up the taxi company to double check that it was booked AND that they had my right address AND that they had my phone number in case they couldn't find it, I do live on a building site! Little did I know I should have called the college instead. Apparently there were only 4 people wanting to take the course which I thought had been enough for them to run it but then they decided to cancel at the last minute and just didn't get round to telling me : (

So the fashion show is under 2 weeks away and I needed to get my training sorted. I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do as our group leader was on holiday and I was pretty sure they wouldn't be running the course at college again before the show.

A while back I'd had an email from a lady offering me the chance to try an online food hygiene course, which I hadn't really needed up until now as at the time I'd had no internet and then I found out I was going to take it anyway just at college. So as I was running out of options I emailed her back and thought I'd give it a try. I kind of knew a bit about what the course would be like as I remember George had taken one and written about it on her blog.

I took Food Safety and Hygiene for Catering (Level II). I'm a bit of a computer geek and spend hours in front of my laptop so the idea of doing the course online in the comfort of my own home (I did mine lounging in bed!) really appealed to me. The great thing is you can pick it up and put it down whenever you feel like it. The course is divided into modules and even then you don't have to do a whole one at a time. At the end of each module you get a few multiple choice practice questions (gotta love multiple choice!) to gear you up for the not-as-scary-as-it-sounds test at the end of the course. The test is 30 multiple choice questions and you need 75% to pass. I got 93% but whose counting (or boasting lol) :-P


I took a little over 3 hours to complete the whole course but I could have done it over a few evenings had it not been so urgent for me to pass in time for the show. And when you pass they send you a nice shiny certificate :-D Apparently its also the same qualification as I would've got had I done it at college.

I actually quite enjoyed this course (if that's not a too geeky thing to say) and I'd probably opt for an online course again especially after all the mix up at the college! I do think I was secretly a bit pleased that I didn't have to go to college though, I was sooooo nervous. It's bad enough going to school when your little but going as a grown up, yikes!

Has anybody else ever gone back to school??

A Bun In The Oven....

I've been wanting to write this post for ages!!! Can you believe we moved in on the 1st April and we have only just got our internet connected today, curse you Sky!!!

Well as I'm sure you may have guessed by now,

I'm Pregnant!

Five months gone now! I've been keeping well, no morning sickness (touch wood) just very tired all the time. We found out at our scan last week that it's a little boy, so I'm going to have one of each, eek! Still can't believe they let me out the hospital with the first one but there you go. I really need some boy name inspiration though because all my names were for a girl! So any ideas please feel free to leave a comment...

I do have to apologise for the lack of posts but as you can imagine my life is only gonna get busier in the coming months but I'm hoping to be able to keep Away With The Fairycakes up and running in some way or another.

But I do want to take this moment to say thank you to everybody that does read and support my blog, from the ones that comment on every post, to the email subscribers and even the people that just stop by once in a while. I really love reading all your feedback and it's lovely to know that I'm not just blogging into outer space.

I'm afraid I've got to dash now as I've got to put the dinner on for Chloe but I do promise to try and get my blogging back to normal, no excuse now I've got my beloved internet back :-D

Hope you are all well and look forward to reading everybody's posts, got to catch up on Google Reader later!

All My Love,

Hayley x

I'm Still Alive!

Apologies for lack of recent posting, have moved to my new flat, YAY!! It's lovely, but sadly I have a temporary loss of phone and internet, how did we ever survive without it?! Normal service to resume soon I promise, and when it does I have an important announcement :-D!

Hayley x

I'm Baaaaack!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently but I've been trying REALLY hard to keep to my New Year's resolutions and it's kind of meant that I've had to let my blog slide a bit. This year I really wanted to be more organised in my life and to manage my time better (not getting there just yet!) in order to help me achieve more, and so far I've managed to add 30 minutes of exercise to my day. After the initial "ARE YOU SURE THIS ISN'T GOING TO KILL ME?!?!?!" I'm finding that I'm slowly getting more energy so it's definitely more beneficial but I'm also finding that all the cupcakes and other goodies that I usually blog about aren't really going hand in hand with my efforts to lose weight so that's why there's been a decrease in posts. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping that I'm gonna be juggling a bit better and normal service will resume but you're gonna have to bear with me until that happens!

I don't normally make myself a flashy lunch, I can only usually be bothered with a sandwich, but yesterday I decided to push the boat out and make a Seared Fresh Tuna Nicoise salad. I've had some tuna lurking in the freezer for aaaages, nobody else in the family likes it so it's a bit of a treat for me! I only discovered fresh tuna last year and have fallen in love since...

This recipe is adapted from Cook Yourself Thin Quick and Easy, it's probably not really a Nicoise any more as I left out all the olives and anchovies, which I don't like, and I didn't have any green beans. It was still tasty though!



Seared Fresh Tuna Nicoise a la Hayley

Serves 2

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried
mixed salad leaves or plain old lettuce leaves
2 small tomatoes, quartered
1 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
200g tuna steak
olive oil spray
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 egg
2 cooked new potatoes (leftovers are fine)

Mix the oil, lemon juice, mustard and thyme together to make a dressing and set aside.

Place the salad leaves, tomatoes and onion in a big salad bowl and mix everything together.

Heat a ridged griddle pan on the hob. Cut the tuna steak into two equal portions. Spritz it on both sides with 4 sprays of olive oil. Season with black pepper and a little salt, then grill on the hot griddle for 2 minutes on each side (I found that my pan was too hot and 4 minutes in total made it overdone. Judge it by eye as to how you would like it) Set the tuna aside to rest.

Put the egg in a pan of cold water , bring to the boil and cook for 5 to 6 minutes for a creamy yolk. Remove the egg immediately and put in a bowl of cold water to stop it from cooking further.

Peel the egg and cut into quarters along with the potatoes, then add the egg and potato to the salad bowl. Pour over the dressing and toss the salad well. Divide the salad between two bowls, place the tuna on top of the leaves and serve.

'Road-Testing My New Pie Dish' Pie

It's pretty hard not to develop a pie obsession after watching Waitress, it's my FAVOURITE film!





Since watching Waitress I have fallen in love with all things pie. We don't really have the hype over pies that the Americans do and I think it's really sad. I just love the whole bake your new neighbour a pie tradition and hot pies cooling on the window sill (all my American readers are thinking 'we so don't do that you daft British woman'). If I won the lottery I would start my own little pie diner tomorrow *sighs*

The only reason I haven't baked every single pie from Waitress is because until Christmas I didn't have a worthy pie dish. I have been drooling over this Emile Henry pie dish for months now and because I'd been such a good girl last year, Santa bought it for me! Apart from a poor attempt at the Girdlebuster (I'm not one for patience and I didn't let it freeze enough between steps) I haven't used it to bake any pies, shame on me!




So when The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook dropped through my letterbox this morning I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and bake a pie : )




Lemon Meringue Pie

Crust

1 1/2 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 to 3 tbsp ice water

Filling

3 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 1/2 cups water
3 tbsp unsalted butter
6 tbsp lemon juice

Meringue Topping

4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 400F/ 200c.

To make the crust:

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Add in the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the ice water a tbsp at a time and pulse between additions, until the mixture starts coming together. Tip out onto a floured surface and roll out the dough to fit a 9 inch pie dish. Fold the edges under all round the rim and crimp.

Cover the shell with foil and line the foil with pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully take out the weights and the foil. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

To prepare the filling:

Whisk the egg yolks in a small bowl until lemony in colour. Set aside.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan on medium heat, place the sugar, cornstarch and water. Stir constantly until thick. Boil this for 1 minute. Pour half of this mixture into the egg yolks and whisk to combine. Pour this back into the pot containing the remaining half and boil for 1 minute more, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and stir until smooth. Blend into the saucepan the butter and lemon juice. Stir until smooth and pour into the pie shell.

For the meringue:

In a small bowl, on the high speed of an electric mixer, whip the egg whites for 1 or 2 minutes. Add in the sugar gradually and whip until whites are thick and glossy, about another 1 or 2 minutes. Cover filling generously with the meringue, swirling into peaks with a small rubber spatula. Bake 15 to 18 minutes until lightly browned. Allow pie to cool for 1 hour. Refrigerate until completely cold, at least 1 hour.