Friday 23 October 2015

Baking Competition Ideas

Happy Friday, all! I hope you have cool plans for the weekend.

This week has been super busy for me; in fact, the last two weeks have been super busy! For anyone who doesn't know, my day job is in youth and community work, and a fortnight ago our community café gallery was opened. I have been put in there as the manager, under the auspices of the Methodist church, as it's one of their outreach projects.

It has required me to learn a lot about managing volunteers, kitchen cleanliness, and PR, and it's been hard - but satisfying - work. This is the first time I've had such responsibility, and ownership, over a project in this position. I've been making a lot of mistakes so far, but it's all part of the process.

Last week, I went in the local cake decorating supply shop Decobake, and the sales assistant informed me that they will be having a baking competition on Halloween! I'm super excited about joining in, and am thinking of making a gingerbread house, à la Hansel and Gretel.

I've been doing a lot of visual research and coming up with ideas: I think now is the time to start doing some drawings. However, because I'm chronically disorganised, I keep forgetting to bring sketchbooks with me into work to keep me busy while I'm minding the coffee dock space.

A few of my friends came to visit me at home last weekend, and we had a Halloween splurge. We bought decorations, and watched both 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Beetlejuice'. I had a super nostalgia fest, reminiscing on my days as an alternative emo teenager, decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas merch and chains (which was a phase that started in '06 but never ended). I took great inspiration from the house owned by the late Maitlands, as is has a great doll house feel, and at the same time is super spooky.


I was thinking of adapting this house into something a little simpler, then decorating the living daylights out of it!

More updates to follow...

Friday 16 October 2015

Kitchen Experiment: Maple Pecan Pie

I hope everyone has got great plans for the weekend! I have anyway: a good friend of mine is down visiting from Roscommon for the World Power Lifting Championships that are on in Limerick, of all places. While she is down, we're taking the opportunity to have a mini Halloween house decorating party! We will be doing a bit of baking, and hanging up pound shop tat, and watching Tim Burton movies till our eyes come out.

As I promised in my last post, the first after a long compassionate break, I am going to let you in on the process that I followed for my most recent concoction: maple pecan pie!


Sunday was Thanksgiving in Canada, and my Canadian work colleague invited my brother and I to celebrate with his wife and a few friends. They had a variety of food, and it was really lovely to experience what is traditionally eaten as part of dinner, and also to be part of their pre-dinner tradition of introducing ourselves in turn to the guests at the table, and saying one thing we're thankful for. I'd love to do that before every meal anymore.

They had turkey (of course), roasted root vegetables, steamed broccoli, mashed sweet potato with maple syrup and walnuts, and stuffing. For dessert, other guests had brought apple pie and cinnamon rolls, and I brought my offering of a tart (snicker).



I did a bit of research as to what kinds of desserts are popular for eating after a Thanksgiving meal. Most of my research turned up results about Thanksgiving in the States, but my colleague assured me they eat pretty much the same things in Canada. I was originally thinking of doing a pumpkin pie, but pumpkins weren't on sale yet when I had to make something to bring.

This was a complete experiment: I'd never made a pie like this before. I read a few recipes online, and checked a few in my numerous cookbooks, and most of the recipes were the same. They all followed the basic formula of one 9 inch (22 centimetre) pie shell, filled with a mixture of 3 medium eggs, 6 ounces (170 grammes) brown sugar, 3 ounces (85 grammes) melted butter, 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) of maple or corn syrup, and about 5 ounces (140 grammes) chopped pecan nuts. Some recipes asked for the filling to be thickened with a little flour, and some asked for more syrup.

However, there was always one things on which the various recipes I read could not agree: was the crust blind baked or not.


So, I followed the recipe from one of the cookbooks I had which asked for the raw pastry and filling to be cooked at the same time. This meant cooking the pie at 200ºC (400ºF, Gas Mk.6) for the first half of cooking, then at 150ºC (300ºF, Gas Mk.2) for the second half. 

I made a nice buttery pastry case, using a traditional shortbread crust like I did on my treacle tarts that I made a few months back. I then filled it with chopped pecan nuts, and poured in the filling. I cooked it as instructed. The result looked wonderful, but on eating it was revealed that it had gone soggy in the middle. It still tasted epic, though.

After cooking, I then laid some whole pecans on top, glazed them with extra maple syrup, then gave it another 10 minutes to set them into place; worked a treat. Although, this recipe was very heavy on my bottle of maple syrup, which my brother had bought while on his travels in Ontario last month.

Conclusion
Next time I make it, which will probably be tonight, I think I'll make a few adjustments
  • I will blind bake the crust so that it doesn't go soggy.
  • I won't use my pure maple syrup, but will instead use my maple flavoured golden syrup; the pure stuff is expensive, and this recipe needs a lot, so I'll only use it for glazing.
  • Following on from one of the recipe that suggested thickening with flour, and taking inspiration also from my treacle tart recipe, I might try adding some ground almonds to the filling to make it a little firmer and not as gooey.


 

So, keep your eyes peeled for an updated version! I will be beavering away on making a more perfect version of this. Although, if the feedback I got from the Thanksgiving guests is anything to go by, this one was pretty darn good!

THIS TIME IN 2014: Orange Chocolate Fudge
THIS TIME IN 2013: No-Churn No-Cook Strawberry Cheesecake Ice-Cream (EGG FREE, WHEAT FREE)

Monday 12 October 2015

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!! (Break-Ups Are Horrid)

Hello all!

I want to apologise for the complete silence over the last five weeks, but I was struck by personal tragedy. My relationship with my beloved companion suddenly and unexpectedly ended out of the blue, and it took me by complete surprise. I have spent the last little while going through a fairly complex grieving process which included questioning the direction of my entire life (it's about time I had a quarter-life crisis) and eating enough sugar to feed a small country.

I have always held relationships, marriage, and family in very high regard, ever since I was a little girl. I've always placed finding a good match and settling quite high up my list of life priorities. Having said that, I understand that these things can't be rushed, and give ample space to my romantic others so that they don't feel overwhelmed. This time, I thought I had found someone whose values and aspirations were equally prioritised, with whom I could share a long and happy life, but it turned out that I was wrong. Such, such, crippling disappointment.

But I understand my readers aren't interested in my personal issues, but are interested in my cooking. Unfortunately, due to the depth of my grief, I have avoided my kitchen outright. I haven't even cooked myself a meal in nearly six weeks, and not baked a single thing. I associated my kitchen so strongly with the time that I spent with my companion that even going into it to get a glass of water was too much for the first three weeks.

However, this weekend, I had the privilege of going to my first Thanksgiving dinner. I have a new Canadian coworker, and he invited my brother and I to join him, his wife, and a few friends for a traditional meal. I said to him I'd bring a dessert, and as such had to do my research. I found out that the most popular desserts are pumpkin pie, apple pie, or pecan pie.

So, I decided to try my hand at baking a pecan pie for the first time. It was quite a hit! However, there are a few things I'd tweak for the next try, which will be soon. The full write up will be up on Friday, along with my plans for Halloween baking!

Thank you to everyone who has read my blog so faithfully for the last two-and-a-half years. I cannot tell you how much it has meant to me.

I'm not gone. Never gone.

Lots of love,
Sweetie Pie x

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