This blog is for Denice who emailed and said that I should do a baking blog. Alas, I admit I did not immediately float into the kitchen like the baking fairy that I am and whip these bad boys up in an instant! I walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer and pulled a few out of a tupperware. And here in lies my baking problem; I don't do it often because a) it's naughty to eat b) we end up with way too much and c) it is normally a feast or a famine because you have left over ingredients and go on to use them somehow meaning more baking. This is what happened the last time I took inspiration from a magazine cover, Fine Cooking I believe, and went out to purchase several unusual (for me, as I wouldn't have them lying around) ingredients to make a wonderful Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Browned Butter Icing i.e. pepitas, walnuts and crystalised ginger.
(This is blogging's version of TV's "And here's one I made earlier....").
Anyway, so after the mammoth cake was made, and half eagerly given to friends and neighbours, I found myself with pepitas and crystalised ginger. What a conundrum! I roasted the pepitas (which are hulled pumpkin seeds) and put some cayenne pepper, garlic, salt and pepper on them as they were a great snack. The crystalised ginger went into some ginger cookies a few days later. They were not a great success appearance wise to be honest, but tasted fine, I had to scrape them off a baking sheet (sacrificing a fair amount to burn damage!) and cut them into pieces. The point is, after having a cake in the house to eat, I then made cookies to use up an ingredient from the cake, and when I knew we weren't going to eat them all into the freezer they went to join the caramel squares and muffins that I keep in large-ish quantity for my husband's snack at work. The theory being that one shouldn't eat it all at once as that would be bad, but apparently spreading it out over a great deal of time is better?! By the way, the website Epicurious is fantastic for finding ideas on what to do with a left over ingredient if you are struggling for inspiration. It allows you to search for a specific ingredient and plough through the recipes that use that one ingredient, it works for anything, from crystalised ginger, to chives, to pork!
The bonus of the freezer with lots of left over baked goods is that you can pull some out without the work, but it also puts you off making anything new because you know there is lots in there waiting to be consumed.
P.S. Those beautiful Caramel Squares that I initially came to write about and then got carried away with my freezer of shame; are made with a shortbread base, home made caramel filling (which needs condensed milk, and only a tiny bit, so you are left with a can of the stuff and have to use it in your coffee as a treat from time to time for months afterwards to get rid of it, still going by the way!) and then melted chocolate on top. I used a semi sweet and dark chocolate combination to try and off set the sweetness of the caramel. And I also ended up cutting it into tiny pieces because it was so rich, like little 1inch pieces, hence why there is so much left behind.
P.P.S. For the Canadians...a small lesson in 'English' (with lots of love and acceptance there too!), there are 3 parts to the word Caramel. Car-a-mel! See the little 'a' in the middle, he feels sad when you leave him out!
xxxx
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