a simple yarn

Ah, the breakfast of champions.

…for a good European-style cappuccino.

Misha’s on Patrick Street.
Dodgy premises.
Great coffee.
The best I’ll ever have?
Dunno.
But a good option in Old Town.

‘Doughnuts!’ the children cried in unison, ‘We want doughnuts!’

I’ve always been a little resistant to making homemade doughnuts.
Not because of the lingering fry smell in the kitchen.
Rather, because I’ve never had a successful batch to give the Kiddies.
Sure, they eat whatever disaster I place before them, providing it has enough sugar in or on it.
But, now that my mixer is running at full speed again, I certainly ought to try, right?

Warning:  Another Bit of Motherly-In-Law Wisdom Ahead
MIL-Phyllis, a regular bread baker in her own right, always told me that whenever you find a bread recipe that you like, use it for everything.  Once the basic proportions are right, you can alter it a little for different outcomes.  So, my basic bread recipe also doubles for pizza crust and cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls…you get the point.

A few other lessons learned along the way…
In Ireland, perpetual damp and cool are a baker’s nemesis.
In perpetually warm and humid Virginia, it’s a baker’ dream.

I don’t have a doughnut cutter, but use a small scone cutter for treats that are a little larger than bite-sized doughnut holes but smaller than traditional doughnuts.

A deep fry thermometer is a must.
Frying at 360 degrees F is the key to doughnuts that aren’t oil soaked (oil too cool) or burnt with an underdone middle (oil too hot).

I decided that I’d double the 2 tablespoons of sugar to 4, sweetening the dough.  That ought to be enough, eh?  A quick consultation with another recipe shows 1 cup of sugar used.  Yikes!  Mine are going to taste positively bland, but at least our dentist will thank me.

Compensating for the lack of sugar in the dough, I rummage the cupboards for something besides icing (confectioner’s) sugar to coat them.  A bit of canned frosting warmed to a thin glaze and also chocolate chips melted with a little vegetable oil do the trick.  Ever-popular sprinkles will no doubt sweeten the deal.  Finally, can’t forget the tried-and-true-cinnamon-and-sugar combo.

A Saturday afternoon of baking is quickly rewarded by an empty plate and the cry now becomes, ‘More!  We want more!’

A behind the scenes look.

The Transformers have saved the day!
Ehm, sorry.
Were you looking for Sam?
Fearing the Decepticons?
Hoping for Optimus Prime?

Here’s my transforming hero…

When we left Dublin, I couldn’t bear to part with my faithful mixer.
Or my newly purchased sewing machine.
Sadly, they run at 240 volts.
The rest of America runs at 110 volts.
Sigh.
But a quick internet search brings news of a step-down AND step up power transformer…on megatron-sale!
And I am back in baking business.

…wherein we try ANOTHER recipe from the otherwise pristine cookbook.

Feeling heady from the lemonade success, we immediately dive into another new Tessa recipe.

Meringue with Strawberries and Chocolate

Yep, I fear a monster has been unleashed…

…and I buy cookbooks.

Warning,  Confession to Continue—
Not to cook from.
Just to look at.
I am lured by the pretty pictures.
I promise myself I will use the recipes.
But that means I will have to open the books…with food around.
And that might make them dirty.
And smudged.
And they wouldn’t be pretty anymore.
And I’d be sad.
Sigh.

Here’s a favourite…to look at, that is…and to give as gifts.  Trying to overcome my addiction, I’ve forced myself to open it up.

Tasty (looking) recipes geared nicely toward children with options to spice it up for adults.  I do find that Tessa’s grouping of recipes based upon colour intriguing and ingenious, but a bit difficult for finding a particular recipe.  Ah well, that’s what an index is for, right?

Starting simply, Daughter-Kate and I attempt to beat the summer heat with a bit of lemonade.

I love the idea of dissolving the caster (superfine) sugar in water and briefly boiling the lemon rind for a snazzy flavour and wonderfully coloured syrup.

Let cool and add chilled sparkling water.

And there you have a summer favourite.
Hang on, this tastes like Sprite or 7-Up!

Attention:  Foggy Memory Flashback Ahead—
Our first days in Dublin were a whirlwind of new experiences.  Even the simplest things were a challenge to do.  Like ordering drinks.  Our first pub outing with the Kiddies found us ordering lemonade, expecting a still-water-lemon drink as we were used to in the US.  What we got was Sprite.   What?  We quickly learned that European Translation No. 1, Lemonade = Sprite.

So, a great homemade treat for the Kiddies.  Next time, Orange Fizzy.

Postscript Confession—
Thanks to Cornflower, I now have another cookbook on my wish list!

Take one part organic chocolate, add a bit of Fairtrade, throw in a free recipe book… I’d say that’s a pretty sweet deal!

Many people love Green & Black’s chocolate.
I have not been one of them.
Tried their dark chocolate and hmm…too dark?  too bitter?  Don’t know.  Couldn’t put my finger on it, but never really jumped on the G&B bandwagon.  Funny how a bit of incentive can change perspective.

Walked into the local Centra (read ‘mini-mart’) for…um, can’t remember what I went in there for originally…but saw the display for a free recipe book.  What’s this?  Buy 3 bars of Green & Black’s chocolate and get a recipe book…FREE.  Not an inky, dinky pamphlet with a few half-hearted recipes.  Nope, a substantial, real-honest-to-goodness-192-page-suggested-retail-price-of-£14.99-book of chocolate recipes!  With categories claiming to be ‘mystical’ and ‘wicked’ I certainly couldn’t leave the shop without one… and surely no one would fault my temptation to buy merely 3 chocolate bars to get it, would they?

So I did.

Was willing to give the dark chocolate another go, but none to be had and contented myself with 2 milk and 1 white.  Must say that the milk chocolate has an unusual but smooth taste.  Perhaps that’s what ‘organic’ tastes like?  So, when occasion calls for milk chocolate, it’s a lovely choice.

Have to say I’m sufficiently chuffed over my impulse buy and am looking forward to creating some chocolate delicacies from what is claimed to be the ‘best chocolate book in the world.’  Wow, that’s sweet.

Right, so the official start to summertime (or what you would call Daylight Savings Time in North America) has thrown my clock off in more ways than one.

And as we moved our clocks ahead one hour over the weekend, I feel the need to post Saturday’s activities one day later, er…today.

Admittedly, it’s been a busy few days…
Thursday: Return from Cork with kiddies
Friday: Bake
Saturday Morning at Ungodly Hour: Collect Husband-Will from airport
Saturday: Bake
Saturday Evening: Host Will’s birthday party until wee small hours to help him overcome jetlag
Sunday Morning, 1:00am: Move clocks forward one hour

Since Husband-Will is not a cake-loving man, it becomes pie baking at our house. Apple pie, that is. A nice variety of apples, especially some Granny Smiths, to throw a bit of zing into the flavour.

A good fair bit of sugar, cinnamon, flour, and butter for appley-pie-goodness.

When I’m in a hurry, such as now, the ready-to-roll crusts work a treat.

And hopefully the outcome of baking will yield many happy returns!

Or rather, shamrocks of the sugary kind…

Saturday baking came earlier this week as Daughter-Kate was enlisted to bring biscuits, er sorry…cookies, to school on Friday, a shortened party day in anticipation of upcoming St. Patrick’s Day and the two-week-end-of-term-Easter-holiday. So, what else would I bake but sugar cookie shamrocks?

As I hunt for the shamrock cookie cutter, which I am absolutely positively sure that I own I realise, after an exasperating search, that…oops, I was wrong. Cutters of all shapes and sizes but no shamrock. Rats. What am I gonna do? For crying out loud, I live in the country now and can’t just hop in the car to the nearest Cookie-Cutters-R-Us! Grrrr….

Right, not to be undone by this setback, I dig around for Irishy alternatives.
Gingerbread-Men-Turned-Leprechaun?
Jumping-Reindeer-Disguised-As-The-Island?
Santa-Incognito-As-A-Pudgy-St. Patrick?

Aha! The simplest solution found an unused circle scone cutter reshaped into a trefoil…love the power of pliers…

Admittedly the dough shapes looked a little shaky but the magic of baking covers a multitude of cookie cutting sins.

The icing…green, of course. Didn’t have any store bought sugar sprinkles, but substituted granulated sugar whizzed with a bit of green food colouring.

Apologies, Irish Cultural Baking Diversion:
The icing which is found here is a mysterious entity to me, the North American baker. The icing in Ireland, or the British Isles, or even perhaps Europe is usually that hard-roll-it-out-to-form-fit-the-cake type stuff and to be honest…it scares me a little. I admit I have never used it as the thought of it gives my hands little tremors. Where’s the fluffy frosting that I’m used to?

So, you will appreciate my relief when, a few years ago, this little familiar package finally made it to Irish supermarket shelves….and so my sugar cookies are saved!

Ah, baking is done and I’ve got plenty of sugary shamrocks for Kate’s class…and Alex’s…and the Infants class…the entire school, actually…yep, it’s a small school.

*english = ‘biscuit’

… it’s not just for Christmas anymore.

When living in the US, the highlight of the Christmas season was invariably being the recipient of a lovely stollen baked by an equally lovely German friend. And so with fond memories, a few loaves of stollen were added to our Christmas festivities this year.

Since we gave most of them away during the holidays, I’ve still had a bit of yearning for something almondy. So, why wait until next Christmas to satisfy that desire?

While the recipe sounds complicated, it’s easily done in steps, most of which are waiting for the dough to rise.

Stollen
3/4 cup chopped candied citron (6 oz)
1/2 cup light raisins
1/2 cup light rum
4-1/2 cups flour
3 pkgs active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm milk
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tbl almond paste
2 tsp salt
2 tsp grated lemon peel
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 cup sliced almonds
melted butter
powdered sugar

Marzipan (optional)
1 block marzipan
1/2 cup powdered sugar

For each loaf, use 1/2 of marzipan. Roll in powdered sugar until smooth—not runny. Soak citron and raisins in rum overnight. In large bowl combine 1 cup flour and yeast. Add warm milk; beat smooth. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

In small bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter, sugar, egg, almond paste, salt, lemon peel, vanilla and nutmeg. Beat into flour mixture. Stir in fruit and almonds. By hand, stir enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Turn out on lightly floured surface, knead 5-8 minutes until smooth and elastic. Shape into ball. Put in greased bowl turning once to grease dough’s surface. Cover. Let rise in warm place 1-1/2 hours or until doubled in bulk. Punch down. Divide in half. Cover, let rest 10 minutes. Roll each half to 7”x10” oval.

If desired, place marzipan onto half of each oval. Fold long side to within 1/2” of opposite side and seal edge.
Place on greased baking sheets. Cover, let rise about 1 hour or until doubled. Bake in 350-375ºF/180-190ºC oven 20-25 minutes. Brush warm stolen with melted butter. When cool, dust liberally with powdered sugar.

I confess that I was less than pleased and left feeling a little ‘flat’ with the dough’s temper tantrum and unwillingness to rise. Ah well, it still tastes quite good, even while being a little shorter in stature. In looking at the photo, I also wonder about the glob of marzipan that sits in the middle. Hmm…think that next time I shall roll it out quite thinly and put it into the dough ‘swiss-roll’ style. Might make a nicer presentation I think.

But satisfied that there is an almond-something in the house, just have to heat the kettle for a nice cup of tea.

Every now and then I get overzealous about the quantity of apples I buy for the Kiddies to eat…

It happened when two thoughts collided in my brain.
“Those apples are going to spoil if I don’t do something with them.”
“What shall I feed the kids for after-school snack?”

And so following the train of thought, out comes the food mill with applesauce in mind.

Warning: Cultural Comment on Applesauce
I find it interesting that in the US, applesauce is a mainstay in many a child’s diet. From individual portions to super-size-mega jars… extra-sweet to natural and unsweetened. In Ireland, however, applesauce is just that… sauce. It’s shelved with other add-it-on-the-side-in-small-portions sauces, like mint jelly, and generally comes in one very tiny jar. I wonder why that is? Is applesauce uniquely a North American cultural concept? Hmmm… might have to Google that…

Anyway, apples cooked and strained with a wee bit of organic/Fairtrade sugar (feelin’ really good about that!) and afternoon snack is done.

Um….hang on….that’s a lot of applesauce. Could freeze it, I suppose, or it just might spoil before we get it all eaten. Uh oh, here we go again…

And so following the (runaway) train of thought, out comes the flour with turnovers in mind.

And because I never intended to do any of this today, I might as well do one more variation, right?

Maybe next time I’ll just compost the overripe apples?

…and we’re still not talkin’ about snow…

So, what d’ya do when you have a surplus of powdered icing sugar intended for Christmas baking and a borrowed bread machine?

You make doughnuts of course! Authentic-yes-they’re-fried-in-oil-real-homemade-goodness doughnuts with lots of powdered sugar oozing into a proper glaze by morning.

Would I buy doughnuts with regularity? Not really. Will I make doughnuts with regularity? Hmmm…
Think this bread machine might be the hyper-carb-death of me!