Category / Eating & Drinking

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Of gallbladders and film reviews

Well, I’m better. Stones have been whipped out (and man were there a LOT of them… as you can see from this grim picture tweeted from my hospital bed), stitches healed and removed and I am once again fit for human company. I checked with the doctor and exercise is fine so I’m back in the gym trying not to kill my admittedly pathetic but at least existing daily half hour workout habit.

It’s half an hour because I’m too unfit to do more than thirty minutes of cardio in one go, not because I don’t have time. But at least I’m going before work and being all virtuous. And then eating my bodyweight in chocolate and butter.

Anyway, other things that are not health-related have happened, and they were more fun. Here are three fun things:

– We saw Sam Mendes’ new film, Away We Go, for free, and it was ace. I have zipped a review over to Cate at BitchBuzz and will post when it’s actually on the site, with some extra thoughts that I had that were too waffly for the review.

– We went to a Susie Perring exhibition. I own one of her goldfish prints and would happily snaffle up her entire back catalogue. It’s on the When I Win The Lottery list, right after getting myself a green card and having a holiday at the Grand Floridian.

– I started baking again! Rachel Allen’s Sweet Potato and Pecan Loaf (except I used walnuts, not pecans) and it’s the richest, moistest, most wonderful use for a vegetable ever. And it was thrifty – I had three sweet potatoes that had seen slightly better days but that were still usable that went into it. I finished off the loaf experimentation with Nigella Lawson’s Banana Bread, full of sticky, rum-soaked raisins that are just gorgeous. The alcohol burns off, so they’re safe for kids. I’ve frozen most of that as Ash doesn’t do bananas and even I can’t finish it all alone.

To follow: posts about The Hen Do, with pictures, jam tarts, with recipe and stuff. Just as soon as I get round to it. Promise.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Baking Extravaganza 2009 begins… tonight!

Tonight, I shall be mostly baking….

No, that’s it. “Mostly baking”. I have three cake projects and one cookie project on the go for my best friend’s hen do tomorrow. I will document the process photographically but I can’t post anything until after said party for, through the wonders of FriendFeed and RSS and stuff, my friend will see the post before the great veil is lifted! And that would be no fun.

Plus, if any of the projects goes up in flames, I want to be able to disavow all intention of actually having tried it (yeah, this blog post might be a bit of an issue there, huh?).

Ready… set… MIX!

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Diabetic-friendly orange and almond cupcakes and Rachel Allen’s red velvet cake

Cupcakes heading for the oven

Cupcakes heading for the oven

It’s been a weekend of baking experimentation. I’ve been delving into my quick recipe standby, Susannah Blake’s Cupcake Heaven and my indulgence favourite, Rachel Allen’s Bake.

For once I’m going to give out a recipe because this is my adapted version of Blake’s. My father and mother-in-law are both diabetic; I’m a strong believer that diabetics are better off having less real sugar than pumping themselves with metallic-tasting sweeteners, so as a diabetic-friendly sugar substitute I prefer to use fructose. Each of the twelve cakes ends up with about 7g of sugar in (less than a teaspoon), so even only partially replacing the sugar ought to substantially alter the Glycaemic Index of each cake. They’re not diet food, but they’re less likely to deliver a blood sugar rush than they could be. Plus there’s no added fat – the only fat is in the eggs.

Wet Ingredients

2 eggs
Zest of an unwaxed orange

Dry Ingredients

35g fructose (I used Fruisana)
55g caster sugar (see Blake’s book for original amount of sugar)
80g ground almonds
3 tbsp plain flour (this is a change from Blake’s original – see book for how to alter this step to make it gluten-free)
Flaked almonds

Beat the eggs and sugars together to make a thick, pale batter. Stir in the orange zest, then sieve in the remaining dry ingredients (except the flaked almonds) and incorporate. Divide into 12 cupcake papers, filled almost to the top, and sprinkle flaked almonds (or mixed nuts) on top. Bake for approximately 22 minutes, though I’d check after 18.

Temperature? Well, that’s the experimental bit. The original recipe calls for 180 degrees, but fructose has a lower burning point than normal sugar, so you need to reduce the temperature by up to 25 degrees – especially if, like me, you have a fan-assisted oven. The cakes came out a little darker than I would like, and I’d like to see a higher ratio of fructose – I was worried to reduce it too much as I didn’t think the egg mixture would retain the right texture and without other fats it will need to stay the right consistency. Because fructose is sweeter than sugar, these have a real toothy bite to them. Experimentation continues…

I then decided to make something truly indulgent and ridiculous, and blundered across Rachel Allen’s red velvet cake recipe. It’s stunningly moist and the icing tooth-achingly sweet with its soft meringue texture. It’s the most wonderful thick, satisfying, trashy cake. Because of its richness and sweetness, it’s possible to have just one slice and not gorge, which is just as well given the amount of butter, sugar, golden syrup and the like which go into it. I made just one layer as I was short on some of the ingredients, and substituted 125ml of milk with 1/2 tbsp of white wine vinegar (left to sit for 5-10 mins) for buttermilk as I didn’t have any. I found that substitute came up for the first four Google search results, so I trusted it, and my faith was rewarded.

It’s so brilliant to look at too… mmmmm.

Baking22

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Always on my mind… stuff I might blog about

Well, not always*, but these are some of the things that have been on my mind this week and which might well get blogged about soon.

1. Children and Blogging

As in, why do people feel the need to align themselves into mommy or child-free camps. Why is there such a dividing line? Why does it matter?

2. Feline Asthma

One of my cats has it. Inexplicably (it isn’t my fault) I feel guilty.

3. Baking

I’m thinking cookies at the moment, and thus stole / borrowed a star-shaped cookie cutter from my mother. In fairness she’s had it two years and never used it. My sister makes very nice gingerbread, so I figure I should opt for a different flavour to widen the family skillset. On the other hand, I’m still thinking about artful cupcake icing so it might not be cookies at all.

4. Disneyland Paris

Having been back to the absolute pinnacle of the Disney experience, I’m now craving more Mouse. Perhaps a trip to Paris would assuage it? Husband thinks otherwise, and on previous visits it really hasn’t felt the same.

5. The Monster Book

Sickness threw me off balance, but I want Ashley to read it and give me some feedback. I know the tone has changed and need to keep writing before I’m tempted to wade in and start re-writing. Must. Get. Motivation.

*Also, isn’t that song horrible? Maybe I treated you appallingly but, it’s okay, I was thinking of you the whole time. Yeesh.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Weekend Baking: Civilised Sunday Breakfast

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning

I didn’t document my piped sugar biscuit experiment – from the same book as before – largely because the bread was so much more impressive. But given that I had to:

a) Use one egg yolk less (ran out)

b) Substitute cinnamon for cardamom (didn’t have any of the latter and prefer the former) and

c) Use the wrong size piping nozzle (only have little ones)…

They taste bloody brilliant. I suspect using extra fine 00 flour helped. The piping was a bit uneven, but I picked a couple of the more aesthetically pleasing ones to pose for the photo.

And then munched them. Slurp, slurp, slurp.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Weekend Baking: White braided bread star

Outer braided star constructed

Outer braided star constructed

I’ve never made bread. In fact, I don’t have a Kitchen Aid-style mixer, or dough hook. So I tend to avoid making things I can’t make by hand or with the aid of my trusty (if cheap) electric hand whisk. So why I leafed through my newly bought copy of Swedish chef (well, pastry chef) Bo Friberg’s Professional Pastry Chef: The Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry and thought “I know, I’ll make the most complicated braided bread” I have no idea.

A word, as they say, on the text. It’s quite the most amazing cookery book I’ve ever bought. Detailed, prescriptive (but with a clear explanation of why which really helps) and yet lighthearted, it even includes a dog biscuit recipe in honour of the author’s two Akitas. It’s also absolutely huge, but this to is to its credit as it’s so comprehensive, includes plenty of photos and explanatory illustrations and it holds the page open nicely due to its phenomenal weight. This is the Baking Bible. I’ve made one recipe and I love it already.

The basic white bread mixture is a combination of yeast dissolved in milk, cake flour, bread flour, a little sugar and salt and of course a little butter. I went with 00 milled light plain flour as the cake half, and Tesco’s own-brand strong white bread flour as the complement. The butter is unsalted, of course, and it really, really helps if it’s room temperature.

Dough star (pre-egg wash, seeds and final rising)

Ready for egg wash, final rising and seeds

Although I just about managed to effectively combine the dough by hand, going through the short rising, punching down and chilling process quite effectively, I’m never going to do this by hand again. Not only does it go from soothing, therapeutic kneading to hand-breaking labour, it’s just not as light and effective a finished product. That said, forming the strings and following the braiding process to make first the other ring and then the rounded centerpiece proved to be remarkably straightforward. I’m not the world’s most co-ordinated person, but I made sure I didn’t rush things and used all the helpful hints the text provided (such as popping the cookie-cutter in the middle, as seen in the photos).

Now, I know it can be a little frustrating if you’ve stumbled on this post and are thinking “where’s the damn recipe already?!”. Thing is, now you know where it’s from you can probably go and find it for free and not pay £38 for the book like I did. But I love this book. Why would I want to encourage people not to pay for it? I think the author deserves to be very well-off because the recipes are tasty and the instructions are clear. I wish I could make it up to you with a chunk of the fresh bread, but thems the Internet breaks, I guess. I promise that if I invent a recipe – or change it enough from the original to make it feel new – I’ll post it in full.

Completed bread star

Completed bread star

Given my inexperience and mild impatience, I think the results were something to be proud of! The bread itself is just a little more dense and doughy than I’d like, I think largely down to the inefficient mixing process. It’s also saltier than I prefer, so I might use a finer ground salt next time to spread it around better. I’ll probably try and track down fresh yeast next time as the dried stuff was a bit of a pain to dissolve (though it smells surprisingly nice). The suggested sprinkling of poppyseeds in the middles, and second layer of egg wash were definitely good ideas, so I’d do that again.

Lunch was a hunk of hot-from-the-oven bread with butter. How terribly Gallic of me.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Weekend Baking: Lemon & Poppy Seed Spotted Cupcakes

Stamping out the rounds

Stamping out the rounds

With Ashley painting the living room and me feeling anti-social, it was time to hit the kitchen. Fear not – I haven’t lost my social media mind entirely. If you’ve been following my Twitter feed you’ll know I recently went to a third sector forum on digital innovation (search for anything hashtagged ‘aquent’), and at some point when I have some better thought out and intelligent thoughts to report on that, I shall blog about them. In the meantime, we’ve just begun work with the CMS for our brand new website, and that’s taking up the majority of my headspace at work.

So… at home. Cupcakes.

The recipe was adapted from some orange and poppy seed cupcakes in Cupcake Heaven. Instead of an orange zest, I slapped in a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. I’d use more next time – I’m not one for subtlety with lemon and it’s barely-there. Otherwise it’s:

Swapping the circlets

Swapping the circlets

– 115g each of sugar, flour and butter plus two eggs and a tablespoon of poppy seeds.

– As usual beat the butter and sugar first, add egg gradually and then fold in flour and flavourings. I used plain flour because I was being absent minded, so I added about 3/4 of a heaped teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt as well to make sure they rose okay.

– 180 degrees C, 18-20 minutes or until lightly golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

I borrowed the icing design from a different cupcake recipe in the book, eschewing the creamy topping and orange segments favoured by Susannah Blake for the cupcakes I made (I dare say she wouldn’t mind the liberty if she knew about it).  You use around 2/3 of a 500g block of ready-to-roll fondant icing.

– Divide in two, and dye each half a different colour – two that will go well together. I revisited my pistachio and buttercup colour scheme from the vanilla buttercream mini cupcakes you’ll find buried in the Baking category, and decided I’m switching to paste food colouring cos the liquid’s driving me crazy.

Cupcakes belong in a stack

Cupcakes belong in a stack

– Roll them out either between clingfilm or on an icing sugared surface until they’re pretty thin – say 3-4mm. Try and make them as close to the same thickness as possible.

– Then get a small cookie-cutter (any shape, but I’d stick to simple rounds etc the first time) and stamp out a spotty pattern, gently lifting the cutouts and laying them carefully aside. Do the same to the other piece and swap the cutouts, putting them in the holes you let behind.

– Gently roll over again, so that they stick together as much as possible. Now get another cookie-cutter, either the same diameter as your cakes or smaller, and stamp out a spotty-patterned circlet of icing ready to put on your cake. Smear the cakes with a little warmed jam and carefully put the icing on top.

As I didn’t have a palette knife and this is the first time I’ve ever worked with fondant icing, mine occasionally fell apart but I patched them back up again with little fuss or evidence. I stuck to round on this occasion, but intend to use my feet shaped ones to make pink and blue foot-shaped prints the next time anyone I know has a baby! And I reckon some lovely flowery ones will be just right for summer, perhaps in slightly bolder colours.

Om. And very possibly Nom Nom.

Anyway, the pictures tell the story if my ramblings don’t. Most importantly, they taste bloody good. I also made cheese biscuits from Nigella Lawson’s Feast with the foot-shaped cutters and they disappeared down gullets before the camera could come out, so I dare say they were yummy too.

Om. And very possibly Nom, Nom…

Nom.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Baking, baking, baking. Buttercream! Vanilla. Mmmm.

It appears the vast majority of the hits this blog is getting come from baking-related searches. I felt the title of this post ought to reflect this.

I really should start posting the recipes, shouldn’t I? Most of them come from publications I think people should pay for, though (I’m really quite anti getting stuff I like for free, as I’d like the people producing it to not get fed up and continue being creative instead). Perhaps I should post half the recipe, and a scrummy picture.

Erm, almond extract.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

It’s a small world, after all

I suspect I might not even be the 14,000th blogger to use that as a post title, but it was appropriate, so I ain’t going to sweat it.

I’m not sure whether last night proves that charity is a small world, that online meedja is a teeny cluster or that both together make it completely certain that you’ll know someone who knows someone. Then again, maybe it’s just coincidence, but it felt quite weird.

After Helen Aspell of the Equalities & Human Rights Commission (which has said some very sensible things about reducing maternity leave for women and increasing paternity leave this week) told me she knew my sister – off the back of both being in that Female Social Media Guru thang – that provoked a small giggle.

Turns out she is in fact involved in all aspects of my life.*

When I was at Shiny Media, I made lots of video reviews, including their most viewed ever. I made them mostly with a cameraman and editor called Ray O’Neill, who’s a very sweet bloke. Last night he pootled along to join a group of my friends and me (no, it’s not and I; comment if you’d like to know why) at La Perla in Charlotte Street where it transpires that he too knows Helen. And he’d been doing work for eConsultancy one of the bloggers for whom, as you know because you’ve been glued to the My Online Life page, has interviewed me about Dogs Trust on Twitter.

Teeny planet indeed.

On another note, I made blueberry muffins and Snaffle destroyed most of them. He did try to eat them which made me worry they tasted of cat food, but eating the remainder that he didn’t maul put paid to that concern.

What? Blueberries are good for you.

  • Yes, I exaggerate. Of course; have you not come to expect it?
by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Twitter and weekend baking experiments. Oh, and book clubs.

Richmond Park Deer

Richmond Park Deer

I know – just the kind of header that tells you that this post has no single specific purpose but might cover a lot of disparate topics. I haven’t even included the deer.

Maybe I should divide this up so you can just cast an eye over the stuff you’re interested in.

Twitter

I wrote quite an impassioned defence of the new-found popularity of Twitter. Far from killing it, I think it might just be what makes it better than other social networks now.

Weekend Baking Experiments

No photos here, frankly because they weren’t the most attractive looking results. And we’ve eated (sic) it. Ashley request oatmeal raisin cookies so I made an oatmeal raisin cake instead and that suited him fine. The random Internet recipe did not – I discovered halfway through folding in the flour – have any temperature, cooking times or tin recommendations. So I put it in a round silicone mould and baked it at 200 degrees, checking every 15 minutes. It took about 45, but eventually burnt a little on top while remaining a little squidgy at the bottom. I suspect, therefore, it’s best off as a tray bake. I must remember to bring back a 13 x 9 x 2 tin from Florida; American recipes so often fit this shape and it’s not that common here for some reason. Anyway, it tasted good. A little like what my cousin calls Dead Man’s Pudding, though I don’t see that as a bad thing.

I decided quite late on Sunday that making soft baked pretzels from scratch for the first time ever would be clever. Despite some sticking-to-the-baking-parchment issues, they tasted great, especially coated in salt (the poppy seed ones were a little bland). Had one for breakfast, and they held up well overnight.

Book Club

The first rule of book club is not making a reference to Fight Club. Oh, darn it.

Anyway, I’ve been invited to join a writers club on Facebook that I hope will make me actually do some more work on the Grown Up Monster Book. Largely it’s making me jealous of everyone else’s great ideas and hard work, but already I feel like I owe the fellow members my hard work which is what these groups are all about, right? Shared guilt is the way to go.

Deer

There were lots. In Richmond Park. So I crept closer and closer to try and get a decent photo with a DSLR lacking a proper telephoto lens, and this fellow obligingly let me snap quite a good shot. I have to sort out the rest of them and get them on Flickr. Then you’ll see them appear down the right, hopefully.

So, how have you all been?