Day 37: Homemade Daily Challenge, Toad in the Hole

My heritage is partly from Yorkshire and all the ladies in my family can make awesome Yorkshire Puddings. This skill has always escaped me. No matter what I do, I end up with soggy pudding or burnt pudding. Never the light, crisp, well risen delights that my Mother seems to be able to make in her sleep! In theory it should be easy, get a pan nice and hot with a little oil, pour in some pancake mixture and put it back into a hot oven. But I have always avoided making a Sunday Roast through the shame that is my lack of yorkshire pudding skillage.

Last month I went to a Pampered Chef  party where the host said we were going to make fool-proof yorkies that would rise out of the dish and were easy peasy to make using the baking stoneware. Of course I didn't believe a word.

She added 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup milk and 4 eggs* to a bowl and whisked. Whilst the oven came to a roaring furnace (it's got to be hot I've been told).  Spray some oil into the stoneware. Pour the batter into the dish or dishes to about half way up and put in the oven. To my amazement about 20 minutes later she removed from the oven a dozen, huge, golden brown, crisp, fluffy puddings. I had to buy a dish just to see for myself!!

Two weeks later my dish arrived this weekend I had a bash at making a Toad in the Hole. I first baked the sausages for about 12 minutes in the dish as I then didn't need to add any extra oil, while I prepared the batter (same recipe as above) I poured it into the dish and put back in to over for 20mins on a high setting and then another 5 mins on a lower setting, that bits not an exact science as all ovens are different.

This is what I pulled out of the oven after said 25 minutes:

 

Unfortunately in my eagerness to fill my belly I forgot to take a side view so you could see how well it rose but it stood up from the dish by about 3 inches!! We were all very impressed and got stuck in with veggies and gravy. It was so simple and completely worked even for a first attempt. Although I am not sure my granny would approve of using American stoneware when if I had any actual skill I could make them in her old baking tin!! 

*In my original post I said 2 eggs you actually need 4 for a good rise!!

Day 22: Homemade Daily Challenge

Back in November 2011 a neighbour of mine invited me over for a coffee and told me she had something for me, it sounded rather ominous so I went over with trepidation (thinking she was probably going to give me some curtains to take up). But when I arrived I was presented with a bowl of what she called 'Gloop' I was rather excited with the 'gloop' as I thought we were maybe going to be making a collage or some kind of craft activity. But then she told me it was a cake, I was a little disappointed at the lack of crafting and even more disappointed to find that yes indeed it was a cake but that I had to make it and bake it myself and it wouldn't be ready for 10 days!!! I started to think, I had misjudged the relationship and clearly she wasn't a friend at all.

So I came home with the bowl of gloop with the intentions of slinging it in the bin, but this neighbour lives very close by and would definitely be visiting at some point within the 10 days and would know that there was a lack of gloop in my kitchen. So I decided to try it for a couple of days at least then I could say I had tried and failed. So opened the instructions and found that the gloop actually had a name, it was Herman, this made the thought of slinging him out a little harder :( he was a cake with a name.

Herman today: Day 1

But as I read on the instructions where pretty simple and actually all you do for the first few days is give Herman a stir. The recipes vary slightly but as the days pass you just need to stir and add a few simple ingredients on the last day you split the ingredients and share it amongst some friends (the numbers vary depending on your recipe). I managed to keep Herman alive and palm 3 portions of gloop off onto other friends and even baked the final cake which was absolutely delicious and very simple to do. So when a friend of mine (Michelle from Button it) was asking for new takers for a new Herman cake I practically bit her hand off! I went to pick him up today and alongside my Crafty daily blog I will be giving you a Herman update and then on day 9 I will be looking for friends to share him with so you can make your own.

When I get to the baking day I will post the recipe.

Day 19: Homemade Daily Challenge

Baking day

For years I was a stranger to baking, but since becoming a Mum I have baked considerably more (which wouldn't be difficult as I didn't bake at all prior to motherhood). I don't know really why I have decided I like to bake now when I always bought cakes previously, is it a maternal instinct thing kicking in? Or it could just be that homebaking (even if like me you are a little bit rubbish at it) always tastes fantastic. It's also a pretty cheap way to entertain your toddler for about an hour and you get to eat the fruits of your labour at the end. 

So we have just baked these cookies, and they are very yummilicious, dead easy to make if you don't have all the ingredients I think you could easily substitute the brown sugar for all white, I used half butter half Stork margarine.

The recipe was adapted from this book which can be bought at amazon


The Recipe: (makes 12)

125g softened butter
75g white sugar
75g soft light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g self raising flour
100g sugar coated chocolates (I used Smarties)

1. Preheat oven to 190C/375FGas 5. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
2. Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, beat in the egg and vanilla.
3. Sift in flour and beat into mix. Add Smarties.
4. Drop rounded tablespoons of mixture onto baking sheet, spaced well apart as they will double in size whilst in the oven.
5. Bake until golden 8-10 minutes.
6. Cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes and transfer to cooling racks

They are particularly delicious if you eat them still warm with ice cream as the chocolate is crunchy and gooey.  The recipe states they are best eaten on the day they are made (who am I to argue).

We packaged some up for Eva's granny (who she calls Ninny).