Sunday 29 July 2012

Amazing Honeycomb/Cinder Toffee

Having purchased THIS BOOK from the Book People, I was dying to try something. I settled on the Cinder Toffee recipe. Mostly because I didn't need to shop for extra ingredients.

I bought myself a Tala Confectionary Thermometer and set to work.

The recipe was fairly straight forward but there was a lot of faffing with warm water and the suchlike and you all know how much I LOVE the faffing...

My syrup reached 'Hard crack' I ice bathed it and stirred in my dissolved Bicarb. Floof. Excellent I thought. Until it cooled. It was powdery and soft. Not at all crunchy in that Crunchie-bar way I was hoping for. The flavour was spot-on but it was all powdery and nasty :-(
Fail!Toffee
What did I do wrong? The temp was right, the quantities were correct. I turned to the internet to find out what went wrong and stumbled across THIS blog post. When I saw that it was a Nigella Recipe I was immediately hooked. Nigella stuff ALWAYS goes well in our kitchen and my Nigella chocolate fudge is a huge hit. So I tried it.

I made a minor modification in that instead of 'guessing' the temperature, I used my Confectionary Thermometer to heat the syrup to 'Hard crack' as per the first recipe.

Perfection. It floofed like a dream and there was barely any faff at all! Verdict? Nigella wins again.

Lovely and crisp and delicious!
I'm off to coat it in dark chocolate now!

Ready for Coating... Mmm

Lex.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Upcoming Projects

Just thought I'd post a little update on up and coming posts and projects.

I finally got around to doing the Sari Maxi Skirts but we've just got an 8 week old Kitten who is a bit crazy in that cute kitten-y way and he's taking up a lot of time and likes to sit on the keyboard so typing a blog post is a touch challenging. LOL

But I will get around to it. I've learned a few lessons about the fabric and about my lack of knowledge re: sewing machines too so it should be funny if nothing else...

I've also had the chance to put together a list of projects I will be working on in the next few months:

1) Refashionism part 1 - HUGELY inspired by Jillian - the Refashionista - I have a HUGE collection of old, damaged, ugly clothes and I am starting to see the useful items they COULD be. First project is something pretty simple - turn two too-short T-shirts from Primark into one much longer and therefore wearable shirt. I also have some ideas for exercise tanks from Simon's old T-shirts.

2) Slipcovers for our Dining chairs - the aforementioned Kitten is wrecking our cheapo fake leather dining chairs. We didn't buy them, we acquired them with the house but until we can afford to replace the pain-in-the-arse glass table (they are an ARSE to keep clean aren't they?) and the matching chairs we'd like to keep them serviceable. Hence, slipcovers that little Enzo can wreck with his teeny weeny claws

3) A 'Thneed'. That's the best way to describe it. It's a long scarf with sleeves to wrap around you. A Thneed

4) Terracotta pot planter and bird table Although once the aforementioned teeny weeny isn't quite so little I might just have to make it an interesting planter instead...

Thursday 12 July 2012

Successful Bread Machine Baking

Hey all,

Still struggling with this horrible throat infection so I thought I'd share some pearls of wisdom I've accrued re: bread machines.

My first attempt at baking bread in my bread machine were disastrous. Simon bought me a breadmaker as a christmas present a couple of years ago because I'd been going on about wanting one and I was so excited to give it a try. So I bought some bread mixes from the supermarket. Failure after failure ensued until I gave up and packed it away. I didn't want to admit to Simon that either it was broken or I couldn't use it.

Long story short, my Uncle interceded and rescued my poor abandoned bread machine with some simple advice:

1) Use the recipes included in the instruction booklet - they are made and tested with the machine.
2) Put the ingredients in in the order in which they are written in the booklet. From this I then discovered that the secret is to put liquids in first.
3) Add Vitamin C powder (about 1/4 of a tsp) to the mix.

This was then added to by a work colleague: Add extra yeast - whatever the recipe says add an extra gram or 2

Following these simple steps gave me instant success. Having been successful I was then free to experiment slightly.

The first problem I found was that whilst letting the machine bake the bread is faster and easier, it ends up with a massive hole in the middle from the kneading blade. But like all good bread machines, my machine has a dough setting - this is brilliant. Put all the ingredients in, let it do the hard work of mixing and kneading and proving, then pop the dough out of the machine and into the oven - you can shape it however you like that way - rolls, loaves, plaits, sticks. Whatever you like. I use this setting more often than anything else.

I tend to follow the oven settings in the recipe book, but if you're not sure, bread tends to be baked high - around 230°C

Having discovered that putting the liquids in first makes for successful baking, and having decided to only use the dough setting, I realised that the possibilities were endless - almost all bread recipes in any cook book can be made in my bread machine if I follow these simple rules:

- Put the liquids in first - if a recipe calls for butter, melt it in the microwave and include it with the liquids. As oil and butter should be added first.
- Add additional yeast - 2 or 3 grams
- Add Vitamin C powder to the mix

I have found that some recipes tend not to mix well unless you poke a hole through the flour into the liquids and force them to mix. This need only be done briefly at the start of the mixing process.

I have also found that using the timer to set the machine to start mixing while I'm out at work means I'll get home to a puffy ready-to-bake dough as the machine keeps the dough warm.

This post might seem obvious, but I didn't know any of these things and had nothing but failures. 3 simple rules later and every single recipe I try comes out successfully!

I thought that was worth sharing.

Lex.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Slow Cooker Recipes: Part 1

Okay, so I promised you all a couple of Slow Cooker recipes we use a LOT at home. Now if you're anything like Simon and I you'll work full time and every time you open a recipe book the lengthy list of ingredients and complicated preparation instructions really put you off - especially when you REALLY can't be arsed after a long day at work or you're busy with children/pets. Half the time you are missing 2 or 3 ingredients and in the end you slam the book shut and say 'Sod it, Chicken Kievs, Chips and Beans?'

Well if you have a Slow Cooker gathering dust in the corner where you put it after that failed attempt at a pot roast and haven't used it since, I suggest you dust it off. If you don't have a slow cooker, they are a GREAT investment - even if you only have 2 or 3 recipes - if you use them regularly then it is well worth it and trust me, these are good recipes.

Your slow cooker doesn't have to be fancy and all-singing-all-dancing, a basic slow cooker is about £20. This is mine:


We paid about £19 in Asda for it and I love it to bits! None of these complicated settings and dials and timers, and the lovely black ceramic interior cook pot lifts out for easy serving :-). You really don't have to spend a lot on one but I'd avoid the REALLY cheap ones and go with something that has a lift-out pot otherwise cleaning it is an arse.

Needless to say these recipes aren't vegetarian friendly, although by all means if you have a steak substitute give it a crack, but we aren't veggies so I have no experience at all of cooking a wide variety of meals for vegetarians.


Button Bracelets

I know I said my first submission would be a recipe or my attempts at following a Maxi skirt tutorial I found on Pinterest, but I've been suffering with a horrible viral throat infection for the last 3 weeks and it isn't showing any signs of going away any time soon so I have about as much energy for crafting as a flat battery.

So instead, I'm sharing this silly little bracelet thing I made. I'm MAD about buttons at the moment. They are all over the place and I've been going crazy on ebay buying all sorts of buttons for all the different button-related crafting projects I've been finding on Pinterest - watch this space for a Button Tree, Some button-related jewellery and cardmaking.

Full details of the Button Bracelets after the break

Thursday 5 July 2012

My vision for this blog...

Blah blah blah...<Insert boring shit about my personal philosophies and world economics and being green and environmentally friendly and all that crap>... blah blah blah

Right, that done, I want to outline the point of this blog. I'm REALLY addicted to Pinterest and I LOVE crafting. I turn my hand to whatever takes my fancy and I really enjoy learning new things. So pinterest is really dangerous for me. My boards are full of all the things I want to try from crochet projects to cardmaking, anything and everything involving fabric, papercraft and feltwork. I love it all. I also love handmade stuff and am really into cooking - especially when it involves homemade sweets and chocolates. I plan to make a whole load of homemade sweets in jars as Christmas presents this year (this all started from a 'cheats chocolate fudge' recipe I nabbed off one of Nigella Lawsons shows - I'll be posting that around Christmas time too as I made some tweaks to the recipe to suit our tastes).

Which kinda brings me onto what I want to do with this blog. I have loads of really cool stuff I've found or done pre-pinterest that I do regularly as a 'fun' project or just to experiment with a new medium and I wanted to share some of it.

I want to share everything from my fun christmas felt ornaments, felt bunting and Nyan cat cross stitch to the awesome Steak and Guinness recipe I kinda invented off the back of my mums slow-cooker casserole receipe (none of this faffing around, it's really really easy - even someone who can't cook can cook this!). I've also made my own jewellery for years.

I also want to share my successes/failures with my Pinterest projects. All these bloggers I read make it all look so simple. They are all so proficient with a sewing machine and so experienced with 'Mod podge' (whatever that is - I guess in the UK we'd call it watered down PVA, oh or decoupage glue but hey...). Me? I only have one foot for my sewing machine and that is a basic presserfoot. I can't sew in a straight line and I'm hopeless with seam allowances. That being said, I am ambitious so hell, I'll give it a go.

So. Keep an eye out and hopefully I'll have my first post soon. It'll either be the Steak and Guinness recipe or a Maxi Skirt tutorial I found that I plan to use on some GORGEOUS Sari fabric I bought several years ago.