ho ho ho and bah-humbug

On the twelve days of Christmas my true love gave to me....

cupcakes a plenty.

well really, the three days of Christmas. One every day until Christmas Day. which is three! hurrah!

And on the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me vanilla caramel cakes.

These are a no-brainer. The cakes are dead simple and come courtesy of the lovely Nigella Lawson.

Put 125g of each butter, sugar and self raising flour in a blender/mixer with two large eggs and a little vanilla extract. Mix. Add just enough milk to make a good batter, about a couple of tablespoons. Put into the liners and bake for about 18 minutes.

The caramel was to use up some of the caramel syrup left over from the last daring bakers challenge (speaking of which this month's as yet as no place on my calendar, but I'll see how I go). I simply mixed about 100g of butter with about 200g of icing sugar, added the syrup and enough cream to form the right consistency.

And this icing was lovely. If you remember (or if you scroll down a couple of posts) I found the official one a little sweet. Don't know what it was, but this was better. Either the butter/sugar ratio suited me more, or simply that it make the correct amount so I wasn't slathering it on.

..... which brings me to the bah-humbug.

Please, I beseech thee. I BEG thee.

If you're a recipe writer can I ask that you do two things.

First - write all the components in the order that you need to make them. If you need a syrup, or a glaze or a puree for the main show, say so up front. Don't make me get half way through and then have you say 'add the syrup, see recipe below'. I know you should read all the way through a recipe first, but darn it I'm a busy, modern, work-a-day kinda gal and I forget these things. Put the syrup first.

Secondly, if I need a cup of syrup, can you give me the recipe for this. Not for three litres of the stuff. There aren't enough mouths in my house to use the left over syrup, and as I'm too Scottish to chuck it away, it sits, dormant, in the back of my fridge for years. Literally.

You may be able to tell I've encountered these problems recently. And I think I've totally stuffed up Christmas Day desert. Maybe I'll make an extra batch of cakes!

lazy weekend

when i first started boringhistory girl, it was supposed to be about history. i envisioned myself regaling the world with tales of second century african bath houses (a favourite topic of mine. no - really) and the delicacies of athenian red figure pottery (another great read). However all it seems to be about is food. maybe i should rename it to boringgreedygirl. of course i am that too, but at the heart of it i am boringhistorygirl, as any of my friends will tell you.

but this weekend i am boringstayathomeonmyownandeatandcookgirl. mmmm.... it’s been one hell of a week, so after work i went to the central markets and shopped up big. adelaide is often thought of as being a little slow, the leader of a rival state recently referred to it as a backwater. And quite frankly, it is. it does, however, have a few redeeming qualities, and the central markets is top of the list. i like to think i’ve seen a little bit of the world, but nowhere have a encountered a food market like adelaide’s. barcelona was the closest i’ve come, and it was still a long way off.

of course it’s chinese new year too. xin nian hao to all you sinophiles out there. so i should be cooking chinese food. But i’ve a hankering for italian. lots of pasta and lots and lots of pizza. so i got a tonne of tomatoes and i’m making sauce tomorrow morning and then turning it into all sorts of lovely things. got two very large bags of flour. one for pizza dough, and one for cupcakes. but more about that later.

at any rate expect lots of food related posts this weekend.

on an entirely different note – dinosaurs. lovely greggie gave me a dinosaur egg during the week. he could tell i was stressed i think. photos of the birth available thanks to the nice folk at flickr.

more links than one post can stand

i'm not really a baker. i like to cook. baking always involves having the right amount of the right things, which requires a degree of organisation that just doesn't come naturally to me. having said that i'm trying cupcakes this weekend. i was just going to go with nigella (who seems to have no small number of recipes herself) but one link from JC has taken me all over the web. there really are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of blogs about cupcakes. although now i'm thinking about home made vanilla lemonade. but i should concentrate on the cakes. JC has given me her recipe, and a lovely looking ganache icing mix, so i'm going to have a practice run tonight. But I've just seen a photo which is making me think about pizza with pesto and roasted red peppers. i have a pepper in the fridge that's past it's prime that i could roast and i have the fixings for dough. all i need now is a jar or pesto and some cheese.....

but right now i'm stuck at home, while i wait for my new outdoor setting to be delivered. i have evil plans for the australia day long weekend.