So here it is…my first completed recipe from ‘Cook with Jamie’.
Well technically it’s not exactly the same recipe as in the book. It was actually for a ‘Classic Victoria sponge with all the trimmings’ but I had a craving for chocolate cake instead. I used the same sponge ingredients except I added cocoa for the chocolatey goodness and the filling is 40g butter, 40g icing sugar and 1 tsp cocoa. Yum.
My last attempt to make a chocolate cake was a complete disaster. If the sponge wasn’t so heavy it would of made a great frisbee put it that way! I’m really pleased with how this one turned out though.
The ‘Cook with Jamie’ book is split in to chapters i.e. salads, pasta, meat, vegetables, desserts etc and each chapter has a useful few pages about each subject.
The dessert section was particularly helpful as it explained the methods available for making a sponge or cake, whisking, creaming, melting etc and gave top tips for making cakes. I could see straight away where I had gone wrong before so, without getting too confident, I was hopeful that it would work out well this time.
There is still room for improvement. I could see that when I was blending the butter/sugar mix with the eggs that it was beginning to curdle. I don’t know how or if this affects the end result but I do know from the book that it was happening because I was blending them to rigourously. Jamie says they need ‘gentle persuasion’ to blend together.
Also, I have always used our electric mixer to combine the ingredients and I think I made the mistake of mixing the flour in too long last time. It just knocked all of the air bubbles out of it. I mixed the flour in a lot less this time and they rose more in the oven, however there was a fair amount of unmixed ingredient in the bowl when I was transferring it to the cake tins. I think this is more a fault of our electric blender than anything so maybe mixing by hand will have even better results.
This month’s cooking challenge book is ‘Cook with Jamie’ by Jamie Oliver.
I’ve been inspired to improve my cooking skills. I’ve never been a natural in the kitchen. I admire people who can look in the fridge, pick out a few ingredients and rustle up a magical dinner. So i’ve decided to take on the kitchen and whilst I don’t expect all of my forthcoming cooking attempts to be a outstanding success, I hope that I can make a few passable dinners through my efforts and hopefully learn some new skills on the way.
I started by looking online for some interesting recipes and found some good websites, for example www.goodfoodchannel.co.uk but the choices were a bit overwhelming for a complete beginner. Where to start?
Instead I decided to check out the cookery section in the local library. They have a good selection of cooking books here in Aberdeen so this is what I have decided to do….
Each month I will loan one cook book from the library and make a selection of recipes from it. I didn’t want to set myself a big challenge like Julia in ‘Julie & Julia’ the movie and attempt to make every recipe in each book. As much fun as that would be I don’t have enough time and would only be disappointed when I didn’t succeed. Instead I am going to pick a selection of recipes that I think we will like and give them a go.
Wish me luck!
A few weeks ago I started 2 new projects, a fern lace scarf and a crochet bag.
I’m not sure what happened with the scarf. I love the yarn and I love the pattern but I put it down and didn’t have any urge to pick it up again. Strange. So I have decided to frog it and find another project that will inspire me to do something with the yarn.
I do however still love the crochet bag but I haven’t made any progress on this either as it was packed for the move and I have only just managed to unpack the box it was in.
Instead I have started a new large project. I’ve only ever worked on small projects before and I don’t seem to have much luck getting started with bigger projects i.e. jumpers and cardigans etc normally. I find that I don’t have the right needle size or because I don’t have the same yarn that is used in the pattern I can’t get the gauge to work out with my substitute yarn. I have put this down to my knitting inexperience as i’m sure there are solutions to the hiccups i’ve been having.
Despite this, I tried again with a cardigan pattern I liked on Ravelry called Springtime in Paris. I’m knitting it with Denim with Wool (James C. Brett). It took a bit of swatching the get the gauge right’ish and so far it’s looking good.
I’ve finished the first sleeve and I blocked it on my new blocking station (ironing board) last night.
Now i’m working on the body of the cardigan which is constructed in brioche stitch. It’s a nice easy stitch which means I don’t have to concentrate too hard whilst knitting and watching TV with Mr Stitchitch.
We travelled out of town today to Banchory. We stopped for lunch at very nice tea house called the ‘Falls Of Feugh‘ overlooking the river. I am told that the river is normally calm, however due to all the rain we have been having this week and the melting snow it looks more suitable for white water rafting. Take a look at my video to see what I mean. It was unbelievably loud.
River in Banchory Video