Bite Me!

I'm a big fan of savory baking so I made these goat's cheese, rosemary and sundried tomato muffins recently and they turned out rather well.  I actually deviated from the recipe slightly and made half with smoked cheddar instead of the goat's cheese, just for variety.  They turned out a trifle heavy, but I might put that down to my over-enthusiastic mixing rather than the recipe; I suspect they may need a light hand.  Still, they all got eaten in short order.  These are best served warm with a dollop of butter.

Having a big chunk of marzipan left over after icing the Christmas cake this year, I decided to use it up in making some stollen.  I've never actually made stollen before, and am not really a competent baker at the best of times, so I had a look online and decided to use this recipe, which looked fairly straightforward.  Well, it was fairly straightforward, so I got on with it and, with a happy heart, left the dough by the radiator to rise and trundled off to string up some fairy lights.

Some time later, I realised that the dough was not, in fact, rising at all.  Further investigation revealed the culprit to be the yeast I used, which had been rather out of date and, apparently, dead as a doornail.  Obviously, I should have noticed this when it failed to foam up when added to the milk, but, as I say, I'm not that hot at baking.  Fortunately, at this point my dad (who bakes all his own bread) came to the rescue.  A new lot of yeast, a new lot of kneading and another hour later, success!  The bally thing rose!  A swift knock-down, addition of marzipan and further rise later, and it was safe in the oven.  It turned out wonderfully well and was eaten with swift dispatch.  Phew.

This recipe definitely meets my approval - the stollen turned out surprisingly light and tasting a little like teacake.  The dough was rather sticky, so you might want to add some more flour if finding it difficult to knead, and I replaced the peel with chopped dried apricots. (I don't like peel.  In fact, does anyone?)  If you're not used to kneading dough with raisins in, I will point out that they will all fall out of the dough until you've kneaded it for a minute or two.  Since I'm an enthusiastic kneader, this meant that there were raisins raining all over the kitchen for a little while.  Secondly, do make sure you tuck the marzipan in securely - mine was threatening to leak from the bottom of the loaf when it came out of the oven, which also gave the whole loaf an inclination to split.

For a first effort, though, I feel it was entirely creditable.  Happy Christmas!

I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of the new Aga collections last night, held at the Beauchamp Place AGA shop, which is pure kitchen porn.  I lost my heart to the duck-egg blue Rayburn, whilst the general consensus on the new AGA pearl colour ("it's not grey," emphasised AGA Chief Exec William McGrath) was that it was very chic indeed. 

Guardian recipe impresario and "King of the Crumb" Dan Lepard was busy cooking up a storm, and guests couldn't get enough of the English rarebit on walnut bread and home-made lemon curd profiteroles topped with barley sugar.  Seizing the opportunity to speak to a master baker, I asked him on the best way to prevent wholemeal bread from being too heavy.  The answer?  Add half a crushed vitamin C tablet.  I'll let you know how I get on with that tip...

I was also excited to discover the new range of Joules textiles - OK, so rose-printed aprons and matching headscarves might be a bit twee, but at least I can finally buy some oven gloves to go with all my clothes from Joules.  Now all I need is the country kitchen (and AGA, of course), to go with it!

I found the recipe for these here and had to give them a try for Christmas morning, since they sounded so easy.  They are as easy as they sound, and I thought they were delicious, in part because they're slightly savoury - if you're expecting ultra-sweet American style soft muffins, you'll be disappointed.  But they are spicy and comforting and I love the crunchy sugar topping!  They'd be great with some chunks of white chocolate added, if you want that extra sugar kick.

Yet more baking at the weekend - this time a raisin and walnut loaf from The Cranks Bible.  It's delicious toasted or with cheese, and best of all, there's no kneading!  I've had to put half of it in the freezer already to stop myself going mad and eating the whole lot at once...

I was on a bit of a baking kick this weekend, getting up at seven o’clock on Saturday morning to attempt to make some bread. I tried some sourdough a couple of weeks ago which was a complete failure, so this time I was less ambitious and made a simple white loaf using Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to Eat. As you can see, it turned out rather well, but I think I will make a larger loaf next time as this one had vanished by the end of the day...