Baking Mania

I seem to have issues. I keep on and on and on baking! Last night’s Chelsea Buns kept me up until gone midnight, but it was worth it as they turned out tasty. I would have liked them to be a bit more risen, but I would have had to stay up even later! I shared them with friends at work and nobody appeared to get Chelsea Bun poisoning – in fact they seemed to like them Tonight I have been a little more sensible and not baked anything with lots of rising involved, but it did need an hour in the oven … my Friday bake was a Madeira Cake. It turned out very nicely and allowed me to try out my tin which has a bottom that comes out (if you know what I mean). Tomorrow I plan to bake bread rolls, in between the usual Saturday stuff of tidying, washing, kids stuff etc.

My name is Suzy, and I’m a bakeaholic

Chelsea Buns before they all got eaten

Chelsea Bun (now deceased!)

Sticky lovely bun (also deceased)

Madeira Cake ready for the oven

Madeira Cake after cooking

Madeira Cake cooling

Yum! A couple of slices of fresh cake for me and Ben :-)

Bakeaholic

Ooh it’s nearly midnight and I haven’t posted! I’m currently waiting for some chelsea buns to cook. I had a sudden urge to bake them about 8:30pm … bit of a stupid time to start baking really when you have to let things rise. Not sure if they’ll be any good, but as my friends and I back in Uni used to say “you should never surpress an urge!”. Of course I may regret this in the morning, but there we are. I find baking therapeutic. Pictures tomorrow I guess!

Lemony Deliciousness

Since I have already made too much bread, and filled my freezer with it, I have moved on to cake! I popped to the shops at lunch time with a vague idea of making a lemon cake in mind. I stocked up on eggs, flour, sugar and lemons and then this evening started looking for a nice lemon cake recipe. Surprisingly I couldn’t find one in any of my recipe books, but the interwebs came to the rescue and I found one on the BBC Good Food site – Lemon Drizzle Cake. Ben, liking the idea of cake, was being my assistant (very helpful) and together with my trusty Kenwood we made a most delicious cake I’d never actually zested a lemon before – quite fun and smells lovely. Squeezing the lemons for the drizzle was a little painful as I’d not really thought about my dry cracked hands and a small cut which stung rather a lot! Anyway, it was fun, and turned out very nice indeed. By the way if you are tempted to try the recipe, I read the comments on it, and decided to go with the majority who suggested using the zest of 2 lemons instead of 1, and the juice of the 2 lemons instead of 1 1/2 for the drizzle. It worked out well like that.

Mmmmmm

I’ve been at it again! Fired up the Kenwood & made some more bread tonight. This time some white rolls from scratch rather than a packet mix. My reward is lovely fresh rolls with butter & jam and a nice cup of tea As you can see, my Kenwood has a bowl that is just as shiny & reflective as the one I saw in Currys!

This is my dust cover for the Kenwood – all covered in cupcakes

Cupcake closeup!

More Bread

I got myself a Kenwood Chef – a good investment based on stories of them lasting a good 40 years or more. Today I made my first loaf of bread mixed & kneaded in it. A lot less effort than doing it by hand, but with much more flexibility than using the breadmaker. This first loaf was a quick packet mix as I didn’t have much time – a cheese & onion bread. It came out very nice Next time I shall make something from scratch I think. It was an odd shaped loaf – I had a kind of rustic loaf idea in my head but it ended up looking more like a potato! But still, it’s tasty so who cares! It cheered me up anyway.