Jubilee Biscuits

Better late than never, eh? We had a lovely, if cold and wet Jubilee weekend. My sister came to stay and we are both unashamed lovers of the Royal Family, particularly the Queen, so we were virtually glued to the coverage of the celebrations. We also went to Chatsworth House for the afternoon, where we had a very British picnic outside on long tables - umbrellas and all! On Sunday afternoon, whilst watching the flotilla, we iced Jubilee-themed biscuits. I really like Nigella's recipe for iced sugar cookies and they're really easy to make, which leaves plenty of time and energy to enjoy the best part - the icing! See below for the recipe, or check Nigella's website. 

Iced Sugar Cookies (Courtesy of Nigella Lawson)


Ingredients:

• 90g soft unsalted butter

• 100g caster sugar

• 1 large egg

• Half teaspoon vanilla extract

• 200g plain flour, plus more for rolling

• Half teaspoon baking powder

• Pinch of salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C/ gas mark 4
• Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and as light as a mousse, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. 
• In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and fold together. Add a little extra flour, if mixture too sticky.
• Form the dough into a fat disc, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour
• Roll the dough to a thickness of about half a centimetre. Cut into shapes and place the biscuits a little apart on the baking sheet. 
• Bake for 10-12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack
• Ice once fully cooled.  You can use either fondant or royal (I quite like royal as it sets hard before you ice the details). 

Of Macarons & My New Toy

On Friday of last week, I found out that I passed my final medical school exams. It was such a huge relief, though I'm not sure that it has entirely sunken in yet. I still have six more weeks of shadowing to do and I have to graduate in July, but I am pretty much done, which feels amazing. As you can probably imagine, I'm feeling a little bit pleased with myself and so I decided that I deserve a treat. I have been dreaming of and saving up for a better camera for years, thinking that the end of university would be a good milestone at which to buy one. I am very excited to say that I have done it - I have bought myself a Canon 60D and a fancy lens. I was like a child in a sweetshop, whilst buying it; uttering little outbursts of glee every few seconds. The magnitude of my excitement, however, was only realised about fifteen minutes later when I stopped in my tracks and burst into tears; much to the amusement of the ginge, who is quite used to my tearful explosions of emotion. We both stood and laughed; me with tears included, the Ginge without, until I regained sensibility and we went off to celebrate with a warm cup of tea. The next day, it poured with rain, so I didn't manage to get out and take any photos. I did however have my first successful attempt at making macarons and I managed to take a few snaps of them. I was really pleased with how straightforward the recipe was, even the italian meringue buttercream, which is completely delicious. I made vanilla cases filled with either raspberry, chocolate or coffee buttercream. They are all delicious, but the chocolate is particularly good. I would thoroughly recommend this recipe (thank you so much to Tori for the recommendation). Here are a few photos of my exploits, taken with my new baby. Can't wait to take and show you more - hooray! 

Homemade Christmas Hamper: The Finishing Touches

Well now, what a wonderful Christmas! I don't know about you, but in our house we have been lauding this year's festivities as the best yet. It was all a bit of a rush before I left Sheffield and once I got home, I dropped everything for a few days, meaning that I didn't get round to finishing off my posts about the hampers. Well, I am back now with replenished energy and restored spirits and am feeling very pleased with how my gifts both turned out and were received. I had hoped to buy some vintage hampers from ebay, but failed to find any that I liked or could afford. Happily, we stumbled upon some lovely ones in Harrogate (good old Lakeland). I added some pretty ribbon to the hinges and made some more labels from old book illustrations. We filled the hampers with our chutney, pickled red cabbage, biscotti and sloe gin as well as some local ales, tea and coffee from Pollard's of Sheffield and chocolates from Betty's of Harrogate. I thoroughly recommend making hampers for presents as they were a huge success with everybody. I can't wait to get them back in December so that I can fill them up again with next year's goodies. 

  

Homemade Christmas Hamper: Fig & Almond Biscotti

Outdoor Baking

I needed to bake a cake yesterday afternoon, but not just any cake; Sophie Dahl's flourless chocolate cake - a seriously tasty treat. Unfortunately, the recipe requires the use of a food processor; a rather loud piece of equipment, the use of which is less than appreciated by housemates who are sleeping before a night shift. The Ginge came up with the sterling idea of setting everything up outside. What a plan! I baked, whilst he read the paper and we both had a glass of cider and listened to some old tunes on our new, very pretty radio. It was so lovely to do everything in the fresh air - I felt like a TV cook. I obviously made sure that I had enough mixture left to lick the bowl, but the Ginge wasn't having any of it. Apparently, he doesn't like cake mixture. I think there is something very wrong there. 

Whisking egg whites by hand  is tiring work...

...but the rewards are scrumptious.

We devoured the cake and I am convinced it tasted better for having been baked outside.