Food for Thought

30th May 2012

Wedding Cake

Well, the wedding came and went, and so did the cake. And everything went swimmingly! It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful service and I must say, with as much modesty as possible, the cake was scrumptious. Seriously good stuff. Sara, Chloe, and I did a really good job. You know, not to brag or anything.

The final design was a four-tiered buttermilk cake with lemon curd and raspberry jam filling, white chocolate buttercream, and meringues, topped with a chocolate plaque, fresh flowers and a little Lego pirate bride and groom. “Why pirates?” you ask. I reply, “Why not pirates?”

We also threw together a little gluten-free cake, which was eaten up, and a nice big sheet cake which turned out to be completely unnecessary. The wedding favour cookie bar had satisfied a fair bit of the crowd’s sweet tooth already, but the cake made for a great birthday cake for Adèle’s mum the next day.

Oh, I’m just so proud of my brother and sister-in-law!

7th May 2012

Vanilla Buttermilk Iced Cream with Salted Almonds

I always write iced cream, but recently I have been ridiculed for this. Wanting to stick it to everyone and prove I’m right, I naturally consulted Wikipedia. Wikipedia told me:

Ice cream (formerly and properly ice-cream, derived from earlier iced cream or cream ice) is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours.

So I guess I was sort of right. I guess I just write archaically… so I guess, really, I was sort of wrong.

Oh well.

The point is, I like cream ice and really wanted some ice-cream and I had an iced cream churn in the freezer and it was starting to be all summertimey and I had some buttermilk left over from the cupcakes and I felt like eating something ridiculously rich and the stars all seemed to be aligned in ice cream’s favour.

So I made me some crème glacée, which was incredibly simple. For some reason I thought it would be very difficult. But hey! It wasn’t! At all! Now, I did have a churn on hand, but I hear you can just put some plastic bags inside one another and use some salted ice and presto! Eis! (I have not tried this… attempt at your own risk. It’s a bit pricey, especially if you don’t get any helado at the end of it.

Do you want to make some? Yeah. You do.

18-hour Bread

I make this bread a lot, so I figured that perhaps it was time I photographed it and shared it with everyone. It is easy. Like really easy. Like, you would have to purposefully try to mess this up, and even then it would probably turn out fine. It’s also really hands-off—the whole process does take a while, but the total time you spend actually making contact with the dough is minimal. 10 minutes. Maybe.

So you know, make it in the evening, have a nice dinner, maybe a bath. Get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning, start getting the loaf ready to bake. It’ll be ready for lunch!

But this bread is not just easy. It is also delicious, with a fluffy, bubbly inside and crisp, crunchy crust. It tastes great. It’s good with and for everything. It is perhaps not the best bread you’ve ever had, but my goodness is it tasty.

Ready for the recipe? Do you promise to try it out? Even if you’ve never made bread before? YOU DON’T EVEN NEED A LOAF PAN. Nope. Just an oven-safe covered pot, like a Dutch oven. (Now, if you don’t have one of those, you should get one. It is an all-purpose pan. If you only have one pan, this should be the pan.)

Okay, let’s bake.

Buttermilk Apple Muffins (with coconut crumble)

This morning I got up early(ish) to finish off the bread I was making last night. After you form the loaf, though, you have to wait TWO HOURS before baking it. But I was in a baking mood! So what better to fill that two hours than by baking something else? Also, I had to go to a brunch/lunch and needed something to take. Perfect!

What’s more, I had a whole bunch of buttermilk left over from those cupcakes the other day. Buttermilk muffins! Too plain? Add an apple. Still too plain? Nah. But some crumble couldn’t hurt. And some coconut crumble really couldn’t hurt. Yummmmmm.

And these muffins, well they are just oh so good. Particularly if you’ve been up since 8:30, went for a run, and saved all your appetite for a noon-(three)hour brunch.

Recipe:

Adapted from Food je t’Aimee’s recipe for Apple Buttermilk Muffins

Wedding (cup)Cake Tests

My brother Sam is getting married to the wonderful and beautiful Adèle later this month, and I have the honour of (helping) make the wedding cake. I am very excited about this. As well as the wedding.

Tonight, they were coming for dinner, and I decided this would be the perfect day to make a few test cakes to decide on the frosting for the big day. They would be dessert! Of course, my lovely mother had already made a pie, but she (very graciously) let me commandeer dessert and take over the kitchen for a few hours to pump out buttermilk cupcakes, lemon butter, white chocolate ganache, and vanilla buttercream while using almost every bowl we own. But don’t worry, the pie was not forgotten and will certainly be devoured tomorrow. Thanks, Mum!

I was quite happy with the results, so I thought I would share them (visually only, sorry) with you. No recipe this time, though—it still needs some tweaking, anyway. But it’s going to be a vanilla buttermilk cake filled with lemon butter, which is like a creamy lemon curd, and homemade raspberry jam. I would eat this mixture by the spoonful.

Wait, sorry, I do eat that mixture by the spoonful.

Oh, and the verdict on the frosting: Buttercream! But more vanilla. And also vanilla bean. And also some cute little meringues along the sides. There will be more pictures!