mutteringhousewife

Adventures in cooking, travel and whatever else I feel like musing on

Month: November, 2012

November 2, 2012

Cake Decorating

If one of your friends suddenly turns mummy blogger then you know you’re going to be fodder the moment you do anything interesting with them.  Today it was my introduction to cake decorating and as if that isn’t something I should be sharing then I don’t know what is.

I generally focus more on how my baked goods taste than what they look like.  I slap icing on birthday cakes mainly because I’m the one that gets to lick the bowl, but that’s as far as it goes.  You could call my style rustic, if you were being polite.  It turns out that there’s a whole world of pretty out there that can go on top of your homemade deliciousness and also that a whole lot of people rather like it.  So when my good friend and neighbour who also happens to be such a good cook that she can make sparkly macarons without breaking a sweat offers to demonstrate basic cake decorating to a group of mortals, I’m so in.

We gathered at another neighbour’s recently renovated house which is so perfect and clean and gleaming it just makes me cry a little inside.  I’m good at the feeding the family side of housewifery and slowly improving on the end of year play costume making front, but tidying and cleaning aren’t my strong points.  It was a shame to clutter up her shining benchtop with balls of fondant and rolling pins and sparkle powder and gel colours, but you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

Hours of mucking around with playdough with your preschool kids will stand you in good stead for cake decorating.  You can get the fondant from the supermarket – I had a look at the do it yourself version and it is possible, but only if you are able to work quickly which means lots of experience.  You should use gel colours to colour it, but I did find that they leave a slight chemical taste.  I wonder if I’m the first person to want to use natural colours?  One of the girls suggests that this may not be the case, but the natural ones make you feel good and don’t really work.  Isn’t this often the way?  Perhaps I should go for all white decorations.

At its most basic, you just roll out the fondant really really thin.  You can either cut out a circle to cover a cupcake (that has previously had a glue of ganache or hot jam applied), and or cut shapes and letters out.  I was very tempted to photograph all of the pages in the Planet Cake book the guru brought along for ideas for pirate faces, cheeky monkeys, Mr Men and the like.  You can also make 3D shapes, this stuff really does have a similar consistency to playdough.   Pity birthday season is over in this house, but it does give me plenty of time to practise for next year.  First, though, a visit to the cake decorating section of the local kitchen shop for sparkle powder.

 

Remind me not to blog after the family has got home, if it has been a little disjointed it’s because I haven’t been able to get half a sentence out without being required to go and look at something, remove a knot from hair, deny a request and tell children every five minutes that I still haven’t decided what’s for dinner.  If they ask me again, they’re getting quinoa.  But they can have a fondant flower for dessert.

1 Comment
November 1, 2012

Not Coca Cola Syrup

When one has given up a glass of wine with dinner during the week for whatever reason, it may be that you’re thinking of your schoolgirl figure, it may be that your husband has gone on a health kick and you’ve decided to be uncharacteristically supportive rather than making his favourite biscuits all the time, where was I? Oh yes, one still feels the need to have something a little special with dinner as a reward for not skinning anyone alive during the day. What I’ve been in the mood for lately and have only just got around to making today is homemade cola.

This is one of those more complicated recipes that you have to be full of energy and optimism to make. You need such fancy things as a Microplane grater (the fine one) and some muslin. I started off with the classic recipe published by the New York Times last year, which I could make you go and look up, but I guess I’ll be kind and list it here. Then I’ll tell you what I actually did.

Ingredients:
Grated zest of two oranges
Grated zest of one large or two small limes
Grated zest of a lemon
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 point of a star anise, crushed
1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers
2 teaspoons minced ginger
A one and a half inch piece of vanilla pod, split
1/4 teaspoon citric acid
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Method:
Bung everything except the sugar and citric acid in a saucepan with two cups of water. Simmer gently covered for twenty minutes. Place the sugar and citric acid in a bowl, top with a sieve lined with a double layer of muslin. Pour the concoction through the sieve and squeeze all the fluid out. Stir the syrup while it’s still hot to dissolve the sugar. To serve you put a quarter of a cup of syrup in a tall glass and top up with soda water.

This is a pretty good recipe as it stands. There’s a bit of a treasure hunt involved for ingredients, but once you have them you have a summer’s worth of cola. I get out the Microplane first and do the zesting, the nutmeg and the ginger straight into the saucepan. Today I used a large pink grapefruit instead of the two oranges, and I think I prefer it. I use half a cinnamon stick in place of the pinch in the recipe. I felt that it needed a little more gravitas, so added a tablespoon of ground coffee to the saucepan as well. I also use a full teaspoon of citric acid, I think it makes it zippier. I simmer it for about an hour, which probably doesn’t make a great deal of difference.

20121101-124615.jpg
Now I should go and make a citrus syrup to use up all the nude fruit I have left. That may have to wait until tomorrow, I’ve run out of puff and still have two more armored vests to make.

Leave a comment