I really don't see why I bother with this blog. I am just too busy. All my posts are about 2 weeks late. Rather than give you a quick run through of everything that has gone on in the past few weeks, I will post you photos of some of things I have made (unfortunately, Teegan died twice whilst I was making some of the things, and so I was unable to take photos of things). Just to explain, before you have a look at these photos, and before you think I am completely random. For various reasons, I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen - partly to take some of the strain off my dad, by sorting out the evening meals, and partly because some of the time because we have ingredients to use up, and my mother sets me the challenge of finding uses for these random ingredients. But whilst doing the latter, I have rediscovered my passion for cooking - partly because I can eat the end result! I particularly enjoy baking. I find it very therapeutic. I find that in stressful times, the only solution, is to lock myself away in the kitchen to make double chocolate chip muffins, or to experiment with different spices. I would attach my food coursework photos to this post, because they are particularly impressive, but I don't think it is a good idea until I have submitted the coursework, and had it marked, or else I could be accused of cheating.
Anyway, here are some of my masterpieces.
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| The product of three different types of cooking chocolate, 4 different flours, and out of date eggs (all of which needed using up). And somehow, they tasted even better than your average cupcakes. In case you're wondering, there are two different sizes, because we only had 16 muffin cases. |
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| With this cake, I used up four different types of dried fruits: sultanas, raisins, black currants and Greek currants, as well as some mixed dried fruit (don't ask me what's in that), all of which was left over from Christmas. I also used the one remaining out of date egg, and 2 different types of flour. I also found an intriguing fruitcake liner, which I used, merely to investigate - it was so much easier than cutting out greaseproof. |
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| A cake for my Dad. It was his birthday. He deserved it. By the way, beneath all the icing, there is my famous heavenly chocolate cake. |
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| My mum thought I was mad when I showed her my design. Instead of cutting the pentagonal and hexagonal shapes out of black and white icing, I wanted to pipe out the shape of the football using black writing icing. Then I would mix up two lots of royal icing (one white and one coloured black) and fill each shape in with the appropriate colour (just like those stained-glass windows I used to do when I was younger). The problem was there was a risk that I would misdraw the outline. Also, if I left a tiny little gap, or didn't have the outline thick enough, the royal icing would overflow into the next section, or onto the rest of the cake (just like MS Paint). And as you know, using writing icing is hard at the best of times. But that's why I wanted to do it. Where is the fun without a little bit of risk? And I am glad to say, the work paid off. |
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| This is another cake my mother disapproved of, but once she had tasted it, she took back every discouraging comment she had made. This is an adaptation of my famous heavenly chocolate cake. I had just survived mocks, and wanted to make a cake that I would never forgot. When you eat it, you fall in love. |
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| The trick is when eating this cake, is to forget all about calories. My argument was that, despite the masses of chocolate, butter, chocolate fudge icing, chocolate fingers, and white chocolate buttons, it was essentially a good, healthy cake. I had used half and half - my abbreviation for half plain flour, half wholemeal (which is healthy. It's high in fibre and protein, without being too stodgy), free-range, organic eggs (that's good, right? Good for the chickens anyway), Fairtrade Bournville cocoa powder (that's good for the cocoa growers, and their local communities) and polyunsaturated margarine, aka Flora (that lowers cholesterol, and counterbalances the butter I used in the chocolate fudge icing. Also (and this justifies the eating of any chocolate cake), chocolate contains iron. And just to make it even better, it is also educational. It has links with Chemistry (polyunsaturated margarine), Geography (Fair-trade), Food technology (well that's obvious), Biology (nutrients), Maths (I used Pi to work out how many chocolate fingers I needed to buy!). Like I said, the best cake that ever existed. Nothing can beat it! |
