A Taste of Childhood

For Christmas, my mum bought me The Great British Book of Baking. It is the official book that  accompanied the BBC series The Great British Bake Off which she and I both enjoyed.

Mum bought me the book after I admired the copy she had purchased for herself - one of many recipe books that she treated herself to last year. The funny thing is that despite having an enviable collection of recipe books, she hardly ever cooks anything from them. She has her tried and tested recipes that she knows by heart and rarely deviates from them. More often these days, she lets my dad loose in the kitchen while she gets on with her latest knitting project or goes on her computer. Dad and recipes really don't mix.

So despite a wealth of ideas and inspiration at her fingertips, my mum's cooking repertoire remains small. She is very competent with what she does but feels no desire to get experimental.

The other odd thing about my mum's cooking, is her obssessive compulsion to have everything perfect. Biscuits must be regularly sized and shaped. Any that fail to meet her rigorous standards will be thrown in the bin (or given to dad to eat!). Choc chip cookies must each contain the same number and distribution of choc chips (she places them meticulously by hand to achieve this). I laugh about it with her but it really is very alien to me.

I love to cook. I especially love to try new things or tweak old recipes to give them a new twist. I do take a pride in the presentation but if it all goes wrong and looks like roadkill (which it often does), I am fine with it as long as everything is vaguely edible.

Recently I was reminded of a couple of old favourites of my mum when I came across a two hand written recipes. I remember her cooking these particular family favourites in the  kitchen of the house I grew up in. I had a go at making them myself.

Although the recipes couldn't possibly have belonged to my mum as they were metric - grams is a swear word to my strictly pounds and ounces mother - the taste and cooking smells were very nostalgic.

Of course, if my mum had made them, the jam wouldn't have been so blobby and uneven and the sultanas may just have been a little more evenly distributed!

Panto Time (Oh no it isn't!)

The first school run of the second half of this term went remarkably smoothly. I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the day ahead after an uninterrupted night's sleep and Addy was very eager to be back in the classroom with her friends.

It has been a half term holiday dominated by pantomime. Oh no it hasn't - I hear you say. I can definitely reply - Oh yes it has! 

My 16 year old daughter Charis has been involved with the local Amateur Dramatics group for quite a few years. It has been an absolute privilege to watch her on stage in the many productions that she has played a part in and to see her blossom as a performer. Her part in the latest production - the annual panto - was as a member of the chorus. She only had one line to say but the chorus had a significant singing and dancing role for the majority of the show.

I am not really a fan of pantomime as a form of entertainment, but it was probably one of the best I've ever seen. It was without a doubt the best amateur panto I've ever seen. This had a lot to do with an inspired performance by a new member of the group cast as the evil fairy. She was amazing. My favourite scene involved the evil fairy concocting an equally evil spell with my Charis and another chorus member playing the part of her minions. Charis was fantastically creepy as she danced with lithesome grace around the cauldron.

Charis is not a natural dancer. She does not have dance lessons. It was through sheer determination and tireless practise that she not only mastered the steps but made them look effortless and professional. I was impressed beyond words. As a result of her accomplishments, she was approached to take on the role of musical director in future productions. Unfortunately, that is an opportunity she is unlikely to be able to explore. This was probably the last production with this particular group that she will be involved with.

The dedication to dancing has also seen her lose inches off her waistline. She was never overweight but she now has a enviably toned, slender body. She looks incredible.

The panto impacted on my week in different ways. For a start, we have had to live with Charis dancing around the house almost non-stop! Rehearsals have been taking up more and more time to the extreme that the technical rehearsal did not finish until after midnight. My husband was always on standby to pick her up and I could never properly go to sleep until she was home.

There were five performances in all including the matinee and Charis was overflowing with enthusiasm for each and every one. I took my mum along to see Thursday night's show. Spending time with my mum was a special treat and I love how she always jumps at the chance to see her grand daughter in action. She agreed with me that Charis was phenomenal with what she had achieved with her dancing. To top it all off - I won the raffle!

As a thank you for the opportunities and support that Charis has been given, I was very happy to make cakes for her to take to the after show party. I am really enjoying baking at the moment and had good results with coffee and walnut, lemon drizzle and chocolate marble cakes. My kitchen was a busy place. I cut all the cakes into slightly bigger than bite-sized, manageable party nibbles and tried not to feel that my sister in law and her children who were staying with us for the weekend were given the thin edge of the hospitality wedge by serving them inelegant piles of off cuts!

The after show party went on well into the early hours. One very jubilant Charis eventually texted one very tired stepdad for a lift home. At this point I was a little worse for wear having consumed unhealthy amounts of wine (and off cuts!) with the afore mentioned bad influence of a sister-in-law.

Charis is not quite sure what to do with herself now that the hectic schedule of rehearsal and performance has come to an end but the friendships she has forged, the confidence it has given her and the many happy memories will no doubt endure.

From Cabbages to Roses

I've been baking again.

I am really enjoying receiving my Cake Decorating Partwork through the post. I do not regret my decision to subscribe.

As it was my sister's birthday at the beginning of the week and my birthday at the beginning of next week, I decided that it was as good an excuse as any to make some celebration cakes. My parents were visiting so I made my dad's favourite - coffee and walnut cake (from issue 5).

Issue 4 came with a modelling tool to make sugar roses. I have had a go at making roses in the past but they have always looked like cabbages. Using specialist flower paste and the new tool to roll the petals very thin, my roses were much more delicate and flower-like. I was quite pleased with the result. I used one of my own tried and tested recipes to make a chocolate cake with fudge icing as the vehicle for my little flowery creations.

Making the roses was one of those laborious repetitive tasks that requires a certain amount of concentration but frees your mind to wander. I found myself thinking a lot about my mum as a mother to me and my two sisters - about how terrifying it was for her giving birth for the first time knowing so very little about what to expect all those years ago - about a young woman suffering from post-natal depression with no medical support or understanding of the feelings she was experiencing - about a mum doing her best to care for her children. I made three roses, one to represent each of her three daughters. The number of leaves represents how many leaves it was possible to make out of the trimmings of sugar paste!

I was really pleased with the ivory colour that I achieved using gel food colouring - hugely disappointed with the limp shade of green that I managed using liquid food colouring. If I attempt this again, I shall definitely buy a better quality green colouring.

The Anniversary Cake

It was all going so well. The madeira cake looked and smelled like madeira cake should look and smell. I actually managed to slice it horizontally without wobbling so I had two roughly similar sized pieces between which I could spread the jam and buttercream. The ivory fondant icing rolled out beautifully and covered the cake creating a blank canvas on which I could work.

The plan was to do a design that represented the ballroom dancing that my husband and I love and around which my wedding anniversary party was based. It seemed like a fairly foolproof idea to do a step pattern using little cut out feet, arrows and numbers.

I bought ready to roll black icing to make the cut out footprints. I asked daughter Ivy to draw a footprint on a piece of card that I could  use a template. Dozens of footprints later, I had everything from hobnail boots to something resembling a fancy blown glass vase. I actually used the very first footprint she drew but modified it to make it less symmetrical so there was a discernible difference between the left and right foot.

Using the template to cut out my feet was a mission. The black icing was much harder to work with than the ivory had been but  I managed a reasonably good looking pattern, although I doubt it bears any resemblance to any dance in the known universe.

The next stage was to add arrows, numbers and a little bit of musical notation just to make it absolutely clear  that this was about dance (and not just that someone with dirty feet had walked over a cake).

This is where the problems began.

I mixed up my black glace icing ready for piping. It was far from black. Purple, even dark purple, but not black. I kept adding the food colouring in the hope that It would miraculously achieve the desired hue, all the time wondering at what point this mixture would be considered too toxic for human consumption.

It was about now that it was pointed out to me that my black food colouring had actually passed its sell by date in May 2010. Maybe that was why it was struggling to be what it said on the bottle!

I desperately needed a plan B.

I wondered if the ready roll fondant icing could somehow be watered down to piping consistency. It was worth a try. Amazingly it worked really well but I had only managed to make a very small amount. It would have been completely lost in my icing bag.

The same person that had highlighted the dubious freshness of my food colouring suggested that I make an icing bag out of greaseproof paper. I vaguely remembered how to do that and after a bit of experimentation I was ready to go.

It was far from ideal but sometimes you have to make the best of what you've got.

The cake is not perfect but I am quite proud of my efforts and hope that if nothing else, it will be eaten and enjoyed!