A Year of Baking

It's been a hectic year full of fun, travel, work, play and yet still lots of baking in between. I just haven't taken the extra time to catalog much of it here. I have enjoyed trying all kinds of fun recipes - usually to make something sweet for dessert when we have friends over and sometimes just to try something new.

This past year, I tackled making croissant dough again, piping beautiful pillowy meringue on tarts, decorating holiday cookies with royal icing and a few things in between. Nothing was perfect, but all of it was fun. It was a way to exercise some creative energy, focus on doing something that made me happy and feel good about sharing something with others to enjoy. I often have wondered why I spend hours pouring myself into baking projects in my very little down time, but my sister recently shared this Huff Post article with me where psychologists explain the benefits of baking for other people. It's so true and after what I've been through in life and to help focus on something beyond the daily stresses of work life, baking has been it for me.

I made a few banoffee pies, including this one with the buttery Digestive biscuit crust and chocolate flakes sprinkled on top. 

I love baking with berries and made this blackberry clafouti for dessert one evening. 

We always have this homemade pecan, coconut and dried cherry granola in the house - whether it's to snack on or top our yogurt for breakfast. 

I've always loved lava cakes and tried a new recipe a few times for these molten chocolate cakes. 

In the summer when we were not up for a heavy chocolate dessert, we made homemade ice cream topped with lemon curd, blackberries and homemade candied pistachios. 

In the autumn after we picked apples, I made this tarte aux pommes for a dinner party. 

With my mum from England, I like trying different kinds of scones, so I made these two kinds of fruit scones and several batches of cinnamon chip scones (not pictured). 

 I love making cakes of all kinds for people's birthdays (and even my dog's birthday) I made a few more cakes after the unicorn this past year.  

This was a pumpkin cake with cinnamon buttercream frosting. 

Our dog, Tootsie, turned 13 and reaching that age deserved a two tier cake!

I love sticky toffee pudding and cake and made this amazing sticky toffee cake with caramel sauce and sea salt. 

I have made my own croissant dough before, but this time I tried making pain au chocolat.  Not perfect, but all my work and they sure still tasted good. 

We had extra lemon curd so I made some lemon curd tarts with meringue piped on top. I have made meringue before, but experimented with getting it the right consistency and piping it in different patterns on the tarts.

 We had our annual homemade cinnamon rolls at Thanksgiving and Christmas this year - all cozy by the fire. 

 I also did lots of fireside cookie decorating at the holidays including these snowflakes, ginger people and ornaments with royal icing.  

I had some white chocolate to use and tried these white chocolate blondies with raspberries and cream. 

I took an amazing puff pastry class and made this puff pastry pear tart with caramel sauce. We also made cheese straws and I used the puff pastry I brought home to make chicken pot pie topped with puff pastry. 

There's a lot more baking in store for 2019. I look forward to learning lots more and trying new projects. 

Cinnamon Chip Scones

It was a chilly Sunday morning.  We were getting ready to head to the White House Spring Garden Tour and had a relaxing morning at home baking scones, watching some cartoons and taking our dog for a walk.  I knew they smelled good, but when we came back after our walk, the smell of warm cinnamon was amazing.

I usually like making the traditional English scones that are filled with raisins and cut out with a biscuit cutter. Usually these huge triangle scones in the bakeries and cafes all seem to be dry and covered in huge chunks of sugar. I tried this recipe to take some scones into the office a few weeks ago though and loved it. They were not all crumbly and dry and while best warm from the oven, they were pretty good after they cooled as well.

So, I made a cup of tea, poured a glass of milk for little A and we enjoyed our lovely Sunday morning with a nice warm cinnamon scone.  It makes quite a big batch, so we just baked a few and froze the rest of the dough for when we have family visit.

It was quite difficult to find mini cinnamon chips anywhere, even in metro DC.  So, I actually ordered some mini cinnamon chips from King Arthur.  I know, I'm the baking dork that actually special orders baking supplies!  They taste quite strange on their own, but much better melted inside sugary dough!

I did see the regular sized Hershey cinnamon chips a few places, but I think the larger chips are too much.  The mini ones are perfect for these, especially if you want to make the smaller scones.

Instead of using the Kitchen aid, I like to use my old fashioned pastry cutter to blend in the butter.

While I like the scalloped edge biscuit style scones, this is nice as you have no wasted dough and you can just roll it out once and cut them out of a little round.  I made the round about 6-7 inches and then cut it in wedges.

I originally cut it into eight pieces, but then started cutting them in half as they are so big.

YUM. Fresh from the oven and ready for the taking.

With these melted cinnamon chips, you don't need butter, jam or anything on these. They're perfect just as they are.

Recipe for Cinnamon Chip Scones

Makes 8 large or 16 small scones

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. fresh ground nutmeg

3/4 cups unsalted butter (chilled)

1 cup buttermilk

1 t. vanilla

3/4 cup mini cinnamon chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In large bowl combine the dry ingredients. Cut in butter until it forms coarse crumbs. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla. Fold in cinnamon chips. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently.

Put in one large 7 inch circle and cut 8 wedges (or cut each in 1/2 to make 16) or divide dough in half and pat into two 7 inch round circles. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 425 for 13-15 minutes, turning halfway through.

Charming England, Memories of Nan, Afternoon Tea and Custard Galore

It was a bittersweet trip to England this past week, but mostly sweet.  We enjoyed lots of time with family, shared memories of Nan and celebrated her life.  I enjoyed this cup of tea with my Aunt who reminded me these were my Nan's favorite cookies.  I had actually made her some of the traditional palmiers for her last birthday. We had a nice visit with Auntie Vera and she gave us her version of the recipe for "Granny's Christmas Cake" and told us the whole history of when they originally started making it back in India. We'll see how it turns out for Christmas this year!

We had another stop at a nice cafe with my Aunt and Uncle to enjoy some treats and coffee (and an espresso sized milk for Audrey).

Dinner one evening brought us to the Giant's Rest, my favorite pub, where I used to study by the fire with a glass of red wine the winter I went to school there. I was anxious to review their chalkboard of puddings available for the day. 

We chose the butterscotch and apple crisp to share.  It comes covered in custard and we actually asked them to hold back a little on the custard, so they just doused half the dessert with it.  Audrey enjoyed an entire bowl of mandarin organge sorbet.

My cousin and godmother, Ann, always makes nice desserts.  They made a chocolate sponge cake the evening we were there for dinner.  And, again there was more custard.  This was such a yummy warm dessert! 

The day before we left we were able to make it to Alfriston for afternoon tea.  It's our favorite spot and where we often came with Nan.  In fact, we were seated at the same table we always sat with her and I sat in the same chair that I remember her being in when she last went there with us.  We shared a ploughman's lunch and had cream tea with scones.  The clotted cream is amazing!

The Singing Kettle is just a little tea room, but so quaint.

Here are a few sights as we walked around Alfriston that afternoon.  This was such a neat old watering can and the flower arrangements everywhere are gorgeous.

I love the custom painted house numbers.

The shops are full of amazing things and the general store counter is filled with fun pastries, candies, teas and jams.

The streets are miniscule in this town and there are beautiful views of the downs.

You don't see these too much anymore!

There are many days that I think about the quiet and sweet little town of Alfriston.  Why couldn't I just live in this beautiful Rose Cottage and walk up the road to run one of the tea rooms?

Strawberry Jam

The primary intention of buying a flat of strawberries this past week was to make strawberry jam. It's my favorite jam and making it homemade just has a much more fresh flavor and isn't too sugary like the jello-like jelly or jam you buy at the store. I have boil-water canned jams before, but I chose to make freezer jam as I've typically done before. It's so easy and I also like not having to fret over whether my jars will seal properly. I can just let the jam set and store them in the freezer for up to a year. So, several quarts of strawberries later, I now have around 30 jars of bright red jam ready to enjoy this next year.

The longest part of the process is preparing the fruit. But, while watching my favorite Food Network shows, I stemmed, hulled and washed all my strawberries.

I like the jam to have nice chunks of fruit in it, so I just crushed the berries with a potato masher vs. pureeing them in my food processor.

I mixed the Sure-Jell pectin to help it set in with the sugar and brought it to a boil.

The pectin-sugar mixture was blended with the fruit and then I spooned it into all my jars.

My favorite use of strawberry jam is for scones. I had some in the freezer, so I thawed them and delivered some fresh jam to my mum and we had afternoon tea together with fresh baked scones and strawberry jam.