Mooncakes

Of all the recipes I've done so far, I think I've been most excited about these - even when they went horribly, horribly wrong, I was still really excited.  They're a fairly simple thing to make as it turns out (she says before showing you pictures of what she did to them) but it's the principle of the thing - dough, filling, mould, getting them out of the mould, baking, end result.  There's something about actually braving and using the traditional wooden mould that really added to this recipe for me, as well as being another new recipe.

I think I did confess the other day that I bought the fruit mince filling for these though, which made it even simpler (the recipe said I could, and I wasn't going to look a fruit mince gift horse in the mouth with both small people turning the house inside out around me).  If I didn't, then I did.  I was fairly well petrified of them (excited petrified, so kind of a hold-your-breath-(petrified)-mop-your-brow-(also petrified)-hop-around-the-kitchen-(excited) sort of scenario) so opted to concentrate on the dough and the forming of them and just make sure I re-made them at a later date, making the fruit mince as well on the second run.

Turns out I'm going to have to re-make them for more reasons than just the fruit mince, damn it all.  I really could've picked an easier recipe book for this, especially when part of the reason for doing it is to distract my stress levels.  I underestimated how techinical a baker the Global Baker is, and how finely tuned his recipes are.  But, as the husband reminds me, an easier project would be fine but I wouldn't be learning anything.  Yaaaaay learning ...  (I jest)  I think it's just that I bake fine day to day from most books I pick up for bicky tin filling purposes, and yet every time I pick up Global Baker I can pretty much guarantee I'll be either sobbing into my flour bag, or kicking it, at some point soon thereafter.  Frustration.  Mind you, the recipes I really love I do-over and generally get right the second time, so I should stop whinging (pistachio and white chocolate chunk cookies ... oh my).

I took a slightly silly number of pictures, sorry ... it was the excitement.  I got a bit button-happy.

First mooncake into the mould.

First mooncake (dough rolled a bit thin) out of the mould.

Second mooncake - much more successful, although you might have to just take my word for it if you can't see through the photo fuzziness.  (Heh.  I should've taken a shot of number three.  I went to bang the mould on the bench to get it out, except it fell out as I tipped the mould, and with my crap reflexes I ended up banging the mould onto the mooncake and flattening it all over the bench and mould.  Excellent work.  And of course I swore.  In the hearing of two small people.  Very excellent work)

The bit where things have obviously gone pear-shaped, and I start cataloguing my errors.  They lost their imprint I think because I rolled the dough too thin, and when I pressed it into the mould it got thinner.  And then I think I rushed them out of the chilling stage. 

Aw, they look ok, you say?  They've just their imprint, you think? 

Yeah, nah.  Not so much.  Oops.  That's the bit that really had me scratching my head.  I'm in two minds about the temperature in the recipe.  220 degrees C seems like a fairly whopping temperature (I did drop it to allow for my oven being fan-forced, so this happened at just over 200 degrees C).  Could be though that it was temperature combined with too-thin dough because as I was going back through the recipe I realised I'd made another mistake in the mould that I chose, forcing the dough a lot thinner than it should have been.

Aaaand here we go (scroll down - I tried to move the picture but it messed with my formatting, so I'm giving you directions to it instead).  I ran with the round mould, because my poor brain went 'Oh! The picture has round mooncakes, so we must use the round one' and didn't actually pay attention to how big the round mould that is pictured in Global Baker likely is (significantly smaller than my round mould, and fairly obvious about it too as it turns out). 

So, the plan for next time is:

1.  Make own fruit mince.
2.  Make square moon cake.
3.  Turn oven down a smidge.
4.  Don't screw them up again.

Simple .....

Hello, high energy fruit and nut bars

I took a detour into Baked because there was no way around it.  Had to be done.  Couldn't not.  I saw this recipe on my first flick through and it went straight to the top of my list (Ha!  Oh dear.  Since I made them, I've been wondering why the book won't close properly.  While most people would do something practical about that, such as look a bit closer and maybe check for something stuck between the pages, I went with looking at it and saying to myself 'Huh. That's not closing properly' and then squishing it down.  I just opened it to check the actual name on the recipe and it turns out there's nearly enough flour, oats and sunflower seeds loaded into the spine to bake another batch.  Oops).

I have a great loathing for muesli and nut bars in general.  Not because they're muesli or nut bars, but because it's so hard to find them not covered in chocolate or yoghurt, or super, super loaded with sugar.  Yuck.

So, obviously, with all the happiness of figs, apricots, seeds and nuts, honey (and a few other bits and bobs) ... morning tea was born.

By the time I realised the photo is as fuzzy as it is, I'd already drunk the tea and eaten half the bar, so sorry about that.  I could've re-taken a photo at that stage, but I don't think it would've looked as classy.  Ish.  Kind of.  You get the general idea though.  And surely you're used to my sorry excuses for photos by now anyway?

These taste amazing - I'm developing a love of figs since starting my Global Baker project, so I especially love the figgy bits in these.  I also used New Zealand dried apricots which are much sharper than the Turkish and by far my preference for everything.  Although, I did something the other day that I think I might have to try again with Turkish next time ...... Ah!  The brioche.  I wondered about the sharp (vs sweet) apricot taste in the brioche.  But I'll definitely make that again so I'll try Turkish next time for a comparison.

I did screw up a fairly crucial step in making these (cringe!) which meant a bit of a scramble to save them, but I pretty much managed to get them back.  The only effect is that they are much sweeter than I think they would otherwise have been, so I'm looking forward to a do-over.  The dry ingredients are held together with a boiled honey/sugar/butter combo (pretty much like rice bubble biscuits actually) - except I had little ginger helping me this time so my sugar ended up in the dry ingredients as well, meaning that my boiled mixture didn't have enough liquid (didn't make enough liquid?) to hold the aforementioned dry ingredients and I had to quickly make more (just enough to hold it, since I was pouring extra liquid onto dry sugar. More cringing!) and ... it was a bit of a tense time overnight while I waited to make sure it held.  Much breath-holding.  Thankfully, I didn't need to cry and we have a full bicky tin.  Win!  And, to be honest, if they'd fallen completely to bits I probably would've just bagged the bits and eaten it as a scroggin mix of sorts anyway.

I may stay with Baked for my next tin-filler because I also saw a recipe for traditional hot cross buns.  My chocolate hot cross buns from Global Baker were a disaster (my fault - dough related) so they're on the do-over list.  And since I really do love traditional hot cross buns, and both recipes are by Dean so I don't think it's cheating.  Not really.  I'm still counting it as part of the project.

Apricot brioche breakfast plait. Boom.

I made dough and it rose, Amen.

Not only that, it rose with both rises (Ha! That's a horrible sentence to read, but it made me giggle so it gets to stay).  Having not experienced dough rising properly before (or at all really, if I'm going to be completely honest about it) it was such a nice feeling knocking it back the first time (I think my actual words were 'Oooh! That feels kinda sexy!' and the husband proceeded to bend double, wee himself a little and then choke half to death laughing). 

It took a while (the rising, if you're still stuck on the sexy dough and/or the husband's choking which also took a while).  Global Baker indicated it should take about an hour.  It took about four.  The husband took his supervisory role very serious though, swatting at me every time I stood there glaring at it in its state of it's-not-rising-ness (and maybe wailing a little bit) and ordered patience, of which I have none, especially with so many dough related failures under my belt to date.

But ...

The bit where it looks good, a stage after the first rise, but I'm still holding my breath because dough hates me.

The. Bit. Where. It. RISES !!!  (cue happy-dance)

The bit right before two-thirds of it disappears (where I'm still doing a happy dance, and I don't realise that I caught the arse of it slightly during baking.  I felt a bit stabby when I discovered that.  Honestly!  I put so much hope, prayer and muscle (relative to my lack of muscle) into working the dough, barely breathed through both rises, managed to get it to the place where all is well and people actually observed me doing a happy dance. Thankfully it was only little people who possibly just thought I'd stood on a lego or something, but still.  And then.  Then, I catch the arse of it.  Of course I could probably have kept that to myself and you'd be none the wiser, but why stop sharing now, hey?  We've been through worse)

And now, I feel as though, to celebrate my actually keeping up with the blogging and the project, we need a new, more baking-focussed look around here, so I'm off to play with my layout.

Oh, but!  Before I do ...

I couldn't help myself even a little bit and this arrived yesterday.  It had to be done.  I mean, hello.  Donuts!

P.S.

It was a bit quiet there for a few days as I was working on an update for Justin vs Cancer.  They've had good news to share and bad, so it was time to put a nice big update in their story out there.

Twice as nice

They're not Global Baker recipes, but I like to think they are part of the project in that as much as I'm screwing up most of the Global Baker recipes, I'm getting more confident baking and it's really exciting (for me.  And my tummy).

Orange and poppy seed cake from The Nordic Bakery Cookbook.

Yum.  Yum, yum, yum.  This is a stonking recipe, boasting 5 eggs among other things, but it is a beeeeautiful cake.  One thing I really love about this cookbook is that hardly anything is iced.  Almost everything stands on its own, and this cake is no exception.  The husband and I generally don't ice anything unless it's a recipe that really needs that icing, we're making it for someone, or the kids beg us to (and then they only eat the icing, little monsters).  It's not that we are too lazy to finish the product off (although that does happen), it's just that we really love recipes where something is special enough on its own.  This is definitely one of those recipes. 

And then these ... these are from the Little Paris Kitchen cookbook.  I confess, I actually bought the cookbook pretty much solely for this recipe, after watching the TV series (the husband and I have a bit of a thing about watching food while we're eating food).  If any TV series or cookbook could convince me to (a) learn to cook and/or (b) get on a plane for an international destination (France), it'd be this one.  OK, I did have romantic notions about learning to cook from this book, because the recipes seemed to easy and wonderful, but ultimately it was really, probably all about the tarts.  We have busted out the carrot salad recipe too though!  Carrot salad is awesome.  And by 'we', I mean the husband.

These are not grapefruit and pepper meringue tartlets, although they will be at some stage when I have some grapefruit (actually, I do have grapefruit. On a big ol' grapefruit tree down the back. That's embarrassing.  For some reason every time I've thought of this receipe, or read it, I've heard and seen passionfruit.  I did think passionfruit meringue tartlets would be a bit unusual.  I really need to pay more attention to ... pretty much everything.  It's the rushing that does it.  I'm trying not to rush so much.  Wallace Chapman would be helping me with that (I bought his book Don't Just Do Something, Sit There.  Except I haven't had time to read it yet.  Ironic.  I think)  and I'm not so lazy that I bust out a jar (yes! a jar! I'll make my own next time, I promise) of lemon curd instead. 

I can tell you a few things about these.  Firstly, if you are lazier than a lazy thing on lazy day and buying lemon curd - Sabato stocks an excellent product.  Secondly, don't be afraid of the black pepper in the meringue.  It adds a dimension that I was very suspicious of, but definitely glad I took a run at.  Thirdly, I made meringue for the first time ever, and it was Italian meringue at that (you whisk the egg whites while pouring hot sugar syrup onto them).  V. proud of myself, regardless of how easy it was in the end (cheating with the curd likely helped a bit to be fair).  The point is, I felt confident to try this ensemble and that's thanks to the Global Baker project.

New cabinet love!

It took us nearly a year to find a cabinet for the lounge.  In the end, after hashing over just about every idea we could think of (both cabinety and not even remotely cabinety because we got annoyed with the cabinets, and including designing something ourselves and having it quoted on by a cabinet maker), it was a Facebook post from a page I follow that took us to Zinc+ in Wellington.  It's a big departure from the style of our old furniture but it suits the beach house and the beach house loves it right back so, excitement! (plus, it hides all of our crap, of which there is much)

I think you're going to just have to trust me that it's awesome and looks brilliant, because this pic is horrible.  To give you an idea of how far off the colour is - our carpet in reality is black (underneath all the dog hair and kid crumbs it is, anyway.  Five minutes after I vacuum on any given day, you'd be forgiven for not having a clue).  You also can't even begin to imagine how I twitched when I loaded this, the best of about 20 shots taken over a couple of days, but also the only one with a bright green plastic cup sitting behind the TV (yes, I am that person).  The industrial filing-cabinet-esque-ness of it reminds me that I'm a total geek, but I just don't care. 

For ages I was convinced I'd be able to talk the husband into a You2 entertainment unit (if I kept the price tag in a death grip and varied the budget consequences slightly (a lot) from reality) and I nearly, very nearly had him (after about 8 months of trying), when Zinc+ came to his rescue.  Seriously, so much love!  Extra love because we were able to have it custom made to our measurements and powder-coated any colour from a large range.  (and nevermind about the entertainment unit - I still have this floating desk up my sleeve!)

It was a weird moment moving in here and realising that none of our stuff worked. It was too wooden and way too dark and heavy. A year later, it's definitely starting to look like a rainbow threw up in the living area. Cheery! I do love mid-century design though, so we've generally just keep hunting around to find modern design with echoes of that period and so far we've come across the right thing eventually. Our kitchen table we spotted on The Block NZ. Heh.

And, because this is me we're talking about and because I seem to be perfectly incapable of leaving some stores without collecting extras, I may also have gone a wee bit weak at the knees over a Gerty Brown Trading cushion ... (I'm claiming an enchanted frog that put a spell on me.  Don't look him in the eyes, whatever you do)

Can't blog. Eating pudding.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Also, the husband (who is much more familiar with making dough) attempted to make dough with the yeast I've been using.  He said it's rubbish.  Yusss!  (This is good news, because there's a chance I can still bake, and a quick upgrade in yeast may do the trick for future success)

I thought there was something else, but I can't remember what it is, so I guess there isn't.