DrinkMaple

Summer, the time of sunshine unless you live in Scotland. The place where you are lucky to get two days of sun in a row. Today proves that. Yesterday and the day beore were nice. Sunny and warm. Today we are back to cloudy and rainy. I thought I'd write this post just incase we get some more sun at any point this summer.

As we may not be used to the heat when it comes around it is important to keep up with our water intake. Hydration is very important for us all especially in the hotter weather but water can get boring.

I find water especially boring when I am trapped in work on a nice day. I know I should just have another glass of water around 3pm when I'm getting those sweet cravings. I'm most likely not even hungry but frustration and bordom can win and then we're off to the vending machine.

I have now found my solution and need more of it soon. It's DrinkMaple.

DrinkMaple is maple water that has been tapped sraight from the maple tree. It tastes like water but with a touch of sweetness. It isn't overly sweet either. Think of it like you have just added a drop of maple syrup to your water and mixed it really well. That may sound weird but it tatstes great. 

I can see it being an acquired taste but I love it and think it is a great option for trying to win with water over sweets or just to try something new.

Maple water claims to have less sugar than coconut water and it also reports to have more magnesium than kale.

Maple water appears to be quiet good for you and true nothing is as good as pure water but its something different. Maybe it will give coconut water a run for it's money.

Wholefoods was where I found mine and I had chosen the smaller option of 250ml for 1.99. It may not be the cheapest but larger bottles are also available and are more cost effective. Hopefully more stores will pick it up and the price will come down a bit.

I still recommend it though and if you love it you can buy multipacks for less online.

Weekend Baking

This is not the restart I was thinking of but instead of a foodie event, I give you a brownie post.

A few weekends ago I went to a foodies event or at least tried to. After missing two trains I finally got to the location to see that it was cancelled. This put me in such a bad mood I came back to my city and treated myself to a pizza. I didn't want to think of food anymore than that.

Brownie set-up

The weekend after I was back onto food thoughts and I wanted to experiment with making brownies (and blondies).
I had found a few recipies online and in my cook books that caught my attention with differing ingredients or different techniques.
My main goal was to get a fudgy brownie. I had family coming to visit and they also wanted brownies that were between gooey and cakey. So why not fudgy?

Brownies (undercooked :( )

My first batch was started by whisking the eggs and flour together for several minutes before adding in the chocolate and rest of the ingredients.
The batch looked great when it went in the oven and appeared good after but when cutting them they were too soft and didnt look like there was enough mixture. My thinking on this is I should have cooked them longer.

Blondie Batter

The next batch was blondies, done in almost the same way as before but I added melted white chocolate and white chocolate chunks. These turned out much better but more cakey. Which I prefer for a blondie.

Blondies

Blondies

We will forget the next brownie batch as when mixing the chocolate and sugar and such the sugar just wouldn't melt and I didnt bother trying to bake them.

I finally decided to try my Leiths baking book and their brownie recipe and it worked well. Nice and fudgy.


Brownies

I'm going to look more into brownies one day and throughly study the different ways, ingredients and outcomes. How can I make my ultimate brownie? I'm not sure right now but I look forward to trying.

Starting Over

I have been thinking about this blog for a long time now. This completly abandoned blog. Thinking and then over thinking. Too Much Thinking.

I realised I was being daft. I needed to just write this for me. Who cares what I was writing about and if it was good enough. This is only the start and it will get better as time goes on, like everything that is worked on.

I was worried about what I would write about and how many times I made things but I'm just going to see how it goes.

I love food and discovering new food and cooking different things and that is all that matters.

This is just going to be my record of what I get up to and if anyone would like to read and tag along you are more than welcome here.

So let's get started.

Sweet Potato Gnocci

Fresh pasta is lovely and I have wanted to make my own for a while. When I came across a gnocci recipe in one of the recent Tesco magazines I thought that will be close enough for a first try.

It was a few nights ago that I decided to make it all and then I wasn't in the mood for it for dinner. Thankfully gnocci freezes well.
The first step was to bake the gnocci in the oven for one and a half hours over a layer of salt. The reason for the salt is to draw the moisture out of the potatoes.

It is apparently important to have dry potato to make the gnocci. All the potato needs to then be pushed through a sieve to make them nice and smooth. Add to this some flour and eggs and any seasoning you want.


Then mix it together. I found doing this by hand was easier as it eliminates the risk of over working the dough and you can feel if you need extra flour.

Once you have a ball of dough divide into four parts and then make those into sausages.


Cut into pieces and mark each piece with a fork. The fork marks will create an area that any sauce can cling to.

Tonight I decided to have some for diner and they are very easy to cook. Simply put in boiling water and when they float they are done.


My sauce was my goto quick mix with a bit extra to use up what was in the fridge. My quick sauce is just a can of tomatos simmered down with any herbs I fancy. This for me is a great base and you can add what ever you want to it.
This time around I added some pancetta and mushrooms.


When the sauce was simmered down to my desired texture I added it to my drained gnocci and served.

 

I very much enjoyed it.

Sweet Potato Gnocci

Sukrin Cake Mix

When you are trying to be healthy it can be difficult to get rid of your sweet tooth. I like many have a major sweet tooth and I don't see the weekend as the time to behave.

I did try however to behave and instead of going out to buy a sweet or an early Easter treat I made a cake.

It may have been a cake mix (which I do class as cheating) but cake mixes can be handy when in a pinch and I generally get given cake mixes so need to use them up.

I got the Sukrin Cake Mix in one of my Degusta Boxes (think monthly beauty box but with food) and it is described as a free from cake.

This mix is free from sugar, gluten, wheat and egg.

This sounds impressive and may be great for many people with food intolerances.
However when making the mix it says to add water, oil and egg so I think it is a slight misrepresentation of the product. Although you can use an egg replacement and it will be fine.

The recipe calls for three eggs but I only had two. So I decided to test the replacement ease and added in 1 tbsp of nut-butter in place of one egg.

Mix everything together and very quickly and easily you have a cake just wait 30mins for it to bake.

The texture was nice and moist yet no soggy bottom. It was a bit of a dense cake but it tasted fine. Though it was over powdered by the peanut taste from my three nut butter. The baking seemed to intensify the flavour of the nuts.

 The mix is very simple and the box recommends easy ways to add other flavours. This could be very handy when you want something sweet and just use up what is in your kitchen for that something extra.

I would buy a couple more of these to a) see what it tastes like without an ingredient change and b) to see how easy it is to flavour with other ingredients.

The healthier option is a plus if your watching your weight too but low in gluten is not something I really worry about. If you are sensitive to gluten this would be a possible option for you though I would check the box first for full ingredients just in case.

Bier Halle

If you love beer this is the place to go however for most the draw is the two for one pizzas everyday.

I went a few weekends ago with a friend as we both wanted a pizza. Pizzas were 15.45 each, so for two that isn't bad however they are not worth 15.45 each. I wonder if this is why they don't sell them individually. This must be just marketing but who cares about that. Lets talk food.

We both ordered a drink and a pizza. I went for an Spiced Apple Cider (I don't like beer) and Quattro Stagioni pizza. My friend ordered Innis and Gun and a Hawaiian.

Each pizza was good overall with a nice thin crisp base. The pizzas were a little lacking in the toppings. If the toppings were spread out more rather than bunched in a section I think it would have been better.

I chose my pizza because I couldn't decide what pizza to get so why not get one with a bit of everything. The Quattro Stagioni came with  artichokes & red peppers, chicken & wild mushrooms, chorizo & onions and rocket & parma.

I wasn't keen on the wild muchrooms but the chorizo and parma ham were winners.

I would go again for a quick drink and snack but due to there not being much choice for a non beer drinker, it won't be a frequent haunt.

New Kit Kat

Hello

I just wanted to jump on here quickly to mention the new KitKat.

If you don't like KitKats we have a problem. They are definitely one of my top sweets especially the Chunky but this new one is the four finger, (don't be dirty).

This new KitKat is limited edition and is called the Toffee Treat.

It consists of the usual four fingers covered in a toffee flavoured white/milk chocolate blend.

It's good.

The toffee flavour is nice and sweet but not sickly just a good tasting creamy chocolate. It also makes the chocolate flavour stand out more.

The creamy chocolate added with the wafer on these is a better combination than the original in my opinion so its time to stockpile.

Try them now, they won't be here for long.

Weekend Baking

This weekend I got back to my baking and it will keep coming. I couldn't decide what to start with so I went for a mix.

First I decided on some Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes as it was the weekend so I was in need of chocolate.

These had such a soft fudgey sponge. They were slightly rich but with the portion size of a cupcake they were great. One of these would satisfy a real chocolate crazing, maybe two. I forgot to pick up extra plain chocolate so ended up using a mixture of plain, milk and white chocolate. I don't believe that this affected them but will make them again soon, with all plain chocolate, to make sure.

I also need to work on these again as the tops came out a little crisp. They still tasted fine but I'll need to watch my temperature more.

The next bake was something different for me. Melting Moments biscuits. I don't think I've made biscuits like this before. They are a lot like shortbread but softer. As the name suggests they should melt in the mouth.

This was a very easy mix. Basically chuck everything in a bowl and mix.  Then came the challenge. I am no good with a piping bag but I tried and I got better towards the end. Can you guess which ones they are?

As you can see once they came out of the oven the first attempts at piping came out darker than the rest, being much smaller.

When I piped the first few I thought it was really difficult to get the mixture out of the bag but it became much easier once the piping bag had less in it. So lesson here, don't over fill the piping bag! It will make it difficult to pipe and you'll have biscuit mix go everywhere. 

When they were baking they smelt like shortbread (the smell filled my flat) and they tasted like that too but without the bite. As the name states they melt. They are so soft you could eat these with no teeth.

I'm not a shortbread fan so these didn't appeal to me so I moved onto cookies.

I decided on a batch of white chocolate chip and again it was all in one bowl. Easy. Until the transferring to a tray. These were meant to be soft and chewy but I put too much on the tray and they were too high and didn't flatten out as much as they should have and then I overcooked them. They were alright as a crunchy cookie but it wasn't what I was going for.

So again baking didn't turn out too well but it was another try at something I enjoy. Let's see what happens next.

London Trip - Macaroons Edition

Last year, at the end of November/start of December I visited London. I was on a mission for macaroons.

The first stop was Ladurée. We visited the store in Harrods. It was busy but the queue for retail was quick. Ladurée is a very pretty location with attentive staff. It may be expensive overall but it would be a great treat to have. The food selections all looked superb. Lots of freshly made tasty, looking pastries. I only went for the macaroons but even then I was spoilt for choice.

Paul and Ladurée, package may have got a bit damaged but the macaroons were fine.

My selection was the vanilla, chocolate, pistachio, vanilla rum, and salted caramel. Each of these were tasty and had full flavour. I would have each of these again except the vanilla rum.
The vanilla rum was a good macaroon but wow is that all booze. I could only have a couple very small bites. Two full macaroons and I'm sure I would have felt a little tipsy. I do like rum but with a mixer. I'd recommend the vanilla rum to real rum lovers and the rest to everyone.

Paul's Giant Pistachio Macaroon and Ladurée Pistachio Macaroon

A recommendation from family was to try the giant macaroons from Paul's. I chose the pistachio and the vanilla, my friend chose the chocolate.
Each macaroon was nice however a surprise to me was that the vanilla was my favourite. I think due to the increased size of the macaroons the full on flavours just got a but much. The pistachio was good but chocolate was too much for me.

Paul's Giant Macaroon

Ladurée was my favourite. I would go back there regularly if I could. Thankfully for my bank balance I live no where near. Ladurée has apparently the best macaroons in Paris. I can't confirm this. They may have been the best macaroons I've had but the best in Paris is such a big claim it will have to be investigated.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This blog took a bit of a break but it's back and I have a few posts over the next few days to get the year off to a good start.

Firstly, I would like to say everyone that I hope you had a great holiday recently and hope everyone had a good new year.

Last year, in regards to cooking and baking I wanted to do so much but didn't get around to doing very much. I read about things or watched how to do things  rather than actually trying it for myself. I guess it was a little bit of lacking faith in myself and thinking I could do anything but I want that to change.

There was one moment last year that I really thought it could change.

Last year there was one baking wish I really wanted to complete and I got the opportunity when my work place had a Bake-Off.

I entered the below cake:

Winter Theme Cake

For a while I had wanted to make a big cake but I had no reason to. When the bake-off came up, I agreed to do a simple cake but I got a bit carried away. I wanted to make a winter wonderland theme and I just went for it.

This is what we have to do. I had never made decorations for a cake before let alone something with such detail. I enjoyed every bit of making it though and the mistakes I made were good for learning.

Edible Pinecones

To make it better I won the bake-off and look forward to spending the voucher prize soon in the cook store.

Powdered Chocolate Truffles

If you want to do something give it a go. You'll never know what could happen until you try.

Bring on the New Year!