Spiced Peaches

Caitie made some more of Nigella Lawson's Spiced Peaches today. They were so easy yet delicious the first time Caitie made them that we couldn't resist.

These ones were destined to be Caitie's great-grandfather's birthday present. Except, we made two batches, so we had some left over to eat and gave one to Caitie's teacher Mrs Worrall, and one to Julie who does Caitie's before/after school care. Perfect gifts! Mmmm, and so yummy.

Basically, Caitie just threw 4 cans of peach slices in syrup, 30ml white wine vinegar, 4 sticks of cinnamon, sliced fresh ginger, a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes, a sprinkle of salt, a few cloves and a few whole black peppercorns in to a saucepan, then she brought it to the boil, then put it in to jars. Rinse, lather, repeat.



I was teaching Caitie about the different tastes of the ingredients. So she tasted the peaches and said that they were sweet. The vinegar was sour. The salt was salty, and the chilli and pepper were spicy. The ginger was a hard one, but when she tasted the finished product she agreed she could taste the heat of the ginger. She could taste the sweet and the spicy too, but not the sour. I tried to explain that the sourness had been absorbed by the sweetness and so the final dish wasn't quite as sweet. I find it hard to explain here, let alone to her! Not sure if she understood where I was going with that, but she found the combination of ingredients in this dish quite interesting, and enjoyed trying to identify their qualities and then identify them in the final dish.



We'll definitely make these again. So delicious, and so easy!

Meringue class

Caitie's nana took her to another class with Little Cookies today. She had really enjoyed the pasta class she had with them the previous month so she was looking forward to this one.

There were only two girls in the class. They needed four egg whites, and both girls got to try their hand at seperating eggs. Then they beat the egg whites until they got 'stiff peaks'.
Once the egg whites were stiff, they added a cup of sugar and continued to beat it until it went 'a little bit shiny'. Then both girls got to add a little bit of sugar at a time until it was 'really really shiny'.



I think that photo above is of them looking in to the electric mixer to check the 'shininess'.

Once it was right, they put the mix in bowls and added food colouring. Then the mix was put in to piping bags and both girls got to try their hand at piping meringues.



Then the meringues went in to the oven to bake.



Caitie tells me that they then got to decorate some meringues that Kirin had made earlier. It sounds like they had great fun, creating all sorts of creatures out of meringue. I think there were pigs and ducks, but also other 'creative' creatures. Ha ha!









Overall, another excellent class from Little Cookies. Caitie definitely seems to enjoy the smaller classes with more 'hands on' aspects where she gets to see the product through from start to finish and every step in between. There are some more Little Cookies classes this coming term, so we'll have to see if we can get Caitie along to some more of them. And now that she has done meringue, we might have to try our hands at a pavlova! I've only tried one once and it was unsuccessful, but now that Caitie knows what to do... I'll let you know if we try it!

Lime Cupcakes with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

We actually used a recipe for Lemon Butterfly Cupcakes from the Simple & Delicious Cupcakes book (no author noted) and amended it to make lime cupcakes. We had a block of cream cheese in the fridge that we wanted to use up, and Caitie's dad suggested lime cream cheese frosting.

Caitie mixed ¾ cup flour, 1½ teaspoons baking powder, 8 tablespoons of soft butter, ½ cup sugar, 2 eggs, finely grated rind of 1 lime and 2 tablespoons of milk together to create the batter. She baked these for about 15-20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Then to make the cream cheese frosting, she just mixed the cream cheese with icing sugar and lime zest as per the instructions on the inside of the packet. Yep, there was a recipe for lime cream cheese frosting on the inside of the Philadelphia cream cheese packet!

Caitie iced the cupcakes and then we taste tested them.





We decided that while they were okay, the lime and coconut ones were much better...

Marbled Chocolate Cupcakes

While our roast chicken was in the oven, Caitie made some cupcakes. First up were marbled chocolate cupcakes from the Simple & Delicious Cupcakes book (no author noted).

The oven was already at 180 degrees Celsius, so no preheating required. Caitie mixed ¾ cup soft butter (it was supposed to be margarine but we didn't have that much margarine on hand), ¾ cup of sugar, 3 eggs, 1¼ cups flour, a teaspoon of baking powder and 2 tablespoons of milk.
Then she had to divide the mix in to two bowls and add 55g melted chocolate to one of them. Then she filled muffin cases with a spoonful from each bowl until they were full.





They looked quite neat. Caitie baked them for 20 minutes and they came out looking much like the ones in the book. Great work. Tasty too. Another successful cupcake recipe to add to the collection.

Mum's basic roast chicken with potatoes...

Following on from roast pork with potatoes, I taught Caitie my way of cooking roast chicken. I use about the most basic 'recipe' possible, but it's pretty foolproof and I've never had any complaints.

One thing I remember my mother teaching me before I left home to go flatting was how to roast a chicken. However, I must have changed it quite a bit since then, because my mother assures me now that she would never use Worcestershire sauce. I suspect that tip came from Caitie's dad.

So, roast chicken with potatoes. Caitie's first step was, of course, to drizzle Worcestershire sauce over the chicken. :)





Then the mixed herbs go on.



And lastly, a spray of oil over the top. As I was telling Caitie, if you use spray oil, it sits over the top of the Worcestershire sauce instead of 'washing it away'.



Then in to the oven it goes at 180 degrees Celsius. When it has about 30 minutes to go, it's time to chop potatoes. These are tossed in oil and mixed herbs, and put in the roasting pan with the chicken. They inevitably get coated in Worcestershire sauce that has run off the chicken, and they taste sooooo good. :)





There you have it, Caitie. Mum's simple recipe for easy roast chicken. Yum, eh?

Pinwheel Scones Class - FAIL!

While the Chocolate Lava Cakes were baking, Caitie and the others in the Mini Pinnies class made pinwheel scones.

The first task was of course to rub the butter in to the flour. There wasn't quite enough flour for all the groups, so they had a bit less than the recipe suggested. Caitie had rubbed butter into flour before for her great-great-grandmother's Almond Snaps, so she had a good idea of what to do, but it was good practice to do it again. Not many recipes call for rubbing butter...at least not many that we've made so far!







They struggled a bit to get breadcrumb consistency. With my limited experience, I'm not really sure what the solution was to that.

Then the millk was added.



The dough was very soft, far too soft for making pinwheels. Emma (the teacher shown in the second picture with Caitie) told the children that the dough needed more flour, but they had run out, so instead they were going to bake them in muffin pans. They added cheese and mixed herbs to the top, then in to the oven they went.



The resulting scones were quite tasty, but I've noted it as a 'fail' mostly because they were supposed to be pinwheel scones and they were a fail in that regard.





Even though there was a shortage of flour and the scones didn't turn out as expected, I think Caitie learned more in this class than she did making Chocolate Lava Cakes. Rubbing butter in to flour takes a bit of practice I think, and often mistakes are better learning experiences than when everything goes right.

Chocolate Lava Cake class

Caitie went a cooking class with Mini Pinnies today. Their first dish to make was a chocolate lava cake. I've misplaced the recipe Caitie was given, so bear with me.

Caitie had to work with three other kids at her station, and their first task was to break up the chocolate.





The chocolate was then melted with the necessary butter by an adult. The kids were given the rest of the ingredients to mix. I felt it was a bit of a shame that the kids didn't get to do any measuring or weighing or anything. Caitie's a bit past the stage where sharing the task of stirring the mix with three other kids is a challenge or a learning experience.

After the mixture was ready, the kids each greased a ramekin.





Then one of the other girls portioned out the mix between the four ramekins.



One of the adults popped them in the oven, and then the kids got to enjoy them with some cream.





I think Caitie was a bit bored with this class, but she enjoyed eating the results!

Marmite Spaghetti - FAIL!

We decided to try Nigella Lawson's Marmite Spaghetti this evening.

We cooked the spaghetti in boiling salted water, as normal. Then Caitie combined 50g melted butter with 1 teaspoon of Marmite and a teaspoon of the pasta water.



It's a lot harder than you think to mix Marmite with melted butter!!

Then we mixed the Marmite mixture in to the pasta. It was a very subtle flavour...

We added plenty of grated parmesan cheese which helped, but frankly I didn't think it was a hit. It was vaguely Marmitey, a bit greasy (from the butter) and fairly cheesy. Caitie's dad and I decided to give it a miss, but Caitie and her brother ate it.

Tortellini

We decided to put the skills Caitie learned in her Little Cookies pasta class to good use today.
We made the pasta with a cup of semolina and an egg. Caitie kneaded it.





Then, with her brother Jayden, she made the filling by cooking chicken with some mixed herbs and some chicken stock. Actually, it turned out quite tasty!



Then it was time to fill the tortellini. So Caitie flattened the pasta (we borrowed Poppa's pasta machine) and we cut it in to squares. Just a teaspoon of the chicken filling in each, then Caitie folded them.











It turned out that the pasta was a bit thick still, but overall we decided it was an overall success. Not bad for our first time making tortellini!