Do you want to try baking on your own?

What 10 year old wouldn’t?  Certainly not Charlotte!

Charlie came home from her skiing trip to Austria with the school on Friday morning, and I can tell you, we were two very relieved parents.  After the tragic accident earlier in the week involving school children from just over the boarder in Belgium, we had 7 very sleepless nights – but there again we weren’t on our own, everyone else felt exactly the same. 

 I’d love to say she had a wonderful time, but she developed a cough and fever whilst away which made her feel terrible and homesick, it was such a shame as she had been so excited, counting the days since last August.  Anyway, home she came tired and a little smelly but we were very pleased to see her anyway.  On Friday Georgia, my other daughter, was sent home from school with the same problem – great two sick little chicks all weekend.

By Sunday, Charlie had decided she was feeling better, well enough to bake – does nothing stops this girl baking? Well yes, actually – The plan was to bake the American Apple and Apricot Cake however, I forgot to get the Apricots on Saturday and in Holland NOTHING is open on a Sunday so there was no chance of baking that cake.  (Mistake No1) The wrath of slightly sick, over tired, hormonal, baking deprived 10 year old is quite impressive unless you are on the receiving end which of course, I was.  I suggested “hey lets just do the next cake and do that one next time” Not a chance, we are doing the book in order and that is that.  “Okay, how about you bake something else” I suggested, “maybe try some cupcakes on your own?”  A look of pure delight spread across her face and I was ushered from the Kitchen. (mistake No2) 

 About 20 minutes later, she came to find me.  “it doesn’t look quite right, can you come and have a look”  What could have possibly gone wrong I thought, how do you go wrong?  The bomb site that was my lovely kitchen was a little surprising, but the gloop in the bowl was a real shocker!  "What did you do?" I asked “What it said to do!” She answered indignantly “Okay (deep breath) step by step what did you do?”

She had decided as there were 17 people in her class she would double the recipe so “creamed” the butter and sugar, added flour, vanilla, and then the eggs.  That’s all very well if you have a mixer that can cope with this amount of ingredients, but we don’t - you cannot mix it together in that order, you end up with a concrete gloop stuck to your whisk (apparently) not to mention up your walls and on the windows! (deep deep breath).

Begin again, but first darling, wash up and get that off my wall please! (yet another deep breath but this time accompanied with a forced smile)

 So, she started from scratch.  This time, creamed butter and sugar, added the eggs and some milk with a tsp of vanilla. She then sifted the flour and baking powder into the egg mix and used the hand whisk (in the sink so it doesn’t go up my walls) and ended up with a lovely smooth batter.  Hoorah!

 
She decorated them with buttercream and sprinkles – I think they looked cute.  She was very pleased with herself and I was very pleased to have the kitchen back relatively in one piece. 


Next time I’ll remember the Apricots!

A Cake for Harry

As School for Charlie finished at lunchtime due to her going on the ski trip, she had lots of time to make the cake for Harry.

 Harry is our lovely Dutch neighbour who helps us out when ever I’m stuck.  Over the last 6 years he has been like a dad to me and another grandfather to my girls.  He is simply wonderful and was over the moon when Charlotte gave him her Coffee Victoria Sponge.  He and his family enjoyed the cake so much that he asked her to bake a cake for his brother’s birthday.



Harry with Charlotte and his Cake



 Charlie decided that for a birthday, she would make a chocolate cake – well everyone likes chocolate on a birthday don’t they?

Harry was delighted with the cake and even paid Charlie 5 euros – she was equally delighted – is this the start of something big?



Chocolate Victoria Sponge - with a cherry on top!



Maple Syrup Cake

I’ve got to be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to making this cake for a couple of reasons – firstly, I don’t really like Maple syrup unless its on crispy bacon or pancakes and secondly, I’ve just started a diet and Im not allowed ANY cake - not my idea of heaven today.

In the Baking Bible, you don’t get pictures of all the bakes which I think is a shame, but for this cake there is a lovely photo – I always like a photo as it gives me an idea what we should be aiming for. 

First things first lining the tin…..

Oh no! The recipe calls for an all-in-one method, but as you all know by now, we can’t do that due to technical difficulties/injuries/lack of muscles. My lovely hubby has promised me a mixer, and Im currently weighing up my options – I would really like a Kitchen Aid, but my dilemma is which colour do I go for? Im leaning towards the hot pinks or pale pinks or mellow yellow or pale blue or or or or – too many choices for me, so it could take some time to arrive. There is only one thing for it............. sorry Mary babes, but we are changing your method again – does it really make any difference? I think I will Google it to find out!

The big difference today with our baking was that Charlie really wanted very little help. I sat like lady Muck on my chair and “directed” her thru the process.  I have to be honest, I was sitting on my hands and was itching to interfere, but she was adamant that this was her cake and she could do it – hands off mummy!  She is very confident and not always in a good way, sometimes rushing each step, but I guess she is learning. 

This cake takes 1- 11/2 hours baking at 160, after an hour I realised that Charlie hadn’t set the temperature correctly, so it had an hour at 175 – now this really does make a difference! So a little well done around the edges, but I trimmed that off before we frosted the cake.

very wobbley layers

The one thing Charlie let me do was cut the cake into 3.  I don’t have a cake cutter, and think I need to invest in one – needless to say, I made a bit of a hash of it, ooops – Charlie wasn’t impressed.  She covered the layers in the cream and put them back together.  I helped smooth the cream on the sides and she finished with the orange zest which I had cut.  Charlie said it tasted really nice, Georgia spat it out with a very descriptive yuuuuuk, I however, don’t know what it tastes like so I can’t tell you – but it smelled very Mapley so I probably wouldn’t of liked it either. 

 

looks a bit like it should

We are not baking next week as Charlotte is going skiing with the school for a whole week and as long as she doesn’t break anything, see you in two weeks for an American Apple and Apricot Cake.

Whats the difference between a Swiss and a Dutch Roll?

A little later this week for our baking instalment due to a very good friend celebrating her 40^th Birthday on Saturday night.  Needless to say, the last thing on my mind was baking on Sunday.  Charlotte was overcome with sympathy for my delicate state, offering to cook scrambled eggs, or poached eggs, or fried eggs or even French toast – now she’s not bad with an egg is our Charlie, but I think there was a little devil in her and she was enjoying seeing me squirm – at least it helped her get over her disappointment.  I took the girls instead to see the Muppet movie, which apparently was great – I had a little nana nap and felt much better.

Happily for Charlotte, there was a national teacher strike on Tuesday, so it was all systems go for Swiss Roll production. There are three in the book; a plain one, a lemon one and a chocolate one so we are going to do the lot and hopefully by the end of today we’ll know what we are doing.  Swiss Roll for me really takes me back to being a kid, I used to love them in all there guises especially the Cadbury individual chocolate ones with the yummiest chocolaty filling wrapped in chocolate (you get the picture) and do you know what, I used to be able to eat the entire pack of 8 without feeling sick (or gaining weight) oh how times have changed.  I loved the thick covered Yule log at Christmas with the fake robin stuck in and a liberal dusting of icing sugar – naff but nice, oh happy days.

I find the whole idea of making a Swiss Roll a little intimidating having never made one or seen anyone make one, but Mary is confident, so we will have a go.  Charlie is true to form, and knows the recipe backwards before we begin so we are set to go.

very frothy eggs

Firstly, beat 4 eggs and caster sugar until they are really light and frothy – they double in size and when you pick up the whisk it leaves a trail or trace in the eggs.  You then add the self-raising flour and fold in.  This is transferred into a lined tin and baked for only 10 mins – simple!?  After 10 mins of baking it should be light and golden and you turn it onto a baking paper sprinkled with caster sugar – the sugar sticks to the warm cake and gives the nice finish you get on the cake.   Quickly peel off the paper, let it cool slightly, spread with raspberry jam, score a line 1 inch into the sponge which gives you a starting point to roll up and roll into a lovely Swiss Roll – Simple!  NOT!!!! 

looks Omelette like!

It didn’t actually go quite to plan for us – Charlie did a stirling job whisking the eggs and sugar and we added the flour, but we did not mix it enough – the batter was really loose and had a couple of lumps – we decided it would be okay and carried on.  After 10 mins of baking the smell of the sponge can only be described as fried egg not cakey at all.  It was also very “rubbery” a kind of cake omelette if you will.  When it came to rolling the omelette up, I just went for it and it wasn’t perfect and split in a couple of places, but being our first attempt, we weren’t too disheartened.  Charlie had the honour of the first taste – disgusting! Not only did it smell like omelette, it tasted like a dodgy omelette with the texture of a sponge you clean the loo with – really not good.  

Charlies rubbish rolling!

Right say I, lets do the lemon one – but what did we do wrong with the first one?  The flour wasn’t mixed enough and we rolled it too soon maybe?  So, with the lemon one we mixed the flour in much better and the batter looked like cake batter.  We spread it in the tin, waited 10 mins and turned it onto the paper.  We peeled off the back paper and it looked great – yippee.  We let it cool for longer and spread the lemon curd on it and Charlie rolled it up (after she ridiculed my rolling attempt with the first cake I wanted revenge)  – it looked ….unusual! – Tasted fantastic, but looked rubbish! 

Right Chocolate one next – What did we do wrong last time? – Let it cool too long (and Charlie rolled it).  So we whipped up the eggs and sugar, added the flour and cocoa powder, baked for 10 mins, threw it on the caster sugar sprinkled paper, whipped off the baking paper, covered it with chocolate butter cream and the two of us rolled it up.  Guess what…. Still looked a bit dodgy, a little on the flat side, but we were so proud.  It took 12 eggs, 300g of sugar and 300g of flour a little stress and a lot of team work, but we got somewhere in the end.  It wasn’t perfect, but the Lemon and Chocolate versions, whilst not exactly Swiss (more like flat and Dutch), were very edible.  As for the first one – it found its way into the waste disposal system. 

alittle flat

so proud!

Onwards and upwards – Maple Syrup Cake next week.

Good bye!