The Sugar Bar

Two Easters ago, I baked a feast. I went so crazy there were cakes, muffins and cookies everywhere: on the tabletops, in the bedroom, in the freezer, in the fridge. It was gloriously nightmarish. A thoroughly obsessively psychotically sick affair.

Last Easter, I believe things were a little more toned down. Moderation was key.

This year, we went for a nice balance of things. Don’t they say good things come in pairs? Two’s a nice number. Well-rounded and more acceptable. In that case, this Easter, we’ve got cookies and cakes. No more than that. No more, no less. I thought we were quite clever.

On Tuesday, we had a nice little wander through the Oxford Covered Market. There’s a cake shop in there which I’ll blog a little later on about. Truly inspiring cakes and sugarcraft. And they make personalized easter eggs made to order too! In fact, H and I had our Easter eggs from there last year. They were yum. And almost too pretty to eat. It’s shops like that that make you feel like you’ve gotta bake. You leave wanting to make something of your very own, to get creative and start challenging yourself in the kitchen. I don’t suppose we really did challenge ourselves but we sure had good fun in the kitchen that day.

Little fairy cakes topped with dolly mixture (we’ve so gotta love these sweets…so mildly flavoured and pretty to look at) for Easter cakes and a twist on the usual oatmeal raisin cookie which gives you something to talk about as well if you’ve got guests coming round for tea. I haven’t posted a recipe for the Fairy Cakes as H actually remembers this basic recipe by heart. It’s simply margarine, vanilla, flour, eggs, sugar all skillfully beaten by hand then baked at 175d Celsius until ready. Cooled, then frosted with a mix of icing sugar and water. Voila. Top them with sweets or decoration of choice. Cute as a button.

When it comes to eating cookies, dunking in a glass of cold milk is second nature. Or sometimes just eating it sans milk is pretty okay too. Dunking in hot coffee or tea seems unthinkable to me. I’ve seen my mum do it and it leaves rings of buttery-surfaced coffee in the cup. I’ve seen my mates do it and it just all looks a little drippy, a little messy. This time I tried it with this oatmeal cookie and I have a strange feeling my cookie-eating ways have been forever altered. Or at least, when it comes to oatmeal cookies. You’ve gotta dunk them in something warm. Leave the cold milk for the chocolate chip cousin. Oatmeal cookies have so gotta be dipped in a hot coffee or tea. A momentary experience of sweet bliss, as comforting as a spoonful of warm honey-laced porridge. So good.

Happy Easter everyone! Hoping the Easter bunny sends out much sugary love to all. Will post up some of my little Oxford visit here soon.

Oatmeal Cherry & Walnut Cookies
Ingredients

115g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup/225g dark brown sugar
1 large egg
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup glace cherries, chopped
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 175d Celsius.

Cream butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, then beat.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Add oats to this and mix. Add to wet mixture of creamed butter and sugar. Mix until it is just incorporated.

Fold in cherries and walnuts. Do not overmix.

Form into 1-2 tbs balls or simply drop onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15-18mins or until just golden brown.

Cooking it for longer gets these cookies a darker shade and they turn into nice crunchy cookies when kept. Cooking for 15mins leaves it nice and chewy in the middle so cook according to your preference. Leave to cool on sheets for a minute before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

It’s Shrove Tuesday, ie. Pancake Day! Well it’s not like I need an excuse to have pancakes. It sorta is like a Sunday brekkie thing to have but pancakes when it’s not even mid-week is so much more indulgent and delicious. Knowing that just about the rest of England is having pancakes too (albeit the English crepe-like ones) – savoury or sweet – helps with feeling all fat and happy, and a lot less like the lone greedy chubster.

I spied some gorgeous rhubarb pancakes over at Nic’s Cherrapeno and I couldn’t help getting some rhubarb as well. I think it’s gotta be one of the prettiest pink edible things and I simply love it in a trifle or yoghurt. Thanks Nic for a lovely pancake idea. I’m really glad I made this as I love all things tart. Although the rhubarb sauce wasn’t as tart as I wanted it to be (didn’t wanna tart-out my flatmate), I thought it was a very delicious variation of the usual plain pancakes or the same old blueberry pancakes I find myself having every time.

I’d love to stay on here longer, but I gotta hit the books again. Yes I am a geek, don’t judge me. And yes the work’s starting to pile up. Third yes, I’ve turned into a granny who fights the cold with hot soups, cups of tea and blankets about my knees. Well, grannies are so in right now. You can’t fault that. Off I go, leaving you the recipe.

This recipe’s given me the fluffiest, softest pancakes ever. But it didn’t rise enough to my liking and it may have needed some rising agent like baking powder. I might have to experiment and compare with other recipes in the future. Nevertheless, they were good. Like little fluffy clouds.

Recipe yields 8 pancakes
Rhubarb Pancakes
Ingredients

1 cup self-raising flour
2 tbs melted butter
3/4 cup milk
1 tbs sugar
1 egg yolk
3 egg whites, whisked to form stiff peaks
pinch of salt
about 1/2 cup rhubarb sauce

In a dry medium bowl, whisk egg whites to form stiff peaks.

In a separate large bowl, sift flour, sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre.

Beat lightly together the egg yolk, melted butter and milk. Pour into the well and mix gently to form a lumpy batter. Fold in egg whites, leaving some touches of egg whites intact.

In a small frying pan, heat some butter, add a ladle of batter and fry until bubbles start forming on the surface. Flip and allow the other side to cook for another minute or so. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Keep the other pancakes in a warm oven or let the hungry buggers you live with gobble them up whilst you work hard at the stove!

Rhubarb Sauce
Recipe can be found here, which I used for a ganache. You can use this in the pancake batter and to serve over them.

In the last post, I made it clear that I wasn’t a fan of Valentine’s Day (other than the fact that feasting for moi-self is allowed) and the most ironic thing was, the couples I knew weren’t even doing anything to celebrate it. It is totally agreed upon that the whole (I won’t even call it a festival) ‘event’ is simply a construction of contrived social imagination. As much as I dislike the fuss and the hype, the commercial exploitation of it all, I do love the fact that it’s a day where I can eat pretty things (like the cupcakes aforementioned) and not feel guilty about it at all.

Chocolates are so clichéd. At least for Valentine’s day.

But when would I ever make chocolates anyway? Might as well just put all my whining in a bag and throw it away, enjoy myself making them instead, no? And if I was envious of anybody about anything, it wouldn’t over my dead body be the fact that these smug couples were coupled up at all. Really,the issue lies in what they were cooking and eating to celebrate the day. So here, I messed about to make these chocolates for myself, friends and colleagues. Not beautiful. Not perfect. But you don’t gotta be with someone to be able to feast! And eat chocolates. And if you’re single, you don’t have to settle for a giant Cadbury’s bar that’s selling for a quid from Tesco. Honestly, I’m quite glad I attempted chocolates and de-virgined my new silicone chocolate mould.

I had fun making these, with a couple of heart attacks from failed samples and broken chocolates. Whilst photographing this in a hurry before rushing to work, I dropped my chocolates and broke quite a few of the good ones. Scared the daylights out of me, got depressed about the ones that died on the kitchen floor but very pleased that the ones which made it into the mouths of friends were finely appreciated.

The last time I made chocolates, I was a kid. My elder sis A and I had been given little plastic moulds, brushes and edible paints one Christmas I think. Our chocolates were pretty crude and garishly painted but we were so proud of them. Thinking back on those proud chocolates, I wish my sis and I (this time with C my younger sis) will make chocolates soon together some time. Hopefully when I’m a little more skilled and have completely mastered the art of chocolate-making (she says. pffft).

I had quite a few failures. Having 5 researches going on at once, CNY dim sum lunch planned, work at AA and this dumb romance drama I was all worked up about really had my head going full speed at all directions. Confused and totally not with it was moi this weekend. That really showed up in my chocolates. I also needed a brush to paint the chocolate mould, about 2 layers after setting each in the freezer for a minute or two to get the chocolate casing even but all my paint brushes (used to paint back in the days) were at home. I was slightly unprepared but made do with my MAC lipbrush. Probably the funniest thing I’ve done all week but it sorta worked. In addition to that, I had a bit of a problem with my chocolate candy melts solidifying too quick in my icy cold kitchen. So some came out with uneven surfaces, air pockets, cracked surfaces which were too thinly painted. But soon realized that a 10 sec microwave blast of my candy melts before each use made for a smooth, glossy and easy-to-work-with chocolate candy.

Gotta say these may not look like much, but they tasted pretty good. I’d probably swap milk chocolate candy melt for dark chocolate in the future. I’m just not that big a fan of milk chocolate and I’d probably have my rhubarb ganache a little more tart since I love sour flavours. But that’s just me. The taste testers thought the ganache was just right and luckily enough, they only got to see the good chocolates. You guys unfortunately get to see the rough ones that didn’t make it into the pretty box photographed in a hurry before rushing to work. Oops. Nevertheless, hope the weekend went by beautifully for everyone! More feasting on its way as it’s still Chinese lunar new year for another 14 days and Shrove’s Tuesday tomorrow. Hip hip hurray.

How to make these chocolates:
Ingredients

milk chocolate candy melts
chocolate mould
paintbrush
filling of choice

Depending on how many chocolates you’ll be making, the amount of candy melts needed will differ. I purchased a 300g bag of candy melts and found I used about 1/3 for 20 chocolates.

Follow directions for melting the chocolate (normally a 1 minute full power blast, followed by a quick mix with small whisk or fork. Then series of 10 second blasts followed by mixing until completely melted and smooth).

Wash and clean chocolate mould. Ensure the mould is completely dry and dust-free before using. Some recommend cleaning it til glossy to get the professional smooth finish. I was too lazy to and so suffered the consequences!

Fill 1/4 of each mould with melted chocolates and working quickly, paint the sides up with chocolate. Place in freezer for about a minute or two to set. Then paint one more time thinly with chocolate so the insides are smoothly covered. Some of mine weren’t properly coated which meant ganache filling oozing out in strange places. Place in fridge to set the 2nd wet layer.

Remove from fridge. Add ganache to fill about 3/4 of the way and then pour melted chocolate over to seal the chocolate completely. Ensure that the sides are sealed and wipe off any excess that spills over onto the mould surface. Leave in fridge to set for 30mins or more.

If using a silicone mould, gently press out the formed chocolates. Successful ones should have no cracks, oozing ganache filling and visible air pockets on candy surface.

White Chocolate & Rhubarb Ganache
Ingredients

255g white couverture
1/2 cup extra thick double cream
1/2 cup rhubarb sauce (see below for recipe)

Break up white chocolate in bowl.

In a small saucepan or milkpan, heat the cream until small bubbles begin to form. Remove from heat and pour over broken chocolate. Leave for 5 mins then mix with a rubber spatula until melted. Add the rhubarb sauce and gently fold in.

Leave in refrigerator for about 1-2 hours until well set. Remove, mix again before using.

Rhubarb Sauce
Ingredients

1 package fresh rhubarb, washed and chopped
2 tbs butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of ground ginger
2-3 tbs caster sugar, or to taste

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter then add the rhubarb to sauté. Once it softens, add the sugar and spices. Mix with wooden spoon and lower heat to simmer until it attains a sauce-like consistency.

If sauce is still too tart, sweeten to taste. Serve with pancakes, in pancake batter, with toast, etc. There are so many ways to serve this. Reserve sauce can be stored in jam jars in the fridge for about a week.