Cinnamon Rolls

In Game of Thrones… they utter the words “Winter is coming” time and time again, well my friends, it is already well and truly here and my tonsils took quite the battering last week thanks to it. I didn’t even feel like baking. But I am feeling a lot better now and made these cinnamon rolls – which are perfect when eaten hot with a cuppa. They aren’t too sweet, which I like – i love sugar, but sometimes it can be too much. These have a subtly sweet taste – one fit for a chilly winter.

I often get put off by recipes with yeast in – because of the time it takes to wait for it to rise and knead it. But as part of my new “stop being so impulsive thing” I’ve decided to give them more of a chance. I’m glad I did because these are freaking awesome. I played around with the shapes quite a bit because you can and my flat My new favourite thing to bake will be yeasty bready sweet stuff – as yet undefined but I will keep you updated.

Other weekend activities include watching Philomena – it’s such a good film! If you haven’t heard of it yet, it stars good old Judi Dench and Steve Coogan. Dench plays the role of an older Irish woman who was forced into a home for ‘fallen women’ during the 1950s in Ireland when she was young and now Coogan, a journalist and ex politician, and Dench are on the hunt for the son that was taken from her during that time. Its beauts! Pretty sad but also amazing.

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Walnut Loaf Cake

Slight rant: I was woken this morning by builders hammering about 2 metres from my head at 7am on the dot. WHY is it the law that builders can start at 7 – surely 8 would be a much more civilized time! I am extremely disappointed as I was looking forward to going upstairs and ranting to  the builders about their illegally early starting times – as I was sure it was 8. But I checked online, and 7 it is. ERGH! SO TIRED.

Last week was ABSOLUTELY manic and all I wanted to do every spare moment I had was watch Game of thrones or SATC. I had a dinner party where I made some nice stuff, and I had planned to share that on the blog – but you know after a glass of wine I just couldn’t have taken any nice photos! I will have to recreate the stuff I made!

Rock Cakes with Jam

This is another nostalgic  (and lazy) bake. Back in school we used to have home economics lessons aka cooking and rock cakes were always a recurring theme. They were what our teacher considered easy, but many of us, at the age of 12, were simply at a loss. Too busy gossiping about what we would wear to the school disco and paying no attention to how long they had been in the oven, they came out like actual rocks. Grey and inpenetratably solid. MMmmmm.

Luckily, since the age of 12, I have perfected the art a bit more. I am not a fan of completely scruffy looking rock cakes, so this is my slightly neater … more “uptight” version. They go really well with some thick berry jam – in fact they go pretty well with anything sweet. Slap some nutella / honey / even fruit yoghurt on it and it will be a dream. And MAPLE SYRUP. Add some maple syrup to some jam and whack it on… you will literally hear a choir singing a melody on your tastebuds. LITERALLY (but not really).

Also – I have recently bought a jar of fluff. My friend Mark used to eat the stuff out of the jar with a spoon and I only bought it for some frosting… but I have to say, it gives me the heeby jeebies to think about spreading it on bread. Isn’t too sticky? Anyway, any advice on how to use fluff as a spread with the greatest effect would be much appreciated.

Soda Bread: a Steak and Tomato relish sandwich

Happy Tuesday…

I am in one of those foul moods where I hate everything… Haha, pleasant I know. Our flat hasn’t had hot water for days, I can’t be bothered to work and all I want to do is read about cooking, cook, eat and possibly watch an episode of Game of Thrones at a push. I am never normally like this.. but when I get in a mood like this I seeth and while I politely chat away to people below the surface I am screaming GO AWAY. Ever had one of those days?

I think it’s the hot water thing… I feel like a greasy stinky person. I probably am at this point.

Anyway, foul mood aside, I made soda bread for the first time yesterday and I must say, it’s bloody amazing! I love baking bread.. but I always get this feeling of fear at how long it will take for the yeast to rise etc. But with soda bread, you don’t even use yeast… which is the beauty of it all. I added honey and butter milk and this made it so lovely and moist! It takes about 10 minutes to make and 20 minutes to bake. Then I just fried some minute steaks with salt and gorgonzola on top, made some tomato relish (a la Trisha) and added some rocket. In fact I think it took about 40 minutes to make a delicious meal… all homemade – bar the cheese!

Brioche

My flatmate went to Australia this morning for almost a month, so I wanted to bake some brioche as a mini fairwell thang. Little did I know you have to leave it in the fridge over night. So no fairwell brioche, baked it today instead. It is pretty easy and very delicious… been snacking on it… and it is almost gone. Oops.

If you haven’t had brioche before, it’s French and a sweet kind of bread. But definitely NOT as sweet as a cake and I love the the fact that it has a consistancy that can be torn apart – like bread, rather than crumbled like cake. If you’re German it’s kind of similar to Milchbrot.

A slice of brioche is perfect with a cup of coffee… but some people add jam too. Here is le recipe.