Songs, skirts and scones

Paul has been determined to bake a typical cake from the south of the Netherlands, a vlaai, for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday he proclaimed he was going to bake one on Saturday. What?! Baking on MY baking Saturday?! Mm, humpf. Why not tomorrow (i.e. today)? This afternoon it turns out there are no vlaai filling ingredients and Paul is sick, so it’s my turn!

When I looked up the recipe and saw ‘knead’ and ‘let rise’, trepidation took over. But, if you don’t try, you’ll never know. And if you don’t use the dough kneading only function on your breadmachine, if you’re known to ruin any knead & rise project, you’ld be very silly indeed. So, without delay, the ingredients were chucked into the breadmachine, and patiently awaiting the biepbiepbiep, I trusted that this baking project would turn out all right.

Biepbiepbiep. “Take the dought and roll out”. Hum. This was more a case of “pour the dough into the tin” kind of dough. Nonetheless, it looked as is it would be a nice vlaai dough, so I poured *ahum* the dough into the tin and put it on the radiator to give it a second rise. That went on like a house on fire (not sure if that is the right phrase in this situation, but you catch my drift, I hope.) In the meantime I had to go out and buy some ingredients for the creme patisserie, because, surprise surprise, we are out of eggs and flour! The cream was easy and satisfying to make, especially the part where the mixture has to be boiled to a very thick vla (sort of custard). Now I sit here in a quiet dining room, while the vla cools, the base is in the oven. The men are both asleep, the butterfly and the tiger are watching television (the latter by the way decided, because I was busy with the cake, she could do both their facepainting and succeeded extremely well at it!)

Ah, the bell has rung. …

If one starts a blog, focussing on the fact that one can bake, provided one follows a recipe, what is the last thing you should do? Bake while not strictly following a recipe. Aaaaaaaaargh, the base looks horrendous! I am very reluctant to use it… Bother.

Perhaps I should just put the cream in the fridge, as well as the peaches and let Paul have a try at the base tomorrow. Or perhaps I should try it again….

The second song the junior singers will sing is the lively Going the Road to Clady. Again a song I learned of Rosie Stewart and heard sung by local singer Pat Prunty a few times. Singer Eithne Ni Uallachain sang it on the La Lugh album as well. It is a lovely song to sing at a session, as people can sing along with the chorus (and even hook arms if they dare!). Go on, click and have a sing aong!

Going the Road to Clady

I am a country servant serving in Killane
In a place they call New Hamilton, a grand old-fashioned town;
‘Twas early in the morning at the hour of three
When I set off for Clady, the old grey mare and me.

In the corner of the street, a bus I chanced to pass
And in the corner of the bus I spied a country lass.
Says I, “My pretty fair maid, come along with me.
I’m going the road to Clady, the old grey mare and me.”

CHORUS:
Cheeks as red as roses, eyes a bonny blue,
Dancing, dancing she pierced me through and through;
She fairly won my fancy, and stole away my heart,
Jogging along to Clady on the sour milk cart.

I asked her up beside me and on the cart she sat.
I slipped an arm around her waist and soon began to chat.
The birds in the bushes sweetly they did sing.
The blackbirds and the thrushes now they made the forest ring.

CHORUS

Well you’ve heard of lords and ladies making love in shady bowers,
And how they woo awhile among the roses and the flowers;
I’ll never forget that morning, when Cupid shot his dart
Jogging along to Clady on the sour milk cart.

CHORUS

The Junior singers at the Armagh Pipers Cub will be performing two songs at the annual concert in March: Willie Taylor and  Going the Road to Clady. The first song I first heard on a Cran cd, and since I have heard many different versions. I was taught a very different version by Rosie Stewart, but the Cran version, similarly sung by Deirdre Scanlan, is the one that sticks in my mind! It is a song about a woman who follows her lover to sea, only to find she is jilted by him. She takes the right into her own hands and kills both her lover and his bride. Her reward is becoming commander over a big ship…

Here is my, very late night, version of Willie Taylor…

Willie Taylor
Willy Taylor and his youthful lover
Full of mirth and loyalty
They were going to the church to be married
He was pressed and sent to sea

Chorus:
Dalli dilly dumdilly dumdumdum
Dali dilly dumdilly dumdum dey

She dressed herself up like a sailor
On her breast she wore a star
Her beautiful fingers long and slender
She gave them all a smear of tar

On this ship there being a skirmish
She being one amongst the rest
A silver button flew off her jacket
There appeared her snow white breast

Says the captain to this fair maid
“What misfortune have we here?”
“I’m in search of my true lover
Whom you pressed on the other year”

“If you’re in search of your true lover
Come tell to me his name”
“Willie Taylor they do call him
But Fitzgerald is his name”

“Let you get up tomorrow morning
Early as the break of day
There you’ll spy your Willie Taylor
Walking along with his lady gay”

She got up the very next morning
Early as the break of day
There she spied her Willie Taylor
Walking along with his lady gay

She drew out a brace of pistols
That she had at her command
There she shot her Willie Taylor
With his bride at his right hand

When the captain came to hear
of the deed that she had done
He made her a ship’s commander
Over a vessel of the Isle of Man.

Learned from recordings by Deirde Scanlan and Cran

Last night I tried out different patterns for the stacks in Kathrijn’s quilt and I am as yet undecided. I put out as many rows as the table could take and moved and moved and moved pieces around. I was very happy having a camera at hand: it makes it a lot clearer how the colours work together. Both Paul and Kathrijn liked the last one the best, so perhaps that’s the decision made already! But I may let it simmer a little (as I don’t really like it), I like the first and the second one a lot better. I need to decide on the borders and the columns in the middle as well, one colour.

After that miserable baking attempt yesterday (I actually threw the last bit away this morning), it was time for revenge, and how! As I am going to be baking something for my colleagues to take to work tomorrow, I need to find something that can be kept for a few days. This means no muffins, no cake unless really soggy. By pure coincidence (opened Rachel Allen’s Bake on just the right page) I came across a date bar recipe ‘can be kept fresh in an air tight container for up to a week’. Thank you! Small problem: no dates. What, no dates, what sort of a household do I run?! Hm, the picture of the bars made it look like they were made with prunes, so, *rummage, rummage* tada: prunes. How much do I need? 200 grams. Scales: 199 grams. That’ll do, that’ll do.

So, in Sunday baking tenue I made a huge lazy version prune bar.

****

• 200 grams dried prunes
• 250 ml water
• 175 plain flour
• 0.5 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 100 grams porridge oats
• 175 grams soft brown sugar
• 175 grams butter

When wifts of baking started emerging from the oven, we all started to feel a bit sad. When a perfect crumbly looking cake appeared from the oven, we felt even sadder. This had to be cooled, tinned and shipped to the Observatory tomorrow without ANY bits missing. Doubt starting creeping in: do I make another one? Do I not and savour the fact the we did not eat anything baked this weekend (i.e. did not pile on the calories?)? Mmmm.

After lunch Paul went to Peatlands Park with the girls to feed the ducks, I went to get the groceries with Tjabering. Pomtiedom, cauliflower, sausages, prunes, butter, milk. Euh, what? Prunes, yes, prunes, for ah… breakfast. *Snigger.* I decided b.t.w. to try and use Stork butter for a change: a lot cheaper and a reputation to be very good for baking. Although it is slightly salted, most recipes call for a sniff of salt anyway, so I am hoping the cake doesn’t taste too salty.

The second cake was put together even quicker, Olympic Games in the background, Tjabering in bed. And when the clan returned home it was time for the taste test. Oh. my. heavens. O. my. heavens. Some revenge this is, it is sooooo tasty!! I couldn’t stop saying ‘mmmm, mmMMM, MMMMM’. And, thank goodness, I could hear muffled ‘mmm’s coming from the wee ones, and a little later from the big one as well. This is definitely a keeper. I can imagine changes the prunes for any dried fruit: apricots, apples, raisins. Yum yum yum.

Experiments can be a success or a failure. My Saturday baking experiment unfortunately falls in the latter category… The icing was still sloppy after two hours in the fridge and extremely sweet (no surprise, considering the amount of icing sugar that went in!). The pastry was all right, as were the pears that has become syrupy, but all together, nah… The girls came back with their bowls (yes, bowls, that should confirm to you just how sloppy the icing was) saying they didn’t like it… Paul ate his (and their) portions, but wasn’t impressed either. Boehoe! Maybe I should ask a pastry course for my birthday *angelic smile*.

Tomorrow I’ll have a second change. Colleagues from the Observatory have help colleagues from the library and wouldn’t mind being ‘paid’ in sticky buns. When asked what sticky buns are exactly, they said: ‘anything will do, they do not even have to be sticky!’

Last night, while watching Mock the week, Never mind the buzzcocks and the Olympics, I finished cutting the pieces for Kathrijn’s quilt!! Although it was getting very late, I couldn’t resist already trying out some combinations. The paper bag method (chuck all the pieces in a bag and pick them out one by one, at random, without looking, resulted in a, well, random stack of colours and sizes, which didn’t really appeal to me. The ‘I’ll just put them all in colour order’ order made me purr. I love putting things in order of colour! I may move pink/purple and the blues around, but I think this will look beautiful, especially since the pieces are not of equal height (although it doesn’t look that way in the photograph).

There are six different heights, and per height there are at least four colours. Every colour has ten pieces. I may make ten small stacks and line them up horizontally, rather than vertically. I may also vary the colours in each stack: in every new stack moving the first pieces to the end for example. Tonight I will probably lay everything out, take pictures of the various colour patterns and make a decision (or hold a survey *grin*).

It’s that lovely day of the week again: a bit of a lie in, pondering on what to bake today. As we need to keep a bit of an eye on our expenses the next few months (new car, trip abroad and all that) , I thought it better not spend a tenner on cake ingredients each weekend, ahum. So, today it has to be a cake made with only what we have in the house. After last week’s cheesecakes, burp, we both were partial to something more fresh. Paul had this idea of an old fashioned ‘vlaai’ base, with creme patisserie and fresh fruit, topped with a transparent glace.

After a look in the books, this was not an easy option (I am in the mood for easy but impressive today! yep…). As we do have cream fraiche, thick cream and a number of really ripe pears, but only a little butter, my suggestion was to pull together various recipes and make a chocolate, creme patisserie and pear cake. O, how those eyes lit up!

When I finally pushed the tin with pastry dough into the oven, I was reminded of something I said to Paul to other day. My colleague C. had entered us in a competition to win a seafood cooking workshop. We didn’t win, but received some information about the cookery school. “I wouldn’t mind a cookery course in pastry making”. Because, although my cakes usually turn out fine, making my own own pastry is always a bit of a strain. This morning it was no different. Making a chocolate pastry seemed easy enough:

• Mix 140 grams of plain flour, 30 grams of cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt with 15 grams of caster sugar in food processor;
• Cut 85 grams of butter in small lumps and mix until it resembles bread crumbs;
• Add one egg yolk and two tablespoons of cold water and mix until it is a nice lumpy mixture. Then mix with your fingers until it is a smooth paste.

I can do that. No problem. But then.

• Turn out onto worksurface and roll to about 2 mm thick and the size of a 20cm tin.

Why is it that, regardless whether it is pastry dough exactly like the recipe tells me to make, or with a little bit more moisture, the dough breaks on me whenever I roll it out?! I must have rolled it four times trying to make the surface 1. even, 2. without holes, 3. large enough to fit both the bottom and the sides of the tin. Eventually I made the best of the situation: I rolled out the dough right on top of the tin base, cutting of and pasting on the excess dough as I went along. Yes, you read it correctly, no sides to this tart! After 15 minutes in an 190C oven it seems cooked. I am just glad I will have to put a filling on the top, so you can’t see the mine field…

Then step number two, the filling. That couldn’t go wrong, could it. I have creme fraiche and a little thick cream to make a nice thick icing to go on top of the pastry, and some juicy pears to go on top of that. Now, I have made cream cheese icing a lot of times and wasn’t expecting creme fraiche icing (if such a thing actually exists…) to be much different. I mixed equal amounts of the creme mixture and icing sugar and two drops of vanilla icing. And mixed. Waiting patiently. Waiting patiently for the icing to become nice and thick. Mm. I added another few spoonfulls of icing sugar. Uche uche. I shouldn’t have my frustation effect my wrist action. Even Tjabering, who was standing a few meters away, waved with his little hand. The icing then slowly but surely turned nice and thick. I thought. When I turned it onto the pastry, it was still very fluid, no ‘reluctant dropping consistency’ here.

Anyway, I left the tin in the fridge for an hour, hoping for the best, did some shopping with the wee man and, on returning home, peeled, cored and sliced four pears. Very carefully the slices balanced on top of the icing, trying very hard not to sink in. I quickly covered the whole cake with foil and put it back in the fridge. I don’t want to know!

I now wait for tea time and anticipate the unveiling of pudding like substance. Better get a large container out with a high rim!!! Unveiling, and not least importantly taste test in the next post.

After a drop a of blood, some sweat, and nearly some tears, I have finished Scottie Dog. My colleague will return to work from his paternity leave and tomorrow is presents time. After having stuffed Scottie away a few times (it wasn’t as easy to sew the sides on as I thought) and after ripping the seams of the sides panels three times, I finally got him stitched up and standing on his own two feet! I think he is rather cute. Not mother’s finest, if you’ll pardon the pun, but cute nonetheless!

Tomorrow I’ll be treating my colleagues at the library to a handpicked cheesecake: an after eight cheesecake. A few times now I have baked something to take to work and somehow my two lovely colleagues, C. and L. were never there to enjoy it! As Lent is coming up next week (for those of you who are blissfully unaware of what Lent entails (as was I until I started working at the library): for six weeks you practice self-denial. This could be to not eat particular foods, drink alcohol,  smoke cigarettes, watch tv etc.), I thought I would have to bake something for the girls to send them of well nourished! We always have a tin (or two) of biscuits, cake or scones at hand for any-time cravings, which from next week on, during the whole length of Lent will be sadly empty. I will have to keep my own stash in my drawer and secretly nibble away. Sssssht!

I came up with this plan, when I had just received the cheesecake book. I thought “I let L. pick a cheesecake to be brought in next week’. You would think that with about 50 recipes in the book, she would have no trouble to pick one. But no, she had tasted an after eight cheesecake a while ago and wouldn’t mind at all to have it again! None of my baking books contains anything remotely after eightish, so I had to online to find a recipe. I was happy to find out I can be a cheat this Sunday: it’s a non-bake cheesecake!

Non-bake cheesecakes are so quick and easy to make. I timed myself making the cake this afternoon: started at 13.27, finished at 13.47! Of course it will have to stand in the fridge for at least an hour to set, but it is a great option for a tasty home made cake, when you don’t have a lot of time to make one. When I started this cake straight after lunch, there wasn’t any interest until the after dinner mints started melted and gave off this wonderful scent. Then I had three wee ones standing next to me, hopping from one leg to the other! When the cream cheese and melted mints were mixed, there was no shortage of hands trying to get one of the whisks to lick clean. One had to make do with a fork dipped into the mixture, but that didn’t spoil the fun. After a good 5 minutes of blissful silence, all resembled their little brother, so you can imagine the giggling while I was trying to hunt all of them down with a wet cloth, before they would start their acrobatics again!

I will give you the basic recipe for the non-bake cheesecake, to which you can add all sorts of flavourings after your own tastes.

Non-Bake Cheesecake

• 150 grams digestive biscuits
• 50 grams butter
• 200 grams cream cheese
• 3 dl whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon icing sugar

Crush the digestive to small crumbs. Met the butter and mix with the biscuits. Press the mixture into a lined tin and set aside.

Whip the cream with the icing sugar until nice and stiff (don’t over whip, you don’t want a butter cake!).

Soften the cream cheese and fold into the cream. Spread on top of the biscuit mixture and put in the fridge to set.

After-eight cheesecake: melt 200 grams of after eight mints (any brand will do) au bain marie. Mix well into the cream cheese.

Lemon cheesecake: mix the rind of one lemon into the cream cheese, as well as lemon curd to your own taste.

Strawberry cheesecake: mix a good quality strawberry jam to your own taste into the cream cheese, or some fresh strawberry mashed up. Add sugar to taste.

Sort of Schwarzwalder cheesecake: use dark chocolate digestives for the base. Mix a good quality Morello cherry jam into the cream cheese. Use chocolate sprinkles to decorate.

Etc, etc, etc.

Sorry, couldn’t resist .

Whatever takes your fancy, you should be able to add, as long as it is not to wet, because that will prevent the cake from setting. This also means you need to buy relatively few and cheap ingredients to make a nice cake, as you could use all sorts of extra ingredients you already have in the fridge/cupboard.