The little oven that could (almost)

Of course, I tried out my electric mini-oven on Friday. I knocked up a batch of rye sourdough bread and put it in to bake. This was a tough test; it should be cooked at 425F for about 25 minutes, and my "real" oven struggles at that heat. One problem with the mini oven became apparent very quickly. To get high temperatures, you need to have both the top and bottom heating elements on; the bottom one alone is not enough. However, the top element is really the grill, so instead of getting consistent high heat, you actually get a glowing red grill -- causing the top of the food to burn before it's cooked. I experimented with baking parchment across the top of the bread, settled for a lower temperature and a longer cooking time, and to my surprise, it worked. The bread rose (or as much as rye bread ever does), it was cooked through, with a fluffy crumb and decent crust. Perhaps longer, slower cooking is the answer for some breads.

However, this is my dream oven.


It belongs to the takeout pizza place I've raved about previously -- somewhere we're very much going to miss when we leave. I cycled past on Thursday night and for once it was empty. Carpe diem! I dashed in, ordered a couple of pizzas, and sat back -- smug in the knowledge that (also for once), it wouldn't take 40 minutes to get two pizzas. And, given that I was the only customer, I risked ridicule and asked if I could take a picture. The two members of staff looked slightly bemused, but agreed. Isn't it lovely?

More reasons to be cheerful

The oven debacle means that I am determined to use up my sourdough starter in non-bread-related recipes. I dug out a sourdough pancake recipe and whipped up a batch. This is good stuff. Even straight from the fridge, the sourdough starter frothed up to provide fluffy, airy, tangy pancakes -- excellent laden with maple syrup. I ate six of the beasts to assuage both my hunger and my depression.



I have also put The Fratellis album on, which is also a good mood-lifter. I'm particularly pleased that listening to it has allowed me to identify the song played in the most recent Apple iTunes ad; it was bugging me -- another reason to hate Apple!

Houston, we have a problem

I've made pastry cases many times, and I've never seen one blow up like the boil in How To Get Ahead In Advertising.



Let's take a closer look.


The worst of it is that this is destined to be a quiche. So I can't just create a bloody great hole in the middle and hope that it deflates; if I do that, all the egg mixture will leak out of the bottom and burn onto the dish. But if I leave it as is, the pastry will set in its mountainous form, and the egg mixture will merely pool around the bottom of it, moat-like.

Decisions, decisions . . .

Zesty lemon bars

After two weeks of room service, conference carbs, and some admittedly excellent restaurant meals, it's good to get back to home cooking. Well, sort of. My cooking muscle has somewhat atrophied during our time away, resulting in Thai take-out the night we got back, faux spag bol the following evening, and me begging PJ to make his lovely veggie stew yesterday. Given that he is incapable of cooking less than a vat of this wonderful stuff, we have leftovers for dinner this evening -- to be eaten with mini roast potatoes and roast broccoli while watching Top Gear. Perfect.

However, I need to get back into the kitchen, and what better way than to try out a new piece of equipment. Yes, we might be moving soon and yes, that means that every new purchase comes with an additional 50 euro moving cost, but I couldn't resist this when I visited mecca -- Crate & Barrel.



For the uninitiated -- i.e., English and Dutch -- among you, this is a pastry blender. I've read about this implement for years in my US baking books but have never known what one looked like. So when I saw this on offer for 9 bucks, I knew I had to have it, along with a very cute lemon juicer. What I needed next was a recipe that would allow me to use both, preferably for something cookie-like. Consulting my trusty array of US cookbooks, I came across a recipe for Zesty Lemon Bars in the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook. Not only did they need lots of lemon juice, but they also required you to cut butter into flour and icing sugar to make the crust. Bingo!

This is a pretty nifty tool; it made short work of the butter, and I won't be picking up bits of pastry from under my fingernails for the next few days. I think we have a winner.



And this is how it all turned out: not quite lemony enough for my tastes, despite doubling the amount of lemon juice and zest in the recipe, but then I do like things to be sour to the point of tear-inducing. However, they are a very definite burst of sunshine on a grey day and the crust is fantastic.

Sunshine (bread) on a rainy day

I tried. I really did. PJ headed off to the gathering of the geeks in Vegas on Thursday and I was determined not to bake while he was away. After all, I have a tonne (metric) of Christmas chocolate to get through, as well as a large batch of frozen strawberry daiquari's -- both calorific enough to keep me alive for several months. However. It was a miserable afternoon yesterday and I was idly surfing and came across a recipe for Cornish saffron cake and given that I have a couple of tubs of saffron that Tesco's sold off unbelievably cheaply at one point last year, I decided to have a go. As usual, there was an element of delayed gratification involved: I had to soak the saffron in boiling water over night before making the yeasty cake mix. It's amazing stuff, saffron. A small pinch of stamens and you get an incredibly deep orange yellow coloring along with an odd flavor. It's rather musty, savory, and yet very moreish. So despite not getting the rise from the dough that I'd expected, I'm pretty happy with the results; just look how colorful it is!



It's just a shame that I haven't got anyone to share it with. Sniff.

A chocolate-flavored coronary on a plate

Along with the overly complicated devilled quail eggs and stuffed courgettes, I made chocolate cake -- one of those incredibly rich cakes that has your life flashing before your eyes with every bite. This one came from Gordon Ramsay's Sunday Lunch cookbook and involved 250 grams each of dark chocolate, butter, and chestnuts, 4 eggs, sugar, and cream. It tasted fantastic -- fudgy, yet mousse-like -- and has kept beautifully. Not that there's much left: I had two slices with whipped cream on New Year's Eve, my student years having given me a huge capacity for rich cake. And then I went swimming this morning and felt that I could just about face another piece with a cup of tea and the remainder of Norwegian Wood this evening. What next? To read, I mean, not to eat. Suggestions, please.

Pane carasau

I have a lot of kitchen equipment. Maybe too much. After all, who really needs an ice-cream maker, popcorn maker, pasta machine, food processor, mini food processor, blender, mini deep-fat fryer, ravioli accessory, voodoo man knife stand, two teapots, two stove-top coffee machines, a kettle, and many, many pots and pans? And that's not counting the stuff we shipped back a couple of months ago. Whenever we look at houses for sale, the size of the kitchen is of near-primary importance -- anything less than 12'x10' ain't going to cut it.

So, I'm always delighted when I find a recipe that allows me to make extra use of a piece of equipment that I already possess. I spent last week looking through my new World Breads book and came across pane carasau, also known as carta di musica. This simple recipe requires you to roll out the little balls of dough incredibly thinly, never my favorite task -- but in a lightbulb moment, I figured I could use my pasta machine to do it for me. I've seen the pizza makers at our excellent local do something similar, albeit with a much larger machine. Anyway, I gave it a go and bingo! Each ball took less than a minute to roll out to near transparency and then only a few more minutes to cook in the oven. Piles of crispy, rosemary and sea salt crackers for only a few minutes work. Hmm, I wonder if could use the pasta machine for rolling out pastry? That would mean I could bin the rolling pin, freeing up some valuable cupboard space...