Musings on the various merits of Felis catus

Every day I get home from work to find my cats lounging either on blanket box next to the radiator in the lounge, or on our bed. Every day I mentally curse them as I cuddle them - I curse them for having the luck of being born a cat!  There is an ability which is inbuilt into the cat genetic code which has allowed them to perfect the art of pure, unadulterated, sloth.  The seven deadly sins clearly do not apply to cats.

Of course, when challenged about what their day has been like, our cats simply raise their head, yawn and then fix us with a penetrating stare as if to say "Cats were worshipped in Egypt once, we have not forgotten". Simply said, I am completely, 100% jealous of my cats. I also absolutely, unconditionally 100% love them. My two cats are called Binks (aka Binksy-pie, Stinkity-Binkity and Binkity-puss) and Yoda (aka Yodi, Yodipuss and Tiger).  They are sisters but couldn't be more different in both looks and personality.

Binksy (being camera shy) and Yodi (doing her best 'Supercat')
lounging on the blanket box & enjoying the hot radiator!

Binksy is black and white, of a 'curvaceous' build (a bit like her mammy!) and has the most independent spirit - she doesn't like to be picked up because she likes to always be in control and she very much chooses when we are to give her cuddles.  She is only really vocal when she is telling us off (after all its her house and we merely live there to serve her...) or occasionally if she wants something and has given up on trying to bend us to her will simply by starting at us! Binksy will always be the first to come to greet new people and establish whether they are to be accepted. Her brave, independent, cantankerous nature is what I love most about her.

Yodi is my beautiful tabby cat (with a couple of big tortoiseshell splodges) and is a complete cuddle-bunny. She is my shadow when I'm in the house, following me all over (even to the bathroom) and extremely affectionate.  She is far more chatty than Binksy and we have long conversations between us, especially on a morning when I'm trying to get ready for work and she's demanding her breakfast! She is a quiet, gentle soul and it takes her a long time to trust people - in fact when I first started seeing Mr Ellie, I didn't believe she existed as I didn't see her until I'd been to the house about 4 or 5 times! Now though, she and I are extremely close and she loves nothing more than being picked up and cuddled.

Like all sisters, most of the time they get on just fine but they do have their little spats every now and then. They both have their favourite toys (a green mouse for Binksy and a white mouse and a catnip fish for Yodi). Yodi is the more generous of the two and brings the white mouse to us every night (which is always fun to stand on in the middle of the night!). Both of them are very empathic and know exactly when I need a cuddle, especially if I'm feeling poorly.

So this blog is dedicated to my beautiful puss-cats, who have changed my life for the better x

Miss Ellie xxx

I never thought I'd say that cake could be too sweet

After my last post where I declared my desire to go adventuring through the world of American and French patisseries, I got to thinking that I would bake something American this weekend. I've been taping (yes I know we don't use VHS any more but I'm old-fashioned and still refer to my Sky+-ing as taping...) James Martin's United Cakes of America on Good Food Channel and so I took a look through some of his recipes from the series - this is where I came across Apple Crumble Cake.

Now I am a big fan of crumble cakes - I mean, what's not to love:
Cake - check
Crumble - check
Fruit - check (I mean after all, this makes the cake one of your five-a-day doesn't it?!)
Frankly, slap a bit of custard with it and I'm more than a happy bunny.

I won't copy the recipe here - you can look it up here: http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/654265. I will however, offer my thoughts on improvements to said cake!

Essentially you make a spiced sponge cake with chopped apple and nuts through the batter then top this with a basic crumble mix and more apple pieces before baking. Once baked and cooled, you slice and fill with whipped cream and then top with a fudge topping. Well, in the true spirit of all my baking, I didn't have any pecans so used walnuts and almonds instead and I didn't have enough cream so made a cinnamon buttercream for the filling. Other than that, I followed the recipe to the letter!! So how did it turn out you ask? Well it is a nice cake and I do love the crumble texture with the soft cake. Its quite a moist cake so fairly dense in texture but the apple and nuts help to break that up a bit.

Now for my suggestions (listen up James Martin!):
1. This is an APPLE cake, yet the apple-i-ness is somewhat underwhelming.  I'd say it needs more apple in the mix and/or the addition of a layer of apple between the cake and the crumble (I'm going to try it with uncooked apple slices (like a tarte tatin) or stewed apple).
2. Waaaaaay too much sugar - never thought I would say this! - its very American in that sense and for us Brits, I think even the sweetest tooth would struggle a bit.  I'd definitely cut back on the sugar, especially in the crumble topping, which of course is topped with fudge.  I do think that it didn't help that I had buttercream instead of whipped cream in the middle - this brings me to point 3...
3. This is an apple crumble cake - what goes best with crumble??? Of course - custard! So I would make a crème légère (oh yeah, get me knowing the posh French words eh? ok so I may have made use of Wikipedia...).  So what is one of those leggy cream things you ask - well its a creme patissiere mixed with whipped cream.  I figure that this will bring the custard flavour but cut the sweetness and make it a little lighter due to the cream.
4. Controversially, Mr Ellie suggested scrapping the fudge topping altogether - I'm of two minds on this one so I'm gonna put this one down to a personal preference vote!

One thing is for sure - the engineers that I work with haven't complained at all about the cake and demolished it within about half an hour!

Miss E xxx

I dream of patisserie

I am not the globe-trotting type, I don't have any desire to go backpacking across Asia (frankly they have some big ol spiders there and I have no plans on meeting any of them!).  However, I do long to go on a trip around France and around the US to sample as many cakes as possible.  French patisserie has to be the epitome of finesse when it comes to sugary creations and Americans mix their multicultural influences with the fact that they just can't help but push the boundaries.  I aspire to create American style cakes with the flair of a fine French gateaux.  This is not to say that I don't respect our good ol British traditions - I am more fond of lardy cake than is probably healthy for my heart and I came over all flustered when I came across bread pudding in a market in Oxford recently (we don't get either of these delights up here in the North-East).

I love cake.  I'm not ashamed to admit this. But more than just loving eating cake, I love to make cake - the process of creaming the butter and sugar, the flour scattered across the kitchen, the alchemy of turning a few basic ingredients into something so incredible that is so much more than the sum of its constituent parts.  I especially love the moment when you first bite into a cake and taste all the flavours for the first time and feel the textures of the cakes from the fluffy base to the creamy topping and the crunch of nuts or chewiness of fruit.  It is for this that I want to travel the patisseries of France and America - to find more of those moments and explore new tastes and textures.  It is the stuff of dreams.

For now, I shall continue my exploration of  cakes through the wonders of the t'interweb and by sampling cakes on my travels through our great and glorious Blighty, remaining ever thankful that I have a very understanding partner who puts up with the Sky+ planner being full of baking programmes and having to double stack his dvds to make space for my cookery books.

Miss E xxx

Is it unhealthy to obsess about BBQ sauce?

I've always been partial to a drop of the old BBQ sauce - its sweet, smoky, spicy, sticky and any number of other delicious 's' words.  I've never found a recipe that I really liked though...until now! The Hairy Bikers (of whom I am also rather partial) provided the basic recipe but then I've adapted it and now have a mighty fine sauce.

Now according to the Hairy Bikers, this recipe makes enough for 2 kg of ribs.  I find that I use all the spice rub but only half the sauce. It keeps beautifully in a sterilised jar in the cupboard and makes a great dip or sauce for another BBQ dish.

First off, make your spice rub:
25 g light soft brown sugar
2 tbspns Old Bay seasoning (in the UK you can get this from our friends at Amazon, otherwise use paprika)
1 tbspn salt
2 tsp cajun seasoning (I use a mix that I buy from a deli but use any that you like.  Alternatively, use 2 tsp cayenne pepper)
2 tsp mustard powder
2 tsp mexican oregano (in the UK you can get this from delis that sell the 'Cool Chile Co' products. Alternatively use regular dried oregano)

So if you're making ribs - you mix this spice rub together, reserve 3 tbspns and then use the rest to marinate the ribs.  For the sauce, you take the reserved spice rub and put it in a pan with:
200 ml ketchup
100 ml water
75 ml red wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)
150 g light soft brown sugar
3 tbspn runny honey
2 tbspn Worcestershire sauce
3 garlic cloves - I just lightly bash them and throw them in to infuse, so I can fish them out later without needing to strain the sauce.  If you really love your garlic then you could crush it and leave it in
This lot needs to get warmed through until the sugar has melted and then bring to a simmer for around 5 minutes to get it slightly thickened.

You can then brush this over ribs, chicken pieces, sausages, prawns or even steaks and grill to get them really sticky and sweet. You probably want to cook or at least par-cook things like the ribs and chicken first because otherwise the glaze will burn before the meat is cooked.

So go on, make some BBQ sauce - lots of ingredients but so quick to put together and so delicious and versatile!

Miss E xxx

I didn't have enough of X so I used Y

I tried a new recipe out the other night - well I say I 'tried it out', what I actually did was: choose the recipe, buy half the ingredients and then bake something that pretty much resembles the original but isn't quite what it was meant  to be...

It's called 'Fruity Cardamon Flapjack Shortcake Tart' - I know, world's longest name right?! Basically imagine a shortbread and a flapjack had a little patisserie baby - got that image in your head? Cool.

So the original recipe requires:
115 g butter, melted and mixed with 1 tsp vanilla essence (so far, so good - I had all of that)
150 g dates and 50 g dried apricots, all finely chopped and cooked with the zest of an orange and 100 ml orange juice (this is where things started to go wrong as I didn't have an orange, but did have some rather wrinkly looking tangerines left over from Christmas - its amazing how long those bad boys last!).  You cook this for about a minute just to get the fruit plumped up.
Then you mix 4 oz wholemeal flour (well all I had was white flour) with 4 oz of oats (at this point I discovered I only had 3 oz of oats left, so topped up with ground almonds) and 3.5 oz of light brown sugar (I had 2 oz so topped it up with light muscovado sugar), 40 g of sunflower seeds, 40 g pumpkin seeds (I forgot to buy pumpkin seeds so used more sunflower seeds), 1/2tsp cinnamon and 1/2tsp cardamon - you guessed it, I didn't have cardamon either so in went a bit more cinnamon!  I apologise for suddenly switching to imperial measurements - even though I know you're not supposed to mix metric and imperial measurements, I always do as I'm terribly old fashioned and insist on weighing flour, sugar and butter in ounces - its the product of being a child of the 80's and learning the metric system but having a mother and granny who still used imperial!

Anyway, so you mix the butter in with the dry ingredients and make a fairly sticky shortbread-flapjack mix.

Half of this mix gets pressed into a 7", lined tart tin.  The fruity concoction goes on next and then the rest of the shortbread-flapjack mix. This gets baked for about 30-35 minutes until slightly golden.   You need to leave it to cool before cutting it into pieces. I cut this into 8 pieces and 1/8th is quite filling because of all the oats and seeds.

So here's the final baked version (minus a small bit that I cut out to taste to see if it was any good!)

I have to say, it really is lovely - it makes a great breakfast/brunch/elevenses snack.

Enjoy!
Miss Ellie xxx

Time for an Overhaul

I've been thinking about changing a few things about the look of this blog so I've had a bit of a play around with the background etc. I hope you like it!

I made myself a promise that this year there would be no New Years Resolutions and then I found myself saying "this year I will...", so I thought I would stop fighting it and accept that these are essentially New Years Resolutions.  Top of these is to put more effort into getting Miss Ellie Creations up and running as a full-blown business.  This Christmas, I took orders for Christmas cakes and they were really successful.  Its made me hungry (pardon the pun!) for more - more baking, more selling and more working for myself.

So, watch this space - I'm going to be working really hard over the next few months to get things sorted out and of course my progress will be documented on here for the world to see!

Onwards and upwards!
Miss E xxx