Still Life, With Cats

It’s the most wonderful time of year again! Yup, Great British Baking Show is back on the air and my sister and I are doing our weekly watch and bake. We started doing this last year – we’d queue up the episode on Netflix and start it at the same time (two states apart), and then choose a recipe from what they were making to replicate at home.

The first episode of this season (last Friday) was Cake Week, and the options were mini Swiss Rolls, Malt Loaf, and gravity defying cake. Since we’ve made mini Swiss Rolls before, and neither of us wanted to have to fuss with construction just to make a cake, we picked the Malt Loaf.

Malt loaf is apparently a thing that used to be more popular in Britain about 50 years ago. It’s a quick bread (in that it has no yeast) and is flavored with malt syrup, and stuffed with dried fruit which are first soaked in black tea. In the competition, the contestants had 2 hours to make it.

Malt syrup isn’t a thing I normally have in my kitchen. Thankfully I was able to find a jar at the local food co-op. It’s a thick, sweet syrup, similar to honey or molasses, with a distinctive malty smell.

The recipe also called for treacle but I didn’t actually notice that until my sister mentioned it and by then I didn’t want to have to run back out to find it (it’s another ingredient that’s not very common in American kitchens). So after consulting with the internets, I decided to use molasses instead. I also used dates instead of the raisins called for in the recipe, because raisins are Not Food, and I stirred in half a cup of nuts at the last minute just to add some texture.

For a quick bread recipe, it wasn’t exactly quick. First you have to simmer all the sugars together, and steep the tea. Then you soak the fruit in the tea, and let those cool with a little bit of baking soda stirred in. Next you stir everything together, and pour it into a pan, where it bakes for nearly an hour, and then you pull it out and let it cool in the pan, after first glazing the top with more malt syrup.

I pulled my loaf out and had it glazed with five minutes to spare (of the two hour time limit). It actually took another couple hours to cool completely in the pan, and the glaze on top hardened.

Because I used dates, they mostly melted into the dough, so mine doesn’t look as pretty inside as the original one would have. Also, I only have 8 inch or 10 inch bread pans, and it called for a 9 inch, so my loaf is a little bit flatter than it should be. But otherwise it turned out great! And it’s actually pretty tasty. The recipe says to wrap it up and let it sit for a few days to get the maximum ‘squidgy’ texture, and that word definitely fits. It’s a bit chewy on the top. where the glaze soaked in, and the bread itself is dense (probably due to the massive amount of fruit inside). I would definitely make this again.

Khachapuri has been on my list of things to try ever since I stumbled across a picture of it many years ago on someone’s baking blog. It’s the national dish of Georgia (the country, not the state) and consists of a soft, enriched bread dough, formed into a little boat, filled with a lightly spiced cheese mixture, and topped with a soft cooked egg.

So this weekend, since it’s one of King Arthur Baking Company’s Extraordinary Bread collection, I decided to give it a try.

The dough comes together easily, the whole process only took a couple hours – most of which was spent waiting for the dough to rise. I only made half a recipe because I’ve been doing a lot of baking the past month and there’s only so much room in the freezer for all the excess.

They smelled amazing while baking, and came out of the oven looking gorgeous. I sent one home with my mom (along with some leftover hamentashen and potica), and then we split the other one and had it for dinner.

Oh my goodness, I wish I had made the full recipe. I was very hesitant about the egg on the top since I am not normally a fan of a soft cooked egg (I actually had to have Richard check the egg for me because since I never cook them that way, I haven’t a clue how to tell if it was ‘done’), but in this instance, it really works. The egg just basically combines with the creaminess of the filling and it all comes together in one absolutely glorious bite.

Obviously the Georgians know what they’re talking about when it comes to delicious breakfast pastries. I will definitely be making these again, and soon. Yum!

I had vague plans for other citrus recipes this month – there is a piece of ginger root sitting on the counter that was going to be turned into lemon ginger tea, for example, and I toyed briefly with a recipe for creme caramel – but for the last thing of Thingadailies, I looked in the refrigerator, found the container of orange juice and the tiny amount of zest that still remained from the massive pile of mandarins we started with, and decided to end the month with more scones.

Unlike the scones I made earlier in the month, these Orange Yogurt Scones do not include any lemon juice or lemon zest – just orange. There’s a little orange juice in the dough itself, but otherwise the bulk of the moisture is provided by yogurt. The main orange flavor comes a glaze of orange juice and powdered sugar that is drizzled on top after they come out of the oven.

The recipe itself is written to be used with a scone pan, which means the dough is a little too wet to free-form them like I’m used to. But a little additional flour kneaded in brought it together enough to form a loose ball.

They’re not the prettiest scones I’ve ever made (but then let’s face it, I rarely make pretty scones anyway), but they have a delicate crumb, and a lovely orange flavor, and they made an excellent way to end Thingadailies for another year.

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.

First of all, in case you were wondering (and I am sure you were), my idea about eating the lemon sour cream waffles with lemon curd was an excellent one. Yum. But that meant that we used up the very last of last year’s lemon curd, so naturally I needed to make some more. I used my usual recipe, which involves lots of lemons and eggs and sugar and, cooked over a hot water bath until thickened.

Once I had made the curd, of course I had to come up with something to use it for. Since it happens to be the first day of Purim, I decided why not give hamantaschen a try – or more specifically Lemon Curd Hamantaschen.

The dough is a fairly straightforward sugar cookie dough – albeit very soft. It’s rolled out and cut into circles, into which you add the filling, and then comes the part where clearly I missed some important steps in the instructions because the end product is supposed to resemble a three-cornered hat and…well…

This is an excellent representation of the entire batch – not a single one kept its perfect little three-cornered shape. But no matter – despite being grossly misshapen, at least they taste absolutely delicious!

Plus there’s lots of extra lemon curd, which is good because there’s still more waffles. Yum.

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.

It’s Wednesday! That must mean it’s time for waffles! Lemon Sour Cream Waffles, to be exact.

My free time has shrunk drastically this past week, since now we’ve got two separate sets of foster kittens to entertain, especially since one set gets bottle-fed first thing once I’m up each morning. But waffles go together quick, and I can do other things while each waffle cooks, like tackle that mystery spot in the corner of the kitchen, or fold the pile of kitten-related laundry that was taking over the dining room table.

Anyway. Back to the waffles. The only change I made to the recipe was to use yogurt instead of sour cream, but that’s only because the yogurt needed using up first.

As far as waffles go, these are pretty tasty, with a very mild lemon flavor. I think eating them with regular maple syrup was a mistake though – a dollop of lemon curd, to help bring out the lemon flavor, would be a much better option for a topping. Hmm, guess what tomorrow’s breakfast will be!

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.

This weekend, when I went rummaging in the bottom freezer drawer, looking for the container of kitten formula I always keep in there (because I picked up a quartet of bottle babies who needed to be fed), I discovered that there was still one container of lemon curd left from last year’s batch. So I pulled it out and put it into the fridge to thaw, and this evening I made Steamed Lemon Curd Puddings. Note – these aren’t puddings like those of us in the US think of when we hear the word ‘pudding’ – these are actually steamed cakes.

These are pretty straightforward to put together, as long as you remember to Google for how to replace self-rising flour with regular all-purpose flour. I only did half the recipe, so it was good I still had an extra egg white in the fridge from making the orange curd, since it’s otherwise hard to halve an egg.

We’ve got a countertop vegetable steamer which works perfectly for things like this. I assembled the puddings (half the recipe actually ended up making four of them), plopped the covered dishes into the steamer, filled it with water, set the timer for 30 minutes, and wandered off. Half an hour later, they were done.

We added an extra dollop of lemon curd on top. Absolutely delicious!

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.

Looking at the mountain of mandarin oranges and tangelos in the fridge at the beginning of the month, I figured for sure there’d be enough to make it to the end of February. But alas, there’s only a few left, and the Meyer Lemon shrub in the backyard is beckoning with its mountains of fruit, so it’s time to slip some lemon recipes into the mix.

And when one has most of a box of bran flakes sitting in the cupboard, and an abundance of lemons, one naturally thinks ‘cookies’, right? Or maybe that’s just me? Okay, moving on.

Today’s offering to the citrus gods are these Lemon Crunch Cookies. I stumbled across this recipe while trolling the internets for what the heck to do with the rest of the bran cereal, and after reading the description, I knew I had to make them.

To quote: “Sweet, tangy and refreshing, these crisp lemon cookies make a delicate summer dessert when paired with vanilla ice cream or lemon sorbet. A perfect, ladylike treat for a baby or wedding shower.”

Because everyone knows that the thing a gal wants more than anything at her special occasion is a cookie that’ll keep her regular. Ahem.

Anyway. I stirred up the cookies this morning, and let them cool throughout the day, figuring that the citrus flavor would need a little time to become more pronounced. After lunch, we gave them a try.

The lemon flavor is very subtle, but it’s there. It’s not a bad cookie, but certainly not one I’m going to be craving. But hey, it used up a couple lemons and made a dent in the box of bran flakes, so…yay?

Making a thing a day for Thingadailies.