675. Challah

As part of my latest quest to bake more bread, I tried out challah using the Mark Bittman recipe from How to Cook Everything. It was an easy bread to make as it didn’t involve a lot of kneading, and it had the added fun of braiding the dough. I found that by itself I didn’t love it, it was heavy and eggy and just not all that great. It totally came into it’s own when I made French toast with it though. It soaked up so much liquid and just turned into this delicious sweet, crunchy, cakey goodness. I had mine with maple syrup, hot sauce and bacon - Pie thought this was an insane combination; I thought it was genius.

675 down, 1121 to go

658. Lemon Meringue Pie

For New Year’s this year we kept it pretty quiet and just had a couple of friends over for dinner (and Xbox Kinect competitions). We made deep-fried brie for the starter, curries for the main, and this selection of little mini tarts for the dessert. I was tight on time so I cheated ever so slightly and bought pre-made tart cases, and then just made the fillings myself. I went with raspberry jam and clotted cream, chocolate ganache, and lemon meringue. I made my own lemon curd and then whipped up some meringue. I cannot wait until I can finally get my Kitchen Aid mixer because meringue will suddenly go from being the bane of my baking life to something which is just easy and involves me pressing one switch.

658 down, 1138 to go

626. Beer Bread

I’ve been trying to bake more bread lately as it’s something that I really haven’t tried enough. I’d heard that beer bread was really easy so I thought it would be a good place to start. Easy is an understatement; this was really beyond simple. You literally mix flour, a little sugar, and beer, put it in a tin and bake it. That’s it. No kneading, no resting, no nothing. It turns out as a dense, cakey sort of bread, and I topped mine with some cheddar and dried wild garlic which countered the hint of sweetness in the bread perfectly. I served mine with sweet potato and sausage soup, and it would be a lovely accompaniment for all kinds of soups and stews.

626 down, 1170 to go

619. Carrot Cake

As much as I bake I’d never made a carrot cake before. However I decided to make a cake for my friend’s birthday and we found out that carrot cake was her favourite so I gave it a try. I used a recipe I found online for the cake, and topped it with loads of cream cheese icing and some fondant carrots that Pie and I made. The cake turned out much better than I expected and was moist and delicious, and even Pie liked it (usually carrot cake is his second least favourite cake).

619 down, 1177 to go

453. Fondant

If you know me at all by now, you may have realised that I like to bake things. Normally though I never use fondant, because buttercream is delicious, and fondant really does not taste that good. It is of course fantastic for decorating though. My flatmates were having a little party where we played a massive game of Risk, so I decided I would have to make some themed cupcakes for it. I coloured the fondant super bright to resemble the game colours, and then went with the star emblem which is pretty key in the game to decorate them. I got a bunch of decorating tools for Christmas so this was a great way of putting them to use!

453 down, 1343 to go

446. Hot Cross Buns

I’m skipping a bunch of other posts I have queued up so that I can actually be seasonally appropriate for once! I have only had this one hot cross bun this year, which is frankly a crime because they are damn delicious. They must be toasted though, it’s a total necessity, with salted butter. Oh my.

446 down, 1350 to go

420. Black Forest Gateau

Black Forest Gateau is kind of an old-fashioned dessert; people tend to think it is very 70s, but I love it. The fact that chocolate and cherries and cream are three of my most favourite things in the world obviously helps. I would put the recipe on here, but I made some of it up and now I forgot what I did… so sorry about that. But basically I just made a really rich cocoa sponge (I used just cocoa rather than chocolate so that it was nice and bitter and not sweet). Then I mixed canned black cherries with some black cherry wine that I had. Traditionally you use Kirsch, which is a cherry brandy but I had the cherry wine and it has more of a cherry flavour so I decided to go for it, and it was a good choice. Once the cherries had marinated in the wine for a little while I drained them, then poured a lot of the juice onto the halved sponge so that it all soaked in. Then just filled the cake with the cherries and whipped cream and put more whipped cream on top. It was awesome. Probably one of the best cakes/desserts I’ve ever made.

420 down, 1376 to go

399. Rabbit Pie

On a Sunday when I was feeling especially domesticated, I went to the farmers market and saw that they had 2 whole rabbits for £6. I decided that this was a bargain and so I was going to set myself a challenge of butchering a rabbit all by myself. Luckily it was already skinned and beheaded so I didn’t have to do the really gross stuff, but I did have to joint and debone it. It took me a while and it probably didn’t end up the prettiest looking pieces of meat but I succeeded nonetheless. I decided to turn it into a rabbit pie so I sauteed it with onions, carrots, celery and bacon and made a sauce by making a roux and adding chicken stock. In the end it was really tasty and I was pretty proud of my efforts.

400. Jerusalem Artichoke

I served the pie with some sauteed swiss chard and a jerusalem artichoke puree. I LOVE jerusalem artichokes, they’re really sweet and creamy and make a fantastic alternative to potatoes. To make the puree I literally boiled the artichokes until they were soft and then blended them with a little butter, cream, salt and pepper.

400 down, 1396 to go

332. Mince Pies

I don’t like mince pies. I never have and I doubt I ever will. Then again I don’t really like any of the dried fruit-based Christmas treats. I decided though that if I absolutely had to have one for the list I might as well at least have a nice homemade one my friend made for their Christmas party rather than one bought from a store. The pastry was nice at least!

333. Boerwors

Boerwors is a spiced South African beef sausage and we had it in sausage roll version at the same Christmas party. The spicing was lovely, but I found it tasted too beefy for my liking. Whilst I have started loving steaks and roast beef, I still find ground beef products pretty unpalatable, so I shall be sticking to my beloved delicious pork sausages for the time being!

333 down, 1463 to go