Lifestyle - An Easter Bunny Trap

Happy Easter! Hope you're all having a lovely day and haven't eaten too much chocolate. Madam and I did have some choc for breakfast, but mostly we've been good! 

I decided, as madam was so excited about the Easter bunny coming, we should make a big deal about it. After all, she put whisky and biscuits out for Santa... I'd seen a recipe on Pinterest that I thought it might be fun to do. It's called Bunny Bait and is basically melted chocolate with extra bits added in and then set.

For this we used a 100g bar of milk choc and melted it down. I then poured it into one of the little disposable traybake tins I have. We sprinkled chopped up mini eggs and gummy bunnies (no, didn't think that one through, madam was aghast!) as well as a crushed biscuit over the surface. Pressed it down slightly so it would definitely stick and put it in the fridge to cool. 

We took it out and put some in a glass for the bunny and ate the rest as an after dinner treat. It was yum! After madam was in bed and somewhere around supper time I put madam's present next to the glass and took most of the bait to chomp on whilst I read my book.

As I went to bed I laid a trail of mini eggs down the stairs for her to find in the morning. I don't care if it was completely over the top, this morning was so worth it! 

The best part was that she was so excited about the trail and the bait being gone she didn't even notice her present at first. I had to send her back to look for it. And then again to pick up the mini eggs so she could eat them! She was really happy with her gift, which was good.

We then had bacon and pancakes for breakfast and headed to church where madam learned about the Easter story and ate more chocolate. Life is good when you're 5.5! 

So how about you? Did you have fun this Easter? And if you don't celebrate it, then I hope you enjoyed the beautiful Spring day that's out there :-)

Love, Pearl. 

     

Recipe - A Multi-Coloured Cake (that wasn't)

Last week I made one of my favourite cake recipes. Only, it didn't turn out the way I had expected it to. Sadly. This wasn't down to anything I did, I am an expert in Victoria Sponge, but rather a fail on the part of my food colouring! The cake still tasted lovely and was just as moist and yummy as always. Just not the multi-coloured marvel I had hoped for.

If you caught my twitter ranting last week when it went wrong you will know that I have said enough about this. And I don't like being a negative person. I will just say; when baking make sure you check that the colouring you use is bake stable. Most of them aren't nowadays!

I therefore umm-ed and ahh-ed about sharing and then I thought, no, EVERYONE can have a fail. It's what you do about it that counts. I won't make this a Pearl's Pantry entry because I do want those to all be stuff that have worked!

Right, so I should tell you what I did, first off, because it is Victoria sponge it is the most simple recipe. And really quite forgiving if you are a learner baker!

I made a 3 egg mix, so for that we needed:

6oz Self-raising Flour

6oz Butter

6oz Caster Sugar 

3 Eggs.

Yup, that's it. Told you it was simple. We start off with the butter and sugar in the bowl and then you cream them together until they've gone creamy and fluffy. I do all my mixing by hand, so it took a couple of minutes for me.

Then we add our eggs in. One at a time. And I find adding a spoonful of flour with each egg makes it a bit easier to combine. Mix it all together until all three eggs are fully incorporated.

Your mix will look really sloppy but don't panic. Add in the rest of your flour and mix that in. It's best to add the flour half at a time if you're hand mixing, makes it easier on the old arms!

Once the mix was ready I split it. I left a quarter in the bowl I'd been mixing in so that would remain yellow. I then but the other three quarters into 3 separate bowls so I could add colours into them.

I added red, green and blue. Then I greased and floured my cake tin which makes it easier to get the cake out afterwards. I spooned blobs of the different colours in and then gave them a swirl to make a sort of ripple effect. 

Bunged it in the oven and waited 45mins until it was done. To test your cake insert a skewer into the centre and if it comes out clean then it's ready. The cake will also start to shrink away from the sides of the cake pan.

When I took the cake out the oven it became immediately apparent the colours had gone wrong in some way. I did slightly hope that when I cut the cake in half it would be better on the inside. Nope. I did achieve a two-tone cake. But not the colours I had wanted at all :(

I sandwiched the two halves together with some chocolate buttercream and then made three colours of icing to go on top, figuring I could at least make it look a bit more cheerful that way. 

Madam then went wild with the icing and we ended up with a distinctly messy, rather failed but yummy tasting masterpiece!

Moral of the story? Failures are not always unsalvageable, cakes can be rescued with some random icing. It's a cake, how bad could it be! ;)

I'd love to know if you've ever had a baking disaster. I can promise you this was not my worst one... I'm still infamous for having burnt a packet mix cheesecake when about 10!

Love, Pearl.

   

Lifestyle - My Week on Instagram #1

A week is a long time on social media. I have accounts all over the place and try and update them pretty regularly. I'm kind of out of love with Facebook nowadays, but I do still check it out because I have all my family on there. And we're all pretty spread out and hard to keep track of!

One that I love almost the most is Instagram. I add several photos a week there and thought it might be cool to do a quick round up of my week. So here goes:

1. Lego Fire Car and House

2. Twice Baked Quorn Chilli Jackets and Ranch Salad

3. Grape Hyacinths

4. A Cake That Went Wrong

5. Beautiful Daffodils at Madam's School

6. Chicken, Chorizo and Mushroom Risotto

7. Madam in the New Dressing Gown Her Nanna Made

It was hard to not repeat what was on the blog already, although the grape hyacinths snuck in again because I really love that shot! I really love the light in that photo of the daffodils. I had to kneel on a bank and shoot up the hill to get it. There were no strange looks from the other parents. Oh no. And as you can see I photographed a lot of the things I ate too! 

Oh, and yes, madam is doing great posing/duck face in that shot. She made me take it three times until she was happy. Not for nothing is she known as madam!

What have you been up to this week?

Love, Pearl.

Pearl's Pantry ~ Recipe 2: Cottage Pie

Hello! Time for another exciting installment in my recipe series :) Today I'm going to show you how I make Cottage Pie. Now, this is one of those dishes with an infinite number of variations. I like it this way, but you might not. Feel free to change ingredients as you wish.

Also, I cheated quite a lot with this version as I was doing it mid-week and madam and I just wanted fed. If I did it at the weekend I might make more of it from scratch.

To make Cottage Pie for 2/3 you will need:

200g Mince (I've used Quorn mince because it means you don't have to brown it off before using in the recipe.)
125g Mushrooms.
400g Mash.
100g Cheese (optional, but I can't leave it off!)
1 Small Onion.
1 table spoon Tomato Puree.
2 Cloves of Garlic or a big squeeze of Garlic Paste like I have here.
1 table spoon of Oil.
Salt, Pepper and Mixed Herbs to taste.

Equipment
1 large, deep Frying Pan/Saute Pan
1 Ovenproof Dish 
Set the Oven to 200C or Gas Mk 6

Now, has to be said before I start, I only used about half that pack of mince, and half those mushrooms. Just use the full pack if you want to make enough for 4-6 servings!

Also, if you use minced beef/pork/lamb whatever you'll need to fry this off to brown it and keep it to one side (empty it on to a plate with some kitchen towel on) while you get to the point where I add the mince in! Likewise, if you're making your own mash you need to pop the potatoes on to boil before you start anything else. 

Right, I always start by making sure everything I need to chop is done first. In this case, the onion and the mushrooms. I like big bits of mushroom, so mine is chunky. Substitute mushrooms for carrots or swede or whatever you prefer (red pepper is another fave of mine, but madam is having a no peppers phase *sigh*)

Then heat your oil in the pan and when it's hot add your onion and turn the heat down. Cook them for a minute or so by themselves.

Next, add your mushrooms (or whatever veg you used) cook that for another minute or so.

I then put in my tomato puree, garlic paste (so much easier!) salt, pepper and mixed herbs.

You need to let it cook like that for 30 seconds or so. If you think it's sticking, don't add more oil, just a splash of water to loosen it off.

Then we add in the mince (the pre-browned stuff if that's what you used). I then put a small amount of water in. We do not want watery mince, people! You can use stock if you prefer, I'm cooking for a small child I don't want to add too much salt...

Right, let it come to a simmer, put a lid on and leave it to cook away to itself for 10mins. This lets our flavours develop!

While that's cooking, we have to sort out the mash. Now, if you boiled potatoes you will have to drain them and mash them as you normally would. Me being lazy, I bought it ready made! And this is potato, carrot and swede mash as it's our favourite. Again, use what YOU like.

I shoved it in the micro for 3 minutes to make it easier to use and then gave it a stir. If you skip this step you will probably have some rather unco-operative mash on your hands...

The cooked mince should look a bit like this, see, not too watery! The more water there is, the more your mash will sink, more dense mince makes this next bit easier!

Then, when your mince is ready, tip it in the ovenproof container of your choice.

Spoon the mash on the top, carefully before smoothing it over.

Top with the cheese, if using. If you're not adding cheese you might want to use a fork to make marks in the mash to give it a bit of yummy texture.

Bung in the oven for 15-20 mins to make sure the cheese is melted and it's piping hot throughout.

Serve with your choice of vegetables/salad/whatever and enjoy! We like peas with our pie. And I like big marrowfat tinned peas the best of all! Mmmm, luminous green!

Any questions?

Love, Pearl.

Pearl's Pantry ~ Recipe 1: Cheesecake

I have been talking to one of my very best friends about doing a tutorial for my cheesecake recipe for the last few days and have decided to use the opportunity to make a little feature for the blog! So, here we are, this is the first entry in to what will be a periodic feature I am calling "Pearl's Pantry" (see what I did there?)

My cheesecake is something I've mentioned before but I shall now give you my photo tutorial! The recipe came from an advert I saw in Heat magazine ages ago and I did not invent it.

To make 1 cheesecake you will need:

100g melted butter

200g crushed biscuits

397g tin condensed milk

300g soft cream cheese (full fat)

2 lemons.

1. First of all you need to crush up your biscuits into crumbs. I used Ginger Nuts this time (which were jolly hard to crush up, I can tell you!), but use whatever you like best. I have done bourbons in the past for a chocolate version...

2. Melt your butter and mix it in with the biscuit crumbs and then tip it in to your tin - mine is a 7" deep sandwich tin with a loose base - and press it down firmly. Then put this in the fridge to set up whilst you make the filling.

3. Put the cream cheese in the bowl and give it a bit of a mix to loosen it up a bit (a). Now add in the condensed milk and stir it all in, I use a fork to give it a bit of a whisk and make sure there are no lumps. It goes really quite runny at this point (b).

(a)

(b)

4. Juice your two lemons (a) and add in to the cheese and milk mixture (b) (it looks like you've curdled it and made a dreadful mistake, you haven't). Then the magic bit, mix it in and watch as it turns glossy and thick and unctuous (c). Good word that, unctuous...

(a)

(b)

(c)

5. Pour this mix over your chilled base and smooth over the top. Then put back in the fridge for at least 2 hours to give it time to set properly.

You can serve it just as it is, but madam and I like to put something fruity on top. We decided to make blueberry compote this time as we had ended up with loads of blueberries that needed eaten up.

We shoved the blueberries in a pan, added some water and sugar and then boiled it down for a bit (kind of like making jam, really.)

And then: dollop of compote on top of your slice of cheesecake = perfection.

And there you have it, one really simple cheesecake to try :) Do let me know if you give it a go, I'd love to hear what you do with yours!

Love, Pearl.

New Year 2014

Happy New Year! I don't know why I bother getting excited by New Year, I mainly just do the same things every year...

I didn't even break open the red wine like I thought I might. I mainly just sat on the sofa with madam and watched Harry Potter 2-5 (we watched 1 the day before). Madam thought I should watch the next 3 but I pointed out I would get no sleep at all if I did that.

Madam made it until the end of the Goblet Of Fire and watched the fireworks the neighbours were setting off. She then almost immediately settled down next to me and fell fast asleep whilst I watched The Order Of The Phoenix. 

I didn't even get all the way through it before I fell asleep myself! We woke up at about 5am and hauled ourselves upstairs and collapsed into my bed. We finally surfaced at about 11am this morning! Really crap parenting, I am good at! (My parents do not approve of allowing a five year old to stay up until midnight!)

We got up, madam put on one of her many posh frocks (this one is from Primark, so not sure you can count it as posh...) and came over to mum and dad's. They were (as they do every year) watching the New Year's Day concert from Vienna. I love family traditions. Madam didn't even bat an eyelid at the random classical music concert and mainly just joined in waltzing to The Blue Danube at the end. 

We have had warm bread rolls and nice cheeses and now mother is preparing the New Year's Day feast for tea. This year it's a sort of boeuff bourginon followed by Christmas pudding. Yes, I know it's New Year, put we never have Christmas pudding on the actual day as it's just too much after everything else you have scoffed!

Now, talking of Christmas, I am enjoying relative peace to type this as madam is playing with the new Wendy house that my mum and dad got her. It is quite a bit bigger than anyone presumed it would be! It is basically an enormous cardboard box that has designs on the outside that she can colour in. With doors and windows too. 

It is so big she can stand up in it (the people who have a concept of how tall madam is are all impressed now!) I shall show you photos...

Massive, huh! It fills up just about all the available floor space in my parents conservatory. I am expected to take it home and find somewhere for it in my house! It will go in her bedroom. *grits teeth* It will!

I'm hoping she will use it as a home for all her dollies and soft toys as these are what she spends most time playing with. She loves playing families with them. They get told off a lot though, it has to be said!

Oh, and madam has cottoned on to a new idea. If I am not going to be married to Daddy any more, then I can get married again. And she could be a bridesmaid. Wearing a blue dress. With a bow at the back... Apparently! 

fudge making and other stuffs

Today I 1) feel like I look in this flattering photo and 2) wish I was still at home in my amazing warm dressing gown!

 

 

I have set up madam's outfit blog, you can find the first post at this link: A Dizzy Fashion Story: Skele-fun. As she has birthday in 3 sleeps (the countdown of sleeps is literally the first thing she says to me when she wakes up!) this weekend's post will probably be her party outfit. I have bought her a body glitter stick, which, thinking about it, might have been a foolish plan!

 

I made fudge with my dad yesterday, this is because, despite having attempted to make it twice, it has failed both times. I found a recipe on this lovely blog and it had really good, clear instructions. Now, my dad is a chemist, he is trained to follow instructions precisely, how he has failed twice is beyond me!

 

So, I put myself in charge and followed the steps as laid out on the blog. My dad had to help with the final step, my arm was starting to drop off after so much beating of the cooling mixture! But we got something that looked a lot like fudge at the end of it. And, it had actually set mostly by the time I left to go to the gym! Given his last batch didn't even set up when mum shoved it in the freezer I think we can call it a success.

 

By the way, just how do you achieve that? It wouldn't even freeze?! I will admit that I don't think this version is perfect. Even though I thought I had melted it all down properly when we were beating it I noticed it was still a bit grainy, like not all the sugar had properly dissolved. I'm pretty sure it will taste okay, even so...

 

I also finally got rid of madam's old bed yesterday. It broke ages ago and then my dad took it all apart the other week whilst H and I had fun with the We Watch Film guys and watching Labyrinth. The pieces have been stacked up in madam's room ever since. Along with all the packaging for the new bed. But now it's all gone and no-one has to negotiate large cardboard box in the hallway! Result. 

 

I *didn't* get any more crochet done though, which I had planned on doing yesterday evening. I mainly messed about on Fruit Ninja whilst sort of watching Batman Begins and Casino Royale. The latter made me extremely late to bed and I had to really force myself out of bed this morning. Although, madam still beat me on the not wanting to get up stakes. And she went to bed at 8pm!

 

I might try sending her a bit earlier tonight as I am having so much trouble getting her going in the morning. We were actually late for school this morning. Despite living about a 10 min walk from the school gates. We didn't leave the house until 8.45, which is the moment when her class usually goes in with their teacher! I am a stickler for punctuality and her being late winds me up no end. And I have no idea how to improve it. I can't dress her, she's too old. I can't make her hurry up, she doesn't seem to care. I have tried threatening to send her in the nude, but she knows that's an empty threat as she has to be in uniform... What do I do? I can only try making her get up earlier so that she has more time to get ready. But then *I* have to blooming get up too. Urgh :(

 

I might actually have to go to bed at a reasonable hour myself! Ha ha!

 

Today I am mainly spending doing blogging and some research for a future post (I know, so not like me!) also I need to order my tickets for this months Classic Movie Tuesday (Ghostbusters, FTW!). I need to get maps from the Tourist Information centre so that I can start planning out a route for the Guide treasure hunt thing. Also, need to think up a prize for them... At some point I might even do some more crochet. Madam is proving far too big for the pattern I have and I keep having to increase things! I did buy an extra ball of yarn, so it's not too much of a problem. Though I have realised the colour is pretty much the same as her school uniform! Oops. Good job she likes burgundy...

 

I also, at some point, need to wrap madam's presents (including the ones from V and her dad) and on Thursday I'm cake baking/decorating! I have bought some really pretty candles which are supposed to burn with coloured flames, so we shall see :)