Toasted tea cakes - RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

250g strong white bread flour
5g salt
30g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
50g unsalted butter, softened
10g fresh yeast
150ml water

50g sultanas
50g chopped mixed peel

1/2 beaten egg, to glaze

METHOD

Stage 1
Mix the slightly warmed water with the yeast.
Put the flour into your mixing bowl with the softened and chopped up butter. Add the salt, sugar and spices to one side of the flour. Pour half the water and yeast to the other side of the bowl to the dry ingredients. Mix on a slow speed using a paddle attachment, adding the remaining yeast water a bit at a time until the flour is picked up from the sides of the bowl. At this point the dough will be soft and rough, but not soggy.

Stage 2
Change your paddle to a dough hook and knead the dough for about 5-8 minutes. Add the mixed peel and sultanas and knead a further two minutes, until the dough forms a soft smooth skin.
Cover the bowl and place in a warm environment to rise until doubled in size. Depending on the temperature, this could be between 1 and 3 hours.

Stage 3
Divide the mixture into 4 equal sized portions and roll into balls. Flatten and roll with a pin to 1cm thick. Brush with the beaten egg and transfer to a baking tray lined with silicon. Place the trays into a warm place to rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour).

Stage 4
Heat the oven to 170°C Fan and bake the teacakes until risen and golden (about 10 to 15 minutes). Cool on a wire tray and then either toast and spread with butter, or eat how you prefer.

Useful oven temperature conversion

Gas	°F	°C	Fan
1	275	140	120
2	300	150	130
3	325	170	150
4	350	180	160
5	375	190	170
6	400	200	180
7	425	220	200
8	450	230	210
9	475	240	220

 

Get your mixer here

KitchenAid Stand Mixer - REVIEW

Yoghurt pot cake in the making

We received our KitchenAid Artisan 5KSM175PS Stand Mixer on Thursday 6 December 2018, purchased via eCookShop (part of Dawsons Department Store).

Once I received the mixer I made sure to register it with KitchenAid. Make sure to do the same, then you gain access to their recipe section. Here you can find recipes for every season, such as dried cherry pistachio and Szechuan biscotti, vanilla bean cheesecake, the perfect Manhattan cheesecake and New York cheesecake among many others. Can you tell that I like the sweet things in life!

Of course we tested it straight away by baking a loaf, croissants and since then more loaves. But we had problems with them not raising enough to produce anything remotely like we wanted. A change of flour and a tweak of the height of the mixing head and things changed immensely.

We have made a large number of loaves and sweet things since then and so far it has performed very well. It really speeds up the preparation of the raw batters for cakes and biscuits a great deal. The first time I made biscuit dough in it, I marvelled at how much quicker, smoother and easier it was to produce a really lovely dough. I used a kidney shaped silicon scraper to pull the residual dough off the sides of the mixing bowl onto my wrapping film and it formed a lovely ball, ready for chilling in the refrigerator.

Once our bread dough was made we then shaped it to whatever we were going to bake:- pizza, French baton, artisan basket loaf, flatbread, etc. Then it went into a proving box until risen and on to the oven for baking. Please note that for ‘we’ you should substitute my husband, as I do not do food items (in the main) due to the tendency to wander off and forget what I was doing!

It does whisk eggs very well and it mixes cakes quite well. It does bounce around a bit and the knob for the accessories on the front will come undone if you don't check it periodically.

A point to note about the height of the mixing head, it may have been set at the factory, but you do still need to check it to ensure that it is at the correct height once you start using it in the home. The instruction booklet does mention this so it is not unexpected.

We did have an issue with the dough hook, which shed a small area of its finish and had to be replaced under warranty for us. Another good reason to make sure that you register your new machine.

 

Overall, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the KitchenAid Artisan 5KSM175PS Stand Mixer to someone who wants to start making their own bread, cakes and dough. It is currently at a very reasonable price (from Amazon UK) and consistently produces quality breads, cakes and dough.

Score 8/10

Three charts to help with converting recipes

I can never remember what weights convert to, nor what temperature different types of ovens cook at. In my life I have used conventional and fan ovens as well as gas ovens, so one recipe I may know for a gas oven, but now I use a fan oven, so I need to convert the recipe. I always end up having to look things up, so decided to keep all my conversion charts in one place. And now I'm sharing...

Yeast

Fresh yeast	Original dry yeast	Quick yeast
3g	1.5g	1g
6g	3g	2g
10g	4g	3g
12g	6g	4g
17g	7g	5g
34g	14g	10g
68g	28g	20g

Imperial and Metric

Ounces	Grams
1/2 oz	10g
3/4 oz	20g
1 oz	25g
1 1/2 oz	40g
2 oz	50g
2 1/2 oz	60g
3 oz	75g
4 oz	110g
4 1/2 oz	125g
5 oz	150g
6 oz	175g
7 oz	200g
8 oz	225g
9 oz	250g
10 oz	275g
12 oz	350g
1 lb	450g
1 lb 8 oz	700g
2 lb	900g
3 lb	1.35kg

Oven temperatures

Gas	°F	°C	Fan (°C)
1	275	140	120
2	300	150	130
3	325	170	150
4	350	180	160
5	375	190	170
6	400	200	180
7	425	220	200
8	450	230	210
9	475	240	220

Do let me know if you find them useful. What other charts should I be adding?

The Weight of a Soul by Elizabeth Tammi

Norse gods rule the land in which Lena and her sister Fressa live. Fressa dreams of marrying her love Amal when her father returns from his raiding.

But, when Fressa is found dead Lena is so distraught that she decides to find a way to bring her back, so that Fressa and Amal can be married and the three of them can be happy again.

The cost to bring her sister back is high, and the gods strike a hard bargain, while slyly keeping Lena unaware of the truth behind the situation.

Lena repeatedly tries to meet the terms the gods have set for her sisters return. And you will need to read the book to find out what they were and what Lena goes through.

I found the characters well written and the description of the world easy to absorb. I didn't find myself feeling any urgency about any of Lena's situations, but that didn't detract from the tale telling for me. Overall this was an enjoyable book to read. I liked it, hence my rating.

"Fressa’s stoniness had melted away, and her hazel eyes were open wide in terror. For an instant, a green-tinted light seemed to spill across the freckled plains of her face, but then Fressa dropped the knife."

I received an e-ARC of this novel through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. NetGalley does not allow for paid reviews.

3/5 Stars (What this means...five-stars-applied-carefully)

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Official description:

When Lena's younger sister Fressa is found dead, their whole Viking clan mourns—but it is Lena alone who never recovers. Fressa is the sister that should've lived, and Lena cannot rest until she knows exactly what killed Fressa and why—and how to bring her back. She strikes a dark deal with Hela, the Norse goddess of death, and begins a new double life to save her sister.

But as Lena gets closer to bringing Fressa back, she dredges up dangerous discoveries about her own family and finds herself in the middle of a devastating plan to spur Ragnarök –a deadly chain of events leading to total world destruction. Still, with her sister's life in the balance, Lena is willing to risk it all. She's even willing to kill. How far will she go before the darkness consumes her?

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