Beginner Baking 2

The next recipe that I tried out was my mother's crunchie - always a popular option for our lunchboxes and it needs only a few store-cupboard essentials. A supposedly simple recipe, I quickly remembered why I prefer cooking to baking - baking demands too much accuracy. It's more of a chemistry experiment than a culinary creation.

Unfortunately I used olive oil-based margarine rather than normal margarine and suspect this is why the crunchie didn't quite set. Anyway, I adapted the recipe quickly and made some pastry cases from the frozen stuff that I had in the freezer and turned the crunchie mixture into mini-treacle tarts.

Here's the original recipe for anyone who thinks they can do better than me and get it to set!

Ingredients (apologies for the imperial measures but this is my mother's recipe!)
4oz soft brown sugar
4oz margarine (I'm going to try it with butter next time)
1 tbsp golden syrup
3oz porridge oats
3oz corn flakes

(I added some currants as well)

Method
Cream sugar, margarine and sugar
Add oats and cornflakes (and currants, if you want)
Mix well
Press into lined tin (11" x 7")
Bake at 325F for 15 minutes
Cut while warm

Beginner Baking 1

Another challenge that I've set myself for my maternity leave (in addition to doing a correspondence course in small farming and raising a small child), is learning to bake. There seems to be a baking revival happening across the world but it's the great kiwi tradition of bringing a plate that has inspired me.

The local gardening club, the office morning tea, neighbourhood, mothers' groups all demand a "plate" so I thought it was about time that I expanded my repertoire from just ginger biscuits.

And there's a small matter of lots and lots of eggs to use up...


So my first foray into cake-making was my mother's trusty lemon cake, a long-time favourite in our cake tin raids.

Of course, I had to bake the cake in between nappy changes and feeds, in ten minute slots at a time. This was working well until I realised that in my haste I'd put the cake too high up in the oven and it was going to rise up to touch the grill element. So I quickly grabbed the oven rack to move it down and the cake slid down the back and dropped on to the lower tray. By some small miracle, it remained upright but it had collapsed during the fall.

And this taught me my most important lesson in baking so far - be flexible! The crack in the cake's surface was quickly covered up with some slices of kiwi fruit which went very well with the overall lemon flavour. Phew!

Here's the recipe for all the keen bakers among my readers...

Ingredients
115g margarine
175g caster sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon (I was lucky enough to use a lemon from our own tree)
175g self-raising flour
55ml milk
Juice of 1 lemon
115g granulated sugar

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 180C
• Grease and line oblong tin (17.5cm x 22.5cm x 2.5cm) (I just used the 7" round tin that I had to hand)
• Beat together margarine and caster sugar until light and fluffy
• Gradually beat in eggs
• Stir in lemon rind
• Fold in flour, alternating with milk
• Put mixture into tin and level off
• Bake for 50 minutes until risen and golden
• Prepare topping whilst cake bakes by blending together granulated sugar and lemon juice
• Spoon over cake whilst still hot
• Leave cake in tin to cool

Weatherboards

I've wanted a weatherboard house ever since I arrived in NZ in 2004. The asbestos fibrolite cladding on our house was a great excuse to re-clad using this traditional material. I'm looking forward to the scaffolding coming down and seeing the full effect. It needs to be painted yet though - probably the same colour as before, a muddy brownish-green, so that the house blends into the landscape.

Walls and Within

How many sheep has it taken to insulate our house? We appreciate their sacrifice. I just hope that the whole house doesn't end up smelling of lanolin.

Double Glazing

One of our objectives for the renovations was to make the house warmer - so that we don't have to spend next winter sat on the sofa wearing thermals and woolly hats. But we wanted to make it warmer without making it more energy-thirsty so we've plumped for insulation in the roof, walls and floors, solar hot water and a woodburner. We'd ruled out double glazing though as too expensive for the time being, particularly given that the house has so many windows.


But the council building inspector decided that we needed to change a lot of our windows so that they were glazed with safety glass. So we took the plunge and went for double glazing across the whole house. When we went to the factory to choose handles (better ones that the handle that you can see below), our dozens of windows were stacked up all over the place. We can't wait to see them all in place soon. I just hope that we don't regret going the whole hog and paying for the additional ten-year witch proof coating.

Choko Challenge

A fellow member of our local gardening club gave these chokos to me to plant. Apparently I should just stick them in the ground and not worry too much about them. Hoping for a big vine at the end of the growing season.

Blueberries

I can't take any credit for these blueberry buds but it's lovely to see them developing.