How to be a Domestic God

I’m dedicating this blog post to Alice’s Bakery’s most committed employee. Well, perhaps volunteer is more apt, given the solely calorie based wages I pay. My chief taster, tea maker and tireless caddie, who also doubles up as a pretty awesome boyfriend (most of the time). A boyfriend, I might add, with quite impeccable humous making skills.

Being Mediterranean(ish), he’s kind of into olive oil and tahini…. Eating, drinking, breathing, sleeping, smoking and occasionally even bathing in the stuff. So, humous in our house is a pretty serious business. Fortunately there is nothing I enjoy more than scoffing it with freshly baked pitta bread. And what better reason to share the recipe than in honour of my employee of the month, not meeting the NMW and definitely breaching the working time directive.

This week, other than feasting on humous and exploiting my staff, I’ve been cheering up the dark evenings with halloweeny toffee apple flavour macarons..nom nom nom..and spending my days at the East London Small Business Centre, the country’s oldest enterprise organisation, which shares its time and extensive knowledge of business and the local area with start-ups. FOR FREE. I’m learning enormous amounts and meeting some brilliant business brains. Perhaps Alice’s Bakery is ready to write a business proposal! Speaking of which, expansion plans are already taking shape – I’ve been speaking with the Maltby street peeps about their new Sunday market, so watch this space..

Humous 

Ingredients – makes two generous bowls
250g dried chick peas
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp baking powder
70g tahini
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves of garlic, crushed

Place the chick peas in a large bowl and sprinkle over the bicarbonate of soda. Cover with cold water, ensuring that there’s approximately 4cm of water above the level of the chick peas and leave to soak overnight.

Drain the chickpeas and bring a large pan of water to a rolling boil.  Boil the chickpeas for 30 minutes and then add the baking powder (this should cause quite a froth). Continue boiling for a further 30 minutes, skimming off any chick pea skins or general foamy stuff as you go (this bit is quite therapeutic).

Drain the chickpeas and leave to cool. Whizz in a food processor with the garlic, lemon juice, tahini and a few tablespoons of water, adjusting the quantities to your taste and desired consistency (adding a little more tahini/water will give you a smoother kinda humous). The balance of lemon juice to garlic to tahini is all a matter of preference – plus, your garlic cloves and lemons will vary in size each time, so be sure to taste as you go.

Serve topped with olive oil and paprika.

Macaron Wars

I often get asked the same question. It comes in many guises:

“So what IS the difference between a macaroon and a macaron?”

“Oh Alice. This is awkward. You’ve spelt macaroon wrong on your chalk board dear”

“Mmm they’re delicious, but what’s with the fancy French spelling?”

And, more recently:

“Everyone’s calling them macarons now – it’s since that Paul Hollywood chap off GBBO did”

The answer is in fact that macarons and macaroons are two totally different things. Macarons are the French almond-meringue based beauties, and macaroons are their ugly American cousins, made with desiccated coconut (most likely by someone’s nan). Just to confuse things, macaron is generally pronounced ‘mack-ah-roon’ by us English folk, because you sound like a bit of a tool saying ‘mack-ah-rohn’ unless you’ve got a French passport.

Here is a helpful illustration, in case you’re still unsure:

Alice’s Bakery is fond of the French kind, so my advice is to leave your double O’s where they belong:

1) In the finely milled flour, ideal for pasta making and anything else Nigella makes

2) Before any other number (but preferably seven) in a James Bond film

3) In the words spoon, food or cookie*

*I will also accept Alfie Moon (my lovely nephew), greaseproof (as in the paper, without which macarons would not be possible) and hoodwinked (because it’s just a lovely word).

Speaking of ugly cousins** mine was on casualty last week. No, he didn’t end up in A&E after a drunken scuffle. I mean the TV show. And he wasn’t just an extra wearing a sling in the waiting room, he was the plot. He was the insanely over-bearing boyfriend who wouldn’t take his gloves off. So proud*

*Seriously though I am mega proud – you should check out his website and like him and stuff.

** Ok maybe he’s the better looking cousin.

Otherwise, it’s been a strange couple of weeks. Starting off at the Cake and Bake show, which although a beautiful, wondrous place on paper, was in fact a terrifying experience by all accounts. I really thought it might kick off at one point, and there was enough weaponry and calorie content there to sustain a full-blown war.

I started my new job last Monday, in short it’s marvellous and the people are pretty cool too. I’m still learning to regulate my caffeine intake though – I was on some kind of coffee trip on Thursday night – not ideal when trying to pipe macarons.

The market stall is going well. I’m settling in, building up a lovely customer base, and making some brilliant friends. Plus, this week I met Em, writer of MBakes, a magnificent blog that I’ve been drooling over for a while. She makes beautiful things and takes beautiful pictures – you should absolutely, definitely have a read. Plus, she said she really liked my mini red velvet cupcakes with mini macarons. Winner.

I also saw Ruby from GBBO! Yes. She was still looking miserable.

Anyway, back to macar’o’ns, here’s a recipe for some fabulous pistachio ones:

Macaron Shells:
90g ground almonds
85g icing sugar
2 medium free range egg whites
70g caster sugar
A little green food colouring

Swiss Meringue Pistachio Buttercream
1 egg white
55g caster sugar
50g ground pistachios
90g butter

Macaron Shells:
Add your egg whites to a clean, dry bowl and begin whisking with an electric hand-held whisk (you could also use a free-standing electric mixer with a whisk attachment for this). Once they’ve frothed up (20 seconds or so) add one third of the caster sugar and continue whisking until dissolved (another 20 seconds or so).

At this point, add another third of the caster sugar and whisk for a minute, before adding the last third of caster sugar and whisking for final minute – your whites should now be stiff and beautifully glossy. Add a few drops of green colouring and whisk again to obtain an even colour.

Whizz the almonds and icing sugar in a food processor until you have a fine powder. Sieve this into the egg white mixture and gently fold in with a spatula until you have a smooth and even consistency.

Transfer the mixture into a piping bag and pipe small rounds onto a baking tray covered in parchment (drawing around a small circular stencil can help guide you to perfection!)

Set the macaron shells aside for 30mins to form a slight crust.

Bake at fan oven 100 °C for 25-30mins (checking regularly). The finished product should have tiny “feet” at the bottom and a smooth shell. Set aside to cool completely.

Once cool, gently peel the shells away from the parchment paper and match up evenly sized pairs. If you’re having difficulty peeling them off in one piece, pop them in the freezer for 10mins and that should do the trick.

To make the pistachio buttercream, whisk the sugar and egg white in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water for approximately 5 minutes until you have a smooth, silky mixture. Remove from the heat and, using a handheld whisk, continue whisking until you have stiff peaks (another 5 mins). Gradually beat in the butter until you have a light creamy frosting, and then stir in the ground pistachios.

Pipe a generous blob of buttercream onto one half of your macaron rounds and sandwich together. Deeeeeelish.

Baking and Blogging in Berlin

The reason I haven’t been blogging for a while is two-fold. Firstly, and more legitimately, I’ve been in Berlin celebrating the marriage of two of my favourite people in zee world, Amy and Felix Mchugh. That’s one week accounted for. The rest of the time I’ve been watching Orange is the New Black. If you haven’t seen it yet then probably don’t start, unless you’ve got time on your hands. It’s as addictive as its smuggled subject matter. Plus Regina Spektor sings the theme tune, which makes it even better.

Fortunately, in between episodes, I did manage to do some Berlin inspired baking. Berlin is my favourite city in the world – partly because its full of amazing bars, markets, cafés and parks, but mainly because of the bread. It’s incredible, and it’s everywhere – from underground stations to abandoned airports. It’s so good that there’s no need to bother with sandwich fillings, it’s delicious just covered in salt and twisted up into a pretzel.

Here’s a picture of some I made to ease my Berlin withdrawal symptoms (recipe below). Berliners are pretty liberal with their salt (as they are with everything else) – apparently its anti-diuretic qualities come in handy at Oktoberfest. I was a little more sparing with mine.

In other news I have an interview with Hummingbird this week AND have secured myself a stall next weekend at Broadway Market (school yard). Exciting times ahead.

Berlin Inspired Pretzels – makes 10 

Ingredients
500g strong white bread flour
140 ml water
130 ml milk
40 g butter (melted and left to cool a little)
2 tsp dark brown sugar (you can also use liquid malt)
2 tsp dried yeast (1tsp if you’re using fast-action)
1 tbsp salt
1.5 litres boiling water
3 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Rock salt for sprinkling

Add the flour to a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Pour the water and yeast into the well and let it sit for 15 mins – until a brownish sludge appears on top. Add the milk, salt, sugar and butter, form into a ball and knead for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, elastic dough. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover in clingfilm and leave in a warm place to double in size (about 1.5 hours)

Knock the dough back and split into 10 equal sized pieces. Roll out each piece into long sausages (approximately 40cm in length) and shape into pretzels. This is tricky to describe, but luckily good ol’ M-Stew (bit like K-Stew, who incidentally I’m sure I spotted in Berlin, but waaay cooler) has a handy picture to help. Place on a flour dusted baking sheet and sit somewhere warm for 30 mins  to puff back up a little. Then move them to a breezy spot by the window (stay with me – they are worth it) to develop a slight skin (another 30 mins).

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Heat 1.5 litres of water in a large pan and, once boiling, add the bicarb. Using a metal spatula (or similar), add the pretzels one at a time to the boiling water, remove after 5 seconds (once they float to the top), allowing any water to drain off, and place onto a tray lined with parchment and dusted with flour. Sprinkle the pretzels with rock salt and use a sharp knife to make some deep slashes in the dough. Bake for 16 minutes until dark brown and leave to cool before devouring. If you’re that way inclined, you can also add some cheese to the top of the pretzels half way through the baking process.

Adapted from this BBC recipe.