Tamie's Bake-off - for novice cake makers

I have never baked a cake in my entire life until a few months ago ....

It all started when my older daughter Emily was doing a bake-off at her work earlier this year, which got me thinking ... could I try one too???  Then Emily and Maria did an afternoon tea for me and my mother-in-law Mary at our house for Mother's Day this March. I thought, why not try making something for that.

Since then, I have been baking almost every Sunday and my family and my mother-in-law Mary are my Guinea pigs.

The most successful cake I have baked, I think, was this Strawberry Sponge Cake with white chocolate cream.  Sponge was quite nice and moist, sandwiching fresh strawberries and white chocolate filling. At first I thought white chocolate was far too sweat for me however after a day it settled and turned out to be very nice.  I thought it looked cute too.

The very first cake I baked was this Lemon Drizzle Cake by Raymond Blanc recipe, which was for Mother's Day.  The taste was fine but it looked disaster.... it looked nothing like the one in his recipe on-line!  In fact it looked like a Thanksgiving Turkey without wings and legs!

To my defence, the taste was not bad. The problem with this funny shape was because of having used silicon cake mould that went floppy once the cake mixture was poured and put into the oven to bake.
The recipe used some dark rum. I think I sprinkled it rather liberally but this was actually alright.

Ok, sponge had air holes in them but for the first try, it was edible.


After this, I then invested on 2 cake tins and decided to try baking cakes.

2nd cake I baked was this strawberry short cake. I thought if the sponge did not turn out to be perfect, I could hide it with lots of strawberries and cream....and it kinda worked!

Maybe the oven was a bit too hot as sponges turned rather dark brown instead of light brown.... however the taste was lovely.  Fresh strawberries and cream never go wrong.  I think my husband had most of it so I did not have any slice to give it to Mary... sorry ...

3rd cake I tried to make was this Cappuccino cake with walnuts.  Finally I also managed to make the best use of blender that had been hiding in the corner of the kitchen, collecting dusts, in britzing walnuts into pieces. 

The cake looked disastrous indeed and sprinkling of cocoa power did not work, which made the presentation even worse while coffee cream was too soft. It looks like coffee 'lava' like cream was about to over flow from the volcano cake and spill over the plate. It is literally disastrous!

It tasted ok, yap, you can taste coffee alright. It went with a cup of coffee, obviously (ha ha ha!) 

My husband does not like coffee cake, Maria, Mary and I had a slice each and the rest went into a bin as this was just a boring cake.  

The 4th cake I made was this Boston Cream Pie cake.  The photo looks like a small donut. It is actually a proper cake of 20cm in diameter!  This actually turned out to be very good cake. Think of giant donut with custard cream except baked, not deep fried!

The sponge was very nice, soft and moist, sandwiching 'home-made' custard cream with melted chocolate on top!  I was quite surprised and chuffed myself to have made this this well.

This cake was everyone's favourite so far.

Having tasted the success of cake baking for the first time, I then decided to bake chocolate cake.

The 5th cake was this Chocolate Marble cake - made of two types of sponges, chocolate sponge and orange sponge, covered with chocolate icing.  

The taste was fine but the apprearance required a lot of improvement. It looked more like a children's mud-pie and I literally mean 'mud' pie!

I did not manage well in swirling chocolate and orange sponge mixture to mix to create 'marble' effect. When you cut a slice and see inside, you can see that swirling did not work well.

My husband does not like chocolate cakes in general so again Maria, Mary and I became guinea pig. After slice each, the rest went to the bin also the icing went harder after a day or so and it became less appetising although orange sponge tasted nicer. Oh, well, I just try baking something else....

Then came the 6th cake, Strawberry and white chocolate cake that I was talking about earlier.
I thought I did quite well with this!

Then next, the 7th cake was another type of Lemon Drizzle Cake. This one does not use dark rum.
To tell you the truth,  the sponge turned far too dark. I reckon the oven temperature was too hot. The taste was fine but I was not happy with the result so I baked this again the following Sunday.

This one is the 2nd attempt.  The sponge is still a bit dark but the taste was nice and sponge was quite nice and moist. I think this one might have been Maria's favourite as I think she kept going back to it, which meant that she had to put her SlimmingWorld on hold too, ha ha ha.

There are lots of lemon inside, outside and on top of it!  I call it Lemon Drizzle Dazzle Cake!
This went very well with a nice cup of tea.

And the 8th cake which I made last weekend was this, Almond with Cherry Cake.  I love this, especially toasted almonds are lovely.  This should have been 'Cherry and Almond' cake. I could not get dried cherries from M&S so I decided to use dried cranberries instead along with glace cherries. My husband said that cranberry does not work with almonds and went out his way to get me a packet of dried cherries from Sainsbury whilst I was measuring ingredients.  

After putting the cake mixture into the oven, I then realised that I forgot to put dried cherries completely, stupid me!!!   By then it was too late to add them into the mixture so I used them to decorate the cake with almond slices.  So it should have been Cherry and Almond cake but it turned out to be Almond with Cherry Cake. 

Next time, I will make sure to use both glace and dried cherries in the mix. Nevertheless the cake tastes lovely, maybe a slight dry because of almond powder but I love this cake.

You know, it says cakes are really fattening. It's really true if you realise the amount of sugar and butter going into them. However, at least with home made cakes you know what's inside. I enjoy the process of baking and how it turns out rather than eating it, so I don't feel bad about it. And I also enjoy thinking of what to bake next.  Not bad for a novice cake maker, I think.

That's all forks!

My Family's Favourite - Tuna Potato Cakes

This is a recipe of the savoury snack which my family loves.  Very easy to make, just a little bit cumbersome and you need to be patient but the effort is worthwhile.

Tamie's Tuna Potato Cakes

You need these and 1/2 bag of potatoes to start with.

Oh, you also need these ... including Japanese breadcrumbs, which you can buy most of supermarkets nowadays. If you can't find them, you can use normal breadcrumbs to make fish & chips or go to Chinese supermarket and head for Japanese food section. 

First,  you boil potatoes with some salt. Mash them and add chopped parsley, coriander, 1 - 2 chilli (deseeded) and spring onions.  I like a little bit of kick so I usually leave little bit of chill seeds.

Add a tin of tuna steak, not tuna chunks (they are awful...).

Squeeze lemon juice to the mixture. Mix again and taste. If you want you can add more salt.

Now, the next step - you need flour, egg and Japanese panko breadcrumbs for coating.

Take a small handful of tuna potato mixture to make into balls and coat them well with flour.

Next, dip these into egg.

Then dip them into Panko breadcrumbs.

1/2 kg of bags of potatoes make about 12 - 14 potato cakes.

Fry them in oil. I don't have deep fryer so I just shallow fry them. Deep flying them would probably result better.

Fry them until golden colour...

And that's it! Easy. Best eat right away whilst they are still hot. You can eat them with any sauce you like. We like to eat these with mixture of tomato ketchup and Japanese brown sauce or mayonnaise.

Try making these this holiday weekend!

That's all forks.

Hands and Arms with Champaign and chocs @ Jo Malone

It was my younger daughter Maria's birth day recently so I booked Emily, Maria and myself for a lovely (and complimentary) Birthday hands and arms massage for Maria at Jo Malone (http://www.jomalone.co.uk/index.tmpl) in Glasgow's  Princes Square.

I love this experience - we were surrounded by lovely smells of Jo Malone's fragrances, enjoying a glass of bubbly and chocolate whilst the staff worked on your hands and arms with their lovely products. This is just soooo relaxing.

Jo Malone has just launched a new limited edition fragrance, Silk Blossoms. It has, unlike usual Jo Malone's bottles, pink labels with pink-fringed pompoms, representing silk blossoms.
According Jo Malone's website, it describes the fragrances as apricot-fresh with a touch of spice, airy with clouds of power-soft heliotrope, nestling on a bed of moss; fruity and enticing.

http://www.jomalone.co.uk/images/content/mpp/limited-edition-silk-blossom.jpg

Yes, it is lovely fruity and enticing indeed. Maria got this fragrance with another fragrance to pair it for her birthday gifts from me and my husband whilst I have given myself a wee treat to the small bottle too....

I wish you could smell this - it's just divine. Feeling lovely with mix of bubbly and chocolate and silk blossoms in our hands, we left Jo Malone shop with high note.

May forks be with you .....



p.s.  My husband has just pointed out that yesterday (May the 4th) was Star Wars Day. It's geeks' thing apparently.... ha ha ha.

Keep Calm and Have Lychee @ Lychee Oriental in Glasgow

I had been very busy working away last week and when I came home from work, I could not be bothered cooking. I had to admit that last week was a very lazy week for me and my cooking department let my family down too. Despite 2014 started off with great intension (i.e. supporting Emily and Maria in them following SlimmingWorld diet by cooking oil free or syn free meals for the whole family, anticipating that I too would lose some weight!) as the time goes by, this notion has escaped me.

And then I remembered that I had on-line voucher for 2-course meals with Thai crackers with chilli dip, sides and a glass of prosecco each at Lychee Oriental (http://www.lycheeoriental.co.uk) at 59 Mitchell Street, Glasgow, G1 3LN.  This is actually Maria and her boyfriend's favourite restaurant.

So Thursday last week, we decided to try Lychee Oriental. Glasgow was quite busy with late night Thursday shoppers and people going home after work. We could not find on-street parking space so we decided to part NCP car park which was almost right next door to the restaurant, albeit being rather expensive.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were seated at one of the corner booths which we found it very nice and relaxing with low light. Outside there was bustling and hassling of the city, cars and people, yet here inside of Lychee Oriental, we found calm and relaxing atmosphere.  I said to my husband, 'I think I have seen that staff who showed us to this table .... at Cotton House Chinese restaurant in Longcroft near Falkirk...'  While we were perusing the menu, the same staff brought us Spicy Thai Cracker with Sweet Chilli Dip to our table and asked us 'Do you go to Cotton House?'  Yes, I was right - we did see him before and he is now at Lychee Oriental. It was nice to see a friendly face.

Crackers were really lovely, I could not stop eating. He came back and asked if we wanted more but we resisted the temptation as we had whole 2 courses ahead of us.

When I go to Chinese/Thai restaurant, I like ordering sea bass so I ordered Steamed Sea Bass with Ginger and Mushrooms for main course with £3.00 extra supplement. This was very delicious. There were lots of oriental mushrooms and underneath were 3 slices of nicely steamed sea bass with lovely soy and mushroom flavoured sauce. I really liked this. Fried rice was sutley seasoned so it actually went very well with this sea bass as I could taste the fish and delicious oriental mushroom and soy sauce.  Some restaurant's sea bass could be really salty but not here. It was just right.

Steamed Sea Bass with Ginger and Mushrooms

Spicy Thai Crackers with Sweet Chilli Dip  - yummy

After demolished the crackers, for starters my husband had Stuffed Fresh Chillies with Prawns in Black Bean Sauce whilst I had Salt and Pepper Squid. I love squid!

Stuffed chillies with prawns - it was not too spicy -
this came with crunchy pickled carrots and cucumbers which were very lovely and refreshing

I like salt & pepper squid - this too came with crunchy vegetable pickels!

Whilst I had sea bass for main course, my husband had Fresh Scallops with Pepper and Black Bean Sauce sizzling on a pan.

By the time we finished eating all, we were quite full, yet I wanted to see dessert menu. I saw Mango sorbet with lychee fruits. I said to my husband, 'We were in Lychee Oriental, why not try lychee?' So he ordered one between us.

To be honest, I think this might have been my very first time to have tried lychee. The fruit has a delicate and sweet flavour however it never appealed to me .... it looks a bit like an eyeball (sorry for being gross!), not that I have ever eaten eyeballs. BUT, according to Wikipedia, the lychee contains on average a total 72mg of vitamin C per 100 grams of fruit and on average 9 lychee fruits would meet an adult's daily recommended vitamin C requirement,  also low in saturated fat and sodium, and is cholesterol free! Wow, sounds great! Maybe I should eat more. The same Wikipedia page also informs me that excessive consumption can, in certain extreme cases, lead to fainting spells or skin rashes.  Ok .... maybe not too much...or  I just stick to jasmine tea then .....

Overall, we really enjoyed our dinner. If you want to go there, you should ask for a booth as it is lovely and cosy. Oh, by the way, apprently there is a very nice toilet downstairs worthy of 'toilet check'; I did not realise this and used toilet I could find on the ground floor, which happens to be a disabled toilet.  Having checked their website, I also discovered now that if you want to part at NCP next door, you could park there for £5 if you phone the restaurant. We did not know that neither so I think we paid around £6.50 for a few hours parking. 

It was a lovely restaurant. Food was lovely and service was good. I may even try another Lychee fruit when we go back...

That's all forks!

Another Afternoon Tea - Grange Manor Hotel in Grangemouth

Quest for 'value for money' afternoon deal continues ... this time, my mother-in-law, my husband, younger daughter Maria and I went to the Grange Manor Hotel (http://www.grangemanor.co.uk/home) in Grangemouth. This was another one of those on-line deals, Groupon deal this time. It was £31 for four people including a glass of bubbly each, equivalent of £7.75 per person.

The staff was very friendly and very attentive, kept checking if we wanted our teapot to be replenished. Both my daughter and I enjoyed nicely brewed pots of tea.  Sandwiches were nice and soft with selections of fillings - cheese, eggs, ham and chicken. Cakes were very moist and delicious - ginger cakes, fruit cakes and butternut white chocolate cakes. There were also scones, small profiteroles and mini meringues with strawberry slices. We got 2 cake stands that came with creams and there are also mini pots of jams to go with these - strawberry, raspberry and marmalade.

The hotel is in Grangemouth, on the busy main road. The restaurant is probably a breakfast room, overlooking the front car park with ASDA's warehouse the other side of the road. So view from the table is not great however the room was nice and quiet, very relaxing.

We really enjoyed our afternoon tea with bubbly at this place. I was particularly impressed with slices of cakes as they were really soft and moist.  Ginger cakes, you can taste ginger but never over-powering.  We also liked slices of butternut & white chocolate - not too sweet but goes well with tea.
The portion size for the whole thing was just right.

Grange Manor Hotel, Grangemouth, Scotland

We all enjoyed our afternoon tea last Sunday afternoon.

I was almost giving up on-line Afternoon Tea deals after recent experience (see my recent blog) however I may change my mind about that after this.  My husband said, just try not to go for afternoon tea deal too often AND just enjoy what we are served. Yes, that's so true...

And that's all forks!

Celino's - tutto per tutti - Glasgow

Somebody told us about Celino's, Italian Deli Cafe at 620 Alexandra Parade in Glasgow (http://www.celinos.com) and I always wanted to try this place. It is a Trattoria and Delicatessen, established in 1982.  I checked on Tripadvisor to read about the place - it sounds good so my husband booked the table for three for 7.30pm - for me, my husband and younger daughter, Maria.

There is no parking place but it was not difficult to find a place to park nearby. As soon as we walked into the place, we were surrounded and mesmerised with delicious looking food sold at deli counter. It was Thursday night and the place was really busy, however as we booked our table, we were seated right away. They do pre theatre menu till 6.30pm however we discovered that they do pre theatre menu all evening on Thursday, so we decided to try dishes from this menu - two courses for £10.95 and three courses for £13.95.

So for the starter, my husband and I had Ravioli Fresca (home made ravioli parcels filled with spinach and ricotta cheese with a butter and sage sauce) whilst Maria had Antipasto (cold cuts of San Denielle, Celino's Parchetta and Salame served with Puglian olive, mixed antipasto vegetables and Italian Bread).

Home made ravioli - this was really delicious!

Maria's antipasto that came with slices of bread - she really enjoyed this!

For the main course, my husband and I had Spaghetti Camberoni alls Ortolana (spaghetti pasta tossed with panfried courgettes, king prawn, sun blushed tomatoes in a white wine and chilli sauce) and Maria had Pollo Diane (pan fried chicken breast smothered with sautéed mushrooms in a cream sauce glazed with brandy with a touch of French mustard served with herb infused rice).

Lots of king prawns ....

Maria's chicken - she really enjoyed this one too!

By this time we were all full but my husband and I also wanted to try their Tiramisu so he ordered one so that we could all share.  A big slice of Tiramisu came with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream with warm chocolate sauce.

I then had a macchiato and my husband had cappuccino. Yes, you are not meant to have cappuccino after lunchtime but he likes to have this after meal so he did. I thought the coffee was good.

Including 2 glasses of wine and Maria's drink, it all came around £50 - which is not bad at all!

When we first entered Celino's, I spotted Arancini right away.  These are fried rice balls coated with breadcrumbs, filled with mozzarella and peas. Wikipedia informs me that the name derives from the food's shape and colour, which is reminiscent of an orange (the Italian word for orange is arancia, meaning 'little orange'), and is said to have originated in Sicily. Well, this was one dish on my 'to eat' list when we went to Sicily and to my regret I never tried it when we went there twice! If you are a fan of Inspector Montalbano, you know how much he loves Arancini, so I got to eat this someday ... and here I am, in Glasgow, I finally get to eat this!

After we paid the bill, I did not waste anytime at all to approach the deli counter.
I bought 2 Arancini balls, a tab of antipasto vegetables, and for my husband's lunch, Vegetable Calzone.

The next day, he heated up the Calzone in the oven with crunchy antipasto vegetables. There were lots of vegetables inside of Calzone and he enjoyed this too.

I asked him if he would get this again and he said yes so it must have been delicious. I had my Arancini cold (as I did not deep fry them and not sure if microwave may explode this...?) with salad and crunchy vegetable and I enjoyed it.  Next time when we go back to Celino's, I may try this for starter so that I could eat it hot properly.

Celino's - tutto per tuiit, 'everything for everyone' indeed!

That's all forks.