Strawberry Meringue Heaven.

Can you believe that this is only my second time making Meringues?
I decided to try and make cute little desserts and I'm so please with them.

 The best part is they are so simple to make, but made everyone stop and comment on how clever I must be to produce such pretty little tea time treats. So I'm going to share the recipe with you so that you can feel like a clever so and so and make these for your loved ones.

You will need
For the meringue
1 packet of egg whites
4oz of sugar
8 tablespoons of water
a little pink food colouring paste

For the cream
150ml double cream
3 table spoons of monin strawberry syrup

Also
baking parchment
piping bag
large star nozzle
electric hand whisk

Method. 
Firstly make sure your bowl and beaters are spotlessly clean, wash in hot soapy water and dry and then with some lemon juice on kitchen paper wipe both the bowl and the beater to remove any grease (grease is not your friend)

1. Add the sachet of poweder egg whites to the bowl and 2 table spoons of water
2. Start the mixer and keep adding table spoons of water
3. When the mix looks really frothy and bubbly start adding your sugar a little at a time
4. Once all the sugar is added the mixture should look and feel very thick and glossy. then add your food colouring, carefully folding it in to the mix with a spoon. 
5. Carefully put the mix in a piping bag with a large star shaped nozzle attached and pipe the mix onto a tray lined with the baking parchment.  You can draw circles on the reverse of the paper first so all your meringues are equal sized, but as I was just holding the piping bag down and pulling up I eyeballed it
6. Pop in a pre-heated oven at 150 degrees. 
7. Keep checking the meringue and when a hard shell has formed turn the heat down to around 60 degrees and allow to cook for around 20mins.
8. After 20mins turn the oven off and allow the meringues to cool in the oven. 
9. Once the meringues have cooled, whip up some double cream with 3 table spoons of strawberry syrup until it is very thick, when it starts to clump together you've got it. 
10. Pipe the whipped cream onto one of the cooled meringues and then sandwich another meringue on top. And your done!
    
    When I made these strawberries were out of season and very very expensive in shops, but if your making these in strawberry season some fresh strawberries on top of the cream would be lovely.

Paper Pom Poms

You may have seen these in lots of wedding magazines or fancy childrens parties in shows like desperate housewives and you probably think they are incredibly tricky to make certainly the price people are selling them for on Etsy seems to suggest that!

But they are in fact painfully simple to make! and will cost very little!

All you need to make these fluffy, creations is stacks of tissue paper, fabric covered florist wire and fishing wire

• Stack several 20x30in sheets together 
• Fold the paper like you would if you were making a paper fan, about half and inch per fold
• Using a short length of florist wire folded in half, slip over the paper and secure in the center of the paper by twisting a couple of times. Make sure you cut off any excess wire. 
• Cut the edges of the paper into either rounded or spiked ends 
• Attach the fishing wire at desired length to the florist wire for hanging 
• Carefully pull out the tissue paper, starting from the center to create the full puffy ball
  
  And your done!
  
  
  
  This is a really simple way to jazz up a venue for a party or wedding without breaking the bank.
  
  Another fab idea would be to attach fishing line or coordinating coloured twine to both sides of the florist wire and join up several pom poms to make a pretty garland! 

Meringues

Meringues have been the bane of my life for a long time.

I love them, the crispy gooey-ness makes me ever so happy, but can I for the life of me make them!

I have such high expectations for my meringue when I start out. I envision beautiful piles of cloud like pink and fluffy treats. But what I'm normally left with is a flat sticky mess.

I had all but given up on the idea of ever making let alone perfecting this tricky confection, however recently I was given a cheats tip for meringue making and decided to give it one last try, and if that failed I would accept a life free from home made meringues and more upsettingly macaroons.

So what is this cheats tip that got me to try them once again?

Powdered egg whites. I used Dr Oetker brand powdered egg whites, each packet is equal to 2 egg whites when mixed with 8 table spoons of water and they are a lot less temperamental than "real" egg whites.

I used 1 packet of Dr Oetker egg white powder with water added according to packet instructions and 4oz of caster sugar

Whisking the egg whites until frothy I then slowly started adding my sugar and whisking on high speed.

Less than 5 minuets later I had thick luxurious meringue mix on my hands which i popped into a pre-heated oven at 180 for 15 mins and then turned down to 50 for another half hour and left in the oven after it had been turned off.
The other fab little trick I was told was so clean my bowl and beaters like normal and then use a dash of lemon juice and kitchen paper to make sure there was no grease what so ever on them! Genius!

Here is a more in depth, step by step guide to meringue making and if they are still being unruly there is also video to help you out.

And here they are! I am so pleased, they are perfect crispy outside chewy inside meringues and I can't believe the upset trying to make these treats caused in the past, I just wish I'd known sooner how easy they can be with powdered egg white!

                   

Doggie biscuits

I love baking, and I love dogs, so when I found a whole site of doggie bakes from Chihuahua breeder Blue Boy Chihuahuas I knew I was on to a winner. I always worry with shop bought dog food when I start reading the ingridents and don't know what half the things I'm giving to my dog are, and with increasing concern that cheaper pet food might actually be making our four legged friends ill, home preparing seems like a good idea.  I don't want to feed my dog anything that she wouldn't naturally eat or would be considered unfit for human consumption.

The only thing I would say is a lot of recipes called for garlic powder, which I would avoid like the plague as garlic (certainly in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels) can scour kidneys and cause a lot of upset. So personally I would leave garlic or onion out of any recipe for dogs.

But I found this recipe which I decided to give a go, having bought my bone shaped cookie cutter from Amazon and patiently waited for it to drop on my door mat all week I cracked on with the milk bone recipe

Milk bones  

        You will need 

• 3/4 cup hot water
• 5oz  margarine
• 4 oz powdered milk
• 1 pinch salt (Although this may be left out)
• 1 egg - beaten
• 15 oz whole wheat flour (plus extra for dusting)
  
  
  Method. 
• In large bowl pour hot water over the margarine. 
• Stir in powdered milk, salt, and egg. 
• Add flour, 2 oz at a time. 
• Knead for a few minutes to form stiff dough. 
• Pat or roll to 1/2 inch thickness. 
• Cut into bone shapes. Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes.

Allow to cool before giving to your pooch. Store in an air tight container for up to a week. 


They will dry out in to lovely crunchy treats for your beloved hound. This recipe makes a lot of treats, about 40. Unless you have a whole pack of St Bernard's you will probably be pleased to hear the mixture freezes, so you if you pre-cut the shapes you can have tasty treats in less than an hour for your little fur baby.
I used granary flour mix in mine instead of whole wheat for added crunch, another nice variation would be to add a little cooked diced meat or low fat cheese to the mix. Of course then the treats would need to be kept refrigerated.     

This recipe is a lot nicer than other dog treat recipes I've seen. Many of which call for having to handle liver and other associated offal. This recipe made the kitchen smell of warm milk and fresh bread which was much more pleasing to the human inhabitants of the house.
In fact we even tried them in our tomato soup and quite enjoyed them.  Please do remember though that these are treats and should only be used to supplement a round and healthy diet for you and your dog.
  

 My little rascal Medi was more than happy to model a couple of these tasty morsels for this blog, and thinks I should do more doggie features in future! 

The Manly Art of Knitting

   

I've tried in vain to convince my partner to give knitting a go and let me tell you its a up hill struggle. In modern society knitting is still considered the sole pursuit of little old ladies, my sister has given me enough grief for knitting aged 23. So a young male knitting would be hilarious to the ninth degree and almost a taboo thing to do in public.

How ever I did find a little book online called  The manly art of knitting by Davis Frouger.
If you ignore the whole Brokeback Mountain thing going on with the front cover, this may very well convince my alpha male, beer drinking, football loving fella to try knitting.

This little book includes a brief history of how men used to be the primary knitters in society a straight forward no nonsense logical introduction to knitting and various techniques and a few "manly" patterns.

The patterns include a blanket for your dog, a saddle blanket for your horse using an old hose as circular needles and a rope hammock using shovel handles for needles. 

Now I'm sure my boyfriend would give hammock knitting a go on shovel handles, its butch, because we all know with men that size really does matter, and fiddling around with little 4mm needles seems weedy compared to wielding great shovels. And the best part is he would really use a hammock, while the lovingly knitted scarf I made him for Christmas languishes in a draw, a hammock would take pride of place in the garden and everyone who would listen would be proudly told how his own two hands crafted it. 
While I am sure most men are more than capable of fine knits (the last thing I want is this post to be read as some sort of femminist woman power dig at the macho male) I don't think many would have interest or the security in their manliness to start producing fine lace shawls or little baby boots, although that might change is they saw how much stuff like that sold for on Etsy.

However the there is a sting in the tail its currently on Amazon for $130 used. Yes you really did read that right the first time.  So as much as I would love to share knitting, I think there has to be another away. I tried Raverly for a hammock pattern but was confronted with tiny baby hammocks , a Banana hammock  and one   sketchy looking proper hammock so I am at a loss, maybe I will take a baby hammock pattern and blow it up?  

Still i like it 

Knit for Battersea Dogs home.

Photo by Laura O'Farrell/Battersea Dogs home

Its going to become evident that there are a few things I hold dear in life. Baking and knitting are loves of mine, but really and truly my heart is owned by a dog. I am a fool for them, I'm the person who will stop traffic and risk a bite to save a stray, as I type I've let my own dog curl into my lap in such a way that i can only type a single letter at a time with one hand, but do I care?  

So I came across this story in the Guardian I just knew it was going on this blog straight away and straight to the top of my project list.

Battersea dogs home  is in central London  and cares for literally thousands of unwanted and unloved dogs every single year.
They have just launched a campaign for us knitters of the British Isles to knit blankets for these poor dogs and show them the love all dogs deserve. Many of the dogs do very poorly in kennels and become stressed or require extra T.L.C after vet care, these dogs are often found fosters homes and this is where our blankets come in.  The idea is that these blankets become little comforters for lost, homeless pooches to take with them to foster homes and then when they do find their forever home they take them with them as a little token of stability and normality to help settle in.

The pattern is by the simply brilliant Lauren O'Farrell of Whodunnknit and is avalible for a free download.

The pattern is quite simple, and involves plain and paw print design knitted squares joined together (I'm sure if your not ready for paw prints a plain blanket will not be turned down) Its also not a terribly expensive knit requiring around 125g of acrylic DK wool.   The pattern is available at the above links but I'm going to pop it here too.

You will need -

• Yarn: A total of 125g of colourful acrylic DK in as many colours as you like (each square uses about 5g of yarn)
• 4mm knitting needles
• One tapestry needle to sew squares together
• One lonely dog to give blanket to (Battersea will provide these for you. They have plenty)
• Comforting canine thoughts to think while you knit (very important)

Abbreviations: K = knit. P = purl.

Finished size: approx 50cm x 50cm (20" square) Just add more squares for a larger blanket.

Photo by Laura O'Farrell/Battersea Dogs home

Skills you will need: Knitting. Purling. Very basic sewing up for joining squares. 

The Purly Paw Print Patchwork Blanket is made up of 25 squares, knit in simple knit and purl. Ten plain squares, five tiny paw print squares, five medium paw print squares, and five HUGE paw print squares. Sew them all together et voila! A comfort blanket for a homeless hound who is feeling ruff...

Plain squares

Cast on 23 sts
Row 1. K across
Row 2. K across
Row 3. K across
Row 4. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 5 and all odd numbered rows. K across
Row 6 and all even numbered rows to row 38. Repeat row 4
Row 35 to 37. K across

Bind off. Make ten of these squares.

Small paw squares

Cast on 22 sts
Row 1. K across
Row 2. K across
Row 3. K across
Row 4. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 5 and all odd numbered rows. K across
Row 6 and all even numbered rows to row 10. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Rows 12 and 14. K2, p6, k2, p2, k2, p6, k2
Row 16. K2, p3, k2, p8, k2, p3, k2
Row 18. K2, p3, k2, p2, k4, p2, k2, p3, k2
Row 20. K2, p6, k6, p6, k2
Row 22. K2, p5, k8, p5, k2
Row 24. K2, p6, k6, p6, k2
Row 26 and all even rows to row 34. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Rows 35 to 37. K across

Bind off. Make five of these squares.

Medium paw squares

Cast on 22 sts
Row 1. K across
Row 2. K across
Row 3. K across
Row 4. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 5 and all odd numbered rows. K across
Row 6 and all even numbered rows to row 8. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 10. K2, p6, k2, p2, k2, p6, k2 
Rows 12. K2, p5, k3, p2, k3, p5, k2
Rows 14. (K2, p2) across
Row 16. K2, p2, k3, p8, k3, p2, k2
Row 18. K2, p3, k2, p2, k4, p2, k2, p3, k2
Row 20. K2, p3, k, p2, k6, p2, k, p3, k2
Row 22. K2, p5, k8, p5, k2
Row 24. K2, p4, k10, p4, k2
Row 26. K2, p3, k12, p3, k2
Row 28, k2, p5, k8, p5, k2
Row 30. K2, p7, k4, p7, k2
Row 32 and all even rows to row 34. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Rows 35 to 37. K across

Bind off. Make five of these squares.

Large paw squares

Cast on 22 sts
Row 1. K across
Row 2. P across
Row 3. K across
Row 4. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Row 5 and all odd numbered rows. K across
Row 6. K2, p5, k2, p4, k2, p5, k2
Rows 8 and 10. K2, p4, k4, p2, k4, p4, k2
Row 12. K2, p2, k, p2, k2, p4, k2, p2, k, p2, k2
Row 14. K2, p, k3, p10, k3, p, k2
Row 16. K2, p, k3, p2, k6, p2, k3, p, k2
Row 18. K2, p2, k2, p, k8, p, k2, p2, k2
Row 20. K2, p5, k8, p5, k2
Row 22. K2, p4, k10, p4, k2
Row 24. K2, p3, k12, p3, k2
Row 26 and 30. K2, p2, k14, p2, k2
Row 28. K2, p3, k12, p3, k2
Row 30. K2, p4, k10, p4, k2
Row 32. K2, p to last 2 sts, k2
Rows 34 to 37. K across

Bind off. Make five of these squares.

Finishing

1. Darn in all the ends. Sigh. 
2. Spend ages arranging the blanket squares in any order you like. Oooo pretty! 
3. Make yourself a cup of tea and put a good film on. You're going to be sewing squares together for a while. 
4. Sew squares together. 
5. Keep sewing. 
6. You're done. Woo hoo!

Once you are done you can either take it over to Battersea yourself, they are open to the public everyday or alliteratively pop it in the post to the following address.

Dog Blanket Appeal
Battersea Dogs & Cats Home 
4 Battersea Park Road 
London
SW8 4AA

Finally do follow Battersea Dog and Cat home and Laura O'Farrell on Twitter

Choccywoccydoodah

To those of you who have not seen this show on Good Food Channel, seriously what are doing?

Choccywoccydoodah is a fantastic bespoke chocolate shop in Brighton  but its not all chocolate they also make simply the most gob-smakckingly- beautiful cakes your mind can dream up.

Its a fantastic mix mash of  raunchy camp-kitsch and frothy feminine shapes that will make you feel a little dizzy as you try to take it all in.

The show on Good Food Channel is excellent and will really wet your appetite, although I think this is one craft your really should leave to the expert Artists. If you ever find yourself in Brighton, and amazingly at a loss as to what to do (although that is highly unlikely) do try and pop down to them. They are located on Duke Street, only about 15mins from the sea front and if your anything like me the ever changing shop window display alone will hold your attention for a good 20mins. If how ever your not that lucky there is still the fantastic choccywoccydoodah website to drool over.

Here are some of my favorite creations

Really cute solid chocolate westie dogs


A sexy sailor mermaid



Cabbages and sweet peas (i really cant believe this is all made of chocolate)



And the kitschest Beatles inspired rainbow explosion wedding cake I've ever seen


They also do a bespoke service and are willing to turn your wildest dreams into chocolate form for any occasion. If you go for this option then your in for a dedicated one to one with the mother of choccywoccy Christine, who will help you create the most delectable and visually outrageous cake imaginable.

Still not enough for you? Then you can also follow them on Twitter!

(All images from choccywoccydoodah.com)