A Thing-A-Week Part 38: Cake in a Mug

So I found online the following recipe:

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract

Essentially, you mix all those ingredients in that order in a large coffee mug and microwave it for about 3 minutes and you get cake...theoretically. I tried it and what you get is a large brown lump of slightly burnt cocoa with a sort of waxy rubbery texture. It is cake if you squint really really hard. I wasn't really surprised but a little disappointed. There has to be a way to manage the science to get something more cake like. I think chocolate is right out unless it is a white cake with chocolate chips because the temperature is too hot and too fast for cocoa which burns fairly easily.

I didn't take pictures but this website is almost exactly what it looks like. Although their's looks more like cake so perhaps the wattage on my microwave is too high. It could have been that my cocoa was too good as well. I have noticed some recipes only really work with a more generic cocoa.

Although in doing a web search there are all sorts of variations online so perhaps it could just have been a bad example. I am not sure whether or not it warrants further investigation though because at the end of it, I know that mixing all of the same ingredients and just baking it an oven will yield good cake as opposed to sub standard cake. And no one deserves sub standard cake.

A Thing-A-Week Part 37: Stew

It's a very Hobbit dinner Charlie Brown!

So I have never been much for stew. My father always made gallons of it whenever my mom was out of town and my brother and I grew up hating the stuff. But I wanted something hearty and autumn-like that I could cook all day in the crock pot. I thought I would give it a try.

I have learned from my limited cooking experience that it is time and attention to detail that makes simple food so wonderful. So I decided to put a little energy into everything rather than just dumping it all in the pot. I did a little research and looked at a few recipes on line and this is what I came up with:

1. Mix flour, paprika, salt, and pepper. Roll cubed beef in the seasoning mixture and then place in a frying pan with hot olive oil. Sear/fry until brown on the outside. Transfer meat to crockpot.

2. Dice an onion and place in same frying pan to absorb the flavors of the meat drippings and olive oil. Add diced garlic. Saute until slightly brown. Transfer to crockpot. Deglaze the pan with a little port and add to the rest.

3. Dice 4 potatoes and about 2 cups of carrots and add.

4. Add broth (beef would have been better but I had some chicken that I needed to use up) and add Worcestershire sauce and a bay leaf. Let cook for 4 hours on high.

5. Mix 1 tbsp each of flour and cornstarch with about a cup of water. Whisk vigoursly until there are no lumps and add to put. Then I seasoned with some seasoned salt, pepper, nutmeg, and mustard powder. Remove bay leaf.

I served with buttermilk biscuits I had made from scratch (I need to remember not to roll those so thing when I am making them or they don't puff), chedder cheese, and apple cider. It was very hearty and not bad. I thought the base needed more flavor but I think I might try making the thickner on the stove with a little port and using beef broth next time.

A Thing-A-Week Part 36: Soap!

I made soap! I have always really wanted to make soap...ever since I joined the SCA really. All the reading I did said "Oh my god! Soap is so dangerous. We don't even know why we make it!" And not having any chemistry background I sort of gave up hope.

Recently someone in the local group has been experimenting with soap and was gracious enough to allow me to play too! So we made a hot process soap using vegetable ingredients. The bonus of the hot process method is the lye is no longer caustic by the end of the night so it could be used the next day. It is also a more period method (though these ingredients were not). It is kinda ugly as it is hard to mold with the consistency it is at. Cold process soap requires about 6 weeks before it is non-caustic but it takes a mold much better.

This is what I got from the process. I am certainly not the expert and there are far better resources online. Essentially, it was Crisco, canola oil, water and lye. The fasts are softened so that they can interact with the lye. The lye is added to water and then allowed to cool while the fats are warmed until they reach a temperature within about 10 degrees of each other and then they are added together and mixed until they reach trace - a sort of thick pudding like stage. With cold process it is then poured into molds and left to sit for a while. With hot process, it is heated some more and goes through a couple of stages of something I am not quite sure how to describe.

When the lye is all reacted out, it is mixed with scents and then poured in molds and allowed to set. The two lighter colored bars were frozen to get them out of the mold. They were also in smaller molds so they are set up a little more.

I am going to try them tomorrow. I am not sure I added enough scent so hopefully I don't smell like crisco tomorrow.

Stuff I have been up to...

I haven't been terribly productive lately. I am not sure that I will make my 52 things before the end of the year but I have some time. Griffin's Needle ate a lot of my August and I haven't been feeling terribly motivated for getting much else done. I never could get the hang of Augusts but we are well into September and I am starting to feel more antsy to do things.

My kitchen experiments have been full of fail recently so I haven't been sharing those. I had made some Fruity Oaty bars for needle arts but they were a little dry. I had also tried making flour tortillas but couldn't get the temperature regulated so they weren't turning out as well as I would have liked. I like the recipe but I need to get some better equipment.

Upcoming Projects:
*Halloween party planning (need to make my costume and some decorations)
*Finish some scroll banks
*Try making cold process soap
*Make jam
*Do some candle experimentation
*Finish my underdress
*Use up my beads. I haven't been doing much beading so I have a ton that I need to figure out something to do with them. I thought I might try making some ornaments or something. Need to do some research online
*Continue slogging through my knitting projects. I am ready to turn the heal on the second sock of the first pair. I still have the other pair to go, my gigantic technicolor blanket, and I want to start making a felted bag for myself and some baby gifts for a co-worker.
*Re-do my class notes for KWB&C and register for the event
*Do some research on Tudor feasts

And probably a bunch of others I am forgetting

A Thing-A-Week Part 35: Lentil Salad

No pictures of this....It turned out well but lentils are not...photogenic.

Essentially I used the following recipe:
http://www.ummah.net/family/recipes/lentil.html

It smells kinda odd (I think it is the cumin) and it is not visually attractive but it tastes really good. I am someone who never thought they would like lentils until I helped out with making lunch for 35 year and I was corrupted.

I think it is a definite win. I just hope it is a fair vegetarian option. I am not sure about quantity though. According to the bag the amount I made was 14 servings. I didn't measure final volume.

A Thing-A-Week Part 34: Pan Perdy

28. To make the best panperdy
To make the best panperdy, take a dozen eggs, and break them, and beat
them very well, then put unto them cloves, mace, cinnamon and nutmeg, and
good store of sugar, with as much salt as shall season it: then take a
manchet, and cut it into thick slices like toasts; which done, take your
fryin pan, and put into it a good store of sweet butter, and, being
melted, lay in your slices of bread, then pour upon them one half of your
eggs; then when that is fried, with a dish turn your slices of bread
upward, and then pour on them the other half of your eggs, so turn them
till both sides be brown; then dish it up, and serve it with sugar
strewed upon it.

I started with:
6 eggs
2 tbsps sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp each mace, clove, nutmeg.

I ended up with WAAYYY too much spice so I added 2 more eggs and some milk (I was bad I know but I just couldn't see making "french toast" without milk...I am weak!)

I also baked the toast more because I wanted a faster way to make a lot of it and I wanted to see if it would work so I put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 400 degrees flipping half way through.

It was yummy and I got about a dozen slices. I wasn't true to the original recipe but if my next experiment goes well...I have breakfast!!! *fingers crossed*

A Thing-A-Week Part 33: Makshufa

A number of years ago Matthias of Rolling Oaks lent me all of his back issues of Tournaments Illuminated. From there I got a bunch of feast/recipe/cookery type articles that I periodically refer to mostly when I have feast planning questions. They have come in handy a number of times.

There was one from the Winter 92 by Elizabeth Cook on an Islamic Dinner. I wanted to find some thing sweet dessert type thing to serve with my lunch and one of the first recipes I tried might be the winner...Makshufa.

The recipe reads:
"Take equal parts of sugar, almonds (or pistachios), honey, and seasme oil. Grind the surgar and almonds, and mix together. Add saffron to color, mixed with rose-water. Put the sesame oil into a basin and boil until fragrant: then drop in the honey and stir until the scum appears. Add the sugar and almonds, stirring all the time over a slow fire until almost set: then remove"

I don't know about the authenticity of above but it looked interesting. I stuck with the original redactors proportions as they seemed reasonable. It turned out like an almond brittle (the rose water is a bit weird) but the rose water masks the caramel/buttery flavor. While strange at first I have to say it has really grown on me. And I can make it a week ahead of time. The only problem is that it has to stay cold or it is really sticky but that may be a fault on my part. I may have needed to cook it longer. I am thinking of making an almond, a pistachio, and a sesame variety for lunch.

Currently testing my kebab recipe and the lentil salad. More on that later.