Love......the rustic baker

Well last week and the early part of this week saw a baking session. I made quiche, macaroons, chocolate mousse, peanut butter & chocolate muffins and pistachio friands.

Quiche was a made up pea, bean and potato number. Tried the Paul Hollywood pastry recipe and I played around with the egg filling by using creme fraiche. The result - so so to be honest. The pastry was delicious, the peas etc were delicious but the egg filling not so. Decided I needed to put in some mustard to jazz up the flavour. But at least no soggy bottom though a beautiful puff in the pastry.

Next I made macaroons from a recipe from How to avoid a Soggy Bottom by Gerard Baker. Actually they were splats. Too little air in final product as I mistakenly squeezed it out whilst using a small nozzle in the piping bag. Plus i have a suspicion my egg whites weren't at their best. Now I know why there is a high charge on a good macaroon. They are extremely time consuming and on the Pfaff Scale about a 9/10. They did taste delicious.

Oldest One had a school friend over this week so I thought I'd try peanut butter & chocolate muffins for the kids. Recipe taken from Baking Magic by Kate Shirazi. I am slowly getting the hang of a good muffin especially the technique. Definitely a mix, dump and bake rather than a good beating and baking! Delicious though I would have like more dampness in the muffin. The kids loved them.

I made pistachio friands from a recipe in the Independent on Sunday by Bill Granger. I have never tried making these and they were slightly pfaffy and I had 6 egg yolks left over. I used a muffin tin not friand tins which can be hard to find. Bill Granger recommends eating them whilst warm, but they tasted under baked. I added honey over the top and left for 24 hours. They seem to age well and taste delicious as time passes. Little mini treats.

I would love to show you a photo of the delicious Irish Cream chocolate mousse I made. But we ate it all up before I remembered to take a photo. We served it with blackberries and raspberries. This recipe was taken from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals.