I feel immensely proud

Four more days, world athletes will get together to share and to compete. No politics, just a healthy dose of sportsmanship, for a few days, when I feel we are truly a family.

London 2012 and Great Britain, I feel so proud to be here and witness it all.

Survival by Muse

London Olympic 2012 Official Song

I am a convert

to Dan Lepard.

Since I made my transatlantic move 11 years ago, life has adapted rather smoothly. Don't get me wrong, even with a common language, there are considerable differences between two countries, culturally to everyday life routines. Nevertheless, overall I felt I've had a suave transition.

However, baking is not one of them.

American recipes do not seem to work well here, at least in my kitchen. It could be the different measurement system (super convenient cups vs more precise weight by scale), the quality of flour (for instance, wheat varieties, the inherent moisture and gluten content) or different ovens. There could be other reasons but my experience tells me that I simply can't pluck a recipe from an American source, no matter how reliable the source is, and expect it to work in my British kitchen. Also for reasons unknown to me, I refused to convert to the weight by scale system widely used in Europe. I am not sure why. Perhaps I was trying to hang on to the last faint connection I thought I had with America. For the past decade, my baking success is not great (50-70%) when I try a new recipe (still stubbornly chosen  from North America). As a result, I tend to stick to a few recipes which I know to reproduce.

But all changed when I got a new cooker/oven. I decided to ditch my old habit of baking and start to embrace it more scientifically, with a kitchen scale. And I switched to Dan Lepard's recipes.

Gosh, what a revelation. They turn out just like what he showed on his newspaper column. E.V.E.R.Y.T.I.M.E.

I will share with you two of his recipes. They not only make great baking goods but also are also a great fun in baking education. Both recipes call for 300 grams of flour but the amount of eggs and butter differ. The recipe which makes muffins uses only half of the eggs/butter required by the recipe making cakes. By trying both recipes, it clearly shows me the crumb texture difference between muffins and (cup) cakes. I am also amazed to see (again) how adaptable flour is. In addition, both recipes appear to be quite amendable for substitutions. I have replaced the milk/cream with plain yogurt, swapping corn flour with ground almond, adding nuts or different berries to the batter. All turned out great so far. 

Hallelujah. Thank you, Dan.

Sweet muffins with yogurt and cream 

Here are the variations I made.

Lemon muffins. Used milk instead of the milk/cream combo. Used ground almond instead of corn flour and added zest of one lemon.

Coconut muffins. Used coconut cream instead of double cream. I sprinkled dessicated coconut on top of muffins. Yummy.






I also made the blueberry version. Use plain yogurt instead of the milk/cream combo. Used ground almond instead of corn flour. Decorated the top with blueberries. They were fab.

All-purpose easy butter cake

I made them into cupcakes form. Decorate the top with one pecan each. These were wonderful!!

Three pretty good things: 7 July

1. My blackcurrant harvest

I planted a little blackcurrant bush about 30cm high last year during spring time. Ben Lomond is the variety I went for, which is wildly available here. Last summer I got about six precious blackcurrants. This year I got more than 800 grams of these babies. Wow, I am very impressed and hugely excited. As the canning bug is still with me, I turned them into five jars of jam. I relied on Dan Lepard's recipe, except for the addition of lemon. Blackcurrants are tart enough and have enough naturally occurring pectin to be jelled on its own. We are all thrilled by the end products. Yes they taste differently from the superb French blackcurrants my father-in-law grows but they are next best things, my English blackcurrants, which are adored just as much.

2. My new cooker

I inherited a camel colored cooker when I moved into this house. The oven and the grill were never working but the gas stove was. It lasted 10 years under my reign and we decided that this year it shall retire. We've got a new one with dual oven. What can I say? I've never appreciated fully a gas cooker until this week. My muffins turned out picture perfect, with cute looking dome shape top and seductively browned. The roast lamb shoulder is perfectly crisp on the skin and ever so tender inside. And the roasted cauliflowers, oh my, hubby said it's a winner in a roast lamb dinner!

3. Olympic torch relay in my town

The Olympic torch relay passed my street today. It was very moving to see the army soldiers being part of the parade. And the torch bearers are chosen not because they are TV starts but because they mean something to our local community. I like that very much.