A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

The Great British Baking Show: Boston Cream Pie Swiss Roll

Like a lot of folks, I'm absolutely obsessed with The Great British Baking Show (Netflix). 

There are two aspects of this show that draw in and keep my attention. The first being the food. Many of the recipes are dishes I've heard of but never made: all things British "pudding" as an example, but also classic pastry like puff pastry, choux pastry, etc., along with sponge cakes.  What we Americans consider plain old cake actually falls under the category of butter cakes.  The only sponge cake we routinely make are angel food cakes which I used to make with my Nannie.  You remember real angel food cakes, right? A dozen egg whites, a tube pan, and a green glass Coke bottle to turn it upside down on to cool. The difference between sponge and butter cakes is method and leavening.  Our butter cakes are heavier but more moist due to the fat content we cream in with the sugar and we use baking powder and/or baking soda and an acid to leaven.  Sponge cakes, or foam cakes, derive their volume and leavening from egg whites and yolks either whipped together or separately but whipped, as in for minutes, to create volume and lift. Funny, so many of the terms are obviously second nature to the judges and contestants but make me hit the pause button and go running to either Google terms or grab one of the three or four very nice pastry and cake cookbooks I own, like "sponge cake".

TGBBS originated on BBC and then moved to Channel 4, which means little to me since I'm in the U.S. and view it on Netflix.  Apparently, in the U.K., it's title is "Bake-Off" not "Show" but here the term "Bake-Off" has been copyrighted by Pillsbury. Each season has 10 weeks or episodes.  Each Episode has a theme: cakes, pastry, bread, etc. Each show is set up in three challenges. The first is always the Signature Challenge where the contestants are given theme in the week's category and allowed to practice and choose their own recipe, flavors, and decorations. The second challenge is always The Technical and it is a recipe of one of the judges where they are given a list of ingredients and minimal instructions.  The idea is to test the contestants overall baking knowledge.  It can be the funniest of the challenges to watch people scratch their heads and look around to see what other bakers are doing.  The third challenge is always called a Showstopper, where the bakers are challenged to create, duh, showstopping creations within the category of the week.  Those can be the most heart-breaking to watch as bakers sweat it out working as fast as the can for usually about four and a half hours, which doesn't allow a lot of time for cooling of cakes and setting of creams and mousses, and the unlucky sometimes end up with a creation that more resembles a heap or a puddle.  There are also accidents at times where baked goods end up on the floor or go flying across a counter.  Gene laughs when he hears me gasp while watching something on my Kindle. When I gasp or groan, he always knows I'm watching TGBBS.  Every baker watching, me! me!, feels their pain when something they've worked so hard on falls apart in their hands.  

I've been aching to try my hand at some of the recipes and since Gene's birthday is next Sunday and we had dinner plans with friends Janell and Jerry this past Saturday, I decided that triumph or fail I was going to issue my own TGBBS challenge on myself.  Since Gene's favorite cake is Boston Cream Pie, I thought it would translate into a lovely Swiss Roll (and it did!).  Janell is also a huge fan of the show and we decided that even though the texture of the cake isn't what we're used to, it was lovely and the Boston Cream Pie parts worked well together.  I used Paul Hollywood's Swiss Roll sponge recipe from The Daily Mail and was very pleased with it, easy to make and tasted great. Happy almost Birthday to my Geno!

Not to toot my own horn, but yeah, to toot my own horn--I was thrilled when we sliced it and found a perfect swirl!  (For the uninitiated, that's the first thing the judges look for is a perfectly round  and even swirl.)

I'll give the recipe and then do step by step photos and instructions--really, it's not hard at all but it does work better with a sponge type cake.  All those eggs give it nice spring.

Ann's Fresh Apple Cake with Boiled Brown Sugar Icing

I had two requests for a birthday cake this year.  From my  cousin Ann: this incredible Fresh Apple Cake with Boiled Brown Sugar Icing and from Gene: an Apple Fritter or  Maple Iced Longjohn with Bavarian Cream from St. George's Donuts here in town.  I know  everyone swoons over Hurt's Donut and Krispy Kreme but my birthday money  goes to St. George's Donuts.  They make the classics, just the way we love them and have been doing so since 1971.

I got both of my cake wishes and got to eat a little of each one every day for a whole week! I had half a fritter or longjohn (they're HUGE!) every morning for breakfast and half a piece of apple cake every night for dessert all  lovely week long.   I'm sugared out until Easter but it was worth every calorie and carb. Happy Birthday to me!

 

 

Halloween 2020: The At Home Family Party that Rocked

      

These two amazing kiddoes are the reason for our at home Halloween party.   Myia, who is  8 and the  cutest Black Panther-ess out there (okay, I might be prejudiced but look, she's  adorable!) had been very concerned about how this whole Pandemic thing was going to affect her trick-or-treating.  But Aunt Gonnie and Uncle Gene (and Uncle Hal) always take care of the kiddoes at Halloween.  We don't have kids ourselves but we've long thought that having our nieces and nephews around gives them people their own age to play with--especially at Halloween.

In our family, there was also a long tradition started by  our Aunt Bessie who always always had Chili on the stove on Halloween, along with  popcorn balls and cookies for  all the neighborhood kids. I loved that tradition so years ago, after Aunt Bessie was no longer able to entertain, I took over making sure at our house there was, and always will be, Chili, popcorn balls, and treats for all the family and friends.

Because the pandemic has changed so much in our lives, we've had to rethink our Halloween get togethers too.  Instead of opening the house to all, we focused on my brothers and sister, and their children, and grand child.   The  youngest are Junior (above, who started out the evening as a Mutant Ninja Turtle, but as he got hot ended up as mostly a naked child running through the house) and Shamyia, whom we mostly call Myia. All together there were 9 of us able to spend the evening together 

Since this is a food blog, I'll go through the food first, but at the end  I'll also talk about keeping everyone entertained which is also part of the fun of Halloween. There are four recipes: Chicken and Homemade Noodle Soup, Spider Bread, Knorr Spinach Dip, and Jello Spider in the Brain.  And then descriptions of three great activities:  Over the Top Large Halloween Word Search, Solo Cup Bowling, and Mini Cornhole.

For 30 years we've always had Chili on Halloween but this year we voted and they chose the lovely, country Chicken and Noodles  for the big pot on the stove.  And I said "No problem!"--fun change for me too.

 One note as you click on my recipe links, for some reason the blog's photo takes about 20 seconds to load so please be patient with it. I apologize. I'm working to solve the technical problem and hope to have that corrected soon.

 Glenna's Chicken  and Homemade Noodle Soup

If you are in a   hurry, I will say that Rheames makes a great homestyle egg noodle in two different shapes so if you're not in the mood to roll out pasta dough...slip over to the freezer section in the grocery store. Other than perfect shapes, no one will know the difference. 

My favorite food part of the night was Knorr Spinach Dip in my own little creation: The Bread Spider. It was a last minute "Hmm...would it work if I..." thought that  turned out to be my favorite foodie thing we had.  This will definitely become a tradition. Who doesn't like a spider than you can pull off his legs to eat dip with?