A girl doesn’t know what to wear, let alone what to bake!
- Baking Goat
- May 4, 2020
- 3 min read
I think in many ways I’m quite flexible (my hubby will disagree) but when it comes to the weather, I’m not. I like to know that the weather forecast will stick to it’s forecast. It’s bad enough to be menopausal and having to wear layers all the time and leaving the house (in days of yore) usually means I have to take a selection of outfits because ‘What if it turns cold?’ or ‘What if that wind picks up?’ or ‘You know how hot it is at your mum’s’ and so on…. So, up until last week, the weather has been gorgeous. Roasty toasty in the garden, BBQ on and me wandering around in my…..actually I’m not gonna go there. You really don’t want that image in your head but let’s just say I was dressed accordingly. This was also reflected in my baking habits which had actually turned to ice-cream. Not exactly baking but I thought it was a good time to experiment with my ice-cream maker. An item usually reserved for wedding presents, that ends up at the back of your cupboard and only resurfaces when moving to another house. I’m still not completely happy with the results but will continue to push through because it turns out that bad ice-cream is just like pizza, there’s no such thing.
Looking out the window now, it’s cloudy. 10 minutes ago, it was sunny and 10 minutes before that it was raining. This morning, it was noticeable on our garage roof (which is currently holding a million litres of water due to the drainage being blocked. Note to self, do not procrastinate too long over that job!) that it had dropped below freezing last night and yesterday we had hailstones. Oh, and the day before that we had a mini tornado whip through the back garden. See my point? What do I bake? Well, it turns out I’m a bit more practical than that. I’ve got a stack load of frozen bananas and as banana bread seems to be the quarantine bake of choice (along with sourdough bread) I decided to follow the herd. I’ll give you Mary Berry’s recipe even though, I suspect most of you have a go-to recipe of your own but whoever’s recipe you use, my one and only top tip is to use frozen bananas., obviously defrosted before you add them to the mix but your loaf will come out extra moist and extra bananary (word invented).
I also came across a couple of egg whites in my fridge. I can’t remember what I was using egg yolks for, maybe it was for the ice-cream? Anyway, I was contemplating meringues but decided on macarons. Not always easy to make. Actually, that’s not true, they ARE easy to make but you must pay attention and not get distracted. Today I got distracted and overwhipped my whites but they came out good nevertheless. I went for mint/choc flavour and also made them twice as big…..hey, size matters. For the record if you make your whites too stiff, they won’t mix so well with your almond flour and will come out lumpy. Also, when adding any flavourings, add that to your cream not the meringue. Some flavourings don’t mix well and you could lose all the air you have just whipped in.
So, last week, I along with my fellow hosts, was back on the radio, sort of. We decided to give the Facebook Live thing a go. It was a learning curve, that’s for sure. It wasn’t too bad for a first go but we definitely need to tweak a couple of areas, I doubt we shall get it as polished as when we are in the studio. It’s a very odd experience and a bit nerve wracking, however we shall endeavour to give it another go this week. This means I have to wear a bra again, wash my hair and be more aware of my ‘resting bitch face’. Roll on Thursday!
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