Can you smell that?
Someone's been baking. I can detect sweet pastry and lemon zest on the breeze. Mmmm....
So Christmas has passed us once again and we've reached the New Year. This is worth noting as these two things are my reason for starting up this blog.
At Christmas, my gift-giving extraordinaire sister-in-law gave me a lovely gift. It consisted of a set of book labels by Poppies for Grace as well as a recipe book called afternoon tea.
As soon as I saw this book, I knew I would love it. It is pink for one thing (I just can't help loving that aspect) and it is full of recipes that mums, aunties and grandmothers make. It is made by frankie magazine and it has the same pretty photography and sweetness that I find in the magazine.
So that is the Christmas side of things.
As for the New Year, well, a personal challenge to myself is to bake each item in the book, 40 in all. I figure I can do that in a year, say, one a week and that means that I can take some holiday leave if need be. My brother-in-law suggested that I create a blog, a la Julie & Julia, and write about my experiences with each recipe.
Et voila, this is my blog.
Someone's been baking. I can detect sweet pastry and lemon zest on the breeze. Mmmm....
So Christmas has passed us once again and we've reached the New Year. This is worth noting as these two things are my reason for starting up this blog.
At Christmas, my gift-giving extraordinaire sister-in-law gave me a lovely gift. It consisted of a set of book labels by Poppies for Grace as well as a recipe book called afternoon tea.
As soon as I saw this book, I knew I would love it. It is pink for one thing (I just can't help loving that aspect) and it is full of recipes that mums, aunties and grandmothers make. It is made by frankie magazine and it has the same pretty photography and sweetness that I find in the magazine.
So that is the Christmas side of things.
As for the New Year, well, a personal challenge to myself is to bake each item in the book, 40 in all. I figure I can do that in a year, say, one a week and that means that I can take some holiday leave if need be. My brother-in-law suggested that I create a blog, a la Julie & Julia, and write about my experiences with each recipe.
Et voila, this is my blog.
Lemon Meringue Pie:
I got a real kick out of buying the ingredients from the shops as well as a lovely flan tin to make my pie really pretty, but as I started making the pastry dough I remembered how frustrating I find making pastry.
I don't know what it is about me and dough, but there is always a massive mess and it is never simple. They never mention this being an issue when writing the recipes, so I assume it's just me. And the dough. This time, I think it was because the egg was too large, because I did everything else by the book! To the gram amount!
I got a real kick out of buying the ingredients from the shops as well as a lovely flan tin to make my pie really pretty, but as I started making the pastry dough I remembered how frustrating I find making pastry.
I don't know what it is about me and dough, but there is always a massive mess and it is never simple. They never mention this being an issue when writing the recipes, so I assume it's just me. And the dough. This time, I think it was because the egg was too large, because I did everything else by the book! To the gram amount!
However, with a bit of extra dry ingredient, the pastry did eventually come together and make it into the tin ready for blind baking. It worked really nicely in the end, not too crumbly or hard. Fantastique!
The lemon filling needed to be thicker when put in the pastry case, as it came out rather runny, but it still tasted delicious and zesty. I'll just ensure to cook it for longer to thicken it up next time.
And the meringue. Funnily enough, with all the baking I've done over time, I haven't made any meringue, and it worked beautifully. Although, next time, I wouldn't cook it so long as it lost the pretty white colour and was a little too brown as you will note from the picture (taken by my dear husband, Chris, the photographer guy).
And so, week one of my 2010 personal challenge complete, I enjoyed a piece of my lemon meringue pie for afternoon tea with Chris (who, not surprisingly, is a fan of my New Year's resolution!).
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