Sunday, December 19, 2010

Some winter nostaglia

I make no pretence or claim to be a baker.

Cakes, muffins, scones, have never been a part of my repertoire. If anything, if I was to describe my culinary preferences, I’d say that I was more of your slow cook style of girl.

For me, the longer it cooks the better. Heaven is a seven-hour lamb studded with anchovies and garlic. My favourite thing is my Le Creuset; positioned on my stove-top ever at the ready.

I’m surprised really by my lack of sweet prowess, as I’m more likely to default to a sweet fix than a savoury one. Perhaps my lack of achievement is hereditary, borne out of by a complete lack of necessity.

My mother is a fabulous cook of that 1950s generation of housewife: the first of the mix master set, the original domestic goddess. Hers was the era when efficiency met domestic science and the brand name ruled in the kitchen for the first time.

Saturday was baking day. I used to watch from the sidelines, curious but banned to the perimeter, so that I wouldn’t get in the way. I looked on amazed at her deft hand and her ability to coax and conjure eggs, milk and flour into lightweight concoctions to be decorated with jam and sugar icing. (There was no need to learn how to cook as she was so good at baking.)

So the fact that I find myself posed over a mixing bowl with a spatula in hand, though sans apron, is somewhat surprising. I’d like to think that it’s the Christmas spirit that has inspired my current gesture of cookery – the mini-Christmas muffin.

After two days of picture-perfect snow, one can’t help but think it’s all starting to look, smell and feel a lot like Christmas. And if Christmas inspires anything in me, it’s nostalgia.

My all time favourite (and I mean favourite) winter treat is mince pies. It’s the aroma of clove, ginger, cinnamon, candied fruit and over-generous dustings of icing sugar that I love.

Today most people just buy jars of it. (Mine was purchased yesterday at my local deli – Robertson’s finest classic mince meat (a most curious name when you think about it.)

I know that it doesn’t taste the same as the good stuff – that heady mix of dried fruits, alcohol, peel and spice that was left to ferment in the run up to the Christmas by everyone’s elderly aunt. The apparatus of course was always the large china mixing bowl and the slightly discoloured dampened tea towel.

Anyway, so two days of snow and here I am in the kitchen waiting patiently for my mini-muffins to cook. Having peered into the oven, there’s not so mini anymore. I added an extra tablespoon of mincemeat to the mixture and I think that they are now weighed down by too much nostalgia.
But the smell of the kitchen is as it as it should be: warm and peppered with the smells of flour and egg, dark chocolate and mincemeat.

The perfect treat on a cold Sunday just before Christmas.

Christmas mini-muffins (courtesy of BBC Food)
200 grams of self-raising flour (sifted)
100g golden caster sugar ( I just used normal)
100 ml sunflower oil
75ml milk
1 large free range egg
1 heaped tablespoon of high quality mincemeat (not sure what makes high quality but Robertson has a royal warranty, so presumeably it hits the mark)
50 grams of dark chocolate

Now before we go any further I need to say the recipe recommends that the mixture is divided in half and combined with 50 grams of dried cranberries and 50g of white chocolate. I decided to devote all my mixture to mincemeat and dark chocolate.

While pausing, I should also add that I got a little confused with my measurements and while I added two extra heaped tablespoons of mincemeat, I forgot to add more chocolate. (I've just tasted one from the over and it tasted pretty good to me.

So you pre-heat the oven to 190C. While the oven is heating, mix together the flour and sugar.

I did this by hand - there is no need to put out the KitchenAid.
Now we have a KitchenAid in our house - it belongs to my co-conspirator. He is the baker. He highly recommended that I hand mix these ingredients. I suspect he did this because (1) it is more than possible to and (2) he likes to keep me away from his cherry-red anniversary KitchenAid.

Having mixed the flour and sugar, in a separate bowl, whisk the oil, egg and milk and then slowly add to the dry ingredients.

Combine, so you get a mixture that is the equivalent of a batter. Then add your mincemeat and chocolate, which you have chopped. Mix everything together and place in mini-muffing cases.

Now according to the BBC, I should have used a mini-muffin tray and I would have except that I don't have one. Our kitchen can barely cope with the Le Creuset and tagine on the stove and the KitchenAid. So, I just used a normal muffin tray.


The result is muffins that will never ever look like the beautiful miniture pudding-like muffins on the website. Instead, they look like something a Christmas grinch would have made - neither muffin nor Christmas canape!

They do taste delicious, and once I make the icing, I think they'll serve the purpose of achiving some winter cheer.

1 comment:

Luke said...

"He highly recommended that I hand mix these ingredients. I suspect he did this because (1) it is possible to and (2) he likes to keep me away from his cherry-red anniversary KitchenAid."

You see, the thing about the KitchenAid.

It's not something you just dive right in and start using the first time you bake. It'd be like learning to drive in a Porsche, It'd be.... well..... you know.

You need to have mixed things by hand so you learn how quickly or slowly they combine. What happens to them when you mix faster or slower? Does the mixture loose all of it's air? Do you need to sieve the icing sugar so it does not make lumpy icing? That kind of thing.

These are all subtle concepts you only pick up by mixing the old way.... many, many times.

Once you've acquired this knowledge, you're ready to try it with something a little more advanced.

Like a KitchenAid.