First, I thought I should make another attempt at pastry making. I had trouble with my mince pies a few weeks ago, and when I told Mummy she said that I have to practice. So I did. I made little fruit pies. As it's just a practice, I decided not to make very many.
Put in a bowl 4oz plain flour and 2oz butter (or margarine or whatever). And rub them together with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs.
Then put in 1tbsp cold water and mix with a knife. Then use your hands to bind it into a soft dough.
At this point I wasn't sure it was quite right, but figured I'd try it anyway. And when I started to roll it out, it worked! Magic!!
So Mummy was right. The third time I remoulded the cuttings to roll out again the pastry started to crack, so I wet my fingertips and kneaded it again. And it continued to work! I was quite pleased with myself.
I used a tin of fruit cocktail for the filling. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of this. Anywho, I greased the tins and put my pies together along with the lump of surplus pastry (which we butter and eat while still warm, because it's lovely) and put it in the oven.
Then I moved onto the next recipe - this is something I've not made before and I'm such a maverick that I didn't even follow it. The recipe is for Apple Crumble Slices, but I don't have any apple pie filling, so I made Pineapple Crumble Slices!
Put in a bowl 3oz plain flour, 3oz self raising flour and 3oz desiccated coconut. Put in a pan 6 1/2 oz butter and 4 1/2 oz brown sugar.
The pan goes over a low heat and stir until the butter is melted and the sugar dissolved.
Then you pour the mixture into the dry ingredients and mix. Take away 1 cup (about 9oz) of the mixture and reserve for later.
Put the rest into a lined tin 18cm x 27cm. I don't actually own a tin this size so I just used my roasting tin.
It went into the oven to bake for 15 minutes. At this point the pies were ready. I told you I wasn't making very many. I think perhaps I could have made the pastry a little bit thinner. Then there would have been more pies.
Next I wanted to make some flapjacks. I put 1oz brown sugar in a pan with 4oz butter and 2tbsp Golden Syrup. I put the pan over a low heat then wandered off (for about 40 seconds) to weigh out 6oz oats in a bowl and to I find my flapjack tin, which I lined with baking paper or greaseproof paper (whichever it is).
And I went back to the pan and stirred and stirred until everything was melted / dissolved and I poured the mix into the oats and mixed it all together. I put it all in the tin, and then it had to wait a minute...
... because the crumble stuff was ready to come out of the oven. Mmm lovely.
And I pressed the flapjack into its tin with a fork and then I put it into the oven.
For the crumble topping, I took the 1 cup of mix that I had reserved, and added to it 1 1/2 oz butter, 1 1/4 oz oats and 1 1/4 oz of raisins (the recipe says to use currants, but I don't follow recipes properly). It says to 'combine' them. I used the electric whisk.
Now the crumble base wanted to cool completely before I put anything on it, so I left that and started on the washing up.
When flapjacks were ready and I took them out of the oven and replaced them with my dinner (something out of the freezer that I didn't have to do anything with except for make hot).
About 20 minutes later, I opened my can of pineapple chunks and crushed each piece with a fork. I spread them out over the crumble base and put the crumble topping on top (as you would). Then I dusted the whole thing with cinnamon, just in time for my dinner to be cooked and I put my crumble slices inside. They wanted 35 minutes.
So I ate my dinner and finished tidying up and then they were ready. Look! Loverly.
Not bad for four hours' work :)
No comments:
Post a Comment