Relight my fire...

Finally a blog that's not food or knitting. A long time ago I was given a candle making kit for Christmas. Being clumsy and having a never ending fear of ruining things I've never used it. And it's always eaten away at me, the idea that someone bought something for me that I've not used. Talk about stuck between a rock and a hard place, guilt of not using something but also being afraid of ruining it if I do. 

So, I was in Ikea with my mum and we were looking at the candles and there were candles in glasses and some really nice glass bowls (what I can only describe as sweet dishes). They were there to hold night lights, but we thought it was a real shame they weren't filled in with a full candle. 

Knowing I had a kit, and with my casual "sure, I can do that" attitude (it's normally used more for when we see something being cooked on tv, not something I have no experience with), I bought a double boiler in the kitchen department and headed home. After a quick internet search, and minor panic, I set about making candles.

Pretty bowls.

Equipment

Heating wax is really easy, the only thing you have to watch out for is the wax reaching it's flash point and bursting into flame.

Yup, spontaneously combusting wax. And you wondered why I put this off. To stop it doing this the wax needs to be melted over water, like chocolate, because it gives a more even and controllable heat. I bought a double boiler that looks like a sieve that has no holes that rests on the saucepan. Other people buy slightly more substantial pans with a compartment that fits on top like a steamer. I read one set of instructions that suggested using an old bean tin. As long as the wax is in indirect contact with the heat then it doesn't matter. Just never ever put it in the microwave. Unless you buy wax that you can.

 Wicks. They come in lots of types, made of different materials, waxed and unwaxed, but the two main types are the ones with a stand and the ones without. My kit came with the wick without a stand, if I wanted to use it with the moulds I would have to thread it through the mould, use "mould seal" (or blue tack) at the base and tie it up at the other. Because I don't have an end to thread the wick through I used a wick with a base so it would stand up.

Wax. There's loads of wax out there, bees wax, paraffin wax, soy wax. My kit came with paraffin beads so that's what I used, but I think soy wax is meant to have a better burn.

Embelishments. To colour and scent my candles I went to hobby craft and bought a block of dye and a bottle of oil. Not all essential oils can be suspended in wax so make sure it says on the bottle if it's suitable. Alternatively you can mix some scent in a small amount of molten wax in something like an egg cup, and if when the wax solidifies again there is oil in the container then it's come out of solution and isn't suitable.

Method

Once you've got everything ready it's fairly simple. To work out how much wax you need, just remember that 1ml =1g. I filled my containers with water then poured that into a measuring jug. I then put the equivalent amount of wax (plus a little for just in case) into the double boiler over gently boiling water, but without touching the water. Slowly the wax should melt, mine possibly a bit more slowly because I wasn't sure how fast it would melt. 

Once melted, add the colour and scent. Add the colour slowly, you can always add more but not take away. The colour will only show properly when it's solid so you may have to cool small amounts to check it. I added a couple of tea spoons of oil, but the bottle should give you an idea of how much you need to add.

Pour molten wax into containers, holding some back, and insert wick. As the wax cools it may form a ring, break the wax and top up with the reserved wax. I didn't quite catch this so I tried to fill in the dimple and it just looked a bit rubbish, hopefully when they're used the wax will melt and even itself out a bit.

So, the finished product, although not perfect, was exactly what my mum was after, and the fact she forgot to take them last time I saw her I'm sure was a memory failure and not a comment on the candles. 

This was actually kind of fun, when I wasn't worrying about things exploding. And it was nice to give someone something that wasn't edible for a change, and the bowls can easily be reused. I think I'll be making more candles with the moulds in my kit (so if you know me, you may be getting one for Christmas!)

Jam update: Mum did remember to take a jar of jam with her, which her and dad practically finished in two sittings. Goes well with brie apparently.

Jamjamjam

"Over the centuries, wizards and alchemists have used all the power and magic they could muster to try and catch rainbows, spin straw into gold, and even bring the dead back to life. They've failed of course. Yet all the while, humble peasants and ordinary housewives have go on with the simple business of bottling sunshine, so that it may spread a little joy in the leaner seasons...They call it jam."  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Ok, so yesterday I had a go at making jam. It's always seemed a bit daunting for some reason, the boiling, the sugar, making sure everything is sterile. It always seems to need a lot of stuff like special pans, muslin and stuff. But it turns out you don't really need all that.

At the end of my drive is a massive plum bush. It doesn't really belong to anyone, both me and my neighbour rent and I can't imagine the landlords caring who picks what fruit. Normally the fruit is left to the birds and just falls off but that's just a waste and I wanted to do more.

I was given the River Cottage handbook "Preserves", by Pam 'the Jam' Corbin, last year, and it made me want to give it a go. It's a really good book, written by someone who knows her stuff and wants you to know it too, from jams and chutneys to pickles, leathers and alcohol. It covers the basics 'how to', has some standard, and not so standard, recipes and gives you the rules so that you can move yourself beyond the included recipes. I've really enjoyed just reading this book, and have lined up a 'to-do' list of recipes I want to try other than jam.

Now, not owning a 9 litre muslin pan (and at the cost of them I probably won't anytime soon) I wasn't going to make the full recipe. I also don't need 8 jars of jam lurking in the cupboard. So using the plum jam recipe I divided everything by 3 to fit in my smaller saucepan.

But, first things first, you must clean. I feel like I spent my entire weekend cleaning the kitchen (cleaned, made pasta, cleaned, made jam, cleaned, made curry...) but it's essential. Bacteria and fungi that lurk in kitchens could so easily spoil a batch of jam and that would a waste of time, sugar and fruit.

 

Plum jam

1.5 kg plums
1.25 kg granulated sugar

Plums. I used the wild ones by my house, but any plums can be used. Give 'em a rinse and cut them in half. The problem with wild plums is that they can be a bit...wild. from my 500g I had about 5 plums with maggots in. Totally gross. Luckily I had a few I'd picked but were going to go spare that I could make up the weight with. The original recipe says the to get the kernels out of the stones, boil and scrub them and add to the jam because they give it an almondy hint, but I didn't want to piss about with that.

Sterilise jam jars. Easy to do, wash in hot water then put in a low oven to dry off. I did it right right before I started so that they'd be dry by the time I needed them, but not sitting about so long they'd contaminated.

So into the saucepan goes the halved plums and 400ml water (or in my case a third of that) and let it simmer to soften the skin. I gave mine 25 minutes before deciding they were soft enough, this varies between varieties of plum. I also added in 1/2ish tsp of vanilla paste to make up for the lack of almond flavour. As the plums boil they smell amazing. I was taken back to when I was little, having been sent up some rickety old ladder by my nan to pick the ripe plums and green gages that grew in her massive, but mostly overgrown, garden. I never saw her make jam, but she used to stew the plums and we'd have it for pudding. She'd also put some in an ice cube tray so we could have them as a cold desert another time.

Add the sugar and give it a good stir to dissolve the sugar. This is when I put the thermometer in. I know there are other ways of checking if jam has reached setting point, but when something has "jam" written on it, it seems overly complicated to do anything else.

Once setting point has been reached, check the fruit isn't floating, apparently the sugar stays towards the bottom of the pan and needs to cook into the fruit for it to set.  Once the fruit is no longer floating, fill the jam jars while still hot.

And in theory that's it! My jams are in the cupboard, I'll give them a few weeks before breaking into one. Still seems a bit gloopy so I don't know if they'll set more or if my plums didn't have enough pectin and I should buy some proper jam sugar if I try again. As it is though I'd love to make some blackberry jam, there's so many hedges full of berries waiting to ripen, hopefully they'll be ready before I go on holiday!

The Breakfast pie.

This is not a pie for breakfast.*

I just want to make this clear. Pie for breakfast is a Bad Idea. This is a pie that contains breakfast. The idea for it started a year ago when I had friends down and I made them this pie. Between discussions about the pie and what we were having for breakfast someone referred to the pie as breakfast pie, and so as a surprise on their visit this year I made this for him.

Breakfast Pie

• 1 pack puff pastry
• 8 sausages, skin removed (I used Sainsburys Linconshire ones because they're a bit herby)
• streaky bacon
• mushrooms, chopped (I used one portabello and it was a bit much)
• whole grain mustard
• soft boiled eggs, peeled.

Preheat oven to 190C/170C fan. The original Picnic Pie recipe this is based on says to cut a third off the pastry and roll the larger part our to line a 20cm round tin. I can't get it to line a 20cm tin so I use an 18cm one. Mix the mushrooms and sausages before putting a layer in the bottom of the pie. Make indents to put the eggs in and gently place them in the pie. I boiled six eggs but only managed to get 4 into the pie because they're very difficult to peel. I can't offer tips here, they were a bloody pain in the arse and I had to put one in that was split otherwise there wouldn't have been enough.

Once the eggs are in, gently put a small amount of the sausage meat to cover the top of them. Put in a layer of streaky bacon and cover with some mustard. Top this with the rest of the sausage/mushroom mix.

Roll out the left over third of pastry for the top, decorate and wash with egg. Put in oven and cook for 50 mins or until a skewer comes out clean. Let it cool in the tin.

This was pretty good not long out of the oven but it was even better the next day cold. I've wondered how this could have been more breakfasty, tomatoes? Black pudding? Beans? The problem with tomatoes would have been too much fluid, the portabello I put in released a fair amount of water and tomatoes would have the same problem, and would result in the dreaded "soggy bottom". Black pudding would be ok, as long as everyone liked it, although I think it might over load the pie with meat (yes, I think you can have too much meat in a pie). And beans? Again a fluid issue, and it might make it too sweet.

Anyway, it made someone make this face, which makes me happy.

*Ok, if you want to eat it for breakfast that's fine. I've seen a lot worse things that people have for breakfast.

By the power of Thor!

Every month, thanks to my mother-in-law, I get a copy of +BBC Good Food though the door. It's great, generally comes as a surprise because I'm not paying attention to the date and I get to spend the evening planning new foods to try. But very occasionally, three times in fact, I've bought Delicious. I've not made anything from them, but they seem very well put together and have some interesting features, one of which is "save our heritage" recipes that are at risk of dying out because they are no longer fashionable. Interesting idea, and the recipe in the issue I bought was Singing Hinny's (very much like a drop scone, or welsh piklet). At the bottom of the page though was the advert for the following issue: Thor cake.

Now, I love the Norse gods as much as the next person (ok, probably a bit more than the next person) but I wasn't going to buy another issue of quite an expensive magazine just for one recipe, not when there is the whole of the internet to provide me with what I want. So here it is.

Thor Cake

225g porridge oats (or oatmeal)
225g self-raising flour
225g brown sugar (bit vague, I used dark brown sugar)
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground allspice
50g candied peel
225g butter
175g black treacle

I was a bit worried when I saw all spice, I had bought some a while ago (can't remember for what) but I'd never gotten around to using it. I did wonder if this had been a mix up and it was mixed spice that was actually required, but I stuck it in and it really does smell right (my house currently smells amazing).

Also, a note on measuring the treacle. I can't remember where I read about this but it's always good to share tips. My treacle came in a tin, cute, oldy-worldy but a pain in the arse to measure. So what I do is put the open tin on my scales (this will only work for digital scales), set it to zero and then started removing spoonfuls of treacle. As the tin gets lighter, it reads the weight you've removed in minus grams! Amazing.

In my usual "just chuck it in" kind of way of doing things, I didn't have candied peel. What I did have though was about 30g of mixed dried fruit and some raisins, which I decided would do instead.

So Step 1 Mix all the dried ingredients. Easy peasy. Also preheat oven to 190C.  And grease/line a loaf tin.

Step 2 Over a low heat melt butter and treacle in a saucepan.

Step 3 Mix butter/treacle into dry ingredients. Mix like crazy. The recipe I followed said "Now stir with all your might with a wooden spoon until you get a thick, loose dough-like mixture." Now, I thought that might mean 'loose' as in fluid, but having mixed, probably means 'loose' like 'not tightly packed'.

 Tip this mix into the loaf tin and cook for 40-45 minutes, use your judgement, mine's been cooking for 50 minutes but at 180C (I thought I might need to reduce for a fan oven, I don't think I needed to) and it's a bit wobbly still so is staying put.

Right, so it's finally out of the oven, possibly slightly burnt on the top, but I think that's my own fault for messing up the oven temperature. I've left it to cool for a bit before cutting a slice, it smells really good and couldn't help myself.

It's such an odd cake, not really a cake, more a beefed up flapjack. The allspice is amazing, definitely have to use it for more things. The sugar/treacle combo give it a really nice toffee flavour as well. Can't wait to try this cold tomorrow, I imagine it's going to become really chewy.

Just as a side note, having become a bit calorie obsessed recently I thought I'd work out how much damage this cake does. The answer: a lot. If this serves 10, then each slice will contain around 470 calories, sending me from doing 'ok' to 'shit, I'm over my daily count by a third'. Nevermind, cake is cake, and although this is much more an autumnal cake than a spring cake, it still goes down very well.