Robbie Cheadle's Blog, page 59
March 17, 2019
Angel cake
I made this delicious angel cake for my niece’s birthday recently. It was all eaten by the family in one sitting which illustrates how delicious this cake is. You will need an angel cake tin and a bottle of wine to make this cake.
Ingredients
12 egg whites, 15 ml warm water, 7 ml cream of tartar, 2.5 ml salt, 1 1/2 cups castor sugar, 1 cup plain flour, sifted, 5 ml vanilla essence.
Method
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Do not grease the angel cake tin. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites with the warm water on a low speed until foamy. Add the salt and the cream of tartar and increase to a medium speed. Beat until the mixture reaches medium peaks. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is stiff and glossy like meringue mixture. Beat in the vanilla essence. Stir in the flour until it is totally incorporated. Spoon the mixture into the tin. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Place the tin over the neck of a wine bottle and leave to cool completely. Once cool, use a clean, sharp knife to loosen the edges and invert the cake onto a board. Give the center of the tin a sharp bang and the cake should come out. Another sharp bang is sometimes necessary. Fill the center with strawberries, mulberries and raspberries and dust with icing sugar.
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March 7, 2019
Granny Una’s apple pie by Robbie Cheadle
Sally Cronin from the fabulous Smorgasbord blog has shared this delightful recipe from our great granny, aged 97.
Granny Una’s apple pie by Robbie Cheadle
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Our Granny Una makes the most delicious apple pie. She has handed the recipe over to the bakers in the family as she is now 94 years old and doesn’t bake that much any more. Her recipe is totally divine and is best when eaten in large quantities with either cream or ice-cream.
You can read the rest of this post here: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/03/07/smorgasbord-posts-from-your-archives-family-granny-unas-apple-pie-by-robbie-cheadle/?wref=tp
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February 24, 2019
Stilton, cheddar and cranberry scones
I adjusted this recipe from the National Trust Book of Scones for Johannesburg (high above sea level) and my own personal taste.
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Ingredients:
450 grams of self raising flour
115 grams of butter, cubed
115 grams grated stilton
115 grams grated cheddar cheese
115 grams dried cranberries
1 medium size egg beaten
200 ml full cream milk
Method:
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Rub in the butter using your finger tips until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Add the stilton, cheddar and cranberries and then the egg and milk. Knead to form a soft dough.
Turn out onto a floured surface and, using your hands, flatten to about 2 cm thick. Cut out rounds using a cookie cutter or a glass. Place on a prepared baking sheet and brush the tops with milk.
Bake for 15 – 20 minutes until golden brown. Cut in half and spread with butter.
Delicious.
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February 10, 2019
Choux pastry beehive cake
I wanted an interesting cake idea for the beehive that features in Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Dough Bees Story and Cookbook. I came up with the idea of a beehive assembled from cream filled profiteroles.
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This particular baking scheme required the making of over 20 profiteroles made from choux pastry filled with lightly sweetened whipped cream and topped with white chocolate coloured yellow.
The recipe for basic choux pastry is as follows:
1 cup cake flour
1/2 cup butter
300 ml water
4 eggs lightly beaten
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Line a baking tray with baking paper cut to size. Sift flour into a small bowl. Place water and coarsely chopped butter into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Butter must be completely melted. Remove the saucepan from the heat and add sifted flour. Stir, using a wooden spoon, until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the saucepan.
Add the beaten egg, a little at a time and beat it into the batter. The dough should be glossy and drip slowly from the spoon.
Baking
Spoon balls of the dough onto the prepared baking tin and use a fork to encourage the dough to form a peak. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes on 200 degrees Celsius until the dough stops rising. Reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 20 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and working very quickly, poke a hole in the bottom of each profiterole to let the steam out. Switch off the oven and return the tray to the oven and leave the profiterole to cool with the door partially open.
Filling
Whip fresh cream and add castor sugar to taste. Fill a pastry bag with the cream with a large round ended nozzle. Insert the nozzle into the cooled profiterole and fill with whipped cream.
Assembly
Stack the profiterole to form a bee hive as show in the picture below. Melt white chocolate over a pot of boiling water. Temper the chocolate by adding +- 1/3 more chopped white chocolate. Add a small amount of powdered yellow food colouring to make a lovely yellow chocolate mixture and carefully pour this over the choux pastry bee hive.
Making the bees
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Make black and yellow fondant using powdered food colouring.
Make 10 oval shaped balls of yellow fondant. Using a small ball tool make the eye sockets and make the eyes from tiny balls of black fondant. Glue them into the eye sockets using sugar glue or dampen the back of the balls slightly and push them into the eye sockets. Make the mouth using a cocktail stick or a small drinking straw cut to shape. Cut the black strips out of thinly rolled black fondant and glue them to the body. Use an oval cutter to make the wings and leave them for 30 minutes to firm up. Once firm, glue the wings to the body.
Place the bees as desired on the choux pastry beehive to create your masterpiece.
Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees story and cookbook
[image error]Available from TSL Publishers, Amazon and sirchoc@outlook.com in South Africa
A greedy snail damages the flower fields and the fondant bees are in danger of starving. Join Sir Chocolate on an adventure to find the fruit drop fairies who have magic healing powers and discover how to make some of his favourite foods on the way.
Recipes
Learn how to make the following delicious recipes included in Sir Chocolate and the sugar dough bees story and cookbook:
Terrific cheese bread;Delightful butter biscuits;Jammy scones;Rainbow cupcakes; andBold banana bread.
All of these recipes are simple and can easily be made by a child under adult supervision.
February 3, 2019
Chocolate fudge balls
Michael asked me to make him these delectable chocolate fudge balls to take to school for his birthday treat.
I adapted this recipe from an original recipe by Lilach German.
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Ingredients:
120 grams butter;
250 ml milk;
250 ml double cream;
60 ml castor sugar
125 ml cocoa powder
125ml almond flour
300 grams dark chocolate, broken into pieces
400 grams crushed digestive biscuits
1/2 cup almond nibbles
1/2 cup rainbow sprinkles
Method:
Heat the butter, milk, cream and sugar in a saucepan over a medium heat until the butter has melted and the sugar is dissolved. Add the cocoa powder and almond flour and mix until smooth. Bring the mixture to the boil.
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Remove the saucepan from the heat and add the chocolate, allowing it to melt completely. Add the crushed digestive biscuits and mix until combined.
Place the mixture in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Use a spoon and your hands to roll small balls of the mixture and then roll the balls in either the almond nibbles or the rainbow sprinkles. Place on a baking tray. Store the cookies in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
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January 27, 2019
#Baking – Olive and cheese scones
These scones are amazing. I had two and that is something I rarely do.
Ingredients
450 grams self raising flour
100 grams butter, cubed
225 grams grated cheddar cheese
1 packet (200 grams) black olives stoned and cut in half
120 ml milk
120 ml cold water
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the cubed butter and rub into the flour, using your fingers, until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add the cheese and the olives. Mix the dry ingredients, then make a well in the centre, and pour in the milk and the water. Mix until a soft dough forms.
Turn out onto a floured surface and pat to about 1 centimetre thick. Cut out circles using a glass or cookie cutter. Place on baking trays. Brush the tops with a little milk. Bake for +- 15 minutes until golden brown.
[image error]Cut the scones in half and spread with butter
January 9, 2019
Death does not come - flash fiction
I heard it, like a rabid dog, whining relentlessly outside my door during a home invasion, when the car was hi-jacked and while I was perched precariously on the edge of a cliff as a child.
It barked madly for attention during my children’s lives when one stopped breathing, another had croup and throughout the twenty-eight anaesthetics and operations they collectively undertook.
It always slunk away, tail between its legs.
January 5, 2019
New Year's Goals
I do not make resolutions as those are made to be broken. I do, however, like to have measurable goals and these are mine for 2019:
Finish my new book, Through the Nethergate, for publication in early September. It will be ready for developmental editing this month but I anticipate some re-writing. This is a much longer book for me and will be approximately 70 000 words. It is aimed at the YA market and is a supernatural/horror book.
Publish my new Sir Chocolate book, Sir Chocolate and the Fondant Five story and cookbook. I have finished all the artwork and editing. I just need to include one more recipe which I will do this week. It will be ready to send to my publisher by mid-January.
This year I plan to publish a themed Sir Chocolate book. One of Charli Mills’ weekly prompts inspired a new Christmas story, Sir Chocolate and the graffiti artist story and cookbook which I plan to publish in late October this year. I have done some of the artwork over this Christmas period. It will include five lovely Christmas recipes.
I had a very horrible dream while we were on holiday. The down side was I woke up in a panic. The upside was I wrote it down and it has given me a great idea for my next horror book. Writing a 70 000 word book takes me some time so that one will be for next year.
I will be doing a monthly post on Writing to be Read hosted by Kaye Lynne Booth.
I am very pleased with the success of the poetry readathon and plan to host another readathon next year over the same period. It really does inspire me to read more and, of course, the more you read the more you learn.
I am going to learn how to make a bun in my own hair.
Looking over the above, it looks like a very achievable list to me. I will let you all know how it is going over the course of the year.
Thank you for sharing my dreaming, writing and baking journey with me. Wishing you all a happy new year!
December 13, 2018
Darkness - a metaphorical poem
Shadows in your mind where fears and anxieties gather;
An oppressive space beneath the bed where monsters lurk;
The big blackness that frees our inhibitions;
A rich, velvety curtain sprinkled with bright sparkles;
A spiritual void created by chronic illness;
The colour of a mood inspired by loneliness;
A cancerous growth on an otherwise healthy organ;
The claustrophobic grip of a panic attack;
The herald of restful sleep and bodily rejuvenation;
The secret spaces and caverns deep within the earth;
The state of a mind not enlightened by education and knowledge;
The calm and peaceful volumes beneath the breaking waves;
The blight on the skin of an otherwise unmarred fruit;
The muffling blanket of an anaesthetic over conscious thought.
By Robbie Cheadle
February 15, 2017
Geoffrey Chaucer's love birds
The Parliament of Fowls is written as a dream vision, a literary form that became very popular during the 13th century. While Chaucer’s dream poems, of which The Parliament of Fowls is one, dealt with love, personal loss, the common profit and fame many of Chaucer’s contemporaries combined dream vision with allegory to deal with more philosophical topics in response to the massive religious, social and economic changes that took place in England from 1350 onwards as a consequence of the high mortality rate caused by the Black Death. Post Black Death England was characterised by an abandonment of the countryside by agricultural workers, periods of famine, sudden growth of urban areas and the development of a new mercantile class.
Regardless of content, medieval dream visions or dream allegories shared the following three features:
1.a prologue depicting the circumstances leading up to the dream by the narrator;
2.a dream account of the events occurring in the dream itself; and
3.the appearance in the dream of a male or female authority figure who gives the dreamer guidance about some aspect of his life or teaches him some spiritual or philosophical truth.
The prologue to The Parliament of Fowls starts with Chaucer diligently reading an old book all day long. He has been told that old books bring new wisdom. The book he is reading is entitled “The Dream of Scipio” by Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) and the story of the dream contained in the book is retold by Chaucer.
The Dream of Scipio describes a fictional dream vision of the Roman General Scipio Aemilianus and is set two years before he commanded at the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. The dream depicts Scipio, upon his arrival in Africa, being visited by his dead grandfather who stresses his duty as a loyal Roman soldier and advises that he will be rewarded after death for his services. In the dream, however, Scipio sees that Rome is actually an insignificant part of the earth which is dwarfed by the stars. A philosophical discussion regarding the nature of the Divine, the soul and virtue ensues. The Dream of Scipio was a highly regarded text during Chaucer’s time and he featured it in his own work as homage to Cicero. According to scholars, the parallels between The Dream of Scipio and The Parliament of Fowls are not that clear other than that The Dream of Scipio deals with the nature of the universe while The Parliament of Fowls deals with a small part of that universe.
Librarius.com (http://www.librarius.com/parliamentfs...) describes the plot of The Parliament of Fowls as follows:
“The plot is about the narrator who dreams that he passes through a beautiful landscape, through the dark temple of Venus to the bright sunlight. Dame Nature sees over a large flock of birds who are gathered to choose their mates. The birds have a parliamentary debate while three male eages try to seduce a female bird. The debate is full of speeches and insults. At the end, none of the three eagles wins the female eagle. The dream ends welcoming the coming Spring.”
This post started off as an investigation into the origins of St Valentine’s Day and ended up with me investigating Chaucer’s love birds and reading the original text of the poem (with some difficulty and tenacity) and the modern translation (with much more ease and pleasure). Ain’t life grand!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Sources:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/humanitie...
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-book-of...
http://www.librarius.com/parliamentfs...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somnium...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parleme...
Find Robbie Cheadle:
https://www.amazon.com/author/robbiec...
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
