Crazy Days

Whoa! Its been a crazy two weeks! Where do I even start?!
Well, my mother (who was extremely ill) was hospitalised for two weeks, so, being the eldest around, all duties fell to me. and let me tell ya, being a mother is NOT easy. Add to that hospital runs, and studies, ungodly early mornings, and terrifyingly late nights... Blehh. I've barely had a moment to sit, let alone type up anything. For the first time in my life, I found myself watching Bake Off through half-closed eyes at 3am, thinking, 'when's this gonna end...' and counting down the minutes. Which is sad, because the last two episodes were darn interesting!
On the plus side, having to do majority of the cooking chores means I have heaps of recipes to share. On the negative, I've not had time to bake much. BUT, due to the celebration of Eid, I did make a delicious blueberry cheesecake, and a coffee-chocolate cheesecake, both of which were a hit. So those recipes are going to be coming up. There's also a cucumber, lime, and mint sorbette, which is refreshingly cool and summery, and vanilla Victoria sponge cake slices which looked 'rustic' (think: absolute mess) but tasted yummy. (I finally purchased vanilla bean paste, and let me tell you, the buttercream icing is absolutely DREAMY!) There's chocolate éclairs, a chocolate orange pudding which was delicious, chocolate orange cupcakes which were a disaster, though the mousse topping was delicious... Yeah, I think that's all. But for now, here's me dropping off in front of the screen, so I'm off to bed.

Oh, look! Its only half past one in the morning! An early night for a change. That is surprising!

Spiced Vanilla Apple Jam & A Chocolate Vanilla Traybake

In terms of creativity in the kitchen, today was definitely a successful day. There were wonderful smells seeping from the cracks under the kitchen door, through the gaps of the passing window, circling out through the back door and in through the front windows: cooking apples heavy with cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon, sweet spicy flavours of almonds and carrots from an Afghani pilau, the rich smells of flavourful lamb and peppers, and then, for a special, simple, and tasty tea time treat, the heavenly smells of chocolate melting and sugar cooking... yep, it was quite a day.
Upon entering the kitchen today, I saw a packet of lamb mince defrosting in a bowl on the worktop. I gave it a passing glance and headed straight out of the back door to collect a small box of garden apples, intending to make a warming, deliciously comforting apple crumble. It really was the day for it, frightfully nippy, with a bitingly cold wind that seeped through the cracks and through the walls, under your skin and through your bones, as though by osmosis. Unfortunately, I was to be deprived of my small bit of comfort; almost all the apples were rotten through! Crawling with those tiny worms, or completely and terribly bruised, one even had a layer of fungi. After salvaging what I could, I ended up with a woefully small amount of apples. I decided to turn them into a jam, and so the vanilla apple jam was born. It's quite delicious too.

Mine is quite dark because I added a lot of cinnamon.

 Spiced with star anise, cloves, and cinnamon, flavoured with lemon and orange and vanilla, it'll go wonderfully with a number of desserts and sweet treats, and also, as I've mentioned before, taste wonderful with battered, ovened prawns...
I've put rather a lot of cinnamon in mine, because I absolutely love cinnamon, so mine is quite dark in colour. I also used dark sugar because I was too lazy to dig the caster sugar out of the pantry. (I had to anyway, because it ran out...)
 Anyway, here's the recipe: (I'll put the savoury recipes in a separate post, and add the sweet ones here.)

SPICED VANILLA APPLE JAM
INGREDIENTS
5-6 cooking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
2tsp ground cinnamon (or alternately, you could use 2 cinnamon sticks)
1 Star anise
5-6 Cloves
Seeds from one vanilla pod (or alternately, 1tsp vanilla essence)
Juice and rind of one orange
Juice and rind of one lemon
Caster sugar

METHOD

1. Place apples in a heavy based pot with the cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and juice and rind of orange and lemon.
2. Add in enough water to cover the apples, bring to boil until the apples are completely soft, cooked through, and mushy.
3. Sieve (strain) through a meshed sieve. Discard the pulp. Weigh the amount of sieved mixture, and for every pound, add 300g of caster sugar.
4. Place in pot with the caster sugar and vanilla, and cook on low heat until it reaches setting point. You can test this by putting a thin layer on a chilled plate/saucer, and pulling your finger through it. If the jam runs, its not ready. If it stays, its ready. Alternately, put a spoonful on a chilled plate, and leave for a minute or so to set. Lightly poke the jam, If the top wrinkles, its ready.
5. Place in a sterilised jar, Clingfilm, and cover with lid. Leave in a cool place to set completely before serving. Refrigerate once the jam has cooled.

I'll also add the other sweet recipe over here. This was courtesy of my mother, who was craving 'plain and simple' cake. So plain and simple cake it was. I was lingering in the kitchen whilst she was making this, complaining about boring flavours, and offering outrageous suggestions. She did, simply put, swat me and tell me to get lost. Tasting it, I had to admit, she had the right idea. Sometimes simple treats are the best. So here it is, chocolate vanilla tray bake.

CHOCOLATE VANILLA TRAYBAKE
INGREDIENTS
4oz butter, softened
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
4oz plain flour
1tsp vanilla essence/extract
2oz dark chocolate chips
1tsp baking powder

METHOD

1. Beat butter, vanilla and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs, one at a time, with a spoonful of flour.
3. Fold in flour and baking powder. do not over beat.
4. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Spoon into a lined baking tray. Bake at Gas Mark 4 for approximately 15-20 minutes until golden, and pulling away at the sides.
6. Cut into slices, and enjoy warm with a cuppa.

I've been making this cake ever since I can remember. The amounts of ingredients are easy to remember, and you can substitute the chocolate drops for whatever you wish. Maybe almonds, or chopped dates? What about walnuts, or candied peel? Maybe glace cherries? You can also experiments with adding cocoa powder, or stirring in melted chocolate, or substituting sugar with honey, and chocolate for pine nuts, and add a bit of orange zest for a lovely tasting, healthier alternative? It's up to you really, don't stop at the simple flavours!

Vanilla...

An incredible spice called Vanilla...
Vanilla is plain. Vanilla is boring. Nobody wants just plain vanilla. If you were out of time for dessert at a dinner

Vanilla: Plain and boring,
Or wonderfully intriguing?

party you were hosting, and all you had was vanilla ice-cream, you'd run for something to serve it with. Maybe strawberries or raspberries? Maybe some white chocolate curls, or dark chocolate sprinkles. Maybe you'd grab some butter, sugar, and cream and whip up a deliciously thick and rich caramel toffee sauce? Maybe candied apple slices, pretty and crisp with red outer skins, or a sprig of mint to garnish? Nobody wants plain vanilla. Not special enough, not tasty enough, nothing catches ones attention. Certainly nothing, that holds ones attention firmly in its grasp, nothing that compels you to sit up and take notice. No one describes the flavour as a 'burst of vanilla', or calls out its richness, or its warmth. It is just there, plain, simple, basic, the base, a background flavour that quietly complements all other flavours, boosting them, emphasising them. The truth is, Vanilla IS the base, it's all-important in its lovely rich subtlety. It is needed to complete a dish, to complement it, to embellish it, or even to offer a comparison against. Truth is, Vanilla is all-important, because without it, we would be deprived of the notability of all the rest. 

SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE VANILLA

1.       Vanilla is tropical orchid.

2.       Vanilla is native to Mexico and Central America. The interdependent nature of vanilla and its natural pollinator, the Melipona bee, which is native to Mexico, so it was difficult to cultivate it outside of its native places until hand pollination was discovered.

3.       The process of the cultivation to the harvest of vanilla is long and labour intensive. It must be hand-pollinated and nurtured, and needs a long drying time. That's why it's so highly prized- and highly priced!

4.       It is the second most expensive spice after saffron.

5.       Vanilla is widely used: in commercial and domestic baking, in manufacturing perfumes and oils, and in aromatherapy.

6.       The first cultivators of vanilla were the Totonac people. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, who was forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover, where they were captured and beheaded. The places where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew.

7.       The selling price of vanilla rose in the 1970's after a tropical cyclone destroyed main croplands, and remained high through the early 1980's before dropping 70% until April 2000.

8.       After tropical cyclone Hudah struck Mexico in April 2000, prices rose from US$20 per kilo to US$500 per kilo in 2004. A good crop, coupled with decreased demand caused by the production of imitation vanilla, pushed the market price down to the US$40 per kilogram range in the middle of 2005. By 2010, prices were down to US$20/per kilo.

9.       The vanilla flower only lasts about one day, sometimes less! Therefore, farmers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers on the vanilla plants.

10.   Vanilla has always incredibly valuable, so naturally it has a long history of robbery.In Madagascar, vanilla rustling was a major problem for many years. Growers branded the individual beans when they were green and the markings remained after they were dried. Whenever someone suspected their beans were stolen, they could determine by their distinctive tattoo whether or not the beans were theirs.

11.   As I mentioned before, vanilla is the world's most labour-intensive agricultural crop. It takes up to three years after the vines are planted before the first flowers appear. The fruits, which resemble big green beans, must remain on the vine for nine months in order to completely develop their signature aroma. However, when the beans are harvested, they have neither flavour nor fragrance. They develop these distinctive properties during the curing process.

The history and production of vanilla is incredibly interesting. It becomes apparent that vanilla is, indeed, not plain and boring, but a mysterious, delicate and intriguing little plant with a long history. In fact, it’s obvious to see the reason why vanilla is so expensive! I own a bottle of vanilla beans that's resting somewhere in the dark recesses of my pantry shelves, not even realising what a treasure I possess. Author Frederic Rosengarten Jr. describes it in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate"; he called its complex floral aroma a "peculiar bouquet". And he's right. Vanilla is an underappreciated spice, easily dismissed for other flavours and flavour combinations we deem more exotic or original or strange. The next time I go to get a gelato or sorbetto, I'll go for vanilla, if only to appreciate the complexity and intrigue of this wonderful tropical cactus (providing I don't get distracted by something sharp and zingy! What can I say? I love lemon!) So here's to Vanilla, The wonderful, under appreciated flavour of it, the amount of toil that goes into it, and the beautiful warmth and richness of it. Lets never call it 'plain' again! 

For more interesting facts or information, or to learn how to prepare vanilla, visit these sites:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/vanilla
http://vanilla.servolux.nl/vanilla_facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla