Failure on the First: BLOG FAILURE

Handmade shorts for
my nephew

So, this month's failure on the first is on the second. THAT'S THE FIRST FAILURE. The second is that I haven't updated in like, 2 weeks. I'm really sorry guys! 

Totally easy to make petticoat

And this isn't even a real blog post. I can tell you what I've got coming up though - I've made these cute shorts for my nephew, they're way too big for him, but I'm pretty proud of that. I'll do a full blog and pattern review shortly (heh, no pun intended!)

I've prepped a tutorial for making petticoats that look like this! Cute huh? And they're really easy to make as well, make sure you stick around to check that out.

Chocolate bajillionaire
flapjack!

I made some blueberry muffins and some apple muffins. They are TASTY. And I totally managed to sew in an invisible zip. This is ACHIEVEMENT OF THE GREATEST KIND I also managed to make chocolate millionaire flapjack which was DAIRY FREE, which is quite impressive, as I had to condense the soya milk myself in order to make the caramel. And then I added hundreds and thousands, which made it chocolate bajillionaire flapjack by my standards!

Muffins are tasty, and
contain fruit, so they must
be healthy too

Works in progress include a couple of cute little baby outfits for my friend who is expecting a little girl in September, a rag rug which is going swimmingly and using up ALL MY SCRAPS, it's the ultimate scrap busting project. Work on my dress is going well and still top secret, the two adult bridesmaids dresses are finally finished, and I've started on the kid's dresses.

This was my rag rug a few
weeks ago, it's much more
huge now!

Hopefully, Mr P and I will be moving house shortly, so I shall have some HOMEMAKING posts to update you guys on - it's still a rental, so my hands will be tied with regards to a lot of things, but I'm excited, and I've already got loads of plans!

So yeah, failure on the first, is failing to be on the first... or even for the past two weeks. I solemnly swear I shall endeavour to do better (and show you cute baby clothes!)

Katy

Failure on the First: Chocolate Fudge Cake

Chocolate fudge cake failure

I know what you’re thinking – how can anything involving the words ‘CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE’ be a failure. Well… me… that’s how.

This tale starts off with a planned trip to visit some friends one weekend, and during the week before I turn to Mr P and say ‘Hmmm, if I have time, I might make a chocolate fudge cake to take with us this weekend’ … wait no, let me write that correctly… “Hmmm, if I have time, I might make a chocolate fudge cake to take with us this weekend” which resulted in him telling said friends that I was making a cake… he’s a crafty so’n’so… ensuring he gets his cake that way!

So, anyway, I make the chocolate fudge cake the night before… I know you’re all dying to know, so here’s the recipe (hailed as magic chocolate fudge cake, because it contains no dairy and no eggs)

10 oz SR flour (less 1 tablespoon)
6 oz caster sugar
1 tbs cocoa powder

The chocolate fudge icing is really the crème-de-la-crème of this recipe (please note, not crème-de-la-crème-de-la-edgar! I AM NOT TRYING TO DROWN MY FRIENDS… also, kudos if anyone actually gets that reference), it’s even better, because there are NO QUANTITES, which means you must do it by taste, which means LOTS OF TASTING CHOCOLATE FUDGE SAUCE and invariably burning oneself on it… but oh well.

Melt an equal quantity of dairy free margarine and golden syrup together until the mixture is smooth – to taste, add cocoa powder and icing sugar (I know this is called something different in America, but I can’t recall what it is) until the mixture tastes goooooooood. WARNING, this will solidify really quickly, it will also not look elegant on your cake as it splooges everwhere and then turns into gooey fudge… but it tastes so good it doesn’t matter.

“Where’s the failure” I hear you all cry… well, it’s coming… So, I made said, inelegant, but tasty looking cake – got home from work, and removed cake from the fridge in order to take it with me. We got half an hour down the road to our friends (a 4 hour drive away… this is a long way in England) and I realised THE CAKE WAS STILL SAT AT HOME… WHAT A FAILURE.

Actually, I decided that I wanted the cake so much (and so did everyone else) that the next day, I made cake AT MY FRIENDS HOUSE. It was like friendship cake. Chocolaty fudgey friendship cake.

Which also meant that Mr P and I had a second cake to eat when we got home.

Wait… why was this a failure again?

Lesson learnt: Don’t tell Mr P about plans until they are definite… he will share them with the world just to get cake.

VEGAN Victoria Sponge

 So, I made a Victoria Sponge. An Egg-free, dairy free Victoria sponge. AND IT WAS AMAZING. I got the recipe from this wonderful blog which I am totally in love with, especially the cookies, which I will likely do a post on at a later date.

But, for now, I shall discuss the cake! Now, I changed the recipe a bit, obviously I used dairy-free spread in place of butter, and soya milk in place of actual milk. I also replaced half of the milk with sparkling water, as I saw it suggested on one of the comments, and I’ve seen elsewhere that carbonated drinks are good at aerating cakes.

So, I gave it a go. Cakes aren’t really what I’m good at. I can do cookies quite well, the cakes, less so. But oh my GOODNESS this was AMAZING. Mr P was very pleasantly surprised. Very much so.

Please excuse my slightly grubby ironing board

I have but one criticism, which is more a criticism of me, than of the recipe – I didn’t take into account that dairy-free spread is so much softer than butter, and so the buttercream didn’t really work. Well, it tasted good, but when we cut into it the butter cream (mixed with the jam) leaked out of the sides and looked a LITTLE BIT LIKE BRAINS. (Please note, this was Mr P’s observation, not mine). But, it tasted SOOO GOOD. And actually, after a couple of days in the fridge the buttercream hardened quite a bit, and it worked as a functional cake.

Omnom braaaains

It lasted for 5ish days, and not because it went off, but because we ATE IT ALL. Nommy. Also I put a heart on the top, because I am a romantic, and it seemed like a fun thing to do. I have no idea what the “proper” way to do this is, but I figured I’d cut a stencil from grease-proof paper (freezer paper if you are over the pond!) and just place it on top of the cake. It worked pretty well, as you can see from my WORK OF ART.

Definitely going to make more of these. And I’m going to try out a chocolate version with some chocolate fudge icing too – I’ll let you know how that goes!

Katy x

Mmmmm Scones (An Englishman's Battleground)

As you may know, I am a dairy-free, egg-free person due to allergies. This means that my treats have to be largely home-made and pretty inventive at times.  However, these scones are so easy to make, and never fail to please (actually, that’s a lie, I made them once with gluten free flour and oh my goodness… that FAILED TO PLEASE. They were disgusting, anyway, I digress)

I make no claims to the recipe, I adapted it from one I found online, however I’ve adapted it to be completely dairy free by using substitutes.

225g S-R Flour
¼ tsp salt
50g dairy free margarine
25g caster sugar
125ml soya milk (+ a little for brushing)

Essentially, sift the flour, add the salt and butter and rub it with your hands to make crumbs. Add the sugar and then add the milk a little at a time (I’ve found you don’t usually need all of it) whilst mixing with your hands until you get a dough.

Warning, this is a MESSY recipe. There’s a reason there’s no ‘during’ pictures – my hands were covered in scone mix. This is very definitely a ‘take off the rings’ recipe, or, if you have a tiny helper that likes doing messy jobs – this is a great one to do with them!

Roll or pat the dough into a flat shape (just less than an inch thick) and then cut into little circles with pastry cutters. Pop on a baking tray, brush with the milk and then pop it in the oven for 10 minutes or so, until they look scone-like. I always end up with one oddly misshapen one, after I’ve cut out as many as I can, I make one small blob-like one with the rest of the dough.

(Incidentally, if you’re wondering, I say scone like gone, not scone like stone. Her Majesty would say scone like soon, obviously that is correct.)

These are so quick and easy to make and are a perfect afternoon snack, especially if dinner is something that is going to take a while. I’ve been known to do them as pudding as well, if we fancy a little something sweet after dinner.

Gosh, aren’t scones a topic of division – I don’t have cream, what with being dairy free and all, but so you know – I put on spread, and then jelly.

Oh what? There’s more room for disagreement? I’m from ENGLAND and I said JELLY? You’re right, I did. Jam has seeds and fruit pulp in it, Jelly does not, it is completely strained and therefore mostly clear.  I know this because my mother makes jelly, and it’s the best stuff in the world! I also do not like jam, but I LOVE jelly.

Are we done with all the contention now? Brilliant, let’s sit down and have a cuppa and a scone!

Katy x

Actual not sewing, but actual cooking!

Don’t freak out – but this is a post which is NOT ABOUT SEWING

Yes, I know, this is a HOUSEWIFE BLOG and generally a HOUSEWIFE does things which are NOT SEWING. Ok, maybe not this one… I mostly do sewing.

I made this from a recipe book that I’ve had for ages (it’s a student cookbook of some description) which has a really nice beef stir fry in it, but I wanted to try this because it had corn flour in – and corn flour both excites and terrifies me at the same time. Excites because you can do that cool thing where you mix it with water and then you punch it. It terrifies me because then you are also supposed to use it in cooking… science AND cooking? This can only go wrong, can’t it?

INCORRECT. It went very well, the sauce was pretty easy to make (soy sauce based, nommy). And tasted good enough that I’ve made it a few times since… admittedly it’s not replaced my standard beef stir fry in terms of my favourite, but it’s really good if you’ve already had a lot of beef and are fancying stir fry? (Usually chicken is my most overused meat so this is quite a rare occasion)

Another thing I have PERFECTED in my hunt to be an AWESOME HOUSEWIFE has been the cooking of rice. When I took this photographs I was still in the phase of rice-failure. It would ALWAYS stick to the bottom of the pan, and I’d make TOO MUCH or TOO LITTLE and frankly, it was just a mess. Since then I have progressed and through the little trick of putting a tiny bit of oil in the pan with the rice – I am a rice champion. Except for last night, when Mr P was half an hour later home than he said he would be… then we had thoroughly overcooked rice… what’s a girl gonna do ey?

Oh yeah, I have doctor who plates – I really am just that cool.

Katy x

Failure on the First - "It's Not Crumpets"

So, I’ve decided to start a new feature. Failure on the First. The truth behind this is, all of us make mistakes – it’s part of being human, it’s part of learning. I am definitely one of those people that will just GIVE THINGS A GO with NO FEAR OF FAILURE. And then things go wrong and I’m so mad at myself. Fail. But I do it every time, and sometimes I don’t fail. Then again, sometimes I do. So on the first of every month you will get to SAMPLE MY FAILURE. There will probably be fewer pictures on these posts – I don’t tend to document my failures all that well.

So, let us begin with the MOTHER OF ALL FAILURES. When something goes wrong in our house and I am super upset at being a failure of a housewife, Mr P will turn to me and say “well – it’s not crumpets”. This is why.

 

I love crumpets, I’m going to say that now. They make such a GREAT SNACK and they are quick and easy. But you know what cool people do? COOL PEOPLE HOME MAKE STUFF. Shop bought snacks are overpriced and not cool *righteous face* (don’t worry, that righteous smirk will be swiftly WIPED OFF MY FACE)

So I decided to make crumpets. I mean… how hard can it be. I found this recipe from Delia -I mean, she’s like the GODESS OF COOKING. How wrong can I go.

Ok, so it says complicated things like having a large heavy bottomed frying pan… pshaw. JUST A FRYING PAN WILL DO. So Mr P and I decided to do this as a LOVING TEAM BUILDING EXERCISE to BUILD OUR TINY TEAM OF TWO and try and make crumpets, in my tiny frying pan.

Failure isn’t the right word for this. There wasn’t a word for it. We tried – we made the mix, it looked GOOOD (well, a bit strange, but I think crumpet mix is supposed to look strange) followed the recipe exactly, it’s important when you’re baking. And the first ones… well… they didn’t crumpet. They didn’t even look a LITTLE BIT LIKE CRUMPET. They did not rise, there were no holes, they just came out like rubbery sorts of biscuits. BUT WE FIGURED WE’D GIVE THEM A GO ANYWAY.

I took one bite and spat it straight out into the sink. TMI? Disgusting? WELL SO WAS THE CRUMPET. Mr P actually swallowed a bite. He is a Man.

The best way I can describe the taste is…uh… yeast. Just yeast. Which whilst an important ingredient in baking… the taste of uncooked yeast is less than scrumptious.

BUT… undeterred I thought I’d try again – they tasted undercooked, maybe I hadn’t cooked it long enough. This time I cooked them virtually to the point of burning… and again, took a lovely mouthful of DELICIOUS YEASTYNESS. I’m lying. IT WAS FOUL.

I was all ready to give up at this point. I WAS DEFEATED BY CRUMPETS. But, Mr P was not. He wanted his crumpets.

He made ten failed attempts… TEN (I should add by this point we were literally crying with laughter… it may not have helped the cooking effort) and tried EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Mad man that he is. They were all nasty.

So we gave up… like sane people… oh wait no. THIS IS US. We decided the BEST THING TO DO, since there was NOTHING TO LOSE, was to pour the mix into a loaf tin and BAKE IT.

I honestly don’t know why. We had LOST THE PLOT by this point. Lost it.

Needless to say the crumpet-loaf was also pretty nasty and flopped into the bin in a very rubbery manner.

The moral of this story is twofold…

One: Shop bought crumpets are WORTH THEIR WEIGHT IN GOLD. They are not expensive, and more than that… THEY ARE ACTUALLY NICE.

Two: However badly you think you might have done at something… remember this… it’s not crumpets.

 

Katy x

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