The two most important things in life are birthdays and ballet. But not in that order ….
Welcome to life according to M. Where once as a 4-year old she lived for rainbows and unicorns, she’s now 11 years old and her life (and therefore mine too!) revolves around ballet. As she writes on her ballet blog, First Arabesque …….
Small girl, big imagination.
So when it came to baking some birthday muffins, it was inevitable that ballet would find its way into the mixture.
It started with 4 oz of butter and 7 oz of caster sugar …
… which were creamed and then beaten together with 2 large eggs and 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract.
8 1/2 oz of plain flour was sifted with 2 tsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt, then stirred into the mixture alternatively with 120 ml of milk.
There was definitely no licking of fingers.
The mixture was spooned into 12 muffin cases ….
…. and baked at 180 degrees C for 30 minutes.
Although she is now 11 years old, I get the impression that she still believes a messy kitchen can be cleaned as if by magic …
The ballet company were invited over to decorate the muffins ….
…. and to sing Happy Birthday (which was only 3 months late, M’s actual birthday having been in June!)
A special request to anyone who has read this far ….. Please head over to M’s blog and say hello – it would make her day!
My sister asked me for my pizza dough recipe a few days ago ….
We’re hoping to christen Jon’s pizza oven later this week (although not if the weather keeps up like this). I wonder if you might be able to jot down your pizza dough recipe for me, please?
So far, so good. But then she became quite specific ……
Please don’t just reply with “oh I don’t know, it’s different each time…a hand of this then say the magic word” …..!!!!
Uh oh.
I don’t use any magic words, but I don’t use any weights or measurements either. I just aim for a certain amount of stickiness. And that’s hardly a winning formula!
Perhaps the main selling point of my ‘recipe’ is that it doesn’t use any sophisticated mixing equipment and is entirely sticky-hands free.
I leave the dough to rise in an upside-down, draught-free, cake-carrying box until the gluten has developed and it has a soft, velvety texture with lots of stretchy bubbles (the magical part of having added as much water as possible to the dough).
I’d like to introduce you to a delightful 6-year old who will become my sister’s stepdaughter next year … (will that make me a step-aunty?). My sister is obviously failing to live up to the evil stepmother cliché but instead has been busy in the kitchen stirring up wonderful magic and regal surprises. Here’s the tale of Rose Fairy …
Rose Fairy writes letters to me. I make houses for her out of boxes and glitter. Lucy and I read a story called The Fairies Cupcake Ball (we borrowed the book from Kate, L, M and T) which is about a girl called Flossie and she dresses up when she’s cooking. Flossie and her Mum bake cakes for fairies. We chose the recipe for Queen Rosie’s Royal Rose Cupcakes because we were making them for my Rose Fairy.
We chose special ingredients to make the cake taste of rose and we decorated them.
Here’s me putting the decorations on the cakes.
This is the cake I decorated for Rose and her friends.
In the afternoon, I made a fairy house for Rose. I used a shoe box and made a bed and a bath for Rose. I used a match box for Rose’s bed. I made some perfume for her too. I used rose water and a drop of food colouring and put it in a tiny perfume bottle. Wainwright, the dog, got very messy because he got pink paint on his chin! My Dad loves clearing up glitter…especially when he gets all sparkly!!
The inside of the house
In the evening, I put the house outside before I went to bed. I left out the special cake for Rose. The next morning, Rose had left me a card and she’d eaten the cake with her friends. There were crumbs all around the house and in the friends’ bed!
This is what she did.
It’s really fun making houses and cakes for Rose.
Amazingly, my tooth fell out the following day so I was lucky enough to be visited by two fairies on two nights!
Queen Rosie’s Royal Rose Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cakes
115g sugar
115g softened butter
115g self-raising flour
2 eggs (we used medium organic)
½ teaspoon rose water
Icing
25g melted butter (only we forgot that bit and it worked out fine!)
400g icing sugar
4 tablespoons cold water
A few drops of natural pink food colouring
Ask a grown-up to turn on the oven to 190 degrees C
Mix all the cake ingredients together really well.
Put 12 cupcake paper cases into a 12-hole fairy cake tin and spoon the mixture evenly between the cases.
Bake for 15 minutes and then ask a grown-up to place them carefully onto a wire rack to cool.
When cool, place all of the icing ingredients into a mixing bowl and mix them together for a few minutes. You might need some help with this because it’s really stiff.
We used a piping bag to swirl the icing onto the cakes but you can just use a warmed teaspoon if you don’t have the icing bag and nozzle.
1 kg/2 lb rump or shin beef, cubed
50 g/2 oz plain flour, seasoned
sunflower oil
2 medium onions, thickly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
300 ml/ 1/2 pint beef stock
600 ml/ 1 pint Guinness
Roll the cubes of beef in the flour to lightly coat them, then brown them quickly in hot oil in a frying pan to seal them. Transfer to a large saucepan.
Soften the onions and garlic in the meat residue left in the frying pan, then add to the beef.
Add the potatoes, carrots, thyme, bay leaf and beef stock to the saucepan.
Deglaze the frying pan with the Guinness and add to the stew.
Bring the stew to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Lift the lumpy things out of the pan with a slotted spoon, then reduce the gravy to half the original volume over a high heat.
Pour the gravy over the meat and veg and serve.
(the broad beans came with us to Ireland from our garden in Devon … we had a glut before leaving and didn’t want to waste them …!)
It only takes a quick glance through the archives to realise that A Merrier World has grown up over the last seven years alongside my three young (and now not so young) children.
(Seven years?? I mean, really? 7?? Wow! How did that happen?)
Sorry … picking myself up from the floor again …
L (now nearly 12 years old), M (now 9 years old) and T (now 7 years old) have featured in, inspired and even written many posts during that time. Just a few examples ……
Way back in October 2007, I made Gingersnaps after taking “my younger daughter (M) and baby son (T) to a local toddler group.”
Two years later in 2009, M baked Smarties Cookies after drooling over some in a bakery window while we were out shopping.
Fast forward another couple of years to 2011 and L wrote a guest blog about her Mum’s Random Bread Recipe as part of a homework assignment she was set for the weekend.
When M was set a cross curricular challenge at school a year ago in July 2013, she also wrote a guest blog to present her Sweet Salad Trifle invention.
And earlier this year in February 2014, T revealed the secret of making the best chocolate brownies in the world in the Singing Baker Brownies.
One of my own most fondly remembered cooking sessions with my ‘kids in the kitchen’ was in September 2009 (five whole years ago!!! … sorry, I’m still in shock over the timescale) when we made Look and Cook Vegetable Soup …
Last month on her seventh birthday, L read proudly to us all from her new, special Aunty-Lucy present – Look and Cook, a gloriously vintage cookbook for children by Tina Davis. Not only does this superbly illustrated book provide recipes for such evocative things as popcorn balls and forgotten cookies, L was also captivated by the various sections that name each different kitchen utensil, discuss safety in the kitchen and describe how to measure, chop, dice, boil, steam and sauté with skill.
“Now I can cook dinner for all of us,” L announced, feeling sophisticated and grown-up.
She took her job very seriously. In her role as Mummy, she knew that cakes and cookies, however tempting, were not what she should be serving to her children as their main source of nourishment. I watched as she slowly thumbed her way from the delicious puddings and sweet treats at the end of the book, through the pasta and rice of the middle sections, towards the vegetables and main dishes in the opening chapters.
Then her eyes lit up as she spotted a recipe for vegetable soup.
So … are you getting the idea that I think it’s important to involve children as much as possible in kitchen adventures? Not only is it enjoyable, educational, etc for them … but also … I mean … who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who can bake the most sinfully sinful chocolate cake? Give your children some cooking skills and you’re setting them up for life (and a great social network at University).
I was therefore very interested when I received an email yesterday about the CiTV cooking show for children, The Munch Box, and I’m more than happy to pass on the call for young chefs to my readers …
Hi there,
I wondered if you might be able to help me in my quest to find children to take part in the next series of the hugely popular Saturday morning cooking show, ‘The Munch Box’ which is going to be filming in London during the Autumn. The show features a mix of cookery challenges alongside fun food-related games and the chance for the children to learn from a celebrity chef.
I’m looking for children aged 9-12 who love cooking, can do it on their own, and who have the confidence to come into a TV studio with two friends (who can help them out) to cook their favourite food in front of the cameras. In addition, I’d also like to speak to children of that age-range who are very vocal and have a great love of food to potentially be our ‘Masterchef’-style judges, telling the chefs what they think of their cooking! In both cases, we’re not looking for children who can sing, dance and have a background in TV performance, just children who can speak confidently and are able to cook or talk about amazing food.
As well as being fun, the children who took part in the filming last year benefitted hugely from the experience. Not only did it encourage their love of cooking, but one child became determined to improve his reading because he wanted to learn how to read complicated recipes. It really is a great experience for them so any help you can provide is hugely appreciated.
Many thanks, look forward to hearing from you soon.
I say, “Go for it!”
If you are aged 9-12 and are interested, ask a parent/guardian to send an email by Saturday 9th August to:
amerrierworld.com 