A Sense Of Scale

I assumed that of the three edible star foods I blogged about, the cupcakes would excite the most interest. Apparently I was wrong. From comments, both on and off the blog, it seems that the cookie Christmas tree was the most interesting, so I thought I'd elaborate a little on it's construction, especially as the photo I posted didn't really give any sense of scale.

We used the Wilton Christmas Cookie Tree Kit to cut out stars of ten different sizes. We actually used two of most of the sizes to build the tree (we only used one of the biggest and some of the smaller stars to make the tree tapper to a point quicker). We also used the cookie dough recipe which came with the kit. Unfortunately the recipe was written in cups and I think I got the conversion wrong as it was so wet we had to keep adding flour for what seemed like ages. Also the cooking times given for the different cookie sizes didn't really match up with reality. Fortunately even with all those problems the cookies turned out to be more than edible!

So here is a photo of a single layer -- in fact the largest star. It measures a whopping 22cm across and weighs just over 12oz! Fortunately cookies, if stored properly, last a while and I'm thinking it's going to take us quite a few sittings to eat our way through this one star.

If you happen to want to add the forensic science touch to your photos then I printed out the measuring corner you can see in the photo from a PDF produced by Steve at Destinys Agent. The PDF is published under a Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, share alike licence so feel free to have fun with them.

Edible Stars

If the moon is made of cheese then, going on the food we ate at Christmas, stars are made from ready-to-roll icing!

There was a cookie Christmas tree, Christmas cupcakes and then a star burst on the Christmas cake. All were good fun to make and exceptionally enjoyable to eat.

The cookies were made using a basic recipe and my Mum made the Christmas cake, but you can find the recipe for the cupcakes in the cookbook.

Ha Pea Christmas!

Penguins in a Snowball Fight

I thought I did quite well icing the Christmas cake last year. My mother has already iced their cake this year so my icing skills won't be required. Anyway I don't think I could have matched my mother-in-laws "penguins in a snowball fight" Christmas cake.

The Danger of Cooking: Contact Dermatitis

Starter at last night's pre-Christmas Christmas dinner was butternut squash soup. I've cooked butternut squash a number of times before, but usually only had to peel one small squash to feed two people. Last night I peeled four squashes to make the soup and that was a problem.

After having peeled and chopped the first squash I noticed that my right hand felt a bit funny. Being left handed I'd held the squash with my right hand. I just assumed it was the juice/sap, that oozes out when the squash is cooked, sticking to my hand. I washed my hands and then cut the third squash, washed my hands again, and then cut up the final squash. By this point my hand was really uncomfortable. All the skin on my fingers and thumb felt tight, almost as if I'd spilt superglue on my hand. Worse of all it wouldn't wash off!

The skin was all tight and felt really odd, almost like a chemical burn. Turns out I must be allergic to the juice from a butternut squash and have now got contact dermatitis on my hand. It is a common enough problem to be mentioned on the Wikipedia page for contact dermatitis, and there is even a medical paper on the topic (although I haven't been able to read that yet).

Looks like I'll have to wear gloves when cooking butternut squash in the future. I'm sure that will make cooking so much easier!

Free Game

This weekend I'm doing a pre-Christmas Christmas dinner. These have now turned into a bit of a tradition as this will be the 4th year running I've cooked a big meal for family and friends. Sorry to those who usually get an invite but given the state of our house at the moment I'm actually cooking at my parents house where there isn't the room to invite as many people as usual.

Anyway, dinner includes pheasant so I placed a rather large (around £60) order for game. As well as the pheasant breasts I also ordered a large mixed game and Stilton pie for lunch and some sausages, pigeon and partridge for freezing and eating later. As usual I ordered the game from Manor Farm Game.

The order arrived at about 4pm yesterday and I was initially annoyed having opened the first of the two boxes when I found that the pie was wrong. Instead of the mixed game and Stilton pie they had sent me a mixed game, stuffing and mango chutney pie. Then I realised that everything else I had ordered was alright. Spotted the problem yet? I still had an unopened box. I opened the second box to find a complete duplicate of my order with the correct pie. Both boxes were definitely addressed to me and the credit card receipt showed that I'd only paid for what I'd ordered.

I rang them up and explained what had arrived. Apparently one member of staff rushed back to the office on Thursday to print a courier label as they thought my order hadn't been organized and dispatched. In actual fact it had so they ended up sending me the order twice, but in the rush got the pie wrong. Of course they couldn't collect and re-sell the food to anyone else. So I was told to freeze the extra as an early Christmas present! So the freezer now contains 24 sausages, 12 wood pigeon breasts and 4 partridge breasts, and the fridge is groaning under the weight of two 3lb pies (or was until we had lunch).

I'll certainly continue to order my game from Manor Farm Game and would suggest that anyone else wanting to cook game does likewise.

Christmas Cake

Unfortunately the last few days have been a little stressful. Colds and broken cars do not make for an easy weekend, especially not just before Christmas.

Anyway to de-stress this morning I iced the Christmas cake.

No idea what it will taste like (although from past experience very nice!) but at least for half an hour I wasn't worrying about anything else.