Eggmas

Dearest darlingest Internet,

You may have noted an absence at my end of things on Ugly!Cake, though likely not as my posts are at best sporadic. The reason this time is that I have been moving. My baking gear has been in boxes for over a month, and I'm still not really moved, just in a halfway house rental until it all comes together.

Whilst I can't predict my bakes at the moment, I do have two posts in draft, one an ode to my old oven, and the other about kitchen 'furnishings'.

However, as here in England we enjoy a 4 day weekend over Easter, and because it's only blimmin' Easter, I had to do something.

It's not a proper bake, but it feels like the start of a return to form. Whatever you're doing, and whatever your religious persuasion (I'm agnostic, flirting with C of E personally), I hope you have a very Happy Easter :)

Retrospective; Hooking

In terms of chronology, this seems the right point in the retrospectives to introduce crochet. It was at this time in July 2011 that I turned to my friend Tom (the wildly talented Tokyo Tombola of http://tokyotombola.wordpress.com/ and various other onlinery) and asked him to teach me to crochet. Over the course of one afternoon of dc (US: sc), I was, no pardon requested for the pun, hooked. I went home, raided my mother's sewing kit for her ancient 6mm hook and made myself three bookmarks in an evening. By the end of my lunch break on the following day at work, I had patterns for simple amigurumi dolls and instructions on new stitches to practise. I headed straight from the office to a fairly local craft store and bought more wool and hooks, and by the end of my first week I could do pretty much everything I wanted to do- doll making, more complicated stitches (triple and quadruple crochet (in US terms anyway- Tom taught me in English but I learnt on my own in American. I am fairly good at translating now), even beginning to be able to plan my own simple patterns. I was pleased, and proud, beyond belief, despite teasing from my brother that I was becoming an old lady. Though polish and finesse would come with practise, clearly I had a knack for this.

I had tried knitting in the past, and whilst it is very relaxing, I never felt like I was getting anywhere with it. I can knit, and purl, and that is about it. I can't read knitting patterns and I find that a quick payoff is more likely to tie down my butterfly mind to a hobby. With crochet, I picked it up fast, and I went home from my first lesson with Tom with a bookmark. I had made something, and I could see my errors melting away, my stitches becoming beautiful and even. Within weeks I had made my first doll, and my first scarf. A gift and an item of clothing. I never got anywhere near that far with knitting, not even after months. I don't know why. Perhaps that is the next request I'll send Tom's way. Please, Tom, teach me to knit even a little like you!

Around this time, my current employers contacted me to offer me my current job, so I handed in my notice at work, and was counting the days until my new, exciting career (from a PA in a small firm to part of a team in for a huge global company, working on vastly interesting clients). My boss' wife, who was my occasional coworker, was heavily pregnant at the time with their son, and with my new found talent, I decided to make them a present as a thank you for the employment (I entered that job from poverty, after a year on benefits after being made redundant- a quite low period of my life), and as a way to congratulate them on their future son. A quick rummage online found a booties pattern on Lion Brand (lionbrand.com/patterns/70225AD.html if you are interested), and got to work.

Now, whatever you think of Lion Brand, they have a lot of material available for free, though some of it has errors. For an experienced crocheteer (hooker? I don't think either of these phrases are correct, but I am going with them, dangnammit) it is probably a bit simple and plain, and the errors that crop up altogether too often are down right infuriating, but for a beginner it is a good place to start. There are some fabulous tutorials on stitches and reading patterns based on their patterns online (my first and the one I would highly recommend can be found here: http://www.visualcrochet.com/how_to_crochet_a_giraffe.html (please note this is in US crochet, as are the patterns at Lion Brand)).

Back to the booties. I sat down to watch the grand prix with my mother one Sunday and finished one. Now I could churn one of these out a lot quicker, but at the time this was one of my first crochet projects and I was still getting used to the different terminologies, and really any crochet that didn't involve basic horizontal rows. The second took several days in shifts; lunch breaks, while waiting to xollect an order from the printers... Finally they were done, and on time, so when I took my boss' wife home for the very last time, I handed over a pair of homemade machine washable booties, and wished her my best. She was touched. Homemade presents really are the best.

Retrospective; Ugly!Cheesecake

In July last year, a friend of mine celebrated a birthday I will mention no further (as he is very old (ohohoho)). I offered to bake him something and asked what I should bring. He said cheesecake.

Having never made a cheesecake, (I know, isn't that tragic?) I sat down a researched and bought my ingredients (whipping cream, marscapone, biscuits and butter for the crumb base) and pondered flavours.

Summer 2011 saw and incredible fruit yield due to the favourable spring conditions bringing on fruit early and in abundance. Blackberries that would have normally still been unripe at that time were in full fruit, laden with sweet, ebony berries just begging to be picked and guzzled in handfuls.

Upon dropping my then boss' heavily pregnant wife home at the end of the work day, I parked up near a large patch of blackberries I had spotted often on the same journey into south London. Being non-native, she was always fascinated by the wild fruit I would point out on our journeys, trees drooping with fat, ripe plums, early aples and those still ripening. It sometimes feels like all our ancient english orchards were made into A roads, and the landscapers forgot to tidy up around the edges, leaving these beautiful forgotten bounties to smash, overripe, pulpy and unwanted onto the road side year after year, to be picked over by birds or pulverised by speeding tires.

I digress.

Within fifteen minutes, with only a few bramble scrapes, I had a healthy haul of blackberries, more than I really needed for the coolis to flavour to the cheesecake. Once home, a quick clean and a sort left me with about 150g of free, wild fruit. Blended with two tablespoons of golden caster sugar, it made a florally fragrant, mellow and fruity deep blue purple sauce, ready for greater things.

A few pulverised digestives later, mixed with melted butter and a teaspoon or so of spice (cinnamon, ginger, clove and nutmeg) and the base was done. The main part of the cheesecake was the whipped cream, marscapone and sugar, mixed together lovingly, which kept the filling light, which I found delightful, as cheesecake can be over dense for my tastes. I pored this in in quarters, at each interval spooning in a quarter and muddling it with the coolis/sauce/delicious blackberry goop. When cut, the cheesecake was full of ribbons and swirls of purple. Yum.

On the top, I just let the coolis drop with as much artistry as possible.

All in all, it wasn't the prettiest cheesecake there has ever been, nor the tidiest. But it was bloody delicious. Num.

New Year Bakesolutions (which are like resolutions about baking)

Dearest, darlingest Internet.

How are you? It's been a year since my last proper post. A year. There's really no excuse for that kind of slovenliness. It isn't even that I've been off the brownies, or have sworn off sponge cake. Developed a phobia or fondant, or nixed the nougat. I'll stop that now, and be straight up with you.

This past year has brought many changes to my life; two new jobs, new hobbies and larger scale life changes including the selling of my current house, and the arduous, stressful task of looking for a new home I could bear to live it, i.e., does it have a kitchen I could bake in?

I would say I have baked less overall in the last year. The difference between being able to afford to bake (now) and having the time to bake (then) is a difficult balance to weigh up. It is now very unusual for me to bake on a weekday evening, for example, as I don't get home until half past seven, by which time I need feeding and to feed my pets, and a little rest time, ready to get into bed and be up again at six to make quarter past seven coach. I know this differs very little from anyone else's commuter lifestyle, but there we are.

Funnily enough, I think this blog helped me get my current position; it came up in all my interviews, as apparently even the slenderest londonites are total cake heads. And I hasten to add, my work has very little to do with baking or creativity in its wider form; I work in business recovery, handling internal compliance. Have some jargon, Internet. I hope you like it. It's fresh!

Having said all this, I did win my first ever baking competition this year, and began to dabble in sugar past decorating, which have been great fun, challenging, and yet very rewarding. I've made a lot of money for charity and non-profit organisations this year via auctions, bake sales and bake offs, and I hope to do more of the same this year.

In this new and shiny year (year of the dragon!) I hope for many things. I hope I can get my offer accepted on the dreamhome I found yesterday (Internet, you should have SEEN the kitchen. And it had real fireplaces!) I hope I can afford my mortgage. I hope my parent's divorce goes through soon and with as little further emotional trauma to my mother as possible. I hope my elderly cats see 17 and 18 respectively. I hope my pet rats have a healthy happy year and don't find the move too stressful. I hope my friends will have happier years. I hope for progression, creatively and in the workplace. I hope I find time to breathe.

In terms of resolutions, well, those which are pertinent to this blog, I have a few.

Post more often; despite baking less overall, I still bake often, so there is little reason I shouldn't let you all know about it.

Buy a new camera; my old one finally gave up the ghost mid rat photoshoot in October this year. I have been shopping around for a new one ever since; it is finding the one or two hundred pounds for the outlay that's the trouble.

Keep pushing the boundaries; this year I have made some famously difficult things, including macarons (they ain't so tough), and tried a vast number of new things (sugar paste modelling, cheesecakes, custards...). I can do more, and better.

Use my cookbooks; I spent at least £60 on cookbooks last year, ranging from healthy soups, to cupcakes, to traditional british baking, to Nigella. I look forward to the challenge of living alone and feeding myself. I've done it before, but now perhaps, whilst still endorsing thrift, I will have the chance and drive to try to vary my palate a little more. Though my standard fare is bloody delicious all the same.

In the meantime, I have a collection of pictures I intended to write full posts for and never did, so I will stick them up and annotate, and if any should interest you, please let me know and I'll do my utmost to get a recipe or method online.Today will be all about writing workshops and baking, as a wind down from yesterday's house hunting... And a treacherous amount of cheese and wine. Oops.

Hate to see you go, Internet, but love to watch you leave.

Natasha x