Confectioner - Complete!

 When book 2 came out, I had to have a copy - and I waited patiently for my hard back copy to arrive - feeling more than a little envious of all those who had bought the soft back copy, who were able to work on the badges a lot sooner; it felt like such a tease to be reading posts of badge work that I had yet to appreciate. Now, I realise that may seem a little like FOMO, but the difference is that I had (most likely) ordered at the same time as those who had ordered the soft back copy, but because I wanted hard back, I had to wait - and with new books it is usually the case that the hardback edition is released first.

Anyway, eventually my copy arrived, and it was a joy. I knew I had to do the Mixologist badge, and it came to my attention that there were one or two other badges I would also work on. I was minded to do Detective, TV Critic, Entertainer - and others. It turned out the first badge was Mixologist, and then I soon started on Confectioner.

The first clause I completed was something containing jelly - and so I made a cheesecake.

This may seem a little odd, but this is not just any cheesecake. Oh no, this is a St Clement’s cheesecake, made to a recipe handed down from my great aunt - who used to make a lemon cheesecake that was delicious! This cheesecake is a no-bake recipe, and uses soft cheese (in her recipe it stipulates Philly cheese - I usually use soft cheese, I think my mum used cream cheese, and I have been known to use Quark in it), evaporated milk, citrus zest and juice (could be orange, lemon or lime), and jelly in the flavour of the citrus fruit used, and a little sugar - not forgetting the biscuit base. You can see that the top of the cheesecake is quite thick - it is more like a mousse. I took a cheesecake like this to a bring and share party once when I was in my early teens. A good friend of mine stated she didn’t like cheesecake - but she tried this cheesecake and agreed that it was better than the other cheesecakes she had tasted! We ended up cutting this one in half, and freezing half of it, as once it thaws the mousse type topping does not last so long, and the biscuit base becomes a bit soggy. Even 1/6 of the cake was more than enough. So - this was a pretty easy clause for me to complete, as I’m no novice when it comes to this recipe - but the chaps enjoyed it nonetheless - and it was a little different, in that I made it a mixture of orange and lemon (I now don’t recall if I used the juice and zest of both a lemon and an orange, or just one of them and the jelly was the other flavour.

 The next dessert was Mississippi Mud Pie - chosen for the ‘Dessert containing Chocolate’ clause. I remember the first time I had Mississippi Mud Pie - it was at a pub just outside Lymington, not far from a timeshare that my great aunt and great uncle had - the same great aunt whose cheesecake recipe has been handed down. I remember having cheesecake the time we went over there to see them - and using the outdoor swimming pool there - and certainly my great uncle swimming in the pool - and possibly my grandad too…anyway, I digress. I now don’t recall which recipe I used to make this - because I found so many different recipes that all claimed to be Mississippi Mud Pie. I think I possibly those one of the easier ones, although getting the chocolate sauce right for this one was not so easy; what I do know is that this one did not contain any coffee. I shall be making this again at some point: it was certainly delicious, but I think I owe it to the rest of the family to treat them to a few of the other Mud Pie recipes, so they can choose which they think is the best one!

The next dessert I decided to try was baklava. For this I consulted a couple of different books,  but ended up mostly going with a recipe from my Good Housekeeping Cookbook (this is a book I’ve had for maybe 40 years or so, and I used to look at the colour pictures in the front, and imagine I was hosting a dinner party and what I would cook for it). 

I had planned to do the Nadia Hussein baklava, which called for Orange Blossom Water; well, that is all well and good when you live in a city, but when you live in North Devon, Orange Blossom Water is surprisingly difficult to find - much like green tea powder (but that is another story). The baklava was a bit of a faff to make - keeping the phyllo pastry damp, layering each sheet of pastry and brushing it with melted butter, building up 5 sheets and then putting the filling in. Then came the matter of the syrup that was needed on top of the baklava once it had been cooked - and I think it needed to be cut before it was cooked. Anyway - the result was truly delicious, and it really didn’t last very long! Having said that, a little goes a long way - but I certainly found it moreish, and I know that my husband likes baklava, so I was always going to be on a winner with this one!

The next dessert was a baked cheesecake - this was for the cheesecake clause. I had seen a recipe in the Asda magazine for Rhubarb and Custard cheesecake - and I love the flavour of rhubarb and custard, so I had to give it a go. I made a syrup from the rhubarb, and prepared the rest of the cake - the base was made from crushed custard cream biscuits (funnily enough, the base of the Mississippi Mud Pie was made from bourbon biscuits), and then the topping had cornflour (I think), cream cheese, eggs (I think) amongst other things. This was the first time I had made a baked cheesecake, and it was acceptable enough - definitely better for waiting for it to cool thoroughly before trying it. I wouldn’t say it tasted particularly of rhubarb and custard though. Still, it was a different type of cheesecake - and you don’t know until you try these things. I do like the Asda magazine though - I enjoy looking through it to find new ideas, new recipes to try, and there are a few that have become favourites of mine.

The next dessert I decided to try something containing caramel - and the picture on the right is the result: a walnut caramel tart. Now, it may not look so great - but it really did taste good! I had looked at recipes containing caramel, and settled on this one. I wanted to make the caramel myself, rather than using caramel from a tin, as that seemed to be cheating to me, or if not cheating, then at least a bit of a cop-out. I used a BBC Good Food recipe. First of all I made the sweet pastry - the first time ever I’ve made sweet pastry, and it really did taste quite good (I remember being give off cuts of pastry as a child - and eating it raw). The recipe clearly stated that you didn’t trim the pastry before blind cooking it - and so I didn’t…it turns out that this really wasn’t the way to go, as it hung over the sides of the loose bottomed tin, which made it awkward to lift out of the oven, and then later to remove it completely from the tin.

The next step required making caramel. Now - this really is not an easy task. I followed the recipe - it said to stir the sugar and water until the sugar had completely dissolved, and then the increase the heat until it turned a golden caramel colour. This didn’t really happen - I tried stirring the mixture - only to have it crystallise. I did some research (i.e. I googled) and discovered that I shouldn’t have been stirring it after increasing the heat. I also needed to increase the heat more than I thought; I couldn’t use the crystallised sugar, so I had to start again. 

On starting again, I made sure that I didn’t stir until the syrup had turned golden, and then I added the butter and cream. It was then a matter of heating and stirring until the caramel seemed thick enough - and although the recipe said 10 minutes, I think I was still waiting after 15 minutes; I turned up the heat a bit regularly to try to get it to thicken up. Eventually I decided it was thick enough. I mixed in the walnuts, and then put it all back in the oven to cook for a short while. This was fine until it came time to try to remove the tart from the case. The pastry was brittle (that overhanging pastry that the recipe said not to trim), and then it was little out of the bottom of the tin and was difficult to get back into the right place. Anyway - the result is, I need more practise with pastry. I really don’t know how all the professionals manage to roll it out so neatly each time, so that it stays perfectly round - apart from the fact that they are professionals of course.

The last dessert I opted for was a mousse. I did a little research into it (i.e. I googled recipes) and I had found some which used tofu - I had thought of doing a vegan dessert. In the end I went for a recipe that used just 3 ingredients, and said it was quick. The ingredients were: frozen berries (I used a 4 berry mix), 1 large egg white (the pastry for the walnut caramel tart used an egg yolk, so the egg white had been refrigerated to use), and sugar. I followed the instructions - and discovered that the handheld blender really wasn’t the right thing to use to pulp the frozen berries. The food processor was used instead, but this wasn’t the right thing to use to mix in the sugar and egg white - so it all needed to be transferred into a different bowl, and an old style electric whisk used. It did turn out to be quite mousse like, and was very tasty - especially with a blob of squirty cream on the top!

And there we have it - from about mid January, through to mid July - 6 desserts completed. They may not be perfected, and their presentation may leave quite a lot to be desired, but the desserts were most definitely appreciated! We are not typically a dessert family; don’t get me wrong - we all like a pudding, but I don’t tend to make them as a habit. When I told my husband last night that I’d completed the Confectioner badge, he looked quite upset - thinking of all the desserts that he will miss…I then regaled him with the clauses for Baker, Chef, Farmer and Foodie - I haven’t yet mentioned Event Planner to him!! 😂