sourdough bread

When I come home from visiting family I usually feel strange and disjointed for a few days. In July I spent three weeks in Canada and before I left I made a list of things I was looking forward to doing at home so that when I came back I could blindly follow the things on my list until I felt normal again.

One thing I've been wanting to try for a while is sourdough. I used this recipe for a starter and after a few days I was ready to try my first loaf. The first and second attempt didn't work very well, but the third, fourth and fifth have been amazing.

I love how the parchment paper turned golden to match the bread.

pumpkin postcard

This month I made pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup and today I enjoyed a bowl of home-made pumpkin ice cream. 

I used this recipe for the ice cream, omitted the raw eggs, and since I don't have an ice cream maker, froze it in the freezer. One small pumpkin is perfect for a good sized container of ice cream. It tastes creamy and delicious with the roasted pumpkin and coconut milk, and I love the crunchy roasted pumpkin seeds on top.

lemon tarts

In the midst of thesis madness (one week to go!) I entered this week's contest on spoonflower. The theme is citrus fruits and I decided to draw some lemon tarts. Yellow looks good with turquoise, so they're sitting on plates on a lace table cloth. Here's the design with two coordinates.

I love how the crocheted lace turned out. I've tried to use it in a design before, but this time the repeat worked better. My great aunt crocheted it as a table cloth. I used the table cloth to make this little plate.

Voting has started, so if you like lemony and limy designs, take a look.

more macarons

A few weeks ago I wrote about the macarons I tried from the french bakery around the corner. They were so good that I wanted to make some myself. I used this recipe, and like it promises, if you follow the recipe exactly it will work! (Although I have to add that I eye-balled 36 grams, as my scale isn't digital, so it might have been 38 or 39 grams, but that should be encouraging rather than discouraging, if you want to try the recipe. Also, it only made half the amount of macarons, for some reason.)

I didn't add any food-colouring, which I will do next time. It was a lot of work, but not too hard. Basically its very important to sieve and sieve until the almonds are very fine. I put them in the blender, sieved, blended, sieved, and in the end threw away about 2 tablespoons that I couldn't get fine enough. Another helpful tip is to draw circles on the baking paper sheet to make it easier to make each macaron the same size.

For the filling I made a ganache and tried two flavours, using capuccino chocolate and white chocolate (1 part chocolate to 1 part cream, heat the cream, add the chocolate and stir until melted, let cool and then whip) :

I still have a few in the fridge, so if you want to try one, come for coffee!

corn tortilla chips

yesterday was a holiday and for lunch I made corn tortilla chips. The cornflour gave the tortillas a nice texture, then I coated them with olive oil and spices and baked them in the oven. It made a lot so there are still lots left! just no more guacamole sadly.