Strawberry Meringue Nests

As I had used four egg yolks to make the sweet pastry for the glazed tartlets, I thought I would use the whites to make some meringues.
This recipe, as opposed to some of the other meringue recipes that I have made, involved whisking the mixture over simmering water. It also used icing sugar rather than caster.
I made about 12 medium sized nests. The recipe suggested 6, but they would have been really quite big.
I baked them for about 40 mins. They turned out to be crumbly on the outside and chewy on the inside, which in our house is the sign of a good meringue.
They went very quickly at our street gathering, and we gave them 9.0. Although it was a bit more awkward mixing over a hot pan, and it mean't that I couldn't use my mixer, the icing sugar was added all at once rather than a spoon at a time, so that was good. Also, as you can see from the picture, the meringues remained fairly white, which is always a nice surprise.

Glazed Fruit Tartlets

 Yesterday, we had a street get together. Following the street party last year for the jubilee, and the setting up of a Residents association, we decided that it would be good to have a yearly get together.
Some of the neighbours kindly had it in their back garden, and a good time was had by all.
Of course I took along desserts! I had planned to make one of the more complicated recipes - I realise that there are definitely some that I am putting off - but the time of the event was moved to earlier in the day, in order to avoid the heavy downpours. I decided that this was not the day to try a three page recipe!

I decided upon these glazed fruit tartlets, which I was really pleased with. I also made some little lime tarts with the extra pastry. At the pampered chef evening we had been shown how to make lime cheesecakes, so I just used the same filling - philidelphia, lime juice and icing sugar.
Pate sucree (sweet pastry), continues to be difficult to work with, and was certainly no easier in warm weather, however, at least they were only small tarts, and therefore it was easier to transfer the pastry to the tins.
I would definitely make these again, and they seemed to go down very well. 9.0

Cheese Straws & Dorchester Biscuits

For the pampered chef evening, I thought I would make some savoury biscuits as I have not really made any before.
The cheese straws were very straight forward and all got eaten, so I take that as the sign of a successful bake - mind you, Nathan had about 5!
The Dorchester biscuits were less popular, in fact I still have some, and that is never a good sign four days later! I chose to put cashew nuts on top, rather than chopped mixed nuts. They were easy to make, but they didn't look particularly special.
The cheese straws get 8.5, the dorchester biscuits 7.0.

Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Marble Cake

I like making traybakes, and I discovered this recipe hidden amongst the bakes for children.
It was very straight forward and I liked the addition of chocolate chips to the chocolate mixture.
My only criticism would be the topping which is just plain and white chocolate. If I made it again, I would make the icing from the chocolate traybake, and streak it with white chocolate, and draw a knife through it to give the marbled effect on top.
It needed a drink with it, but it was very tasty. 8.0

Carrot Cake

I have done a lot of baking this week, so I am trying to catch up on my blogs. I think I have 6 to do!
I made this on Thursday as I had a pampered chef evening at my house. The evening went really well, and I trust everyone enjoyed it. As it turned out, I think the only person who tried this on Thursday night was Ben - he tried everything!
We tried it properly this weekend, and I have to say that it is not nearly as tasty as the tray bake that I made the other week. The banana flavour was rather over powering. It is still nice, we are just getting rather fussy, having had so many delicious recipes! We gave it 7.5

Jumbles

Today, Ben and Nathan break up from school, in fact I am picking them up very shortly, so I thought I would fit this in quickly.
This recipe is in the kids section and it says that although traditionally the shape for "jumbles" is an S, you can make it into any letters you want. I decided it would be a bit of fun to spell out a message for the boys for when they got home. I don't suppose the message will stay in tact for long!
Have not tasted them yet, will let you know, but they were very easy to make if they are nice.
Not sure how much baking I will do in the holidays, it could go either way really! Watch this space!

Profiteroles

Apologies for the blurry photo. Unfortunately, when I realised that the picture was no good, the profiteroles had all gone!
We had friends for a BBQ on Sunday so, knowing that we were going to be out all day on Saturday, I made the choux pastry rolls earlier in the week, and put them in the freezer.
To defrost them, on Sunday morning I put them in the oven for a couple of minutes, left them to cool and then filled them with cream.
Not much to say about them really - it was just like making the chocolate eclairs. A word of advice though, make sure your baking trays are well greased. I left it to someone else in our family - who shall remain nameless, and lets just say that some of the rolls did not need cutting open to fill with cream as there was a big hole in the bottom of them - the remaining bits being on the baking sheet! Still, it didn't affect the taste. They were lovely - 9.0.
I was going to make a key lime pie, but there was enough pudding left over from Saturday for me to bring some home - phew!