Sunday night baking disaster!!!

Well disaster! Or, maybe not. I'll explain.

I made Maria's Tarte Tatin recipe. An historic moment for me as it was the first time I had ever attempted making a dessert.

Everything was going well, the right amount of sugar and butter. I peeled the apples and cut them into 8 pieces each one. I put it all in my brand new baking tray, bought especially for the occasion. I happily put it on the gas for 15 minutes – no problems. I had previously heated the oven. I was so excited.

I put the mixture in the oven and went to watch a bit of TV for 15 minutes. Mistake!
There was a beautiful smell coming from the kitchen and everything was rosy. However...

...the first alarm was the appearance of thick white smoke coming from the kitchen. I ran in, opened the window and then the oven. To my horror I had lost half of my caramelized butter and sugar mixture and the oven was happily caramelizing all by itself. It was all over the oven.

Not to be put off by this awful setback, I prepared the puff pastry. Put it on top of the baking tray as Maria had instructed. The only problem was that in my innocence, I cut too much off and didn't leave enough round the sides. It consequently fell into the mixture. 10 minutes later I had a product. It looked OK. I was reasonably happy with it. I left it for 10 minutes.

I came back to turn it over and produce the fruits of my evening's labour.

The puff pastry fell off, with nothing on top. The mixture had stuck to the baking tray. Mmm. Not good. I proceeded to scrape it off from inside the tray onto the pastry. (Refer to photo). Not a pretty sight. Not a happy boy in the kitchen. (Refer to second photo).

I had to make a decision. Try it! It was actually quite nice. The only problem was that I didn't have enough left to take to class the next day and I didn't have the confidence to present it to my “Chicas F”.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Don't leave the kitchen to watch TV while you're baking.
2. The baking tray was too shallow.
3. Be careful with my oven because I can't set it to an exact temperature.
4. Don't be downhearted. Try it again. I will.

Well, I promise Tarte Tatin mark II after Easter!

Núria Duran making the bitter orange marmalade

Last week I made BITTER ORANGE MARMALADE. If you like it, I will give you one jar. Ask me please.
Here is the recipe:

! kg bitter oranges
Half a lemon
1,8 kg sugar
1,5 l water

Take the seats out of the clean oranges and lemon.
Make a parcel with the seats in a gauze and tie the parcel tighly.
Slice the fruits up and put it in a container with water. Leave it for 24 hours.
Draine the fruit and put it in a pan. Add 1,5 l of water and the seats parcel and let it simmer for about 2 hours.Put the lit on.
Add the sugar and bring to boil for about half an hour.
Pour into sterilized jars. Write the name of de marmalade and the date on a label. Stick it on the jar.

THAI FOOD FOR DINNER?

CHICKEN GREEN CURRY

Ingredients:

170 g Chicken (in smallish bite sized pieces)
250 ml. Coconut milk
115g bamboo sliced
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar
2 tablespoons green curry paste
Basilic
Red chilli

First of all cut the chicken up, then fry briefly the curry paste.
Reduce the heat and add the coconut milk slowly and continue to stir while cooking for a while.

Add the chicken, the bamboo slices, the sugar and the fish sauce (it’s very salty, they use it as we use salt)

Bring it to a boil and cook until the chicken changes colour and then adjust the basilic and the red chilli.

They serve this dish with Thai jasmine rice.

It's very easy to do and different taste!!! Just to do smomething different! I love it!

This Thai dish is spicy so I recommend you to use less green curry if you don’t want to feel your mouth hot as the hell. ;-)
Maybe you’ll have problems to find some ingredients, if you want to try to do this recipe let me know and I will tell you where you can buy all the ingredients!

Chocolate cake by Merche

Ingredients

3 eggs1
yoghurt125 ml.
oil200 g.
flour150 g.
sugar125 g.
melt chocolate
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 40 minutes
Serves: 8/10 people

First of all, put the eggs and the sugar in a bowl and beat all together.Next, add the flour, the melt chocolate, the oil, the baking powder and the yoghurt and mix them in an electric robot. When you have finished it put the paste into a mould and cook it in the oven for about 40 minutes temperature 180ª.After that time your cake is ready.

It´s delicious and so simple! try to do it and invite your family and friends!

The photo I sent you was taken on July 2008. They are 8 grand children, 6 children, 5 sons and daughters in law and my husband and I. We got married 50 years ago. This is the meaning of the shirt number.

This is my family