New Year, New Start

So I know I've been a horribly bad blogger since finishing the course at the School of Artisan Food, & for this I can only apologise...

I didn't realise how absorbing baking as a career could be, & how little time it leaves for absolutely anything else, let alone blogging!

But, I'm now on a well earned holiday, & as well as making a (very) belated New Years Resolution to eat better (& shed a few pounds...), I have also resolved to start blogging again!

The first recipe I'm going to blog about, is from a wonderful book called 'Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache', by Harry Eastwood.  I got the book for my birthday a few years ago, & haven't made all that much from it, but these little beauties begged to be made, & shared!

So, at the request of a few Twitter followers & Facebook friends, here's the recipe for some properly gorgeous...

White Chocolate, Cinnamon & Raspberry Blondies

Serves 9

Ingredients:

• 3 medium eggs
• 120g caster sugar
• 250g peeled & finely grated butternut squash
• 50g white rice flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 150g raspberries
• 100g white chocolate, chopped into small chunks

For The Top: 

• 30g flaked almonds
• A little icing sugar (optional)

You will Need:

• A 22cm square x 5cm deep brownie tin. 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200˚C (180˚C Fan)/400˚F/gas mark 6. Line the base & sides of the tin with baking parchment. Brush the base & sides of the tin, including parchment, with a little vegetable oil.

Beat the eggs & sugar in a large mixing bowl for 5 minutes until pale, fluffy & quadrupled in volume – needs to be really big & bouffanty! Add the grated butternut squash & beat again, until fully incorporated. Add the flour, ground almonds, cinnamon, baking powder & salt.  Beat until well incorporated.

Pour half the mixture into the tin, then scatter over the raspberries & white chocolate.  Cover with the remaining mixture.

Scatter the flaked almonds over the cake & bake on the top shelf of the oven for 25 minutes until just cooked. (I had my oven at 180˚C & found it needed about 28 mins in total.)

Cool the blondies in the tin for 20 mins, then turn out of the tin, sprinkle with the icing sugar, if using, before cutting into squares.

And this is one of the finished blondies!  I opted not to use the icing sugar in the end.  They're moist, fruity & sweet, & (for those interested), 265 calories per square!  Not the lowest cal count ever, but pretty good for a blondie I think, & besides, the raspberries & butternut squash must count for one of your five a day!

So that's all for tonight, some day I'll tell you all about the Seville Orange & Whisky Marmalade I made the other day  ;)

Hello & Welcome!

Hi!

So, apologies for the frankly unforgivable gap in blogs, but I do have a pretty good excuse, honest.

See, at the end of July I packed up my things & moved halfway across the country, to the tiny seaside town of Southwold, to start work at the Two Magpies Bakery.  (I was lucky enough to have two weeks work experience here in June, & even luckier that Jim & Rebecca offered me a job!)

So I moved into Southwold & was initially stayed with Hanna, the cafe manager at the Bakery, as she had a spare room & lived just a short walk from the Bakery.  Luckily, Hanna was very accommodating, as it took me an awful lot longer than I thought it would to find anywhere to live!

It's crazy here in the summer; half the houses are holiday lets, the town is full to bursting & there was pretty much nothing to rent in town.  Then this one place came up, but the landlady was a mean old woman with unreasonable demands, so we let that one slide... There was this one tiny flat, right in the centre of town, which I'd looked at & passed on as really it seemed too small... There's one bedroom, & my lovely fella & I were really hoping for something with two bedrooms, maybe even somewhere to grow tomatoes & the like...

So we kept looking.  And looking,  And looking.  Until finally, we gave in & went for the one bed flat, & actually it isn't that small.  There's a window seat, so that's where the tomato plants are going to go  =)

So finally I'm housed!  I have a place to call my own, until my lovely fella moves down here in November, then we'll have a place to call ours  =D

So basically, I've had near on no proper internet access since the end of July; just wifi, & that was sporadic at the best of times... Hence no blogs posts.  Now, I have genuine proper actual internet, & it's glorious  =D

But enough of my housing woes... This is supposed to be a record of my adventures in baking, so let's talk about baking!

Honestly, it's hard work.  I'm working 10-11 hour shifts 5 days a week.  Before the summer season ended at the start of September, I was working 6 days a week.  I come home & parts of me ache that I didn't even know existed before.  I feel like an old woman sometimes; my knees ache, my hips are sore, & don't even get me started on my back...

But I love it.  Even with the long hours & the aches & pains, I love it.  I wouldn't do anything else now  =)

Jim trusts me to run the bread bake, while he deals with the laminated goods; croissants, pain au choc & sausage rolls & the like.  I do the Tuesday night shift on my own now, so Jim & Rebecca can have an actual weekend, with proper days off.

It's been quite a learning curve so far, & I'm still trying to get the hang of the Friday night bake, which is huge compared to the other nights.  I'm determined that this week I shall tame the beast & successfully juggle the 14 or so breads to be baked that night!  But it's wonderful to be able to put into practise everything I learnt at School, to be an actual proper baker (although of course I'm still learning).  It's such a thrill, to stand there at the end of a shift, look at the shelves full of bread, & think, 'I made that'.  It's brilliant!  =D

I'll try & keep this updated a bit more regularly from here on.  It should be easier to do now that I have actual internet access (not that I'm excited about actual internet access, not at all...)

For now though, I need to go find some food before I head off to bed again!

See you later! *waves*

Looking Back...

Well, I've been home now for just over a week, so I think it's time to sit back & reflect on the last 10 months.

I suppose the biggest question is: Did I get everything I wanted from the course?

And mostly the answer is: Yes, I did.

I set out on the course with the intention of learning how to bake bread, from scratch.  And I think I can safely say that I now know how to bake bread!  Proper, lovely, handmade, tasty, beautiful bread.  I've even picked up a little bit of cheese making knowledge along the way, which is a bonus I think  =)

I still find it hard to believe now how far I've come  =)

So then the next question I guess, is: Was it worth it?

And, yeah, I think it was.

Let's not beat about the bush though, it is an expensive course.  I was lucky; I applied for a bursary & I got one.  Without that I'm not sure I'd have been able to afford to do the course at all.  Yeah I probably could have found a part-time job somewhere, but I was always reluctant to do that because I was conscious that there would be written work to do & I didn't want anything else distracting me or taking up my time.

I've gained new skills & met some really wonderful people, & generally had a bit of a ball  =)

There are still some aspects of the course which could be improved, but then the School is still only three years old.

One of the things I was most excited about before starting the course was the 'Creating an Artisan Business' module.  Now, you may have noticed that I never really blogged about the business stuff... The reason for that, if I'm being honest, is that it was a bit of a let down.  I'm not really sure what I was expecting from it, but I don't feel as though I've really learnt anything...

Some of the guest speakers were great; Kenneth Hill's social media talk was brilliant, as was the talk from the chap who came to talk to us about branding (whose name I foolishly can't recall).  But other then that, I don't really have anything good to say about it!  Which is a shame, it is, because I think quite a few people who might be interested in the course might also be keen to go out & start there own business, & I worry that the module in it's current incarnation just won't deliver...

The flour confectionery part of the course could have been improved as well... I mean, Clive is such a lovely guy, he really is, but he is a little bit retro in his approach... =)

A lot of the stuff we were doing was quite basic, or quite old fashioned, which is fine, but I would have liked to learn more modern, complicated techniques & skills.  But then I think this is the first year the School has done an actual flour confectionery module, so I think they're still finding their feet in that respect.

But overall, I'm still so glad I did the course; I think I've achieved pretty much everything I set out to achieve, & while we haven't had our final grades yet (should know in the next couple of weeks though), I'm hopeful that I've done well  =)

I've also been incredibly lucky, in that I've come out of the course, knowing exactly what I'm going to do  =D

Following on from my two week placement at the Two Magpies bakery, I've actually been offered a job with them!! =D

I'm so pleased!  =D

It really is a great opportunity to work with some really lovely people, in an amazing new bakery, in a really beautiful part of the world.  I've got a few things to do here at home first, but I should be moving down to Southwold towards the end of July  =)

So my time in Shropshire is drawing to a close, at least for now.  I'll be sad to leave; it's a beautiful county & I've got a lot of friends & family up here, but I'm also really excited to start this new chapter of my life.  My lovely boyfriend will be moving down to Southwold as well, once I've gotten somewhere to live, so it'll be the next chapter of our lives too  =)

Exciting times indeed  =)

For now, I'm going to enjoy the next couple of weeks, take some time out, relax, enjoy the sunshine, celebrate the numerous family birthdays we have in July (including mine!) & then begin to pack up my life!

I'll still continue to blog, after all, there's a whole world of baking related adventures out there waiting for me!