Crystallized Petals

Only use edible flowers, such as roses, lavender and daisies, for this project.

Choose a good quality , clean rose and carefully pull off all the petals, wiping them gently with a moist tissue. Whip an egg white, place the clean petals onto baking paper, and brush both sides of each petal with egg white.

Drop each petal into a bowl of caster sugar and turn to coat completely. Dry on a wire rack.

When the petals are dried, they should be stored in a n airtight container between sheets of baking paper, avoid touching. The taste and perfume when you bite into these will be as fresh as the day were made.

Hint: Add clear essence to your cake batter to match the flavour of the flower you are decorating with. Sweet Deliveries stock, Lavender, Rose and Violet essences which are suitable for this use.

Glass Rolling Pins

It is believed glass rolling pins were introduced in 1870's or 1880's,

The Etruscans are thought to be the first people to have used rolling pins for food preparation. In more modern kitchens, rolling pins can be found made of wood, ceramic, marble, stainless steel, copper, aluminum and silicone but seldom does a glass rolling pin turn up in a drawer.

As for the hole-in-one end of this rolling pin, it was there to allow cold water to be placed inside the barrel. The end was sealed with a cork.  This cold water facilitated the dough-rolling process by keeping such items as puff pastry cool, and the water gave the rolling pin more heft for pushing and rolling the dough.

In the 19th century, rolling pins could be quite elaborate. Some were painted with images of ships and messages such as "A Present From a Friend" or "A Present to My Mother From Her Son." Glass examples were spattered with several types and colors or came in solid colors that ran the gamut from clear colorless to red, blue, green and white.

Quick Tip

COLOURING FONDANT

Next time you need to colour fondant, consider using your Electric Mixer and give your wrists a rest.

Attach the dough hook to your mixer, cut the fondant into smallish pieces, add the colour them turn your mixer on low speed. Gradually increase the speed, once the fondant is marbled stop the mixer. Remove the fondant onto your prepared surface and complete the process by hand.

This method reduced the time it takes to colour medium to large amounts of fondant.

Just be carefull not to over heat your mixer, if you are concerned that the mixer cannot cope with the load, either remove some of the fondant or stop the process completely.

Biscuits Roses de Reims

Biscuits Roses de Reims
The oldest biscuit factory in France, Maison Fossier the home of biscuit rose de Reims, the regions most famous sweet. Served with Champagne, the meringue-like biscuit rose is made from egg whites ande sugar, flavour...ed with vanilla and coloured with cochineal (a small insect from which crimson coloured dye is derived), imparting a pink rose blush. The biscuit rose de Reims became popular in France in 1880's loved by Kings Louis XV, Charles X and Louise X1 who served them to guests at his coronation.The light, delicate dough is in fact baked twice successively, which gives the biscuit the particularity of not flaking when soaked up in liquids.

Slightly powdered with icing sugar, this French treat is traditionally enjoyed with outstanding Champagne wines; respecting the tradition, dunking the biscuit in a glass of Champagne or local red wine enhances all the wine aromas

Milk and Cream

Milk

Opaque white alkaline liquid with a yellowish or bluish tinge, secreted by the mammary glands. The composition of the milk varies according to the type of breed of animal, its state of health and the diet on which it has been reared.

A litre of milk supplies the body with 30gr protein, 35gr fats, 54gr milk sugar, 7gr mineral salts and an appreciable quantity of Vitamins A, B, B1, B2, C. It is indispensable to babies, but not the complete food for adults that may suppose it to be.

In spite of the fact that it is a liquid, milk should always be regarded as a food and not as a drink, and should be sipped and swallowed slowly. Taken in this way, it coagulates in little fragments in the stomach, and these can be dealt with readily by the digestive juices.

Cream

Cream not only contains globules of fat, used for butter, but also a proportion of water, casein lactose and mineral salts.

There is a difference between single cream which is obtained by skimming milk that has been left to settle in shallow bowls, and which contains 10%-20% butter, and double cream, which is obtained by a separating machine and which must contain at least 30% butter.

Cream is a great staple ingredient that I always have in the fridge. It is suitable for sweet or  savoury receipes.

Next week: Cream Horns

White Chocolate Mud Cake

This week I needed to bake a large square White Chocolate Mud cake. The large volume of fluid is always difficult to stir and combine thoroughly. I prefer to mix by hand, when a large volume is involved and not an electric mixer. I was mixing about 4 times the mixture than for a small tin.

 Generally recipes call for the flour to be added to the Butter, Chocolate, Sugar and Water. I decided to experiment with adding the Chocolate mixture gradually to the sifted flours, they add the Eggs and Sour Cream.

I would encourage you to try this method change next time you make your mud cake, and judge which method you prefer.

Sandra

FLOUR

Flour is the finely ground and bolted meal of wheat and other cereals, including rye, buckwheat, rice, oatmeal and maize (corn). But, since wheat, with its content of gluten, is best for breadmaking.
The milling of grain for flour, dates back to prehistoric times.What for centuries was the hard domestic job of producing flour that could be made into bread, has developed through the ages into a large industry. There is evidence that wheat or corn was crushed and used as food at least 6000 years ago.
The Romans invented slightly conical millstones (querns) which were turned by hand or by slave or beast.

The invention of the water-propped mill dates from about the time of the birth of Christ, and it was also at this time that flat mill-stones were used in preference to conical shapes.
CORNFLOUR OR CORNSTARCH
Corn plants are of South American origin. It was cultivated by the Peruvians before the arrival of the Spanish settlers.Corn was introduced into France in the sixteenth century. It flourished in wine growing districts.Corn is relatively poor in nitrogenous substances, but quite rich in lipids and carbohydrates. In some regions it is eaten as porridge or polenta, cakes or bread.

Next week: Milk

Sandra
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