Brunch Before The Paint Fumes Got To Us

Today was the big DIY day of painting my bathroom, so Lala came to my rescue. Before we started painting though, I made brunch for us. She had gotten me The Joy of Cooking a few weeks ago so I thought I'd try one of the recipes for breakfast muffins. I must say I am impressed with myself for having TWO DIY projects in one day. Though the paint job is a lot less impressive than the muffins. More on that later.

I made scrambled eggs with onions, shitake mushrooms, and pancetta -- too easy of a recipe to post here so I won't go through how to scramble an egg.

Orange Walnut Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg
1/2 cup walnut pieces (The walnut pieces didn't make it into the muffins today because I was in too much of a rush to remember that I actually bought them. Ah, my wonderful, organized DIY skills strike again!)

2 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and walnut) in a bowl. Whisk to combine well.

In a separate mixing bowl, mix all the wet ingredients (eggs, sour cream, brown sugar, butter, orange zest, and vanilla). Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix.

Spoon batter into lined muffin tins. Fill about 2/3 up. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick test comes out clean.

I made a glaze with 1/2 cup fresh orange juice and 1/2 cup brown sugar for the muffins. The glaze was quite watery so next time I think I might cook it down on the stove a little while the muffins are baking.

So we ate, painted, felt really good about ourselves, then felt really light headed and tired from breathing in the paint fumes. We left the house in a hurry.

Oh, so, the color I picked, incidentally, has a food name: pernod. According to "the internets," pernod is an apertif, a successor of absinthe, with a delicate licorice scent. The internets also said that pernod is often added to vegetable dishes and fish to give it a sophiscated, herbal taste. Sounds good, no?

It looks like this:
Depending on your monitor, this is meant to be a very pale yellow, sort of like the color of hollandaise sauce. A delicate yellow reminiscent of lemonade.

So why does my bathroom now look like an ill egg yolk explosion?!

I am hoping it is just the lighting. During the day the color actually looked mild and light, the way I intended it to be. But tonight, the lighting in my bathroom is doing some voodoo magic that makes the paint look really scary.

I think I'll eat another muffin now.

Old Fashioned Chocolate cake

I made this yesterday and it was super easy and yummy! I don't remember the last time I baked not from a cake-mix, so it was quite a feat for me. If I can do it, you can too!

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup superfine sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup best-quality cocoa
1 1/2 sticks soft unsalted butter
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons good-quality vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream

Special equipment: 2 (each 8-inch diameter) layer tins with removable bases, buttered

Frosting:
6 ounces good-quality semisweet chocolate, broken into small pieces
3/4 stick unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon good-quality vanilla extract
Sugar flowers, to decorate, optional

Take everything out of the refrigerator so that all ingredients can come room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put all the cake ingredients: flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cocoa, butter, eggs, vanilla, and sour cream into a food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter. If you want to go the long way around, just mix the flour, sugar and leavening agents in a large bowl and beat in the soft butter until you have a combined and creamy mixture. Now whisk together the cocoa, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs and beat this into your bowl of mixture.

Divide this batter, using a rubber spatula to help you scrape and spread, into the prepared tins and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, which should be about 35 minutes, but it is wise to start checking at 25 minutes. Also, it might make sense to switch the 2 cakes around in the oven halfway through cooking time. Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins. Don't worry about any cracks as they will easily be covered by the frosting later.

To make this icing, melt the chocolate and butter in a good-sized bowl either in the microwave or suspended over a pan of simmering water. Go slowly either way: you don't want any burning or seizing.

While the chocolate and butter is cooling a little, sieve the confectioners' sugar into another bowl. Or, easier still, put the icing sugar into the food processor and blitz to remove lumps.

Add the corn syrup to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla and then when all this is combined whisk in the sieved confectioners' sugar. Or just pour this mixture down the funnel of the food processor onto the powdered sugar, with the motor running.

You may need to add a little boiling water, say a teaspoon or so, or indeed some more confectioners' sugar, depending on whether you need the frosting to be thiner or thicker. It should be liquid enough to coat easily, but thick enough not to drip off.

Choose your cake stand or plate and cut 4 strips of baking parchment to form a square and sit 1 of the cakes, uppermost (i.e. slightly domed) side down.

Spoon about 1/3 of the frosting onto the center of the cake-half and spread with a knife or spatula until you cover the top of it evenly. Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the 2 together.

Spoon another 1/3 of the frosting onto the top of the cake and spread it in a swirly, textured way (though you can go for a smooth finish if you prefer, and have the patience). Spread the sides of the cake with icing and leave a few minutes until set, then carefully pull away the paper strips.