November Favourites

The hardest part of these monthly favourite blogs for me is actually remembering what I have been doing over the past month. If any of you know me you may be aware that my memory is really rather pants. Therefore I find that Instagram is very useful for reminding what I have actually been up to. So yeah sorry about the number of pictures of food that I post on there…..

1. Taste Of London.

Last week (20th Nov) my mother and I took a quick hop, skip and a jump down to the Tobacco Dock in London for the Taste Of London: The Festive Editon. The event which ran over four consecutive days was portend into time slots and we were the daytime (11-4pm) on Friday. Due to our train times we  didn't arrive at the venue until 12.30pm. Dammit missed out on valuable munching time there. 

Luckily as we went on Friday it wasn't overly crowded (although I did get quite irate about the crowds) and we managed to sample many of the goodies on offer: Liquid nitrogen frozen ice cream anyone? 

Indeed I even ate at Tom Aikens' restaurant….well sort of.  I had the belly pork in case you were wondering. 

As part of the festival there was a ‘Taste of HBO’ section which included not only a gingerbread version of King’s Landing but also the Iron Throne where I could take my rightful place….move over Lannisters!

The highlight of the day for me was watching the demo from Masterchef’s Monica Galetti. The fierce female judge made a simple yet very effective take on the classic dessert: an ice cream float. Using pieces of ginger, pear and ginger cake mingled with a creme anglaise semi freddo and lashings of ginger beer and Guinness this festive pudding ticked all the right boxes for me. 

I even got to sit on the judge’s table and was able to sample the dish and it was thumbs up from me. 

2.Marshmallows

As with fashion trends in food are always changing. I mean from sushi to cupcakes there always seems to the ‘cool thing’ to be eating right now and  marshmallows are in!  By this I don't mean the mass produced Flumps or Haribo equivalents. Its the gourmet marshmallow that is setting the fluffy pace and there has already been a steady stream of companies setting up shop.: something I was made very aware of at Taste Of London. I may have bought my self a box of marshmallows to take home….they didn't last long. 

I first became aware of  this new trend when I went for dinner with my parents, aunt and uncle at The Golden Fleece  in Birkenshaw. Feast your eyes on those beauties. 

Clearly I have been ahead of the game as I tried my hand at making my own marshmallows way back in 2014. Yet I seem to recall that little experiment going wrong…..very wrong. 

3. The Costa Christmas Range.

As mentioned I am a creature of habit and will generally always go into the same coffee shop (mostly Costa) and will sit at my usual table with my usual drink; a medium vanilla latte. Don't get too excited now guys but when the new Christmas range came out it was goodbye VL, hello Christmas!!! 

I haven't quite worked my way through the whole selection yet but thus far my favourites include the Tiramisu Latte  (thanks for the recommendation by the way)

and the truly indulgent Caramel Fudge Hot Chocolate: although I can't have the hot chocolate too early in the day as it will put me to sleep...

4. Quick Fix Facial Mask

I bought this face mask at Boots quite a while ago now and even though it says that the mask is for sensitive skin I can feel my face tingling after a while of wearing the mask so rather than the 5-10 minutes stated as the recommended time I tend to opt for nearer the five than the ten before washing it off. 

Whilst containing a mixture of oatmeal, aloe vera, chamomile and rose; all ingredients that have a calming effect, I felt that it does not do what do what it says on the packet. 

There are quite a lot of mixed reviews for this product but I would tend to say that if you have sensitive skin I would approach this mask with caution...although I thought that my skin was sensitive and I'm fine with it. 

With all this negative press about the mask why would I go and put it in my favourites? The answer is simple. Even though the packaging is misleading I think that the mask works for me.

The marsh and the mallow

Over my past few blog posts I have been investigating the world of experimental ‘healthy’ baking such as substituting traditional ingredients or using superfoods like chia seeds. Now however for something totally different as I set out to make vanilla marshmallows. For this recipe you will need:

250g sugar

400g water

1 sachet of gelatine or 4 gelatine leaves

A few drops of vanilla extract/essence (or food essence of your choice)

3 egg whites

Icing sugar for dusting

Edible gold glitter (optional)

Lightly grease a baking tray with sunflower oil or equivalent non-flavoursome fat and dust with icing sugar. 

Place your sachet of gelatine (or leaves) in 150g of water and leave to dissolve or soften in the case of the leaves.

Meanwhile add the rest of the water and sugar in a thick based saucepan and boil to 121°c (the threading stage) this will take approximately 8-10 minutes. I have used brown sugar for mine hence why it looks so dark.

it's so swirly and pretty

 Take off the heat and combine the gelatine stirring continuously. 

Whisk egg whites until soft peaks form.

Whilst still whisking pour in the sugar/gelatine syrup down the side of the bowl (this took to many hands to do so I was not able to include any pictures). This is the stage where you should add any food essence and/or food colouring. As I have used brown sugar my marshmallow mixture has a light caramel tint and it is for that reason that I chose to add a bit of vanilla. Transfer to your greased tray and dust with more icing sugar

and for an added dash of pizazz a light sprinkling of glitter.

 Leave to set in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Don't you just love it when things go wrong?  It would appear that the syrup component of this mixture has somehow separated itself from the fluffy egg white so upon turning out the tray I was left with two different layers. Quite literally: marsh and mallow.

So yeah that looks quite hideous and gross, it tastes nice though. Upon reflection I  would halve the amount of syrup made. 125g of sugar and water. I'm not sure what I'm going to with this not quite marshmallow stuff that's in my fridge. Oh dear this is like the time when I tried to make gummy bears 

Update: I seperated the sugary syrup layer from the mallow...or maybe it was the marsh...and used it in a milkshake.