July meeting pictures

As the London 2012 games approach our July meeting featured a talk from professional athlete David Hill. As a swimmer he has won bronze medals in both the world and European championships as well as representing Britain at the 2004 Athens Paralympics.



Credit: Team Bath

The talk was really interesting and amongst other things we learned about life as a professional athlete (hard), how much he has to eat to fuel such activities (lots) and what he plans to do in the future (epic). David was an inspirational speaker who left us all feeling slightly in awe of the dedication required to achieve at such a high level.

If you would like to find out more information about David please visit his Team Bath page, or we can pass on your details if you would like to get in touch.

After David's talk we had a break allowing everyone to try the amazing cheese based baked goodies brought in by our members. There have been lots of requests for recipes so we will post these up as soon as we can.



We also had a table where members could suggest alternative names for our branch. There were lots of ideas and we will collate and share them with you ASAP.

Lastly, Storm and Laura did a demonstration on how to make cake pops.



They are delicious and very easy to make. The recipe has been put on the blog if you would like to have a bash.

Once the demo was over everyone had a go at the final steps of cake pop making - taking the rolled cake balls...



Dipping them in melted chocolate, decorating them and eating them!



Thanks
A huge thank you to David Hill for a brilliant talk - good luck for the future!

Thanks to everyone who brought cheese bakes, drinks or donations. The cake and drinks tables are maintaining a super high.

And thank you to everyone that came on Thursday - it's a pleasure to spend an evening with you!

Next month
In our August meeting we will be hosting a talk from Bramble and Wild on Catherine Hill and they will teach us how to make beautiful jam jar posies.

The meeting is free to members or £3 for visitors.

Please bring your own jam jar and flowers if you are able. If you would like these supplied then there will be a £2 charge.

Please could you let us know - either by email WI.frome@gmail.com or on the Facebook event if you plan on attending and whether you would like us to supply flowers/jam jars?

Cake pops recipe

Cake pops are the new macaroons which were the new cupcakes, or something. Anyway they are super easy to make and very delicious to eat.



Credit: BBC

Here is the recipe for cake pops from our July meeting.

Ingredients:
Cake: this recipe uses 1 chocolate sponge made in a loaf tin, but this could be replaced with any sponge or fruit cake. You can either make a cake or buy a ready made sponge (shh no one will ever know).

Icing: this recipe uses chocolate fudge butter icing but you could use any thick, spreadable icing or frosting. Again you could make your own or buy ready made.

Chocolate, melted: we used white chocolate.

Sticks: we used white chocolate Mikados but you could use lollipop sticks or candy sticks. In fact Mikados turned out to be a bit unsuccessful with warm hands as they snapped so don't use them!

Decoration: sprinkles, sparkles, whatever takes your fancy

Method

1. Bake cake and leave to cool completely. Or take cake out of packaging!

2. Cut crusts off of cake. This will ensure there are no lumps in your finished cake pops.

3. Crumble the sponge into a bowl. The finer the sponge the better. You could use a food processor to do this, your hands or a knife.

4. Add a tablespoon of icing to the sponge crumbs and mix with your hands. Keep adding one spoonful of icing at a time until the mixture comes together in a dough like consistency and forms one large ball. Too little icing and the mixture won't hold together, too much and it will be sloppy. This is a crucial stage!

5. Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

6. Now roll ping pong sized balls of cake mixture and place onto a lined baking sheet.

7. Refrigerate for at least half an hour.

8. Break the white chocolate into an oven proof bowl and put into the microwave on 20 second blasts until melted. Be careful not to over cook or the chocolate will separate.

9. Put a blob of melted chocolate on the end of a stick and push into a cake ball. Do this for each cake ball and leave the chocolate to dry. This will only take a minute or so and the chocolate will act like glue to hold the stick in place.

10. Now dip each cake ball into the melted chocolate ensuring an even coverage. Stand the cake pop upright to dry - you could use a cup, jam jar, floristry oasis, whatever you have to hand.

11. Before the chocolate dries add your decorations. For inspiration google 'cake pops' there are hundreds of pages of inspiration. If in doubt hundreds and thousands look quite nice.

12. Sit back, feel smug at your baking wonder and eat cake pops.

Old skool rules

Jessica Johnson used to work on the WI Life magazine. She now publishes her own blog The Vintage Cake Spot among other things.

Check out these very useful vintage WI cookery tips she has discovered and then visit her blog for more vintage wonder.

"During the research of The Vintage Teatime, that I’ve been only too happy to soak up the chapters on ‘Culinary’ or ‘Cookery’ Hints which were a mainstay of self-published cook books by the WI over the last sixty years. More time-saving ways with potatoes, milk, eggs and pretty much all cupboard staples available to the home-cook in her respective decade. Here’s the best of the bunch…

CABBAGE To prevent cabbage boiling over, add a small piece of dripping or lard. Adds good flavour, too.

CAKE tins. When buying new cake or meat tins, run them inside out with a little lard, then put into a cool oven for an hour or two. This prevents rust and cakes will turn out without sticking.

EGGS you’re doing the separating thing and you drop some shell. Rescue little shards with a large piece of egg shell which acts as a magnet cum lifeguard.

PANCAKES and Yorkshire puds get even tastier with 2ozs of butter thrown into the batter before cooking.

PEARS are much improved by being cooked in a little lemonade rather than water. Think Nigella and her cola ham.

MINT for your summer mojitos can be chopped much more quickly and finely with a pinch or two of sugar in the mix.

ORANGE peel dried and hung up in a paper bag can be used as an excellent flavouring stewed with dried fruit.

REVIVE a drooping lettuce by standing its roots in a little water

THICKENING Put flour in a jar and bake in a slow oven until it just starts to change colour. When cool this can be stored and used for thickening sauces and gravies as it won’t turn lumpy upon adding to hot liquids. What a relief – that’s the white sauce sorted"

(source: the vintage cake spot)

Our questions for...Mary Berry

Mary Berry originally trained in catering at Bath College of Home Economics before venturing to France to train with Paris cordon bleu. Since then she has written over 80 cookery books which have sold more than 5 million copies. Along with writing books, Mary has appeared on radio and tv, most recently as one of the judges on the Great British Bake Off.

Mary has kindly taken the time to answer some of our questions.

Q: How long does it take you to put together a cookery book? And where do you get your inspiration from?
A: It usually takes about a year from start to finish, but it depends how much help I have.  Lucy Young my assistant of 22 years and Lucinda Kaizik helps me part time so if we have a book we are writing we spend a couple of days a week testing recipes and the rest writing.


Q: Do you have a quick mid-week supper dish you could share with us?
A: I have a couple of favourites, Penne pasta with fried parma ham, mushrooms, cream, parmesan and fresh basil. Or a quick fish pie - layered spinach, smoked haddock, hard boiled eggs and cubed potatoes all in a white sauce with a cheese topping.


Q: Do you choose which of your recipes are used for the technical challenge on the Great British Bake Off? If so, how do you go about choosing from all of your recipes?
A: Yes I do - we have to think of technically difficult recipes which are technical to bake and show skills and expertise.


Q: Have you learned any new baking tips from working with Paul Hollywood?
A: I have learnt that it is best to have a wet dough for bread and when kneading a plain dough to knead on an oiled surface not on a floured surface.


Q: I have heard that using a fan oven is not so good for cake baking. In your experience how much of an effect does this have on the end result?
A: I think fan ovens are good if you take care, I use a fan oven for testing recipes as most people have them at home.


Q: What is your opinion of all in one cake recipes? Would you recommend this as a time saving method for a quick bake or should I stick with the standard creaming butter and sugar first method?
A: I think the all in one method is the best and most simple method for making most cakes.


Q: I've read that you recommend using Stork for baking - is this really better than using good quality butter?
A: Stork Perfect for cakes has 70% fat and gives a very rewarding result, I use it at home. Using butter, which has 80% fat means the cake will last longer as it contains more fat.


Q: Do you ever use duck eggs for baking?
A: I have never used them!


Q: Do you have a favourite cake (to eat rather than bake!)?
A: Oh I do love a lemon sponge!