At first glance it might seem that I am just a happy, normal girl who loves to bake and walk her dog. However, I have suffered with an eating disorder since I was 13. It was only in May 2014 when I realised that this Voice in my head was slowly but surely trying to kill me. And so began the long, hard, and painful journey which is recovery...

I want My Cocoa Stained Apron to be a special place...a place for reflection, memories, shared stories...and of course a little bit of cocoa-staining ;) Recovery might be the hardest thing you ever choose to do in this life. But it is also the bravest and best decision you will ever make.:)

Thursday 28 August 2014

Lamingtons and lettuces...

Today was another busy day in the kitchen of Ganache-Elf...
And not just with cooking and baking, actually. Well, of course I was doing just that, but also...the washing of those homegrown lettuces took longer than one might think. ;)
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Now please believe me when I say that this is actually my garden, and these are NOT shop-bought lettuces. I don't think the lettuces you'd buy in Tescos or Lidl or wherever would be as green as that anyway...
Our garden has always been something of a picture in the summer: chives and nasturtiums and forget-me-knots spring up out of nowhere, even though we never plant them. And my Dad has always had "green fingers", anyway: so alongside those we would always have geraniums and sweet peas and petunias, to name but a few: I could go on and on about the flowers, as I adore them; but since this is a cooking blog and not a gardening one I may restrain my love of flowery things for now and stick to the point. Though I did read somewhere that nasturtiums and dandelions are a very good and healthy addition to salad. I haven't been quite so adventurous to try this out yet, though, but give me time.
Tonight we were having a barbecue, which of course called for a masive bowl of lettuce and tomatoes and beetroot and onions all mixed together to form a wonderfully colourful summery salad. So out I toddled, barefooted, into that grassy haven which is my garden, making a beeline for the plot where the nasturtiums and the lettuces grow in abundance. There is something so, so special about picking your own vegetables. And eating them, of course. Even if it is only lettuce, which personally isn't, to me, the most exciting of vegetables, tatse wise. But anyway, that aside, these lettuces are different. They are just...so green. And on being livened up with a homamde salad dressing, a salad is really and truly made so much more than just a salad.
Now, onto baking. I'm not entirely sure whether these super-cute little cakes in the pics below are familar to many bakers or not. I certainly hadn't heard of them before. My recipe says they are an Australian favourite. Lamingtons - a great name for a cake, though. I think it was some general guy they derive their name from; all I can say is, if I discovered such awesome cakes were named after me, I would feel very honoured and pretty special indeed. And they are just sooooo fun to make!

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It's basically a vanilla sponge, baked in a square tin for a nice even shape, then cut into smaller squares which are dipped in a big bowl of chocolate icing; then rolled in dessicated coconut for that special finishing touch. My impatience got the better of me again though, I'm afraid. Ideally, the sponge should be left overnight before slicing so it's less crumbly and doesn't disintegrate on you when you go to coat it in the icing. But once again I was in so much of a hurry to get my creations finished and sampled, I made my icing a few hours after the cake had left the oven. But don't worry, if you are like me and just can't wait, the results are never completely disasterous. Far from it in fact. Your squares might not be quite as neat as the photo with your recipe, and you might end up with lots of little crumbs in the icing, but I can guarantee that you will still be pretty much satisifed with yourself after doing these. Of course, after dipping in my last square, I was delighted to discover that there was just a little bit of chocolate gunk leftover, interspersed with the bits of the lovely vanillaley sponge which had fallen off the cakes as I dipped and dolloped them in. I didn't mind the fact that I couldn't have a square straightaway - unless you used a spoon, eating one of those with the icing still runny could transpire into a very messy and sticky-fingered affair (not that that's really such a bad thing... ) - for cleaning my bowl of "leftovers" kept my sweet tooth perfectly in check (for now that is.)  General Lamington, whoever you may be, I salute you! :)

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