Welcome

Reaching the final of Masterchef 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotion, with huge highs and lows, but I loved every minute and learnt a huge amount. I owe a great deal to John and Gregg who had faith in my ability when I did not believe in myself. Since competing on the programme my life has changed considerably. I now write cookery columns for two magazines, give cookery demonstrations and am just working on my 13th cook book - unlucky number for some but not for me!!! I love all forms of country cooking, using seasonal and locally sourced produce. This blog is to enable me to share with you a few of my recipes and baking ideas. Enjoy Hannah xxxx

Wednesday 13 February 2013

Have you ever had one of those days when your cooking goes wrong?  It doesn't happen to me that often luckily but yesterday it happened in a spectacular fashion.  My friend Susan came round yesterday evening as we wanted to prepare Semlor - Swedish lent buns which is their pancake equivalent for Shrove Tuesday.  We have been planning this for a while now and were both looking forward to a baking evening together.  Peter and Susan used to live in Gothenburg and have raved about these cardamom buns filled with whipped cream and almond paste ever since I have known them.  My expectations of a delicious culinary experience were high.  Two nights ago I had a dream that we were making the buns and the yeast kept foaming all over the kitchen. I think I should have taken this as a sign.  We followed the recipe to the letter but the dough was really hard and not elastic at all.  Still we persevered thinking that it was perhaps meant to be this way as maybe Swedish dough is different.  Alas, we then put it in my Kitchenaid mixer to knead and it broke the glass bowl into large pieces!  One hour of cooking and nothing to show for it as the dough now had glass fragments in it.  We were both so sad, although did manage to see the funny side of it eventually.  So instead of our cardamom buns, we had a quick change of plan and instead  made Semlor inspired pancakes - cardamom pancakes with almond paste, whipped cream and blueberry and cardamom compote.  They were very tasty and although not quite what we had planned, the evening turned out well in the end!

1 comment:

Snowy said...

Oh dear, but out of a disaster you made something good. Love the sound of the pancake filling.