Rather Fail with Honour than Succeed by Fraud

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. A situation at work started the train of thought, but in the last two years I’ve witnessed similar incidents a number of times, both personal and professional. I’m talking about honour. I know; it’s one of those things that we don’t seem to talk about, along with duty and respect and common courtesy. Recently I’ve even heard (first hand as well so it’s not just unsubstantiated rumour) people boast about not keeping their word. A verbal agreement that they’ve reneged on, to their benefit, and they’re proud of it! What happened to the days when one’s word was one’s bond? And defended, vigorously? Or perhaps that is what is not real? Maybe it’s just fiction that portrays an earlier time where one’s word meant something, and fiction has conned me yet again.

A Basket 'o Biscuits

After my last post, I found myself thinking about biscuits. I make a decent biscuit. Maybe not even that - more of an okay biscuit. And I'm not terribly consistent. I decided it was time to work on being able to make very good - or even excellent - biscuits without having to deal with hits and misses. And I got there. Where, however, is there? What am I looking for? Glad you asked. Well for starters there is height. I really don’t like a flat biscuit. I once had one (that’s had one, not MADE and had) that was so flat I couldn’t even slice it in have to slather it in butter. Quel domage! So I wanted them to rise well. I never used to read the best before date on baking powder, because I made so many scones and pancakes and so on for both family and the business that I just never thought about it. I’m glad that I decided to do that. I only buy the little containers and I’d purchased the one I had when we moved, September of 2011. I should have read the label when I bought it: best before date was already past when I made my purchase! So the first thing to do – along with buying some buttermilk – was to get some new and active baking powder.

Along with height I prefer to have certain straightness to my biscuits. I’ve taken many a tray of b’s out of the oven to find half of them leaning like little eatable towers of Pisa. So I wanted them to be able to rise high and evenly. Turns out there is a small trick to that: knuckling. I don’t imagine that’s what it is actually called, but making a small indentation in the middle helps them rise evenly. I’ve been given baking tips and tricks that work and tips and tricks that don’t. This one does. Backwards as it may seem, while I struggle with good biscuits, I’m great with puff pastry and croissant. When I have the time and inclination, that is! It turns out that the best way to get tender flaky biscuits is similar to achieving tender flaky croissants. Similar, not the same! Don’t worry, I’m not about to give you some long drawn out directions for biscuits that take away the beautiful ease and simplicity of biscuit making. The main changes that ended up making the difference were temperature and mixing. For temperature, instead of using chilled butter I sliced the butter, and then froze the slices. And I measure out the buttermilk and put that in the freezer too. Not long enough to freeze: I only put it in there when I decided to make biscuit batch 2.2. I sliced 7 ounces of butter fairly thinly and put them on a parchment lined plate in the freezer. Then I measure 1 ½ cups of buttermilk and put that in the freezer too. THEN I started getting bowls and so on ready. I made a double recipe this time, as I was making biscuits to go with rotisserie chicken for four, and needed to have some leftover for The Boy to snack on later in the evening. I should have made a triple batch, so everyone could snack on them later. ‘Cept me. I prefer mine hot out of the oven. Anyway, I digress. Just thought I’d mention that you’ll get more than six out of this recipe, should you try it. Four cups of flour in a fairly large bowl, four teaspoons of baking powder and one teaspoon each of baking soda and salt. I whisked them together. Not something I normally do, but then again, I was having problems with my “normal” method! So I did as recommended and fluffed them up. Fluffing being my term, not any of the recipes I was looking at. Next I took the moderately frozen butter out and tossed them in the flour before I started cutting it in. I have fond memories of mum using knives to blend butter or shortening into flour, and have done it myself on occasion. Good memories, but I always just use the pastry knife thingy now. Still easy to make sure you don’t over process, and nowhere near as tiring! When the blend looked like tiny peas, I made a well in the centre and poured in the buttermilk.

And here’s where things changed from my usual method. Instead of mixing it until it was a smooth cohesive dough I used a spatula and folded it until it was a barely together crumbly shaggy dough. Then I put it on a floured board. I sort of squeezed it together and patted it down. It was still really messy, and pieces were falling off. I put those on top, and folded a third into the middle from the right and a third into the middle from the left. And then I sort of patted it out again, using my hands, not a rolling pin. There were crumbs from the bowl, and one or two from the edges. I put those on top and did the folding again. This time it was a bit smoother. Another fold, and smoother still. In the end I did the fold five times. When I’d done the 5th fold I used a rolling pin and rolled it out to 1 inch thickness. I used a two inch circular cutter. Next time I will just use a very sharp knife or pizza cutter and make squares. The ones made from the re-rolled bits after the first round were truly not as good as the rest. I put them in a 425F oven, middle rack for the second tray. First tray was one rack lower and the bottoms cooked too quickly so I moved them up one for the second tray. Oh yeah, one other thing: brush the tops lightly with buttermilk! Phew. Almost forgot that, and it made a difference to the final outcome. Those without weren't as aesthetically appealling. In the end they were exactly what I wanted. And despite making them to take over to La Maison for a roast chicken side dish, I confess to eating a number of them (a number that will never be revealed) hot out of the oven, slathered with butter and dripping with honey. And they were good. Very good. How good? The Boy LEFT HIS COMPUTER GAME to come out and cover a fair few with butter and honey before going back to his gaming buddies. Now THAT’S a biscuit!

Regina Sweet Bakery and Coffee House Review

So, the food reviewing starts! I might even do two in one blog, because we had duck last night and it was delicious. Anyway: Hildy’s mom and I went to tea/lunch on Saturday at Regina Sweet Bakery and Coffee House. I was craving a biscuit. It’s a somewhat silly thing to crave, as they’re easy to make but I can never make just ONE at home. So I end up having to eat them all. Slathered in butter and jam. And – given that I’m so close to a grocery store – I’d be tempted to add clotted cream to that. Yes, adding cream to the already present butter. I’d end up staying in the apartment, too big to get out the door. Because one dozen biscuits with all three toppings would be followed by another and another and another. Sigh. I have weaknesses!

In the end we chose Sweet because it was close to the park where the dragon boat racing was going on, and because they have lunch and tea things, and good vegetarian choices. My companion is the vegetarian, I’m an omnivore. See above, re: duck! We had been there once before but sadly they were out of vegetarian choices that time. They weren’t out of odd people (us included, perhaps?) having lunch. Now, generally, I have nothing against the odd. Different people make the world an interesting place. But having someone alternate between listening intently to our conversation and doing strange ritualistic things with paper and mutterings in the interim is a bit more distraction than I care to have when I am trying to have a pleasant visit with a friend. So, perhaps this time there would be veggie choices available, and nothing unusual with the other customers. Yes and no, as it happens. Nothing TOO unusual with the other patrons, but I did get a very strange look from someone. The kind that makes you wonder if you forgot to put clothes on, or if they’re on backwards, or they're on fire or something. But harmless. And I wasn’t on fire, so it was all ok. I had clothes on too. They MAY have been backwards, though! My friend had the French pastry with tomatoes and goat cheese. I assumed it would be puff pastry, and I worried that it would be pre-made lard puff. It ended up being basic pastry. Which she said was fine, as was the crumbled cheese on top. The sad thing was the bland imported from somewhere store bought tomato. As my friend pointed out, there we were with farmer’s markets and gardens and local produce in abundance and yet…bland slightly under ripe slices of imported tomato. Also, the pastry was baked and then the slices of tomato were placed on top. Because the bottom slice was slightly cooked from the heat of the pastry but the rest were cold slices of blah. With cheese. I should have asked her what she would have rated it on a scale of 1-10. Six? Seven? I had a lemonade and a pecan coffee cake. They had biscuits as part of various lunch choices but for no reason I can defend I am not comfortable asking for something that is not specifically listed as a thing on its own. So I didn’t have a biscuit. Which is just as well, as I don’t know if they would have had jam available. Butter yes, jam perhaps and clotted cream certainly not. Where on that scale would I rate what I had? Lemonade an eight or even nine, muffin/cake thing a three or a four. It did have a pecan. And it had good flavour but it was incredibly dry. Almost as though they made individual coffee cakes with streusel topping and then for mine forgot the cake part and just filled the thing with crumbly topping. Don’t get me wrong, I love me a good thick topping. It’s just…to be a topping you have to be on top of something, yes? Overall, I think I would go back. For a lemonade to go. I'll start carrying my camera around. Hopefully next review will have pics! (The Boy said the duck was fantastic. I was pretty happy with the results too. Just in case you were wondering.)

A Turn - or perhaps curve - in the road.

You may have noticed (all three of you that read this blog) that I haven’t blogged in a fair while. The thing is, every time something happens that I think – usually mistakenly – is interesting enough to blog about, I end up putting it on Facebook instead. Much easier, for the essentially lazy. And one is more easily forgiven for spelling/grammar/syntax errors on FB than here. So I stopped. However! I was out for tea with a friend who will some day start a blog about vegetarian eating in Regina, and it occurred to me: I like to cook and eat, I like to go out and eat. She may not be food blogging yet, but there is no reason why I couldn’t start! Some times I will write about some public place in Regina - or elsewhere – and every now and then I’ll write about a recipe I’m trying out at home. I should be able to blog more than once in a blue moon if I go ahead with the food plan. We’ll see, what with the proof being in the pudding and whatnot. My first post in this new world (no, I will not be renaming the blog. Can’t be bothered. See above note re: essential laziness) will be….not today. Tomorrow. Maybe. Because as it turns out I’m also pretty good at procrastinating as well.