Positivity Burned in the Oven!

I like to try to remain positive whatever life throws at me and I like to think I make a pretty good stab at it.  Last week, however, something happened which sucked the positivity out of me for a while at least.

The gruffalo was fun to make

Although I am not a great cook I do enjoy cooking for the family and experimenting with new recipes.  I also love baking and typically make more cakes than are strictly good for us.  There has been the odd disaster (such as the time that I bought kelp powder masquerading as matcha powder for use in some green tea cupcakes.  I had to convince the kids that the seaweed cupcakes really were yummy!) but by and large I am a competent hand and turn out reliably tasty stuff even in the face of some true ingredient challenges.

Kelp cupcakes... not really a success (although we
conned the kids into eating them).

When we arrived in Ipoh I felt very let down by our landlord who having promised to provide a proper oven declared when we arrived with family and stuff in tow that a tabletop one would be more than sufficient.  I could cope with the filthy house, the lack of running water and the leaking roof but the lack of (promised) oven really got to me.  He had us over a barrel given that we were on a quick move and some of the other houses we had seen had no walls.  Our company had paid deposits and signed contracts on our behalf and as we could not move into a hotel with the dogs we just had to suck it up.  Everything else was remedied, the house cleaning paid for etc and they did buy me a slightly bigger table top oven when I threatened to withhold a percentage of rent but it is not particularly good.  It has no fan function, has a single shelf and while it has top and bottom elements to make up for that I have not yet mastered the knack of getting it to cook evenly.  There is a spit for roasting but if I use that I can’t roast off potatoes at the same time (although there is barely space to get a duck in the oven) and the spit does not work for cakes.

The dragon took ages (but it was green tea not seaweed flavoured)

To add to my expat kitchen woes I have  a fairly useless hob, it has three burners but only one works properly and that has an ‘on’ ‘off’ function with no temperature control.  These are real expat/first world problems.  I have food in the larder and a means of cooking it so by that measure we are wealthy beyond belief.  Nevertheless suffice to say that I am not getting much pleasure from cooking at the moment and I know I am turning out some fairly inferior meals.  I am currently on the hunt for simmer plates to get some control over my gas hob but they are not a popular item in Malaysia and I get blank stares everywhere I ask for them. 

Hello Kitty was fine

 Our two daughters celebrated their birthdays recently: the older one was 7 on the Tuesday and the younger turned 1 the following day.  This was a great week, I love their birthdays and I love baking for them.  Over the years I have turned out some pretty decent attempts at cakes and the children have always loved them.  We have had Whales, Hello Kitty, the Gruffalo, Butterflies, Dragons etc.  Some worked better than others but all have been appreciated.  Our older children get cupcakes to bring into school to share amongst friends and a ‘family’ cake that we enjoy at home along with the meal of their choice.

But in the absence of writing icing her cupcake siblings' whiskers took hours

The oven can just about cope with cupcakes although the ones at the back are always a little better done than the ones in the front a judicious use of icing deals with that problem.  This year, as normal I sent my daughter in for the first day of school with cakes for her class.  In every other school these have been lapped up but my daughter was rather upset to tell me that most of the children just threw them in the bin when she said that we had made them together.  They wanted bakery standard or not at all!  Now admittedly these were not the most beautiful cakes we have ever made but that is because our daughter wanted to help me so we decided to go for something simple (pink sprinkles) rather than a challenging design for her to get frustrated with.  Her good friends had a few extra and the staff and security guards seemed to enjoy their ones so all was not lost.

The butterfly was popular

She had asked for a grown up cake as opposed to a ‘design’ for her family cake so a chocolate sponge (slightly charred on one side and just cooked on the other) was covered in icing and decorated with strawberries much to her delight. 

A grown up cake for a 7 year old girl

The real disappointment came the next day.  Having collected the older two from school I set about making the baby’s first birthday cake.  I usually make a spiced pound cake for the baby as an iced cake is too sweet for someone age 1, I then decorate it with some writing icing.  Our older daughter had a butterfly and I had a small sunflower tin ready to do duty for the small cake, I had visions of outlining the leaves in icing and filling the centre with some sugar flowers I had picked up in the shop.  It would be beautiful!  Sadly my oven had other ideas.  I had enough mix for two tins, the sunflower and a loaf both to go in at the same time, I have made this exact recipe with these exact tins many times before with perfect results every time.  Disaster struck – the tops and bottoms of the cakes cooked well enough but in some feat unknown to culinary physics my oven and I managed to arrange for the centres to completely fail to cook.  When I gave up and took them out of the oven after double the usual time the sunflower collapsed in a mound, the top tasted like speculaas biscuit (I am quite proud as I have loved these since I was a child and always failed to make them when I try), the centre like a sort of wet, uncooked spiced pudding mix.  It was clearly an unmitigated disaster.  The loaf which had been intended to do lunch box duty for the rest of the week fared a little bit better; it at least held its outer form although the centre collapsed spectacularly.  Not wanting to cook another cake at 7.30pm we filled the centre with cream and strawberries, put a candle in the middle and sang happy birthday.  The baby loves strawberries so she was quite happy, but the cake was, sadly, completely inedible. 

The worst birthday cake in the world!

I now feel rather guilty that our third child had no proper birthday cake and I feel vaguely resentful of my kitchen which has sucked a lot of the fun out of one of my hobbies.  I am trying to put a positive spin on it but failing at this point in time, nevertheless I know I need to stop the 'pity party' soonish.  I have managed to bake better cakes where I have had to use a substitute for every single ingredient  but this oven has stymied me.  I guess I could look on it as just another expat challenge.

Posted as part of the My Expat Family Link Up.

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Marble Biscotti

Biscotti are the hard oblong biscuits that you can buy in upmarket coffee shops to dip in your morning Latte.  Of course such coffee shops are now fairly ubiquitous worldwide but often very expensive, even for expats.   The name biscotti comes from the Italian for ‘baked twice’ because they go into the oven two times, the name is the origin for the word ‘Biscuit’ in British English.  A regional version in Tuscany is called Cantuccini and is traditionally dipped into a fortified wine (Vin Santo).

As good as a coffee shop!

These tasty biscuits make a great treat to enjoy with your morning coffee.  You could also package them in groups of 3-4 with some ribbon and card and use as personalised gifts or to sell at a school bake fayre.

 

Biscotti are baked twice - as a log for the first baking

You will need:

1. 100g (31/2 oz) plain chocolate, melted.
2. 85g (3oz) unsalted butter.
3. 140g (5oz) caster (superfine) sugar.
4. 2 large eggs
5. ½ tsp vanilla extract
6. Rind of one orange
7. 280g (10oz) plain flour
8. 11/2 tsp baking powder
9. 75g (23/4 oz) blanched, flaked almonds.

Time taken: 11/2 hours, difficulty level: intermediate

Cut and baked on the side to crisp up on the second baking

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C (375F)
2. Melt the chocolate (either in a water bath or in the microwave depending on your preference).  Set aside to cool.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy.
4. Add the vanilla extract and orange rind to the eggs and beat lightly.  Add the mix to the butter and sugar and whisk.
5. Add in the flour, almonds and baking powder and mix to a soft dough.
6. Divide the dough into two parts mixing one half in with the melted chocolate. 
7. Knead the two halves for about three minutes each on a well floured surface.  Divide each half into two again.
8. Roll each ball into sausages about 30cm (12in) long.
9. Place a chocolate and a plain roll next to eachother on a baking sheet and twist them around before flattening the combined roll to about 2.5m (1in) thick.  Do the same with the remaining two dough balls.
10. Bake for about 25 minutes until lightly brown.
11. Once done remove from the oven.  Turn the oven down to 170°C (35F).  Leave the logs to cool for 15 minutes.
12. Using a sharp, serrated knife cut the logs on the diagonal into slices about 1cm (1/2 in thick).
13. Arrange the slices cut side down on the baking sheet and return to the oven for 10 minutes.  Turn and bake the other side for a further 10 minutes until golden.
14. Remove from oven and leave to cool and harden. 

Perfect for coffee mornings, bake sales or gifts.

Variations:

You could choose to make just the plain version (omit the chocolate) or double the chocolate and make just the chocolate version.  Real chocoholics could replace the nuts with chocolate chips or coat the cooled biscuits in melted chocolate before leaving to set.

Most types of nut will work in Biscotti – try replacing the almonds with hazelnuts or walnuts.  Similarly you could replace the orange with lemon.  The opportunities and experiments are endless - it might be quite fun to design a version for each expat posting - I might use this as a project for the kids one half term!

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Christmas Pudding

Towards the end of November every year I make the Christmas Pudding.  This traditional end to an English Christmas Lunch is a firm favourite with everyone in the family.  Here in Astana  Christmas is celebrated in January per the Orthodox calendar so we celebrate twice, this means that I cook up two puddings, one for our small family celebration in December and a larger one for the January Christmas when we usually have friends over to celebrate. 

There is no hard and fast recipe for pudding so it is very forgiving if you cannot get the main ingredients.  I usually throw together 450g of dried fruit (in the UK I use currants, sultanas, candied peel and prunes) with a wine glass of Mead,  Madeira or Sherry.  Leave the dried fruit to soak for 2-3 days before throwing in 100g plain flour, and 275g mix of suet and breadcrumbs, 150g muscvado sugar, lemon zest, a peeled and grated apple, 2 tablespoons of molasses, treacle or honey depending on what I have in the cupboard, 3 large eggs and mix well.  I also add koekkruiden (a mix of Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, Ground Cloves, Ground Nutmeg, Ground Ginger, ground Cardamom, ground Star Anise and Mace my sop to my Dutch heritage) but traditionally a pudding would contain cinnamon and cloves.

English tradition calls for every member of the family to stir the pudding and make a wish while they do so.  It is also traditional to put sliver charms into the mix for example a wishbone for luck or an anchor to give people safe harbour in the coming year.  When in the UK I trawl antique shops for a set of charms, I could buy a new set but that would take some of the fun out of the hunt.  For the moment I use coins, (cleaned thoroughly in coca-cola before putting in the mix).

The mix then goes into one large or two small well greased pudding basins, I use a traditional ceramic basin which means I need to  seal the top with cling and muslin or with foil but it is possible to buy plastic basins that come with their own lids.  Mine is plain but I covet a beautiful patterned basin just for Christmas.  Mason and Cash, a famous bakeware manufacturer in the UK designs a new Christmas pattern every year but I have never been able to justify the expense when I have a perfectly good basin, after all the pudding is served on a plate so I am the only person who would see it.

Once the pudding is transferred and safely in the basin it needs to be steamed.  This can be done on the hob but that takes up space and needs to be monitored to make sure that it does not go dry.  I tend to steam in a low (110/120 degree C) oven, leaving the puddings for about 6 hours for the first steaming.  On Christmas day I will either steam the pudding for an hour or two while we eat our meal or, if we forget, I put it in the microwave. 

When it is time to serve the pudding goes onto a plate and we warm some high percentage alcohol in a metal ladle (a lighter is better than matches for this).  When the alcohol starts to smoke we pour it over the pudding, turn out the lights and set it on fire.  The flickering flames look spectacular.

Christmas Pudding set alight and ready to be served.

The pudding is traditionally served with brandy butter - a mix of butter, icing sugar and brandy but I usually swap the same liquor I used in the pudding for the brandy.

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How to make home made icing/frosting.

My son’s birthday is in two days time (it is very hard to believe he is seven already), his party is tomorrow so I have been baking birthday cakes.  In the UK I would always use commercially bought frosting for the cakes – quick and simple - it may be a cheat but it makes life so much easier.

When I was a child I always enjoyed having big statement cakes for birthdays and large events.  My mother was a virtuoso - one year  in Norway she made me a castle (with turrets made from upside down ice-cream cones), another year she sent me in to school with a bunny and a chick cake for Easter.  My children used to ask for big statement cakes as well but these days they prefer cupcakes because it is easier for them to hand them out to their friends at school.  This makes my life much much easier as they are quick to bake and easy to ice. 

Here in Kazakhstan (as in many other places) commercial frosting is difficult to find, luckily it is really easy to make at home at home.  I tend to ice cakes with a butter-cream frosting, the basic recipe is a mix of butter and icing sugar on a 1:3 ration with some vanilla or almond extract depending on taste and slackened off a little bit of milk.  The basic recipe is very versatile – it can be tinted with food colouring or flavoured in a variety of different ways.   My particular favourite is green tea frosting (perfect on chocolate muffins) made by adding Matcha powder to the basic frosting.  It is also possible to use iced tea powders to vary the flavours – apple or lemon frostings work very well and a mulled wine flavour iced tea powder adds a great flavour to Christmas cup-cakes. 

Basic buttercream frosting is very versatile and easy to use.

Certain chocolate cakes just do not work without chocolate fudge icing.  The fail-safe recipe for this is to melt butter and caster sugar in a 1:1 ratio with a little bit of water.  Pour this over a mix of 2 parts icing sugar and ½ part cocoa powder and mix to a glossy finish.  For very dark, rich chocolate cakes or carrot cakes I prefer a cream cheese frosting.  Mix 1 part cream cheese to 1 part butter then add 2 parts icing sugar. 

Chocolate fudge frosting is tasty and luxurious.

Cream cheese frosting works well with chocolate cupcakes.
Chocolate fudge icing makes a decadent topping for vanilla cakes.

Lemon drizzle cakes have the easiest icing of all – icing sugar mixed with lemon juice and a small amount of zest to a very thin consistency and drizzled over the cake so that it is absorbed leaving a moist cake with a very thin, delicate sugary crust.  I use a similar mix to ice biscuits or Danish pastries – less liquid and more icing sugar makes for a thick, white writing icing. 

Basic writing icing is versatile and effective

Change the consistency by altering the amount of liquid.

The only type of icing I find very difficult to make at home is a fondant icing for Christmas cakes.  Proper fondant icing requires gelatine and corn syrup, both items can be quite difficult to source so I tend to cheat and bring some ready made from the UK or, alternatively I just turn the cake into a ‘Dundee Cake’ ie I decorate the top with concentric rings of almonds.  I am constantly in awe of the mother of one of my sons' friends who makes stunning cakes with fondant icing.  I have no idea where she gets the ingredients or the patience to do them.

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How to make your own or substitute vanilla extract in baking.

Much like baking powder and speciality baking sugar Vanilla and Almond Extracts are another key baking ingredient that can be difficult to source as an expatriate.   Vanilla Extract is a key ingredient in most cakes and other baking, it is very good at imparting a subtle taste and helps add that certain something to your cakes.  I usually swap it with Almond Extract in my December baking as I find the almond imparts a more ‘Christmassy’ taste.   

The extracts can be a challenge to find abroad – I have not yet come across them in the local supermarkets here in Astana.  In many countries it is possible to buy a Vanilla (Almond) Essence but these are artificial substitutes and do not give the same depth of flavour as the original.  It is like using lemon juice from a bottle instead of squeezing a lemon.  Because I bake so much I must admit to cheating and buying large bottles of extract when I am in the UK and bringing it back with me.  It is one of the few items I do this with.  While I love the challenge of finding ingredients locally I firmly believe that every expat should be allowed a list of items that are absolutely ‘can’t live without’ that they can bring in without feeling guilty.

Extracts are ridiculously simple to make at home – you take vanilla pods (5-7) and split them.  Place them in a clean, sterilised bottle and cover with about 225 millilitres of vodka and just leave it. It will start to be usable within about 3 months and the longer you leave it the more the flavour will develop. When you want to use it strain through a muslin cloth before adding to the mix.  Lemon and almond extracts follow the same principals and are much cheaper to make from scratch because of the price of the raw ingredients.  I like to keep some infusing in the cupboard incase I run out of my shop bought product. If you have a good supply of small bottles you could present some home made essence to friends - the scarcity of this product in many places would make it a much sought after gift.

Split Vanilla pods, place in a bottle (or a tupperware if bottles are
 not available) and leave to infuse in a dark place.

3 months later the extract is ready to use, just
strain through a muslin before adding to the mix.

Unfortunately making your own is not a viable solution if you find you have run out of extract mid way through baking your cake.  Luckily substitutes are available but most will change the taste of the cake.  If you really do not want to change the recipe the alternative with the least impact on flavour is maple syrup.  If you don't mind a change in taste you can have fun experimenting with flavours.  All alternatives are substituted on a 1:1 ratio.

Liqueurs are a good alternative – just about anything will work and you can tailor your liqueur to the flavour of your cake; rum or bourbon is good in a plain cake.  Kaluha would work well with a coffee cake, fruit schnapps would work well in muffins made with the same flavoured fruits.  When we were on holiday in Tenerife years ago I bought a banana liqueur which was fantastic in baking.  Despite the name Madeira cake does not contain any Madeira (the cake is actually a lemon cake and was so named because pieces of the cake would be served with and often dunked in a glass of the liqueur).  Nevertheless Madeira is a wonderful substitute for vanilla extract and works particularly well in Victoria sponge. 

The alcohol disappears in the baking process but if you are concerned and baking for children or those with particular religious sensibilities a strong steeped tea is another good substitute.  I find this works particularly well in chocolate cakes - green tea or Earl Grey giving a beautifully subtle yet distinctive flavour.

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Baking Banana Bread

I love bananas.  One of the real treats living in Nigeria was the abundance of the fruit – we could just walk into the garden and pick them straight from the ‘trees’, although you had to keep a careful eye out for snakes.  The bananas in Nigeria were nothing like the big tasteless ones you tend to get in Europe, they were small, soft and oh so sweet.  We were even able to get red bananas which were sweeter still, and plantain which is not at all nice raw but is beautiful fried. 

One of the things that surprised me when we moved to Kazakhstan was the easy availability of bananas, we get them year round and although they are a little pricey the cost is not prohibitive.  I am not sure where they come from but they are reasonably tasty.  They do perish rather quickly so you can have to

eat them fast or leave a few to go black and then bake banana bread. The break is very easy to make - so much so that I tend to use it as my stand by for unexpected visitors and the children have learned that if they leave some bananas in the bowl they will get cake.  It is also a cake with ingredients that are easily sourced just about everywhere, even in the most obscure postings.

My banana bread is based on a heavily edited version of Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess. I leave out the nuts (I worry about young children eating nuts) and add chocolate chips.   I take 110g of raisins and soak them in Tokaji overnight, if I don’t have time or, more likely, forget to do this the day before I just boil them up on the hob.  Most recipes call for rum, brandy or bourbon but the mellow taste of Tokaji works extremely well with the banana bread.  It is, in fact, my sweet cooking wine of choice but it can be difficult to find.  In a pinch I will use Madeira or Sherry.  

Raisins in Tokaij

In one bowl I combine approximately 175g of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ½ of baking soda. 

In another bowl I mix 125g of melted butter and 150g of sugar.  Add 4 mashed, over-ripe bananas to the butter mix followed by two eggs, the raisins (and any left-over Tokaji, don’t waste it) and vanilla extract.  I then add the dry ingredients to the wet; I find if I add a little at a time I only need to use a wooden spoon to mix. Once that is done I add the chocolate chunks about 75g, I like really dark, bitter chocolate because I think it combines well with the bananas, if I can't find proper cooking chocolate I just use my own. 

Ready for the Oven

The cake goes in a low oven (about 170 degrees) until a tester (a knife in my case) comes out clean, this is usually about 1 hour but it might take a little longer.  I know that I should not eat the cake mix but who can resist it? The mashed bananas make this particular mix deliciously satisfying.

Banana Bread

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Easter for Expats

Easter or Paas is a big celebration in our family, in many ways we prefer it to Christmas.  It is a much gentler celebration and less commercialised although I noticed that in recent years the Netherlands has gone ‘Easter Twig’ crazy and this seems to be catching on in the UK as well. 

While we were in the UK we would always go to my Husband’s family for Easter weekend.  They have a smallholding in the North of England where they grow their own beef and lamb.  The children enjoy spending time with their grandparents and cousins and ‘helping’ feed the animals.  They particularly love seeing the new born calves and lambs.  England is usually very beautiful at Eastertide with daffodils and crocuses covering the fields.

Lamb, of course, is the traditional English Easter dish but I am not so keen on it so, in deference to me, the family would usually celebrate with a beef roast.  After returning from the Easter Sunday church service the children get to eat just a little bit of their Easter Egg and then we enjoy lunch as a family.  Often my Sister in Law and her children will visit as well so the dining table gets wonderfully crowded and my Mother in Law very busy.

The North of England has a peculiar Easter Tradition which the family call Jarping Eggs.  Before Easter the eggs are hard boiled in water that has coffee grounds or onion skins in.  This colours the eggs a deep red/brown.  The family each select an egg and, taking turns, hold them by the rounded end and bang the pointed ends together.  The winner is the person whose egg smashes the shell of the other.  This is actually quite a common tradition around the world but it reaches new heights in County Durham where the world championships are held.  We have never gone to see the championship, just enjoying a gentle competition between members of the family.  Easter Lunch is such a large affair that we usually have a high tea instead of supper and this is the perfect time to jarp as the eggs can then be used on sandwiches. 

Jarping Eggs coloured with Onion

Here in Astana we have not been able to go to an Easter service but we try to talk to the children about the background of the day so that they keep the roots of the celebration in mind.  We cannot get Easter Eggs but as have always tried to limit the number of Easter Eggs the children get (or we are stuck with eggs on the sideboard for weeks) it is not a big loss.  I can take or leave the large eggs that have become de-rigeur in the UK although I do miss Cadbury Creme Eggs, a deliciously disgusting confection of 'chocolate' and fondant.  I still prefer the Dutch Easter Eggs which are small, single bite eggs, often with different flavours and I try to bring some of these back with me.  My mother would always have these in a huge bowl on the coffee table but our children are too young and our dog too greedy to make this a realistic possibility, I keep them locked away and bring the bowl out only when an adult is around to supervise consumption.  I make some coloured eggs to jarp and then steal the contents to turn into egg mayonnaise or, if I am feeling particularly active I will make Gevulde Eieren by halving the egg, removing the yolk and mixing it up with mayonnaise and mustard before returning it to the white, these are delicious sprinkled with paprika.  A family meal and a walk with the dog complete our somewhat ersatz Easter tradition.

I have fallen completely in love with the UK traditional Easter food of Hot Cross Buns.  They are current buns marked with a paste cross to signify the time of year.  They are easily found in all British supermarkets but almost impossible to get elsewhere so they have to be made from scratch.  They are not difficult but they are time-consuming. 

Hot cross buns in the oven

Freshly Baked and Glazed

I like to use Nigella Lawson’s recipe but I find that she is a little parsimonious on the spice and fruit.  I double the fruit (this year I added candied peel and dried cranberries to the mix).  I like to use Dutch koekkruiden (spice mix) in place of the spices recommended in the recipe.  This can be bought from every supermarket in the Netherlands but again is impossible to find elsewhere.  I make it by mixing Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice, Ground Cloves, Ground Nutmeg, Ground Ginger, ground Cardamom and ground Star Anise, if I can get it I add some Mace.  I tend not to mix the spice in any set quantities – the smell tells me if I am on the right track.  I use two tea spoons of this mix in place of the spices Nigella recommends.  I usually try to let everyone in the family stir the mix and I like to make 11 in a batch – one for each of the apostles (less Judas).

Orthodox Easter is not a Public Holiday but is celebrated by the Orthodox Christians in Astana.  It is not for some weeks and when that comes round we will probably have friends round to enjoy a second ‘Easter’ lunch.

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Sugar Sugar: How to bake without specialty sugars

I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday as a friend invited  seven or eight of us over for tea and cakes.  She had made a wonderfully tasty chocolate fudge cake (my favorite) and a bannoffee and lemon meringue pie.  Yumm.  It is always good to meet up with friends because, to a great extent, they stand in for your family when you are abroad.

During our meet up talk turned, for a while, as it always does to what you can find in the shops and how to cope when you can't.  I mentioned that I had seen some caster sugar the other day and was immediately asked for details of where and when I had seen it.  Caster sugar is quite rare here and usually you have to bake with granular sugar.  I have written before on baking without baking powder and without baking chocolate but sugar is a fairly key ingredient to any cake.

Granulated sugar is easy to find

I have got used to using granular sugar, as it is not difficult to turn it into caster sugar - just put it through a coffee mill.  My food processor came with a special mini mill which I use for this purpose.  Just blitz it in 15 second bursts to make sure that you do not over process.  I usually just blitz enough to use on the cake I am baking at that particular time but I sometimes do a bulk load for friends who do not have a mill.

It is easy to make your own caster sugar

Icing sugar is easily available here and in most places.   I have made my own in the past, usually when I have realised that I had forgotten to buy the powdered sugar in the shops and had no time to go and get more.  Just blitz the sugar to a very fine powder (checking at 15 second intervals) and then add 1 tablespoon of cornstarch for every 250g of sugar.

Muscovado sugar is one of my favorite baking ingredients, it makes a lovely toffee sauce, works brilliantly in a lot of banana recipes and when combined with orange juice and mustard powder gives a tasty glaze to ham and is a must when cooking red cabbage.  Muscovado sugar is like gold dust here in Astana.  I found some in the supermarket last year and bought four kilos.  I am nearly out of it now.

All is not lost, however, because I can buy molasses here.  If you add about 2tbsp of Molasses to ordinary baking sugar to get a good replacement for muscovado sugar.  Alternatively you can replace Muscovado sugar with ordinary brown sugar.  There is less moisture in brown sugar so you may need to check your recipe and add a little more liquid.  In places where molasses has been impossible to find I have used honey or maple syrup in its place.  The recipe tastes different but not unpleasantly so. 

One of the problems of using muscovado sugar is that it gets hard very fast.  I am always careful to store mine in airtight containers but it still gets hard and my four kilos became rock solid very quickly.  I know that it is possible to re-hydrate it by placing some slices of apple or bread in the container with the sugar (remove once moist).  I usually forget to do this, if I remember that I need it the night before baking I will cover the sugar with a damp kitchen towel and leave it overnight.  If I forget that I soften it in the microwave, this takes care because the sugar can get too hot and melt or burn.  Place it in a container and put a glass of water beside it.  I usually zap it in 30 second intervals checking if it is soft in between.  In extremis (my microwave was broken) I have just used it as is without softening but using the grater to break up the larger pieces., I probably should have used the food processor.

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No chocolate - no problem, easy and quick substitutes

One of the lessons my home economy teacher drummed into me at school was that I must never use ordinary chocolate for cooking.  She never explained why but my guess is that it is due to the high sugar and low cocoa content of eating chocolate.  

I have seen huge 5kg bags of cooking chocolate buttons on sale at the cash and carry here in Astana, but I rarely use cooking chocolate.  I prefer to use a really good quality dark chocolate in my cooking, it is usually possible to buy 75% or even 90% chocolate very easily here and this gives excellent results and you don’t need to reduce the amount of sugar in your recipe.  Good chocolate like this melts very easily or you can chop it into chips.  I now use my food processor to do this but for many years my kitchen was too small to accommodate one and I used a mezzaluna to good effect.  Aside from saving my wrists I find the real advantage of the food processor is the by-product. 

Chocolate chips in the food processor.

As well as the chocolate chip rubble you get a considerable amount of powdered chocolate.  I love hot chocolate, it is one of my real failings and I add the powder to warm milk to make a really luxurious drink.  If you are using very high percentage chocolate you may want to add some sugar - I like my hot chocolate strong and bitter, my husband has to have sugar.  This is the sort of luxury product you pay over the odds for if it comes in a packet, in fact you could, if you are that way inclined, get some natty cellophane packages, ribbon and labels and make up some gift packages.  I can usually not bear to part with the extra.

Luxurious hot chocolate is a tasty by-product.

I never bake with ordinary milk chocolate as I find that even the best quality eating milk chocolate is too sweet.  The quality of milk chocolate is also very variable, popular brands such as Cadbury’s (UK) and Hershey’s (US) have very little actual chocolate in them.  Not at all pleasant to cook with and probably explains why supermarkets in those countries carry an extensive range of cooking chocolates. 

If very sweet milky chocolate is the only stuff available you can still use it.  Look for the highest level of cocoa solids you can find and remember to cut the amount of sugar in your recipe.  Substitute the milk chocolate for the cooking chocolate on a 1:1 ratio and then remove 1 teaspoon of sugar for each 6 grams of chocolate so, if your recipe calls for 100g of sugar you will need to remove 16-17 teaspoons of sugar from your measured weight. 

If I can only find milk chocolate I prefer to make my own cooking chocolate.  It is very easy to do and I speak from experience when I say that the ingredients are available almost everywhere in the world even in the middle of the African bush.  All you need is butter and cocoa powder on a 1:1 ratio.  1 table spoon of  butter combined with 1 tablespoon of cocoa is equivalent to about 25 grams of solid chocolate. 

Simple ingredients make a good substitute for cooking chocolate.

Just melt the butter (I use a microwave but otherwise place a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water without letting the water touch the bottom of the bowl).  Sieve the cocoa powder into the butter and whisk together to a smooth paste.  

The paste can be used immediately or kept until later

You can either use this directly in your cake mix or pour it into a container lined with baking paper or buttered cling film and refrigerate it for later use.  Remember that because this is butter based it will melt at room temperature so it has to be kept in the fridge.

Once set keep in the fridge until needed.

Don't be tempted to eat this, it does not have a pleasant taste on its own but it does give a wonderfully chocolaty flavour hit in any cake.

Click on the picture for more posts on the challenges of expat cooking.

Ersatz Expat - Baking Without Self Raising Flour or Baking Powder

I truly enjoy baking but as an expat it can be a bit more of an adventure than baking at home.  In the UK or the Netherlands I just run down to the shops where I can buy... self-raising flour, caster sugar, muscovado sugar, chocolate chips, flavour extracts, shortening, ready chopped nuts... the list is endless.  In many other countries it can be more difficult to get the ingredients together.  Sometimes they are not all available and the ones that are may come in a different form and so need some work before they can be used in the recipe.

I have found that expat bakers fall into two categories – the ones that get frustrated by the substitutions and the ones that turn it into a bit of a treasure hunt.  I love experimenting with substitutes, and a lot of friends ask me how to swap ingredients.  It was the inspiration for my blog's name and I thought I would do a series of posts on how to substitute in baking and cooking.

How to make your own self raising flour.

One of the few things you really do need for baking is baking powder.  Self raising flour is quite difficult to source in most parts of the world so you have to add baking powder to the flour to make your own. 11/2 teaspoons per 125g of flour.  

When I first arrived in Astana a fellow expat told me that baking powder could not be bought in Kazakhstan and had to be brought from home.   I did not believe her; after all it is possible to buy cakes here so there must be baking powder. That said, I could not find any translations in my dictionary and there were no tubs of anything that looked like it in the supermarket so I did start to think that my confidence had been misplaced. 

I decided to ask a lady in the cake section what I needed to add to flour to make the cakes.  She must have laughed herself crazy at my gesticulating and at my pigeon Russian.  Nevertheless she very kindly took me over to the baking section and handed me a small packet of baking powder which is called  Разрыхлитель Теста in Russian, problem solved.  I had been looking for the large tubs that are common in the UK and last for years.  Here the baking powder comes in small 7-10g packets.  When you think about it this is a much more sensible way to package it as it means that the powder will be used before it goes old.

Baking Powder, the name can be confusing on some packets because the lower case t is written m in Cyrillic

If you can't find baking powder you can make your own - just add Baking Soda and Cream of Tartar in a 1:2 ratio.  Baking powder is a mix of alkali (baking soda) and acid so if you are really stuck you can use lemon-juice or white vinegar instead of cream of tartar in a 1:5 ratio with baking soda instead of 1:2.  You need to be really careful with this though as you may need to adjust the amount of liquid in the mixture and you will almost certainly have to add a little more sugar.  Add the substituted soda/acid mix to the cake batter just before putting it in the oven.  With commercial powder the chemical reaction works in two stages, the first on the bench and the second in the oven.  With a home-made substitute the chemical reaction will start straight away.

Ingredients for emergency baking powder, 1 tsp soda to 5 tsp lemon juice.

Baking Soda and Lemonade starts to work quickly so use it immediately.

Be prepared for your cake to fail if you use this method, my success rate has only been about 50% but it is worth a try.  I find cupcakes work quite well because there is less work for the raising agent; if you use lemon juice instead of vinegar you have a lovely base for a lemon drizzle cupcake.

Cupcake made using baking soda and lemon juice instead of baking powder.