#22 It's the Courage to continue that Counts

Where do I begin with this week? I mean, it’s hardly crowned itself in glory.

I’ve agonised a LOT over whether to send out a newsletter today; I feel absolutely drained after the events of the past two weeks, I’ve had very little time to sit down at my computer and my focus has constantly been elsewhere - in fact, it’s now Saturday morning and I’m thumping this into the notes app on my phone as I trudge into work. However, I like to check in if I can, I want to say thank you to you all for being so lovely and there’s a few things to update you on so here goes… please forgive me if it all seems a bit chaotic.

WOTSIT

You may have seen via my Instagram that our little 18 month old fur-ball cat, Wotsit, went missing a week last Friday. There’s never a good time for a cat to go missing but this felt like especially bad timing! In the following days, we registered him missing on various websites & Facebook accounts, popped ‘missing cat’ leaflets in peoples’ letterboxes, notified the vet and endlessly traipsed the local area somewhat moronically shouting his name and shaking packets of his favourite treats.

After what must have been our 20th trek of the local area, we found him on the side of the main road not too far from our house. We think he was probably hit by a car on Friday when he went missing. I had naively thought he was going to rock up all nonchalant in a few days time having explored much of the Chester area, which made finding him like we did all the more horrifying. He was honestly the most delightful, happy and loving bundle of joy; we miss him so very much. RIP buddy xxx

WORK

Besides this trauma, I also had to navigate the subject of last week’s distress #jobgate… as far as I was concerned, and up until the day before I was due back in this week,  I was quitting; I wasn’t doing a good job, and I found it all too much… but following a chat with Mr T (who by the way is a complete rockstar and unbelievable source of support), I became convinced that I couldn’t yield that quickly… as the saying goes:

‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts’

… so I’ve continued.

This week has remained quite tough, and I’m mindful that it may not be right for me long term but, I’m surrounded by great people, I’m safe, and I recently read a quote (forgive me if I have mentioned this before), it was about grief I think (which is especially apt given the circumstances this week) and it went something like this:

‘you don’t get over it, you get through it. It doesn’t get better, it gets different’

and I think that’s the motto I’m carrying forward for now. I may never love it and it may never ‘get better’ as such, but it will feel different with time… and more often than not, ‘different’ is enough to keep us plugging on. So, for now, I’m plugging… and I DID learn how to attach D-rings and string to a canvas ready to be hung on the wall, which felt like a useful skill to have acquired in my lifetime.

MORE WORK

Besides the job, I’m still in the shop (Up and Running) selling running shoes on Saturday’s, and I’m juggling a few bits of recipe development work as well - this week I’ve baked approximately 5,000 variations of crumble topping in my quest for Goldilocks’ ‘just right’- not ideal given the current energy prices!!). My point is…. my head is crammed with ‘matter’ right now; deadlines, briefs, ideas, worries, and of course the grief wrapped up in Wotsit’s death - it feels a lot. Nevertheless, I’m taking one day at a time - because ultimately that’s all we have - and doing my best to keep my head above water.

FOOD

I briefly touched on the whole energy costs nightmare that we are living through at the moment. I’m not sure about everyone else, but Mum and I are doing everything we can to keep costs to a minimum, which means less time using the oven (this HURTS), the heating is off most of the time, the kettle only takes the water it needs for the number of drinks its making (I’m a chain drinker of hot drinks in the winter so again, not ideal) and we mainly operate in the dark at nigh-time - slight exaggeration but also I do find myself walking from dark room to dark room in the evenings with outstretched arms to feel for what’s in front of me! Anyway, I’m doing my best to make at least one batch cooked meal a week which can be reheated over a couple of nights or frozen and reheated over the following few weeks. This week was a chickpea curry (recipe below), I recommend doubling the recipe for batch cooking purposes, I had half a jar of Bold Bean Co chickpeas that needed using up, hence the quantity listed below.

Despite the fact that I do not NEED to bake something to celebrate each week of Bake Off, I feel a self-imposed pressure to do so. This week left me somewhat flummoxed - I’m not entirely au fait with Mexican baking - Google filled me in and I happened to hit on the signature bake performed by the bakers - Conchas - a type of ‘Pan Dulce’ (sweet bread). As with everything I do - it was a RIGHT saga, I nearly bailed because I thought I had really messed them up, but perseverance is key and good grief was it worth it - they were a real triumph. I will share what I did below but word of warning, I’ve only tried the recipe once… I will make further attempts to verify its greatness going forward but if anyone else does try making them in the interim, I’m intrigued to hear how they turn out!

THANK YOU

My final word is once again, a heartfelt thank you, firstly for ALL of your messages in response to last week’s newsletter - it was an especially tough week, yet your support, tales of empathy, kindness and love was and is epically appreciated. I haven’t had a chance to reply to all of you (I feel terribly guilty) but know that I have read every message and they ALL mean so much!!! Secondly, a huge thank you for the support I have received following this weeks’ events; I feel unbelievably lucky to have you all here with me on this journey of life.

Right… recipe time:

Chickpea Curry

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
2 Bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
1 Onion – finely chopped
½ tsp cumin seeds ground
½ tsp coriander seeds ground
¼ tsp ground turmeric
1/8 tsp garam masala
10g grated fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves
½ green chilli
½ tbsp Tomato puree
¼ tsp Maldon sea salt
240g drained chickpeas, either from a tin or jar - aka my Go-To - Bold Bean Co.Queen Chickpeas
200-250ml recently boiled water
50g sour cream
Handful of fresh coriander roughly chopped

Method

Place a large pan over a medium heat, add the oil and the onion, bay leaves and cinnamon. Cook for 10 mins or until the onion is softened. Stir in the cumin, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, ginger, garlic, and cook for a further minute. Then add the chili and tomato puree and stir well to combine. Mix in the chickpeas and coat them in the onion and spices, then add 200ml of the boiling water, the soured cream and salt. Bring to the boil, then cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes – if it’s looking a little dry, add the remaining 50ml water and stir through then cook for another 10 minutes. Once cooked, I like to scoop out approximately 1/3 of the mixture and blend it in a food mixer before adding it back in to the pan for a slightly thicker consistency. Stir through the fresh coriander to finish. Serve with rice, yoghurt, naan, and obv mango chilli chutney!

Cinnamon & Cardamom Conchas

Right, so this recipe includes a ‘preferment’ - which according to Erin Jeanne McDowell of Food 52, is as follows:

a mixture of dough that is mixed separately from the bread dough and allowed to ferment on its own prior to mixing the dough. Sometimes preferments are mixed the day before, fermenting slowly overnight. Other times, they are mixed only an hour or two before mixing the final dough.

I decided to adopt this method because, a) I saw it used in an old recipe encyclopaedia I have, b) I know it can drastically enhance the complexity of flavour in your bread c) I understand that it’s a good method - particularly for enriched doughs - for achieving excellent gluten development and a strong structure to your dough, which improves texture and fluffiness once baked. There are numerous names and variations when it comes to preferments - I think the one I plumped for is called a ‘sponge’ - and I only used a relatively small amount of yeast in it - which caused me some distress because it took a fair while to show much sign of ‘activity’… essentially it didn’t grow that markedly and was VERY slow to do so - the key here is that it should grow a bit, and be slightly aerated/look quite ‘web-like’ inside.

I chose to make a spiced version of Conchas because I’m all about spice when it comes to sweet breads, but you can obviously use this as a blank canvas for ALL sorts of fun and games - zests & chocolate seem like the other big hitters in Mexico! I really hope the recipe makes some sense and do let me know if you try it!

Ingredients

Makes 8 buns

Pre-ferement

100g White bread flour
65g Whole milk
1/8 tsp Instant dried active yeast

Main dough

175g Strong White bread flour
65g Caster Sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Seeds from 7 cardamom pods - finely ground in a mortar & pestle
4g Instant dried active yeast
4g Sea Salt
60g water warm
55g Egg (weight out of shell - it’s about 1 large egg)
25g Unsalted Butter softened and cubed
preferment from above

Craquelin Topping
50g Light brown sugar
50g Unsalted butter
60g Plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Combine the flour milk and yeast for the preferment in a small bowl. Mix together to form a stiff dough. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave overnight at room temperature to do it’s thing. Mine probably took around 16 hours to show any sign of growth, fermentation - I then got frustrated that the timing wasn't right so I chucked it in the fridge which you can do for up to 3 days apparently.

Once you can see evidence of fermentation - it’s grown a bit and has a web-like structure inside - prepare the main dough; combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon & cardamom in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the yeast to one side of the bowl and the salt to the other. Next add all of the preferment followed by the egg and water. Using the dough hook attachment on your mixer, knead on a medium speed for around 10 minutes or until medium gluten development is reached – when you can pull on the dough and it stays together but it is still prone to tearing a bit. With the mixer still running at a medium speed, add the cubed butter a bit at a time - waiting until fully incorporated before you add the next bit. Once all off the butter has been added, knead for a further 8-10 minutes or until full gluten development is reached and it’s super smooth and elastic. Give it a 10 minute rest if you are unsure and check again.

Place the dough in a lightly greased, medium sized bowl, cover and leave to prove in a warm environment for a good couple of hours or until doubled and nice and puffy.

Meanwhile prepare the craquelin topping. Cream the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon then add the flour and cinnamon and bring together into a dough. Roll out between two pieces of parchment to around 3-4mm thick. Pop in the fridge for about 20 minutes to firm up a bit but grab it back out again 10 minutes before you need to use it or it will be too firm.

Once proofed, divide the dough into 8 equal portions - around 60-65g in weight and shape into neat balls. Place well apart on a large baking sheet lined with parchment. Use a round cutter slightly bigger than the size of your dough balls and stamp out 8 rounds of the craquelin topping (re-roll if necessary), score each round with a pattern of your choosing then drape over your buns. Cover the tray again and leave to prove in a warm environment until really nice and puffy - another 2 hours or so.

Preheat the oven to 185C/165C fan. Once proofed, bake the buns for 15 minutes or until golden. Transfer to a wire rack to cool a bit before diving in!

OVER & OUT

I’m afraid that’s it for another week… it all feels so bleak again, I AM sorry! I feel like the biggest moaner! I do hope you all doing ok with whatever cards life is dealing you at the moment; remember take it one day at a time, when it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark look for the stars, hug the ones you love and keep plugging away!

Endless love & hugs as always,

Steph x