Radio Silence

You probably haven't noticed (seeing as my posts were so sporadic anyway and you had most likely forgotten all about my whole project) but I haven't blogged for an awfully long time. 

I've been thinking more about this over the last couple of weeks, wondering whether I should return to the blogasphere and I have now come to the conclusion that I would like to make a come-back but I think I am going to take a new direction and focus. As much as I love cake; making it, baking it, smelling it, decorating it, eating it, sharing it, I want to write about things that are more important. I want to write about life. 

I guess I did start to do that anyway within this blog but I would like to purposefully write with a different aim. Instead of cake with a hint of life crow-barred in on the side I want to talk about life in relation to each other and most importantly in relation to our creator God. So I'm sure it won't be the last time that I talk about cake, or medicine, or music, but I'm going to come from another angle. 

If you're interested in continuing to follow, or simply to dip in and out, you can find the first blog post here: http://www.undertheshadowofhiswings-roodle.blogspot.co.uk

Round-up

Below I have added a few pictures from some of my recent (and admittedly not so recent) bakes.

Firstly the classic victoria sponge, simple and elegant, one of my favourites.

Secondly, an Almond and Banana bake. Mmm. The banana flavour worked well with the almond and the sponge was moist. In future I will use bananas that are 'more' ripe as on first attempt the banana was more of a hint. Nice though.

Speckled Mocha cake, what a treat! This was lovely. The flavours were rich and the sponge was light but ever-so flavoursome. It cannot be fully appreciated in the picture, but the sponge was specked with the grated dark chocolate. Easy to make but luxurious in taste.

That's not to mention the golden apricot and marzipan loaf. I have made this on a few occasions now as a treat post-nights. It has chopped up cubes of marzipan within the cake, forming nuggets of chewy sweetness to compliment the sultanas and apricots.

Another one I made a few months ago now was the chocolate and orange cupcake recipe. These were again straightforward to make. Also, they provided a much-needed opportunity to practice piping icing on cup cakes. Nice tried and tested combo.

Quick chocolate fudge cake. This was a good recipe and has a secret ingredient of coffee which brings out the flavour of the cake. Moreish.

With this I tried the chocolate crackle cookie recipe. They were mouth-wateringly good and melted in the mouth. Made less than the recipe indicated so therefore were all gone in less then 48hrs!

...and these are just the recipes from Mary's book! More baking news coming soon.

What have you been baking?

When we went Ape

15 metres from the ground. Each heart beat rattling my very core, adrenaline hurtling through my veins and staring out at tree tops stretching out in front of me yet hardly appreciating their beauty I step out into the cool crisp air and free fall.

I don’t think that anyone could, hand on heart, say that they have never had the experience of feeling out of control. Having to let go and resign yourself to the fact that no matter how much you want to, you cannot and will not be able to do anything to change what is going to happen.

If you think about it is there ever a time when you could truly say that you are in complete control?

My recent encounter at Go Ape to celebrate the forthcoming wedding of a good friend brought this reality home to me. So much of the time we live our lives pretending that we have got it sorted, that we are the ones in the driving seat determining the course we walk. And if I’m having one of those days where everything seems to be going wrong (i.e. not the way that I think that it should be going) my inner control freak surrenders and my attitude jumps to the other extreme thinking that I am lost in space, free falling without direction and without hope.

But these beliefs are steeped in self-deceiving lies. Both are just as misleading as the other. The first sets out to glorify ourselves by congratulating whatever we do manage to achieve. Essentially our pride wants to believe that we can exist independently, and we want everyone to know that we can do this successfully. It is driven by a deep desire to be valued for being able to keep it together. We want to live without God. The second again, contrary to what we may think, keeps the mindset that we are the ones who have the control because as soon as things go wrong immediately all is lost. If we can’t get the glory then we cannot allow anyone else to be the one in control. Whenever we think like this we have lost sight of something great, someone greater.

Jesus said ‘Apart from me you can do nothing’

The beautiful thing about the gospel is that it actually satisfies our desires felt by the two mindsets but in a much better way. God created us for himself, for his glory. Our purpose is to bring glory to God and not ourselves. But we rebelled against God and wanted to be in control of our own lives, and in doing this we messed things up utterly and completely. But God, in his great mercy, didn’t give up on us. He didn’t give us up to free fall to oblivion. Instead he loves us, even in the same way that he loves his son – we are valued by God far more than we will ever be by man because of what we’ve done. God loves us inspite of who we really are, and whatever we do or don’t do. He demonstrated this to us by paying the highest price to buy us back – his only son Jesus. In doing this he provided a way for us to restore the broken relationship with God. He has dealt with our sinfulness and freed us from our unfulfilling ways and restored meaning to our lives. When we accept his offer of relationship we are able to see that there is one in control. That there is meaning to everything and our lives are headed somewhere.

It may not be in the way that we think. It may be complete opposite to what we think. It’s definitely not going to be the easy way. But at the end of it all there is a hope that we will meet God one day and we will be transformed from our broken selves. We will be like our God and we will truly see and appreciate his greatness.

Seeing as this post does not really fit the specification for the blog I will part with this final sentiment....CAKE.

'This Is Just So Beautiful'......so have a listen

Something I love just as much as baking is music. Combining the two is even better! I find good songs such a help and encouragement to me. My sister has great taste in music and so most of what I listen to I have picked up from her. The most recent recommendation is an album called ‘Faint Not’ by Jenny and Tyler, which is most definitely worth a listen. Their music is beautiful with deep and honest lyrics reflecting on life and Christian living. They grapple with day-to-day struggles and rejoice in what we have through Christ. They even have a song all about coffee! Here is a taste of one of their songs:

Enjoy!

Welsh (and proud!?)

This has been far too neglected over the last few weeks, I’m sorry. But the past weeks have been good ones, despite lacking a little on the baking front (sad sad times), just quite busy!

Growing up, being half welsh, there were always some welsh cakes to be found in a tin in the kitchen if you felt peckish. They remind me of some special people...My Mam, my Grandma, and some good welsh friends (you know who you are!). In my books, to be a good welsh cake it has to be a little undercooked in the middle, with plenty of sultanas (and ONLY sultanas! None of the mixed peel please ;-)) and baked on a griddle. Mmmm!

When 1^st March came round, I had no choice but to deviate from the challenge and to make some myself. I’m fine making up the mixture (when I don’t guesstimate too much), it’s the griddle cooking which is the tricky part. I also started to chatting to my housemate as I made them and so over-cooked (yes, burnt may be a better adjective) a couple of them on one side! I was determined to get them right though so made another batch and they came out much better!

Embracing my (half)-welsh identity is something I only do from time to time...like last weekend when Wales won the Six Nations, for instance. But it's something that's not always evident and to be honest I wouldn't make a point of telling people about it. Sadly much of the time the same is true of my proper identity in Jesus Christ. This is the most important thing to me, but most of the time, sadly, it's not all that obvious. 

This identity frees me from my failures to a life of faith, with a sure hope now and forever, because of Jesus' perfect life and perfect death taking my penalty. If I truly grasped the greatness of this gift of new identity, how could I hide it?

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes...for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written 'The righteous shall lie by faith'" Romans 1:16-17

Where is your identity?

The Technical Bake

Opposite the page with the recipe for the hazlenut and chocolate cake is the recipe for Rhubarb and Custard cupcakes. To me this is a combination I love and, encouraged by my Mam, I decided at the start of the week that I might attempt to make them. 


When I read through the recipe though I was put off...it looked complicated. Not only were there 4 different components to these cupcakes, they were four quite complicated components. Rhubarb compote (which I could not find so decided to make), custard (from scratch - I've only ever made it from custard powder before!), the sponge (the easier part?) and the buttercream (which included, in this instance, a sugar syrup brought to boil at 115 degrees and then combined into an egg white base before finally adding the butter). When I found out that my Mam had a sugar thermometer I had no choice but to go for it!


The sponge was a straighforward and quick all-in-one method and made a really nice light and moist cake. Whilst these were baking I made the custard. Again this was less difficult than I first imagined it would be and I may well attempt making it from scratch more regularly. All there is to it really is egg yoke, sugar, cornflour, milk +/- cream and vanilla. Mmmm! So I set that aside to cool and turned my attention to the buttercream. To be honest I was quite scared about this part. Mainly about ruining one of my Mam's saucepans by burning the syrup to it! 


I set it to melt (a combination of sugar and water) with the confectionary thermometer in the mixture. Meanwhile I started to whisk up some egg whites until they held soft peaks. Next came the tricky part. Continuing to whisk whilst adding the boiling hot syrup. I thought this would potentially be a disaster, especially because we have no free-standing mixer....So, I called my Mam to come and help. Finally we whisked in the butter (and a lot of it), bit by bit until a light sugary cream was formed. It tasted  yummy! Like melted marshmallows perhaps?

In the end it came together nicely. Another winner for me, but definitely not one I'll be making regularly cos it does require quite a lot of effort!
 ....I wonder whether there will ever be a recipe I don't like in this book?




***p.s. 106ers I miss you and I will bake again for you soon. Much love Xxx

The slowing-down syndrome

Symptoms: rhinorrhoea (runny nose), lethargy, sternutation (the action of sneezing), headaches, polydipsia (with a particular predisposition for tea)

Signs: periorbital shading, grey hairs, dry skin, contact dermatitis

Diagnosis: Leave sickness

Treatment: there is no cure, but the effects can be palliated with more tea and a slice of freshly baked cake and the syndrome will pass with time, just in time to return to work.

I have now completed the last 12 day run of my medical rotation and I have only two days left of Diabetes and Endocrinology before I move to Trauma and Orthopaedics. The last week was tiring with long days and few of the team around. Having finally stopped I am now experiencing the well known phenomenon explained above, and feeling well justified in feeling sorry for myself!

So I set myself to baking! Yesterday I made what I think should be called a praline cake. Chocolate and Hazelnut goodness. Enlisting the help of a willing volunteer, my brother, we set about attempting this more challenging recipe. There is little flour in the recipe itself and most of the rise is created by whisked egg whites and careful folding of the ingredients together. It's not something you can bash out quickly but the effort is worth it, the result being a light, textured cake with luxuriously rich flavours permeating through.

Continuing the theme from my last post, I've been thinking more about how life is a mixture of very good and not-so good. I am all too easily tempted to be dragged into an introspective cycle at looking at the things that I wish I could change about my life. The 'if only...' this or that. And time to time I am kicked out of this by something wonderful; an evening in with my housemates, time at home, dinner cooked by a good friend, the list goes on and on. Sometimes it is the attitude of my friends that puts things into perspective. When I see others who are going through such difficult situations with a smile, I realise that my self pity over a little cold and a week of long days at work is totally ridiculous.

So why are we stuck in the in-between of what is so good and so difficult?

We were made as the pinnacle of God's creation, make in his very likeness. This is where our identity and purpose comes from and it gives us worth that we can't begin to fully comprehend, because we are precious to God. But because of the pattern of Adam at the fall, we as humankind have chosen to go our own way. God's image in our lives is blurred and ruined and through this we have brought into the world pain, injustice, evil, suffering...and there is no way we can get ourselves out of this pattern.

But in God's great mercy a second pattern was given to us by God. His only Son Jesus, who although fully human did not follow Adam's way. Instead, equally fully God, he lived a perfect life in obedience to his father. He made a new way for God to again see us as we should be, reflecting his perfection and beauty.

As long as we live on this earth we will be in this ongoing tension between who we are (in Adam) and who we should be (reflecting God). We are made new, in Jesus, and God sees in us his likeness (from Jesus). We don't experience the fulness of this now, but we await Jesus' return when we will see Jesus properly and then be made to be like him. It's this hope that keeps us going!