Little Intentions for the new year.

The end of one year and beginning of another. What better time to reflect on what things in life are over and best consigned to the past, what things are at their best right now and what is yet to come.

I know it is the custom to draw up a list of New Year's resolutions but I know too that it takes more than hanging up a new calendar to inspire me to make changes in my life. I just don't think it is the right time of year. For a start too many of these resolutions are a rueful attempt to correct the excesses and indulgence of the last month or so, perhaps it would be better to draw up a list and file it to be considered next October or November. And here in the UK with the short days and cold, gloomy weather it is no time for any kind of self-reproach or resolving to do anything which entails going outdoors. Far better to leave all that for a few weeks, perhaps until the first crocus appears when Mother Nature is burgeoning with  renewal and the atmosphere breathes optimism and self-belief.

Perhaps you are one of those who choose a word to be a focus for the year or to epitomise a theme to inspire them. I find this is far more appealing. I may well do that for 2013. But I also like to take time to think about all the times I have started sentences with "One of these days....." and think about the actions and activities that have followed on. I don't mean the ones that have "I should", "I had better" or "I really ought to" - I only have to open almost any cupboard in the house to be reminded of at least one of those. And I'm not saying that life wouldn't be better if I didn't get stuck in and achieve them all. It's just that I feel that now is a good time to plan something interesting, enjoyable, fun even, so I want to think of all the times I have said "One of these days I'd really like to..."  and choose some of those for the year ahead. For me, in 2013, I am not looking for grand bucket list items that involve being somewhere or with someone or on a day in particular, I already have a notebook with some of those in. I just want some things I can largely do here at home, by myself, when I can.

So here it is, my list of 'little intentions' for 2013.

• Make sour dough bread
• Knit a pair of socks with properly turned heels and grafted toes
• Handcraft a book
• Complete a 30 day photo challenge

 Yes, I will no doubt be baking, knitting, crafting and taking photos anyway but each of these intentions represents something I haven't tried before. And for none of them will there come the day when I leap from my bed (oh, for the chance!) and achieve it before sundown. There will be preparation, a revisiting of existing skills and knowledge, reseach, learning and practice so each of them presents a journey. Maybe none of them will be my greatest achievement for the year but it is time they were no longer consigned to that indefinite time frame "one of these days."

Working on the principle if you want to learn about something, read a book, I gathered up the books I could find in the house that might prove most useful. I can see trips to the library are in order and recourse to the internet.

"When the pupil is ready, the teacher appears." 

So right, I am ready to be pointed in the right direction(s). If you know of any brillant books or websites that would help, I would love you to list them in Comments.

What would be your Little Intentions for the year ahead?

Something savoury

The whole idea of tradition runs rife at Christmas, don't you think? Most families have their own little celebrations to be replicated but for us the last few years have seen a run of 'one-off' Christmases with a departure from anything we had seen and done before. While learning from this that what matters is what happens, whether or not it has happened many times before, and to make the most of each moment and those you spend it with, I found myself nostalgically turning to the recipe folder my mother had compiled for me when I first set up home. I knew that in there I would find some of my childhood seasonal favourites and sure enough there were some of the biscuits and slices she used to bake in large quantities. What caught my eye though was a recipe, tucked away at the back under 'Sundries.' Flippies! How could I have forgotten about flippies for so long; it must be years since I made them.

Growing up in a time and place where there were no supermarkets let alone aisles of packs of salty snacks in all manner of flavours and the only flavour of cracker biscuits stocked by the grocer was 'plain',  I loved these cheese flavoured  little biscuits. They were quite popular in the family as it wasn't only my mother who made them. It is quite a retro recipe but I couldn't resist having a go and decided to stick as close to the original as I could even though little tweaks and updates kept springing to mind. If you have access to those supermarket aisles and all the flavours, shapes and constituents why should you bother? Allow me to suggest:

• you have some leftover cheese that will only lurk in the back of the fridge forgotten, especially once the Christmas cheeseboard is unwrapped.
• you have read the ingredients list on the back of some of those supermarket packs and are none too impressed by all the things you'd never really thought of as food before.
• with school closed for the winter break, you have some extra hands to help with cutting out but you just can't face the thought of another batch of sugar-laden cookies.
• stacked into an airtight jar, they make a good 'home-made' gift.
• the smell as they come out of the oven beats opening any packet

Convinced? Here's the recipe in modern metric terms.

Flippies

You will need:

• 20g butter
• 330g flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne*
• 75g cheese**

Oven Temperature 220° C
Cookie sheets

You need to:

1. Make up the dough before you switch the oven on to heat.
2. Place the butter in a measuring jug and top up with enough boiling water to make 220ml.
3. Mix together the flour, salt and cayenne in a large bowl.
4. Grate the cheese and mix into the dry ingredients. Make a well in the centre and pour in the melted butter and hot water.
5. Mix just enough to make a smooth  ball of dough then cover with a sprinkling of flour and set aside to cool.
6. Once the dough is cool and workable, preheat the oven to 220° C, lightly grease some cookie slides and flour the work top.
7. Roll the dough out very thinly. The original recipe says wafer thin but I think our modern familiarity with filo pastry might have hiked up our notion of wafer-thin. Slightly less than the thickness of a 5 pence piece will do.
8. Cut out the biscuits using the very smallest round cutter or cocktail cutters if you have them. There is quite a lot of dough to cut out and I can see why the cutting utensil of choice in the family became a knife to simply cut the dough into squares or diamonds. This is not a television bake-off so they don't all have to be the same size or shape. Aiming for the hand-crafted look, you can even cook the larger edge pieces as tasters' perks.
9. Place the shapes on the greased cookie sheet and bake in the oven for 5-7 minutes. 
10. Loosen the biscuits on the tray as soon as you take them out and leave them to cool. They keep well in an airtight tine or jar. Serve them as nibbles with drinks, slightly larger ones can be served with dips.  

* Pairing cheese with cayenne seemed almost obligatory back when this recipe was written. It is not a spice that seems much in use now so you could substitute a mild chilli powder or  paprika if you have either of those to hand and adjust the quantity accordingly.
** I used a tangy cheddar but any cheeses hard enough to grate would probably work well. I was tempted to put in some Parmesan but that wasn't around when I first fell for these and I was out to feast on nostalgia!

Sometimes these puff up in the oven in some wonder of culinary magic science which I  clearly can't replicate on demand. I wonder if that is how they came by their name.

Festive Friands

And for those of you not familiar with these little cakes that is not a typo!

I first encountered  friands while watching Better Homes and Gardens during a trip to Oz a few years ago and I have made them several times since.  I really hope they are not part of the  current wave of small cake trends; muffins, cupcakes, cake pops, whoopie pies, etc. With their light but moist consistency, ground nuts and fruit they deserve to be stalwarts of a baking repertoire. Typically they are not adorned with frosting - they don't need it- and although with their butter and sugar content, they, and any other cakes, are not going to appear on any healthy diet sheet, let's consider a little damage limitation here.

The classic shape is this rather elegant oval but lacking the moulds for that, I always used a muffin pan to bake them. Recently however, a silicone  friand pan arrived in the post as a surprise present so I was delighted to have the excuse to bake some.  The original recipe used blueberries and lemon zest and I have made them with blackcurrants and other berry fruits. I thought it was time to adapt the recipe to a more seasonal theme.

 Spiced Cranberry Friands

Ingredients:

• 180g unsalted butter
• 125 ground almonds
• 80g plain flour
• 250g icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 6 egg whites
• 100g dried cranberries
• juice of a clementine
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Tin: *12 small cake moulds, either a muffin pan, mini-loaf tins or mini-cake tins. Each should hold 1/2 cup (4fl.oz or approx 125 ml)
Oven temperature:190 deg C

You need to:

1. Butter the moulds well and set the oven to 190 deg to heat up.
2. Mix the cranberries with the clementine juice in a small bowl, microwave for 30 seconds and leave to cool and plump up. (If you are using fresh cranberries, you can skip this step and just increase the amount of berries to 140g.)
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Let it bubble away for 5 minutes, keeping an eye on it. Resist the urge to be getting on with the rest of the preparation. This step somewhat clarifies the butter, driving out liquid. It will turn a deeper gold colour and also enriches the flavour of the friands.
4. Place the  ground almonds  in a large bowl and sift in the flour, icing sugar and spice. Mix well together. 
5. In another bowl whisk the egg whites until frothy - no need to go as far as soft peaks. Stir them into the almond, sugar, flour mixture. 
6. Stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Use a folding action and stir just enough to ensure all is combined.
7. Set aside a few of the berries to scatter on top of each friand and fold the rest into the mixture.
8. Fill each mould about 3/4 full with batter and place a few of the reserved berries on top of each cake.
9. Bake in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes. They should be slightly risen ( I know, no raising agent just whisked egg whites!) golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed.
10. Take them out and let them cool in the tins for 5-10 minutes before turning them out on a cake rack. 

Notes:
As I said before these don't need icing. If you are serving them as part of a festive feast and their unadorned tops seem to be rebuking you with "couldn't be bothered" negligence, then drift on a light sifting of icing sugar or the merest artistic drizzle of chocolate. 
You could also enhance the almond flavour with a few drops of almond essence or almond flavoured liqueur added with the vanilla.

*I have yet to see the oval moulds here in any cookware shop, but reasonably priced silicone moulds can be found on line here. 

And as for all those leftover egg yolks, now is a good time to have those because you could use them to:

• make enriched short crust pastry for mince pies
• glaze savoury pastries like sausage rolls
• make mayonnaise to use in turkey sandwiches or  to mix with chopped herbs as the basis for dips
• add an extra yolk to make scrambled eggs a little richer
• freeze them for later
• and if the thought of any more cooking has you feeling frazzled, search the internet for homemade hair conditioner recipes and treat yourself to a little pampering.