I am making meringues for the music society's jazz supper concert. The jazz supper is not a regular event, since the music society's normal fare is classical chamber music, and indeed the Chairman recently decreed that putting on the annual fund raising supper was too much work for the committee. However, the newest member of the committee is a guitarist who knows some jazz musicians, and somehow it was agreed that a supper with jazz would be fun. We are now serving bought-in fish and chips, after extensive lobbying by another committee member who didn't like the original idea of chilli, so I am saved the effort of making enough chilli for ten or twelve people, and just doing meringues.
I wonder how much longer village societies will be able to go on holding events at which they serve food made in the committee members' own kitchens. A friend of mine runs a small business selling homemade shortbread and cakes at farmers' markets, and she was recently ticked off by the health inspectorate for washing the carrots for carrot cake in the kitchen sink. They have earth on them, you see, and should be washed in a separate sink in a different room. Bring back the scullery. I am sure that eventually the authorities will catch up with us and clamp down on our home cooked cakes, let alone chillis, just as they will catch up with my former employers and their misguided belief that it is OK for plant centre staff to serve tea and cakes wearing their compost spattered clothes.
I think I was supposed to volunteer to make orange and almond tray bake. It is a delicious cake, I ate a slice at the secretary's house, and she circulated the recipe, with the idea that we would do that or chocolate brownies. The last time I made chocolate brownies they came out far too dry and thoroughly unappetising, and since I like to experiment with new recipes in small quantities at my leisure before making them in large quantities for guests, I was reluctant to commit to orange cake or brownies. Oven space in the Aga runs at either less than 100 C, or 180 C and above, with nothing in between, so converting non-Aga recipes for home use can take several goes, and I didn't think the music society would want to reimburse me for that many bags of ground almonds, if there wasn't even any edible cake at the end of it.
The cakes are to accompany fruit salad, so I offered meringues instead. I like doing meringues, which are extremely easy if you have a cool enough oven, and complete bastards to make if you don't. By way of variety I have made one batch of Brutti ma buoni, as well as straight meringues, from a Sophie Grigson recipe cut out of the Evening Standard many years ago. They got a favourable verdict from my beekeeping friend who runs the shortbread business, so I thought I'd try and look as though I'd made a bit of an effort for the jazz supper. They have even more sugar in them than normal meringues, three ounces per egg white instead of two, and you have to cook the whisked egg and meringue mix over hot water for around twenty minutes, until it has deflated and gone very sticky. Then you stir in a little cinnamon and some toasted chopped nuts, and bake in little spoonfuls at a very low temperature until they are completely dried out. Rather a lot of the egg mixture seemed to set on to the side of the pan during cooking, and I was reminded of the fact that egg white used to be a key ingredient of ornamental plaster work.
I did offer to make cheese straws, as I'd have egg yolks, but the chairman never got back to me on that, so I am keeping the yolks and making rich French vanilla ice cream for home consumption.
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