Tiramisu

It's been a while, but it's made such a lasting impression that I still remember it crystal clearly: the day I made tiramisu for 12 people.
We'd rented a holiday home with our sailing group (we usually sleep in the boats but this year wanted to go a bit more, well, grown-up) and after the weekend most of us went home again, but a small group stayed in the home to enjoy the rest of the week. On Wednesday, we had a last-evening-dinner, which featured Pizzarette (baking your own miniature pizzas in a miniature oven with miniature ingredients). The evening before, I offered to make dessert for everyone, probably tiramisu. The response was so excited that I simply had to follow up.

To make tiramisu for 12 people you need:
375 ml whipped cream (unwhipped)
125 g white sugar
6 eggs (you only need the yolks - I froze the egg whites to make meringue at some later date)
750 g mascarpone
8 tbls liqueur (I used Amaretto)
250 ml espresso coffee (cooled)
375 g ladyfingers
cocoa powder

Mix the whipped cream with one tablespoon of the sugar until it is almost firm (this is a difficult decision to make, I stopped just before the 'firm peaks'  stage, but as all the rest of the preparation takes so much time your cream will become less firm again anyway) and set aside. Split the eggs, and in a separate bowl mix the yolks together with the rest of the sugar until it is pale and fluffy (at least 5 minutes). Add the mascarpone bit by bit, mixing well in between so the mixture stays light. Spoon in the whipped cream until you have an even mixture.
Stir the coffee with the liqueur, and dip one side of a ladyfinger into the mixture (it's easiest to use a shallow, rectangular bowl; also, I dipped in the non-sugared side of the biscuits). Then put the ladyfinger in the serving bowl, with the wet side up. Repeat for half the ladyfingers. Pour half of the mascarpone mixture over the ladyfingers. Repeat with the rest of the ladyfingers and mascarpone mixture.
The mixture will be quite wet and liquid at this point, and I thought that it would never set. But after a night in the fridge (prepare at least 4 hours before serving) it was nice and firm! Dust liberally with cocoa powder shortly before serving.

Tiramisus ready to be devoured.

I had to use two bowls, as I didn't have one big enough. Officially it's supposed to be round, but given the shape of the ladyfingers I preferred the rectangular bowl.

I wasn't really expecting much from this, but this tiramisu is seriously good. If you add the mascarpone in very small amounts and whip it long enough it all becomes very smooth and airy. It's about 100000 calories per portion, but it doesn't feel like you're eating something incredibly heavy.
We were with 10 people in total, as it turned out, but both bowls went home empty and scraped clean. And just Sunday we were barbecuing in the park with some people from the sailing group, and they were asking after the tiramisu again. So if you want a dessert to impress, give it a try!

Feathered housemates

So, after a year of waiting, the moment is finally there: we have a little birds' nest in our nest box! The fact that I still get manically excited about these things shows how much of a biologist I still am (Dutchies: you may want to watch the documentary 'MeesTV' that was broadcast a short while ago to understand this). I have spent a summer ploughing through forests and fields to check up on literally hundreds of nest boxes and their inhabitants, so you would think I'd be done with them by now, but nope, it's still great.
We'd put the nest box up on our eastern wall, which is the one facing the garden, as high up as possible. This had two reasons: safer from the cats, but also longer sun time. We put it up quite early last spring, in the hope of catching some late breeders, but nothing happened, apart from some stray twigs being put into the box.

Then this spring, some great tits took an interest in the box (incidentally, a friend of mine who is now teaching proficiency classes in English put a question about a 'great tit' on her examination, which led to the test supervisor having to grab the microphone and inform the sniggering first years (and anybody else in the exam hall at the time) that "a 'great tit' is a kind of bird". Seriously, who doesn't know that?). We held our breath, but the birds disappeared again. The house sparrows have been in a frenzy of breeding for a couple of weeks now, so I'd lost all hope, but then last week I came into the garden from the bike shed, and two great tits left the nest box. Very exciting! But also a bit disturbing: if they were leaving when I entered the garden, how would they ever start to breed in there?
Then it started to rain, and it kept on raining for at least a week. So I was sure nothing was happening, as they couldn't have possibly already started a nest, and now they wouldn't be starting one because of the rain. But then today I came into the garden and heard the unmistakable sound of little birds begging for food. So I stood still for a good minute, and as expected: one of the parent birds went into the nest box carrying food, and came out with a little white parcel of poo. Which makes our box officially inhabited! Woo!

The box has a little window up the side through which you can look inside, but as it is about 4 meters of the ground I think I'm going to pass on that one. I think there must be 4 or 5 chicks in there at the moment, reckoning from the sound, but more may still hatch.
The only downside is that the box is quite close to our (always open) bedroom window, so we may get some sleep disturbance from the begging noises. But I'm guessing they've been out of their eggs for a couple of days now, and just aren't as loud as we thought they would be. And otherwise, they'll be gone in two weeks, so I will enjoy their presence for as long as it lasts!

Shortbread Investigation

So a colleague mentioned that her daughter had made millionaire's shortbread over the weekend, and that reminded me of this thing I've been wondering about (not consciously, but you know) for a while now. How to make the best shortbread? I have 3 cook/baking books all proclaiming that their method is best, and those are only the 3 I'm aware of, so I probably have more.

Shortbread recipe galore!

But to keep things a bit in control I decided to go for these three trusted bakers: Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, and Lorraine (Baking made Easy). Checking them more closely, it turned out that Paul's recipe and Lorraine's recipe were actually identical in ingredient ratio and mode of preparation, only different in amounts (Paul uses 225 g flour where Lorraine uses 130: I don't know who was there first, but I'm anticipating a fierce shortbread copyright battle in the months to come!). So I could cross one of those off the list, and decided just to make 'The very best shortbread' by Mary Berry and 'Dreamlike shortbread' by Lorraine.

A prickly duel.

Mary's recipe:

225 g flour
100 g semolina
225 g butter
100 g caster sugar
sugar for dusting

 This one is of the 'rub the ingredients together with your fingers' variety, which I really really don't like, but had to try here anyway. You put all the ingredients in a bowl, rub them between your fingers until they become sticky, knead it into a ball and put in the prepared tin (30x23 cm, according to Mary). Prick all over with a fork, then put in the fridge to chill. Preheat your oven to 160, and bake for 35-40 minutes until pale golden brown. Sprinkle the sugar over the top, leave to cool in the tin, then take out and cool further before cutting into fingers.

Mary Berry's shortbread.

Lorraine's recipe:

130 g butter
60 g caster sugar
130 g plain flour
60 g rice flour
pinch of salt

Now I didn't have any rice flour, and to keep things even I used the semolina in Lorraine's recipe as well.
Here, you first mix together the butter and sugar until they are 'pale and fluffy'. Then mix in the rest of the ingredients and mix with your fingers until it becomes a dough. Put into the tin (20x20 cm), prick all over with a fork, chill in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees, bake for 30-35 minutes, sprinkle some sugar on top, leave to cool, take out and cut into pieces.

Lorraine's shortbread.

So they are both pretty similar, apart from the first bit: do you 'rub together' or do you use the mixer? Also: can you taste the difference?

Strangely enough, you can. Even though the ingredients are similar, and in similar amounts, they do taste different. Lorraine's version is a bit more condensed, less flaky. But it is a bit more caramely, a bit more sticky sweet. Mary Berry's version is lighter, which is strange because it is almost twice as high, and took far longer to bake properly.
Opinions differed as to which tasted the best: personally I liked Lorraine's version, but some co-workers (I took these to work with me, naturally, you don't want to have 300 g of butter biscuits sitting around the house) preferred Mary Berry's, and one colleague disliked them both immensely.

So which one would I recommend? Mary's version gives you far less dishes and hassle, and gives a lighter texture, so I would probably use that one if you're going to do something else with the shortbread, such as pour chocolate on top, or make millionaire's shortbread. But if it's just shortbread you're after, I'd stick with Lorraine, because it's easier to make and to me, tasted just a little bit better.