Chocolate chip fougasse

I jumped out of bed a little more eagerly than usual this morning to go and see if Mandy had been yet to deliver this mornings bread. It wasn't a tasty wheatgerm baton this morning, oh no, it was a chocolate chip fougasse which I was looking forward to today. Fougasse is like the French version of a focaccia, which apparently was traditionally baked in the embers of the fire to check the temperature of wood-fired ovens.

Warmed in my regular oven and shared with a glass of cold milk, this made checking this mornings inbox a little more decadent than usual.

Yummy Coconut Macaroons

Last night a couple of people told me that they had made gingerbread and lemon icing after I had out the recipe up on here. Inspired that people were going into the kitchen and knocking out some fantastic home-baked goods after reading about it on a blog, here is the recipe for the tasty coconut macaroons that I made for last nights party that seemed to go down well (again, courtesy of my second favourite domestic goddess, Nigella.)

2 large egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar
30g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 170°C/gas mark 3.

Beat the egg whites until just frothy and add the cream of tartar. Beat until soft peaks are formed then add the caster sugar a teaspoon at a time until it’s finished. This is extremely good endurance training for your forearms – it takes ages.

Fold in the almonds, salt, vanilla and coconut. Shape into 8-10 wee domes, pop them on a lined baking sheet; stick them in the oven for about 20 minutes until they are turning golden brown, cool on a wire rack and hey presto! Yummy coconut macaroons.

And in case you were wondering, Mr MacLeod is my most favourite domestic goddess.

Stuff we chose for our hampers part 3 – Kshocolat

The first flat Dave and I shared together was somewhat jammy for a pair of financially challenged students. My Bro had taken a contract job in sunnier climbs and we ‘looked after’ his place in the Merchant City of Glasvegas. We felt a little out of place. My little Renault 5 kept attracting polite notices not to park here again in the block’s private parking area. Anyone seen dead in such a vehicle couldn’t possibly afford such an address. I’d just graduated from art school and often sold my prints at a cool art fair across the road in the elegant Merchant Square.

It was hard, (well, torturous actually) to attempt to spend a whole day in front of Kshocolat’s boutique at my stall without giving in to the temptation of their magnificent hot chocolates. Thankfully my photographs sold well enough to warrant regular indulgence. The taste of Kshocolat’s white chocolate is my defining memory of living in this rather nice part of the world, five years ago. If only I could have such a nice memory of every place I’ve lived…

So now it comes around that I have the chance to share that special indulgence through Velvet Antlers. I’m pretty happy about that.

You’ll find Kshocolat’s white hot chocolate in our Pure Stoater, One for the Lassies hampers.

Velvet Antlers fresh gingerbread & lemon icing

John Watson of Stone Country emailed last night to say he was coming up from Glasgow for the day for some bouldering in Glen Nevis. To me, this meant one thing – get baking.

Dave has sworn by the powers of my gingerbread for some time now, and is, not to blow my own trumpet or anything, directly responsible for ascents of at least two 8c+’s in Scotland and some of the hardest boulder problems by Dave and his climbing partners (Michael Tweedley being a big fan).

I meant to take a photo of my evenings endeavours this morning, but I wasn’t out of bed fast enough, Dave and John had already waded in.

The recipe, with a few Velvet Antlers alterations, is from good old Nigella ‘Domestic Goddess’ Lawson. The copy of her book I use actually belongs to Dave 'Domestic Goddess’ MacLeod, who can whip up a mean batch of biscuits, let me tell you. So, if you want the ultimate crag food that is guaranteed to get you results on a chilly winter’s days climbing, you want to get baking….

For the gingerbread:

150g unsalted butter
125g dark muscovado sugar
200g golden syrup
200g black treacle
2 teaspoons fresh, finely grated ginger
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
250ml milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, dissolved in 2 teaspoons warm water
300g plain flour

For the icing:

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
175g icing sugar
1 tablespoon warm water

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C/gas mark 3.

Melt the butter, sugar, golden syrup, treacle, ginger and cinnamon together. Take off the heat and add the milk, eggs and bicarbonate of soda.

Sieve the flour into your batter slowly, whilst stirring, or else it goes lumpy! You’ll end up with a very liquid batter, hopefully.

Pour it into a tray lined with baking parchment and cook for ¾ hour – 1 hour. (A knife should come out clean.) When you take it out the oven, lift out the tray and leave it on a rack for a couple of minutes and then peel the paper off, or it goes soggy. Leave there to cool.

Once cooled, if you can wait that long, I usually can’t, crack on with the icing. Stir the lemon juice in first, then add the water bit by bit and slap it on your deliciously sticky gingerbread.

How easy is that? It’s a doddle, and guaranteed to make you climb harder. Let me know how you get on.

Stuff we chose for our hampers, part 1 - Brew Ha Ha

It’s a known fact – the Scots love to drink. We heard somewhere that folk outside of Scotland thought our national drink was whisky; Who told them that?! Of course if you go by gallons consumed per second in Scotland, it’s gonna be tea that stands out by a mile. Many of those gallons per second are consumed at Velvet Antlers towers, by Dave, who makes a cup of tea while he thinks about making a cup of tea. So let’s say he’s developed a fine sense of a good cup of tea.

For our hampers we chose Brew Ha Ha tea – a Glasgow company that we thought took tea a seriously as us and had a fair dose of cool factor. Brew’s the daddy?

…you are!

As we all know though, a good tea bag is only one part of the process of constructing a cup of tea worth talking about. It’s a dark art. According to Dave, Scotland is still split by those in the ‘milk in the bottom of the cup before water’, and the ‘strictly milk after the tea has brewed’ camps. We want to get some data on this to settle the issue. Please vote below!

Velvet Antlers joins the Guild of Fine Foods

Velvet Antlers are now members of the Guild of Fine Foods. The guild promote excellence and the interests of independent fine food retailers like us.

In other words, they help support us and save us from the might of the big supermarkets. Big chains have stifled some of the best elements of fine food culture in the UK; variety and the chance for ‘the little guy’ to maintain a presence, and offer y’all out there some really good food choices.

More power to their antlers! – muscling in with the big boys Tesco and Asda cannot be easy…

Good food makes people happy

Good food always makes people happy, no matter how much or how little they already have.