Wood Pussies

[VikingVagine]

Carrying on from Chat.

Damn scones. Mine still are not rising enough. Taste lovely though. I tried two recipes now. What am I doing wrong!!! The are maybe 3 cams high when I bring them out. I cut them about 2.5cms high...

My prospero has arrived! Days earlier than expected!

I

Yay! What will you be making first TSP?

I have no idea - I wasn't expecting it until next week. I'm going to have a good read through the thread for inspiration. Unfortunately I'm at work tomorrow so I don't think it will be used until the weekend. No mill or spatula though so I need to get an email fired off to Amazon!

I use self raising flour in my scones TCS , seems to work well (following the link I gave up thread), I know you have to really be careful not to over handle them, and when you cut them out, don't twist the cutter, just go straight down, and also make sure your egg wash doesn't dribble down the sides.

why mustn't the eggwash dribble?

I use self raising flour and a shit load teaspoon of baking powder just to get the damn things to rise. Forget the shit load teaspoon of baking powder and my scones resemble something the olympic athletes would be happy to fling in the discus.........

yes, why mustn't the eggwash dribble

If the egg wash dribbles it stops them from having the freedom to rise (kind of glues the top to the bottom IYSWIM.

I used the recipe up the thread so used srf. Might add a bit of baking powder and see next time! Good tip about the egg. That might be it!! Thanks

I've finally emailed them about my missing mill. I am such a wuss about complaining but I really do want this mill and the fact that they still haven't changed the description on the page makes me slightly less unassertive about it.

Also the fact that I have been doing the hard sell all over Mumsnet about how good Prosperos are....

That's interesting re the eggwash. Egg is amazing glue. One of the best tips I ever got from Mumsnet is that if your quiche or pie pastry has a hole or a crack in it so the filling will come out you can blob some egg white on and it sets like plastic and makes a patch.

I'd be interested to hear what response you get re: the missing mill Tunip as I just got my Prospero yesterday so haven't done anything about it yet. There was a leaflet in the box to contact Kenwood direct before returning to store if there were any missing parts so I might do that first.

I did get the CD but I couldn't get it to work properly (Mac) but I could open the recipes.

Millionaire's shortbread chilling in fridge :)

I never bothered chasing the CD - is it worth getting? Hadn't occurred to me that there might be recipes on there, assumed it was just how-to-use....

Still can't get K-beater to rub butter into flour :( Marge is fine, but I just end up with big lumps of butter. Maybe still too cold? (I did cube it). Ended up in the processor attachment, worked a treat, may just stick with that.....

Do you think you might be using a different make of butter from the rest of us? We use Anchor and it seems to work.

Huevos, have you tried adjusting the height of the beater? It could be too far from the bowl to beat effectively.

It's just an idea. Hope the shortbread is nice :)

I use Sains organic butter. Nothing special.

You can adjust the height of the beater?

You can on the chef. It came with a spanner to adjust the attachments

Thinking about it, the beater must be low enough, as it rubs against the bottom of the bowl.

Shortbread is yum, I have never made shortbread before! Caramel is a bit runny, have bunged it back in the fridge to see if sets any more... I am taking cakes to playgroup on Monday, had planned on taking this, but it is currently un-servable to others. Shame

You can't adjust the height on the Prospero. I really cut my butter up into small chunks (smaller than a dice), and I don't get fine bread crumbs, but that's fine, never made the pastry uneven or anything.

Right, I have beetroot in my veg box this week and want to make a cake with it, preferably chocolate, does anyone here have a tried and tested recipe or am I going to go blindly onto google and pick the once with the most stars?

River Cottage Everyday Beetroot and Chocolate Brownies

I've had them three times (once cooked by me, twice by friends) and they're gorgeous.

Ah, now I'm torn beetween the brownies and this recipe I found (the crème de cassis in the icing may have seduced me).

This was very nice bbc good food blitz and bake beetroot cake. I think I followed the advice of one of the reviewers and used drinking chocolate instead of cocoa, was a while ago now.

Yeah I saw that one too, but I read the reviews and lots of people were talking about their processors smoking because the mixture was too thick, and I wouldn't want to harm Woody .

Ooh, that cassis-y one looks good. Love the comment about not using pickled beetroot! Reminds me of the poster on here who couldn't understand why her boeuf bourgignon (sp? sorry) tasted vinegary....she insisted the recipe asked for pickled onions, think we figured it was pickling onions

This is my offering, from Nigel Slater's Tender.