Whimsy

[susie_flo]

Good morning fiends, I hope you're all having fabulous weekends.   As per my current mood, I have spent most of mine focusing on matters of  purest whimsy.  (I do find whimsy to be a marvellous refuge from the serious world of work and commuting and other such horrors).

Yesterday (thanks to evil enabler gylfinir) I spent about two hours ogling buttons, ribbons and trimmings on this gorgeous website:  www.bedecked.co.uk/...  which resulted in me spending money on things for which there is absolutly no excuse.  Unfortunately I have a bit of a 'habit' when it comes to haberdashery.  I don't even know what I'm going to do with some of it... I just got a bit carried away by the pretty.  But I can feel some potential customisations coming on...  (replacing buttons with more fabulous ones and adding trimmings to bags and tops... and that sort of thing).

In a moment of inspiration I also made a thoroughly fripperous neclace, which G finds to be an object of humour, but I don't care cos I love it.  (Pics here: www.ravelry.com/projects/susie-f/the-white-flower-necklace)
 

On a note of food-whimsy, I was beset by a crazed urge for jelly last week, mainly thanks to a Guardian article full of hard-core wobble pics that I read on my way home from work.  As a result I went mountaineering and rummaged out my antique copper jelly moulds from the top of a high cupboard.   Aren't they just gorge?  



They've all been purchased via sporadic ebay bids and as a result are mis-matched and in various sizes... but I love 'em nonetheless!  

I think I have now got to grips with using agar agar as a replacement for gelatine, at least when it comes to simple fruit jellies.  However I still need to crack alcoholic ones, which cause no end of setting problems due to acidity.   But now that I have the jelly moulds back out of hiding, I am going to try my luck with pannacotta.

Well... that's enough nonsense from me.  I think I am going to be dragged out shopping by G, so I spose I'd better go and get dressed.

Comments

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

I do love those moulds!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-)

I love them too. I was thinking earlier that jelly moulds (perhaps joinly with ribbons) are the most frivolous objects ever invented by man.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

But ribbons aren't frivolous - they help fasten things and look pretty therefore they are essential.

I have mould envy - don't suppose you'd want to swap one with my red plastic pussy cat one or the one's I got last Halloween in the shape of an eyeball and a spleen? ;-)

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Have to confess I felt a frisson of jealousy when I heard about your eyeball shaped jelly mould last week :-)

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Look out for them in Asda at Halloween time, they sell various body part moulds for not very many earth pennies at all then. The heart one is good too - very veiny.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Lovely!

I look forward to more jelly recipes, as your original ones inspired me. I wonder if sweeter alcohol sets more easily than purer (eg liqueur rather than voddy).

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

That might work, as I think liqueurs are not especially acidic, which is the main issue. The acidity is a problem even for fruit jellies (I heard that if you add pineapple, for example, you might have trouble getting a set, though I've had no trouble using orange and mango juice.)

The usual ratio is 1 tablespoon of agar flakes to 1 cup of fluid. And this does seem to be just right for fruit jellies. (Though if you use the powdered version it's much more potent, and a teaspoon is equivalent to a tablespoon of flakes).

My one and only experiment with champagne jelly was a gooey mess, but it might have worked if I'd added a bit more agar agar to compensate. I went too far the other way with red wine jelly and used too much powdered agar, which set like a horrible rubber tyre!

The recipe I have for pannacotta looks to me like it has nowhere near enough agar agar to set... but I might still take a risk and try it, as I would hate to end up with a rubbery pannacotta. (Will post the results...)

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

Good luck!

I've just put in a bid on some copper pans on Ebay cos those are so pretty... how suggestible people are!

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hee hee! I am an evil enabler too. Good luck with the bid.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

I got them. What do you use copper pans for again, aside from hanging on walls looking pretty?

Bad woman also bid on a little antique goddess figure from Syria. It is very shapeless but I don't care.

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

Hoorah! Though, now I come to think of it, I have no real idea what to do with copper pans. It might depend on whether the pans are lined with some other metal or copper all the way through. If nothing else they'll look fab on your kitchen wall (and for whipping egg whites in to get them to stand up!).

I bought a teeny weeny copper pan for G that is used for melting butter. It really is the cutest pan you will ever see.

[kissmeforlonger.livejournal.com]

On cheffy programmes it seems to be terribly terribly a la mode to serve chips in brightly polished little copper pans alongside a plate of whatever the main dish is. It reminds me of those gift packs of hot chocolate and mug which were sold with tiny chocolate graters a few years ago.

They were sold content side up (doh!) and appear to be lined with steel (?) so no idea what state the actual copper bit is in.

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

So where do you buy agar agar then?

[the-meanest-cat.livejournal.com]

You can get the flaked version in the baking section of Waitrose. (It comes in a white box)

I managed to get some of the powdered version online from a French gourmet seller. It was quite expensive (about £12) but you get a lot more and use a lot less - I think it will last years.