Pudding Club: Galette des Rois

A number of us are going to visit our friends for an Easter weekend lunch, so a big pudding was called for.

This Eric Lanlard recipe is fairly simple and should look a little spectacular. Basically shop bought puff pastry with a frangipan and rum filling. It’s a traditional French recipe which is eaten around Epiphany. So only a little late for us.

I had two goes at making it.

For the first, it was ever so slightly burnt, had a disappointing rise, and the filling leaked out.

02042010708 Attempt yesterday to make a gallette des rois. Didn't rise and the filling leaked.

For my second attempt, I tried a different shape.

03042010713 03042010714 03042010715

I still had a bit of leakage, but hopefully, most of the frangipane is still inside the giant pillow of puff pastry. It came out of the oven enormous, but sadly sank quite quickly. Just how we’re going to transport that to Long Eaton tomorrow is another question!

Frangipane: 125gr each of caster sugar, butter and ground almonds, creamed and with three eggs beaten in, along with a dash of dark rum. Roll the pastry into two squares the same size. Place a ring on the first and pour the frangipane in. Egg wash around the frangipane and remove the ring. Put the second piece of pastry on top and seal tightly around the filling. Score a pattern on the top – sunrise or scallop or leaves.

Previously on Pudding Club:

Tweets on 2010-04-03

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Tweets on 2010-04-02

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Public/Private finance

Interesting post by @Cllr Tim highlighting the frustration that public service workers often have when trying to run a council service that isn’t the most popular.

“I pay your wages, mate” is one of the things you hear. One of the things I get in casework letters is the demand that someone should be sacked for something – either in a case that has gone wrong (and councillors often get that because we can be the last line of recourse) or sometimes even when council staff have in fact been following policy but it has still lead to an outcome the correspondent doesn’t want. “I didn’t get what I want, therefore you are wasting my taxpayer money, therefore someone should be fired.” “We all pay business rates so we deserve something in return.”

Why I’m writing this though is the key difference between public and private enterprise, and that’s when public money is wasted or spent unwisely, it’s always publicised. So the next thing you always get when trying to explain that some demanded scheme is unaffordable right now is the litany of whatever’s been in the Evening Post recently as an example of wasteful spending. Half the time they’re right. It has been a waste to lose money to Iceland (although it may eventually come back); it was wasteful to pay off 3 successive Chief Execs with huge golden goodbyes; and was it really the best use of the public purse to import granite from China to pave Market Square?

Another one I’ve had recently was that money spent on cycle lanes was a complete waste, because “no one ever cycles round here.” Trying to explain I’d just spent an afternoon at a meeting with Pedals, the local cycling pressure group, and the PCT, who think it would be great if more people cycled – fell on deaf ears. “Would you cycle here?” Well, you have me banged to rights there, as I still can’t manage the whole two wheel thing.

You can betcha bottom dollar that there’s waste going on in the private sector too, they’re just less closely examined, and have less of a responsibility to tell us about it when things go wrong.

Tweets on 2010-04-01

  • Media Show on #bbcr4 covering issue of whether Vince got off easily at #askthechancellors. #
  • Considering nepotism policy. (@ Notts Fire and Rescue HQ) http://4sq.com/9ZdLUI #
  • Another request for my autograph, this time from someone in Poland. Maybe it's time to get some headshots and a glossy pen? #
  • Enjoyed reading this – Obama reads 10 personal letters each day http://bit.ly/byNc3p (via @TimHarford) #
  • Loving my boxes of healthy snacks from http://www.graze.com – use code L63DX4RT to get a free one (delivered!) #
  • Community grant award night (@ Birchover Road community centre) http://4sq.com/cCtkvj #
  • Good Lord, they've got a singer! With a backing tape. Flying us to the moon! #
  • 12seconds – This guy was a great emcee. People hoping he won't sing too long. http://tiny12.tv/Z0IG9 #
  • Erm. Maybe daft question, but how does one take 1 square block of bought puff pastry and roll it into two separate equal squares? #
  • @Alexander_Ball let me know what you think. And let them know if there's anything you don't like, eg olives. in reply to Alexander_Ball #
  • Gah! Saw most of them but @ncclols got me proper. http://bit.ly/du9UYT #
  • Show your party colours on your BMW radiator grille http://bit.ly/aTpfIN #

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Daily View 2×2:

Welcome to Daily View on this auspicious date, which in most Western cultures is considered a day of pranking and merriment. Of course we at LDV have no truck with such levity, and everything we write today is the honest truth.

Happy birthday to Gmail – 6 today!

2 Big Stories

Hadron Collider II planned for Circle Line

The Independent reports:

London Underground is in talks with the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) about the possibility of using the 23km tunnel of the Circle Line to house a new type of particle accelerator similar to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva.

One immediate benefit for passengers will be air-conditioning, installed to cool the huge superconducting electromagnets needed. Win-win!

Labour’s election strategy: bring on no-nonsense hard man Gordon Brown

The Guardian shares Labour’s latest ploy to win over the electorate:

In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown’s reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in “a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain”, the Guardian has learned.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

What are other Liberal Democrat bloggers saying? Here are two posts that have caught the eye from the Liberal Democrat Blogs aggregator:

Spotted any other great posts in the last day from blogs that aren’t on the aggregator? Do post up a comment sharing them with us all.

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How Authoritarian is your MP? Find out TODAY

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Tweets on 2010-03-31

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Tweets on 2010-03-30

  • @alixmortimer ought to possible to make something like that fairly automatic? in reply to alixmortimer #
  • So, do these new rules say anything about whether MPs can rent their accommodation from themselves? #
  • Annual drug review with doctor, who has historic weight record. I'm 2kg lighter than this time last year. BP 120/80. #
  • @helenduffett yeah, cos only women care about kittens in reply to helenduffett #
  • Wondering if there's any way to use my influence to improve the mobile internet coverage along my bus route into town. #
  • Meeting for general election candidates and agents (@ Nottingham Council House) http://4sq.com/cwhENE #
  • Always slightly freaked to find Graham Allen knows my name, despite not having met me for years. #
  • Hurrying home to watch #askthechancellors – but am going to miss the start. #
  • So, what did I miss? #Askthechancellors #goVince #
  • Tories' "top tax priority" was only announced today, whilst tax breaks for dead millionaires is longstanding. #
  • Very modest Vince: "some of us did foresee economic crisis." Audience applaud. #
  • Young woman in audience seems unimpressed by George Osborne's offer to hold her hand #askthechancellors #
  • @willhowells "Blue flashing light last Saturday night brought the neighbours all out in the street." in reply to willhowells #
  • Vince: the Liberal Democrats do want a change of government. We don't a change for the worst. #
  • Now the long wait til today's #OnlyConnect shows up on iPlayer #
  • RT @miketd: What a bloody fantastic #onlyconnect that was. And now for the chancellors. << dammit! #
  • @ncclols aggregatory things are fairly common – is your work attributed and linked? If so, meh, if not, create havoc! #
  • One Nottm's polling district codes is WLAD. Which always gets me singing the Welsh national anthem. Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi! #
  • Wow, @willhowells there's a wall 27 now?! #
  • Miss one word ^w letter off @dietchef and it looks like some German crooner: Dietche #
  • @dr_nick yup, also on Channel 4 news website in reply to dr_nick #
  • Dilemma. @dietchef lamb hotpot. 276 calories. Ready in 2.5mins. Plain bagel, buttered, 318 calories. toasted in 90 seconds. Both, you say? #

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Amazon is evil

A few days ago, writing a pudding club blog post, I mentioned our friends’ stand mixer, a fancy, expensive Kitchen Aid jobbie, looking a little like this

http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=nileshomepag&o=2&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=0M5A6TN3AXP2JHJBWT02&asins=B000744SZW

And because I mentioned it, I though I would have an Amazon linkie to go with it. I’m with Amazon Affiliates, which means I occasionally get an Amazon voucher in return for plugging their website. High ticket items like this would mean big vouchers even if only one person ever bought one as a result of the link.

All I did on Amazon was search for the mixer and take a copy of the link it generated. I didn’t put it in my wish list and I didn’t tell it I liked it or anything like that.

But Amazon got the hint just from the one search, and since then, I’ve had three emails all along a subtle variation. “Look at our special offers in stand mixers!” / “Stand mixers, big reductions” / “Ooh, your credit card doesn’t seem to be totally maxed out, and you have just had those shelves put in the kitchen, so you probably have space now? Right?”

My parents have a Kenwood chef that they use mainly for bread making, but Kenwoods have lots of different attachments including bean slicers and sausage makers. They look like this:

http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=nileshomepag&o=2&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=0M5A6TN3AXP2JHJBWT02&asins=B000Q7ZCFK

But the thing Amazon keeps telling me about most of all is this surprisingly affordable Andrew James (whohe?) stand mixer, with oodles of really positive reviews:

http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=nileshomepag&o=2&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&md=0M5A6TN3AXP2JHJBWT02&asins=B001KO187O

Not that I actually need a stand mixer.

But with emails like these, it’s only a matter of time before I succumb.

Tonight I’m baking an apple for pudding, but I really wish I were cooking Chris Noth Raymond Blanc’s mother’s tarte aux pommes.