Sunday 26 April 2015

Lesson 3: Pâte Brisée Fondante / Tarte aux Fruits Rouges-Pistache

Cooked for the Brookings who came round for dinner last night.  Very straight forward.

Pastry made and pricked












Filled almost to the brim












After cooking, around 45min @180












Cooled and served












Notes for next time

  • Warming the milk before adding to the pastry is very useful
  • Mixing the pastry in the kitchenaid worked well, all stuck to the beater when combined
  • Chilled the pastry overnight in the fridge, took out of the fridge and left at room temperature an hour or two before using, and it was no problem to roll out
  • Pistachios left whole, assumed this was correct and seemed to give the right effect - variety of taste, rather than just flavouring
  • Added slightly more fruit than stated, but with the filling it was very full!
  • The mixture rose, but settled when cooling to match the height of the pastry
  • Fruit rose to the top when cooking, leaving a layer of filling below

Thursday 2 April 2015

Green Crag

We were leaving this day, and had a shorter walk planned which had the excuse of driving over Hardknott Pass.  However, on getting to the start of the pass we discovered that some bright spark had parked on one of the hairpin bends and left their car leaving around a foot too narrow a gap for cars to get past.  By the time we got there a police car was there as well, parked more considerately, but people were having to turn around.  Given that trying to get past would mean putting a wheel over the edge onto a narrow strip of mud, and that beyond this mud was a very steep drop, we agreed that this was the best course of action.

So we came back along the valley and turned south but I knew there was a possible, if slightly easy, walk that we could do.  I'd also scouted out potential parking places by the side of the road the week before - google streetview is great - so knew there was a place to stop.  So we parked, and set out sights on the distant pile of rocks.

Difficulty: 2
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (12), Grace (10), Evie (7), Poppy (4 1/2)
12:08, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (260)
13:33, 3.3km 1h24 259m, Green Crag (489)
15:14, 6.8km 3h06 312m, End (261)

What I hadn't foreseen was that between us and the rocks was around 2 miles of bog.  Yes there were parts that were actual streams, and there were some parts that were a bit drier, but the direct route we took got a little damp at times.  Nothing disastrous, but I look at the map now and wonder if the path marks to the south east would have been a better choice.

Still, nice weather, not much wind, and a complete absence of snow.  And a bit of potential rock climbing, depending on which route you chose to the top.  Here Grace and Evie are looking for their best options upwards.

Grace makes it to the top for a well earned lunch,

For most of this walk Caroline was on Poppy duty, so the rest of us got nice breaks while we waited for then to catch up.  After spending the previous day not letting anyone get more than a few meters away for fear we'd lose them, this was quite a welcome relief.  After all, we were going to close enough to each other on the drive back to Birmingham later on.



Wednesday 1 April 2015

Lingmell (not Scafell)

So we set off with high hopes of a high walk - know that Scafell Pike was reachable from the house was too good an opportunity to miss.  We were even keen enough to walk from the house, this time knowing there was going to be enough uphill to actually quite looking forward to the flat start and end to mix it up.  In the end it wasn't to be, much to our disappointment. 

Difficulty: 5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (12), Grace (10), Evie (7), Poppy (4 1/2)
11:14, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (110)
15:20, 7.1km 4h05 782m, Lingmell (807)
18:19, 13.9km 7h05 891m, End (117)

Despite some high cloud and the remains of the snow fall from yesterday, it was quite a pleasant day.  Quite a straightforward climb but fairly hard work up Lingmell Gill.

We stopped for lunch in Hollow Stones, really quite a weird place with huge boulders strewn about everywhere.

As we climbed up further the weather got predictably worse, and visibility of the path was pretty bad.  It was one of those walks where I was glad to have a satnav as well as paper maps.  Getting to Lingmell Col I made the call that we weren't going up to Scafell Pike that day, but we'd settle for Lingmell instead - saving 180m of climbing in pretty horrible conditions.  Perhaps we should have pushed on, but I guess I was trying to save the occasion of getting to the highest mountain to conditions where we could properly enjoy being at the top.

Still, making the top of Lingmell wasn't trivial, but we made it.

Not much view to speak of though, at the top or on the way down.