Langdales in the rain

So the forecast was some rain in the afternoon, but I was hoping that by the time we got to the group of peaks it would have cleared.  Best laid plans...  Still, it was another walk from the house, going up the path onto the fell side.

Difficulty: 6

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Grace (12), Evie (9), Poppy (6 1/2)

9:49, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (96)

11:23, 3.0km 1h34 474m, Blea Rigg (541, Wainwright)

12:23, 5.3km 2h33 660m, Sergeant Man (736, Wainwright)

12:42, 6.3km 2h53 705m, High Raise (High White Stones) (762, Wainwright, Hewitt)

13:37, 8.1km 3h48 750m, Thunacar Knott (723, Wainwright)

13:56, 8.6km 4h07 752m, Pavey Ark (700, Wainwright)

14:41, 9.7km 4h52 826m, Harrison Stickle (736, Hewitt, Wainwright)

15:31, 10.7km 5h42 879m, Pike of Stickle (709, Wainwright, Hewitt)

16:08, 11.5km 6h19 926m, Loft Crag (680, Wainwright)

18:42, 16.5km 8h53 991m, End (98)

So first up Blea Rigg, conquered the day before, but en-route to Sergeant Man.

The morning was nice, warm and sunny.

Now at the top of Sergeant Man, the last steep climb up on this walk.

And now all the way to High Raise.  A little wet underfoot, but much less soggy than when Caroline and I had walked up here before.  With the wind direction most of the walk up the gradual slope was in shelter, but once at the top there was a very strong wind.  We took cover in the walled shelter at the top and had lunch.

Now along to Thunacar Knott, and it was starting to rain.  

Across to Pavey Arc, and the rain was only getting worse, with only occasional glimpses down the valley.

 A fairly easy climb up to Harrison Stickle, and it was really raining hard.

Quite a hard walk down to the bottom of the bowl and up again to Pike of Stickle - at this point Evie was really not having fun, and Poppy was soaked through as well.  Evie had not wanted her waterproof trousers on when it started to rain, and Poppy's weren't actually that waterproof, so it wasn't too surprising.  A pity, since scrambling up Pike of Stickle was something I hoped both of them would have enjoyed.  Caroline at least was having fun.

Getting down was a team exercise.

Finally onto the final peak of the day, Loft Crag.  

The view across to Pike of Stickle.  The weather was improving a little by now.

By the time we were down it had brightened up quite a bit.  We took the opportunity to start to dry out...

And finally the walk back to the house was lovely - the Langdale valley bathed in beautiful low sunshine.

Lingmoor Fell in Bank Holiday drizzle

With the forecasst for rain most or all of the day, we picked a shorter lower walk from the house.  It was typical bank holiday weather, constant drizzle with occasional bouts of harder rain...

Difficulty: 4

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Grace (12), Evie (9), Poppy (6 1/2)

10:21, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (93)

12:43, 6.3km 2h22 477m, Lingmoor Fell (469)

15:38, 12.9km 5h17 591m, End (98)

We set off from the house, with a short road section before heading across the valley.  Past a couple of great places for Pooh Sticks, and then along the path just below the trees.  Grace was navigating, and doing quite a good job - spotting an easier path up than the one I had mapped out.  Gaining some height we got to the older quarry workings, including a mine going into the side of the hillside.  We didn't dare to venture inside, but it wasn't gated off so probably would have been safe.

Further up the ridge we were definitely inside the clouds.  Still raining, but raincoats were still holding out well.

Finally at the top of Lingmoor Fell, with occasional view down to the Langdale valley, although the other side to Blea Tarn was completely covered.

And along the ridge, down towards Side Pike and to Squeeze Rock.  Thankfully no child carrier to fit through on this trip, and everyone fitted through - Evie and Poppy just fit facing the front, Gace, Caroline and I sideways.

We found a much more sensible path down than the previous trip, with Caroline leading the way.  Someway down we could finally see Blea Tarn.

And back along the side of the valley, before resuming our Pooh Sticks competition.

Tarn Crag: finding the path

First walk of the week staying at Pye Howe, right next to the path we had failed to find previously. Given the footpath was marked from the road, we took this opportunity to start from the house and to discover where the footpath went.  We were without Isabelle, since her DoE practice expedition was scheduled for this week, her help with Poppy up and down will be sorely be missed.

Difficulty: 6
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Grace (12), Evie (9), Poppy (6 1/2)
9:44, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (97)
11:16, 3.0km 1h32 348m, Silver How (395)
14:46, 9.2km 5h02 803m, Tarn Crag (Easedale) (550)
16:14, 12.5km 6h30 947m, Blea Rigg (541)
17:45, 15.5km 8h01 986m, End (98)

Out of the house, and almost straight up the hillside.  With little difficulty we found the stile over the wall that we had missed 2 years before.  It was pretty hot work climbing up, despite the partial cloud cover and the occasional wind.  After getting to the ridge, we walked along to get to Silver How.  Here we were able to see lots of walks we'd done in years before.

Now the sun had come out more, so out came the sunscreen.  Evie decided to focus protecting her best bits.

We walked back along the ridge, starting climb up to Blea Rigg, but turning off to the left before reaching it, to walk down to Easedale Tarn for lunch.

It was the start of the bank holiday weekend and there were quite a few people, but still room to find our own rocks to sit on.  Most of the walk was fairly empty of people, as we'd deliberately picked less travelled paths.

After lunch we climbed up to Tarn Crag.  This was the hottest part of the walk - full sunlight, very little wind, and relentless climb up for a couple of hundred meters.  Evie especially was quite hard to motivate, we had to time the sugar rushes causes by the sweets we'd brought for best effect.  Still, we made it to the top of Tarn Crag.

We went back via Codale Tarn, a little less descent before climbing back up to Blea Rigg, but also a slight circular walk.  After passing the tarn, we then climbed back up to the ridge on the other side.

Back up to Blea Rigg, after missing it on the way out. 

We returned, not quite the same route back down, but close enough to find the stile back over the wall, I think give it another couple of goes and we'll find it with no problems!  This was the view looking up the Langdale valley, with the Crinkle Crags just visible at the end.

Lesson 15: Sugary Breton Puff Pastries / Kouign Amann

The next lesson to try looked appealing - very simple ingredient list, and interesting instructions about rolling out a whole pack of butter...  The fresh yeast was got from Arjuna Wholefoods on Mill Road.

First step was the dough, made in the kitchenaid, it took almost exactly 3 minutes to combine.  I chopped up the yeast after adding it to the flour before mixing, since it was in quite large lumps.

After the initial rolling out.  I had the target distance marked roughly, but probably should have rolled out a little larger.  I'm not sure what the comment at the end about 'sugar melting in the refrigerator' means, since at that point you've not added any sugar...  When rolling out and combining with the sugar it was definitely melting though - towards the end the dough was quite sticky and wet.  I didn't weigh out the sugar, I just kept on adding more at each stage with generous covering.

I didn't have enough proper rings, so improvised a little, which was fine.  I did then only target making 11, and even then they were a little under 10x10.  This made the folding in not work on some of them - better to a little over 10x10 for this size of ring.

It took me a little time to realise that the photo in the book is of the underneath of one, even so I think mine were a little full - a few of the larger ones really came out of the ring too far.  So I think aiming for a little above 10x10 and aiming to make 12 or 13 would mean rolling out thinner and then not overfilling each one.  The greaseproof paper was very useful - the sugar spread between the rings when cooking and solidified - great to eat, although not very good for the teeth...

They really looked quite authentic though...  A little hard to take out of the rings, but with care they came out without breaking up.  They tasted absolutely wonderful - the kids weren't that impressed, but that just meant leftovers for us!  I took a few into work and people agreed that they were great.

Next time

• Roll out thinner, cut slightly larger than 10x10 and aim for making 12 or more
• Unsure whether there is anything you can do about the sugar melting/dissolving when you combine with the dough - is it just as the dough is slightly wet?  Or is it related to temperature as hinted at in the book?
• Consider cutting in half before serving...

Lesson 12: Pâte à Choux / Tarte Chouquettes

Some careful planning to be able to cook this on a very busy Saturday.  Made the cinnamon pastry and the pastry cream the night before, the choux pastry in the morning then the rest in the afternoon.

First off the pastry cream.  First time making this, and the result was pretty good.  The vanilla seeds were quite visible in the result, but it tasted good.

First attempt at the choux pastry failed - the mixture wasn't hot enough.  The butter had melted, but it hadn't started to simmer, and it never got thicker.  For the second go I read around on other websites about making choux pastry.  I made sure the mixture was properly simmering, and had the flour sifted onto a folded sheet of greaseproof paper.  With one had holding the hand electric whisk I was able to turn the heat off, then start whisking and added the flour in one go right away.  It thickened up straight away so needed very little whisking.

I used a piping bag and a tip that was advertised as 'size 8'  but had an opening of 12mm in diameter.  It just about made 32, and some of the puffs ended up too big.  I also made a big mess spooning the mixture into the bag, for the pastry cream and whipped cream I put the bag in a pint glass which worked a lot better.  Still, they looked about right at this point...

After cooking - miraculously they all rose and looked amazing!  Some were a bit big, and they perhaps could have had more egg glaze on.  I cut holes in the bottoms with a knife, then cooked them upside down for another couple of minutes, then stored in a box for the day.  They were still fairly crisp later in the day, but the next day they definitely would have needed heating up again.

Now to make the bases.  I was using a 10cm diameter cutter, with rings that were 8cm internal diameter, the sizing worked really well.  I was left with very little wasted pastry, and some of the bases were too thick, so aim to waste a bit more...

All in the rings, they were advertised as crumpet rings on amazon, but they were the right diameter.  Not sure whether they should have been taller, but there was enough depth after cooking.

The sides had shrunk down during cooking, and the bases had risen up - I'd given another fork hole when cooking.  In the end it didn't matter too much that they were a bit curved up.

And finally the finished plates. Given the puffs were a bit big, the larger ones ended up being not much smaller than the bases, so one half I put a single puff ball on the base with cream around the sides.  The other bases had two puffs on.  All in all, I only had enough pastry cream to squirt some into 20 puff balls after filling the bases.  Even though the balls were big I was only putting a bit into each one, but clearly even this was too much given it should have stretched to 32, or I could have over-filled the bases.

They all disappeared, although some of the bases were left uneaten.

Things for next time

• Heat up the water/butter to simmering before adding the flour
• Don't make the pastry too thick in the bases
• Better holes in the bottom of each pastry base before cooking
• Fill piping bags inside a pint glass
• Make sure the balls are really quite small when piped onto the baking tray
• Don't over-whip the whipping cream
• Only need to melt about half the chocolate.  Using the back of a desert spoon worked well for drizzling the chocolate.

Lesson 11: Pâte Sucrée Chocolate / Tarte Mousse Chocolate

Being on a roll with one a week meant that today was baking day again. Thinking that the kids would appreciate more this chocolate pie, this was the easier choice.

The pastry was fairly straight forward, using the kitchen aid for all of it (apart from a bit of hand mixing to make sure it had scraped all the butter from the bottom of the bowl after adding the egg).  I didn't have a pastry ring, so was going to use my trusty 9" loose bottom pie dish.  Rolled out fine, although seemed to roll out larger than needed when going for the right thickness.  Still, the off cuts went to making some biscuits with Poppy choosing the biscuit cutters.

Hmm..  the typical slump down the sides did look like there wouldn't be enough space for the topping.  Plus my fork holes at the bottom weren't sufficient, so half way through cooking the bottom of the pie case was risen up with lots of hot air underneath, cue the three emergency tracheotomies visible here. 

So on reflection, there was just about enough time to make some more pasty and chill for a couple of hours, then to line the case with greaseproof paper and use pie weights to fill up the middle.  The pasty now rose up slightly above the sides of the dish during cooking, but flattening back down after coming out of the oven.  This did mean it was harder to judge the cooking time, but then again the first time I pretty much guessed anyway, so no real insight lost.

The extra case did mean that I didn't really have enough time to cool it, so made the mistake of taking it out of the pie dish and onto the cooling rack.  Not a really good plan, since it wasn't stable enough to do this safely.  Topping was fairly straight forward, leaving the kitchen aid on whisk for a while.  Still, filled with the topping it looked okay.  Not as 'brim full' as the recipe wants, but it wouldn't have fitted at all in the previous case.  So clearly we're expecting something inbetween, 

After cooling and serving it looked like this.  Very very rich, but really quite nice - apart from that we were too full from our Chinese New Year dinner to eat much...  Still, quite a bit left over for tomorrow.

Things to remember for next time

• Think about using pie weights - maybe half full with weights to get the right height?
• Investigate getting a proper pastry ring, would this help the sides sinking down during cooking?
• Leave it in the ring/dish to cool, and make sure it has an hour or two to cool before starting to make the topping.
• Perhaps have the chocolate/butter mixture hotter before adding to the eggs/sugar?  A little unsure whether it was cooling down too much and forming into pieces again, since it wasn't very hot yet melted.
• Use a bigger spatula when folding in the chocolate.  I did this in the kitchen aid bowl, which doesn't really help since it's tall and narrow, probably mixing it in a shorter wider bowl would have been easier.  I couldn't help thinking that I was reducing the volume of the egg/sugar mixture quite a bit by mixing too much to combine the chocolate properly.

Lesson 9: Pâte Sucrée Cannelle / Tarte Fromage Blanc Sucré

First new recipe for a while, and a new basic/simple one to try. However never underestimate my ability to mess up...

Made the pastry, using the flexible spatula as suggested.  Not sure that a wooden spoon wouldn't have worked just as well.  

I own lots of pie weights.  Useful for this one...  Chilled for about 3 hours, was fine to roll out, although I did roll out twice - too big the first time, the second time bits of the walls were too thin, so needed bolstering up with some of the offcuts.  This worked fine.  I used a loose bottom pie dish rather than springform, which was fine.

Baked and cooling.  Where the baking parchment had made folds these were taken by the sides of the pastry, but no harm done.  Remember pie weights get hot... I used the spaghetti spoon to remove them from on top of the baking parchment. 

This is where it really went wrong.  I didn't add the cornflower carefully enough, so had lumps.  I used the hand whisk for the egg whites and they weren't stiff enough - use the proper balloon whisk and the kitchen aid next time.  I also spent time trying to remove lumps from the cheese mixture, which wasn't ever really thick enough - probably since lots of the cornflower was in lumps rather than evenly spread.

Still, looked alright when cooked.

Middle wasn't really thick enough, tasted okay but not very cheesy.  I used Quark for the cheese, maybe something more cheesy next time. And fewer cornflower lumps.  Thankfully it was only for us rather than visitors...

Tips for next time:

1. Concentrate when splitting eggs, I wasted a couple trying to do this at the same time as the cornflower/cheese mixture.
2. Save enough of the milk from the cheese mixture and add into the cornflower first before starting the cheese on the hob.  Add enough milk to get all the cornflower lumps out, then add the remainder to the cheese.
3. Research more cheesy cheese.
4. Use kitchen aid + balloon whisk on the egg whites, make them really stiff.

Second Attempt - 21st January 2017

Determined to make a better attempt I cooked this again, and it was much better.  I rolled out the pastry to the right size first time, and I used enough milk from the 300ml to mix into the cornflower, the mixture was quite liquidy and smooth - much more like the picture in the book when they are mixed.  When it came time to mix in the combination became thick instantly rather than needing time to cook, it didn't get much thicker during the extra minute or so on the heat.

The balloon whisk got the whites stiffer, I stopped when they stopped getting any thicker...  The end taste was very similar (using ricotta for the cheese) so still fairly plain, but at least the texture was smooth. The topping is still quite soft, but noticeably easier to get a coherent portion cut than last time.