Today, I launched my newest book, Verbsearch: Irregular Verb Wordsearches Beginner-Advanced.
Verbsearch contains a selection of wordsearch activities that ESL teachers can use to teach irregular verbs. They are more fun than memorising verb tables.
This is my third book launch for the year, and it marks the end of this series of books for now. I’m looking forward to focussing on an exciting new project planned for next year.
Verbsearch is available as an e-book from The English Space.
Our croissants are out of the oven, and smell delicious.
We will, of course, enjoy one fresh from the oven, and the rest will go in the freezer for many wonderful weekend breakfasts.
Cooked croissants
The Recipe
If you want to make your own croissants, I used a recipe by Pino Ficara. I recommend watching the video before you start.
This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:
Our first batch of croissants have just gone into the oven.
The warm weather delayed us. The morning sun streaming through the window made it too hot to handle the dough. It was melting in our hands thanks to the high butter content. This afternoon, we have had more luck.
Layered croissant dough
We rolled out the parcels dough, shaped it into croissants and pain aux chocolat, and left it for the final rise. Croissants start out as long triangles of dough, which are rolled up and tucked into their crescent shape. Pain aux chocolat are simple rectangles with a piece of dark chocolate rolled in the middle.
Rolled and cut croissant dough
The warm weather has at least been helpful with the rising; by the time we finished shaping our last batch of dough, the first croissants we made were nicely risen. We gave them a final coating of egg wash before going in the oven.
Shaped croissants and pain aux chocolat
This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:
The yeast in the dough has spent the day working away, and turned the cling film parcel into a balloon.
Risen croissant dough
The next step is layering the dough and butter. This is how all those wonderfully flaky layers are created in the finished croissants.
Rolled butter layed on croissant dough
We divided our dough into four portions to make it easier to work with. Using a lot of flour, we rolled it out into a large rectangle, then layered the butter sheets on top, and folded it up like a letter. Another round of rolling and folding, and it’s wrapped up in cling film again, and put in the fridge overnight.
Rolled and layered croissant dough
We have four parcels in the fridge ready to be turned into croissants tomorrow morning.
Rolled and layered croissant dough in fridge
This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:
The first thing on the agenda this morning was making the croissant dough.
Bowls of milk and yeast; flour, sugar, and salt
The dough is a simple mix of warm milk, yeast, flour, sugar, and salt. After letting the yeast dissolve in the milk, everything is mixed together until it becomes a very sticky, elastic dough.
Adding yeast to warm milk
Then is the fun part; wrapping it all up in lots of cling film. The cling film is the only thing preventing a great dough explosion in your fridge, so you don’t want to skimp.
Croissant dough
Croissant dough wrapped in cling film
Our dough will now spend eight hours in the fridge while the yeast does its thing. I’ll be back later when we layer the butter with the dough.
This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:
This evening we started the three-day process of making croissants.
Croissants were a regular weekend breakfast treat when we lived in France. We are yet to find any locally that compare, so we started making our own. This will be our second batch, and I invite you join us on this croissant-making adventure.
Sheets of rolled butter
We have started by rolling out the butter. You take blocks of butter and roll it out into thin sheets. I was absolutely amazed the first time we managed to roll out a sheet of butter; I didn’t expect it to go well. Graham has mastered the art of butter rolling, and we have 12 sheets of butter in the fridge chilling for tomorrow.
Block of butter
Sheets of rolled butter
This post is part of a series about making croissants. You can find the other posts below:
We have finished eating the delicious lemon frozen yoghurt we made recently. This was my second frozen yoghurt attempt. My first attempt was vanilla, and while nice, it was nowhere near as exciting as the lemon.
Home made frozen yoghurt
I used this recipe from David Lebovitz for my lemon frozen yoghurt, without the citric acid. I used 1kg of my home made full cream yoghurt, which I drained for a couple of hours to make it thicker.
We don’t have an ice-cream machine. I pour the yoghurt mixture into a plastic container with a lid, and put it in the freezer. Once it starts to freeze, I get it out every hour or so and mix it with a stick blender. The texture is a little icy, not as smooth and creamy as ice-cream, but still soft enough to scoop easily.
I’ve spent a few weeks experimenting with home made yoghurt. Yoghurt is not something I imagined you could make at home. I assumed you needed all sorts of special industrial equipment. I bought an Easiyo yoghurt maker, which is incredibly simple. It is basically a big thermos, which uses hot water to culture the yoghurt.
I have tried a few different starter cultures for my yoghurt, and so far they’ve all been successful, but with slight variations in flavour and consistency. I’ve been surprised to notice pockets of liquid in some batches, but this doesn’t seem to impair the yoghurt.
Being new to yoghurt making, I decided to start with an Easiyo sachet. It couldn’t be easier. I mixed the sachet with water, in the yoghurt jar, and put the jar in the yoghurt maker. Seven hours later I had yoghurt.
This is the method I use most often. I use some yoghurt from my previous batch as the starter for the next batch. Apparently the yoghurt cultures weaken over time, so I use new starter every four batches or so. For my new starter I use some of the Easiyo powder (see experiment 3 below).
I keep the left over Easiyo powder sealed in the fridge. I have used it twice now, and both times have worked.
I like skim yoghurt with my breakfast, but I made a batch of full cream yoghurt to turn into frozen yoghurt (it’s in the freezer now, so more on that later). The full cream yoghurt came out much thicker and creamier than my usual skim variety. I think I’ll buy full cream milk powder next time and see how that affects my skim yoghurt.
The general process for making yoghurt is the same regardless of the method you choose:
I did lots of research before I started making yoghurt. There are a range of yoghurt makers available, and lots of different methods for making yoghurt. I was keen to avoid yoghurt makers that needed electricity, and methods that required heating the milk to certain temperatures.
I found the following forums helpful in getting started:
Today I launched a new book: The English Space Wordsearch 2 for Beginners.
As the name suggests, this book is in the same format as my first book, Wordsearch 1 for Beginners. Both books contain a collection of wordsearch activities for ESL teachers to use with their students.
This book, and the launch process, have benefited from the many lessons learnt from my first book launch; it has come together more quickly than I expected.
Wordsearch 2 for Beginners is available as an e-book from The English Space.
Our French dessert for this weekend was mille feuille. Mille feuille is a French version of vanilla slice, made with layers of pastry and crème pâtissière. It was one of our regular favourites in France.
My search for a recipe turned up all sorts of sweet and savoury treats involving layers of pastry. I couldn’t find a recipe that resembled the mille feuille I remembered from France, so I cobbled one together, with tasty results.
Assembling mille feuille
I have never used puff pastry before, so I followed the cooking directions on the back of the packet.
I had read that pricking the pastry all over with a fork prevented it from rising too much. I tried this, but my pastry sheets puffed up like balloons. Not a problem, I just squashed them flat once they were cool.
If you are not familiar with crème pâtissière, or pastry cream, it is basically custard. I made crème pâtissière a couple of weeks ago for profiteroles, and it remained quite liquid. The crème pâtissière for mille feuille needs to be thick so it doesn’t all ooze out. I thought a recipe with more flour would make a thicker crème pâtissière, and it seemed to work. But I also cooked this version for longer, so perhaps that made a difference too.
Thank you to Sarah Cooks and Joy of Baking for getting me started with my mille feuille recipe.