Month: April 2023

This week, I tried to make clotted cream which the English typically use on bread and muffins. I thought I was going to be great at this but I was wrong. Here is why.

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The first image was when I mixed sour cream, half and half and melted butter together. The recipe called for heavy whipping cream but I did not have that so I searched up how to substitute the cream for half and half, and it said that if you mix melted butter with it, it should work. Although that was not the case for mine. It was supposed to be fluffy once the mixing was finished but it looked like soup so I put it in the freezer for a night, took it out the next morning and it was frozen so I put it into the microwave for about a minute. After I took it out it looked like cottage cheese and tasted gross. The sour cream was overpowering and the way the mixture was textured it didn’t turn out to be a fluffy cream consistancy. Next time I will definitely just go to the store and pick up heavy whipping cream so I can feed the “good result” to my family.

This week, I improved my tea from last week by using less flavors and let it sit for a shorter amount of time. It turned out way better. I also asked my dad for tips on how to make English pancakes. He was my expert for this weeks genius hour because he was born and raised in England. Here is how it went!

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I used the same process as I did last week, I strained the spices once I added them to the hot water and let it sit for about 3 minutes and then I decided to add sugar and milk to make it a bit sweeter and cool it down. I noticed that the tea was much lighter than last time which was a good sign because it meant that the tea was less bitter.

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English pancakes are closer to crepes than what you are probably used to making. They are much thinner than pancakes. As soon as I made the batter I was pretty skeptical because of its consistency. I tried to pick up the pan once I poured it, in hopes that the batter would spread out but it stayed in a thick irregular shape. Flipping them was also a challenge because of how small I made them. I found that they burned a lot faster as well so next time I will keep that in mind. Disregarding the shape and size, I tried it after I finished and they did not taste good at all. They were really bland and almost raw on the inside even though they were cooked externally. I am going to find a different recipe next time I attempt to make these and possibly add more flavors on top of the pancake to make it sweeter and less bland like syrups or fruity additions.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I was going to attempt making tea. I used some of the tea that I have at home as a reference and bought different spices; inluding, cinnamon, ginger, clove and green tea. Here are some pictures of how it went.

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The first picture is when I added all of the spices. The second is how it looked after I added it to the hot water. Because the flavouring wasn’t contained in a tea bag, my thought process was I would let it steep and then strain out the liquid into a seperate cup so all of the leftover bits weren’t a part of the drink. But there wasn’t as many pieces left as I hoped, meaning it was a lot stronger than I wanted it to be.

I tried it after the drink was strained and I loved the flavour but it definetely needed to be dialed down quite a bit because it was too bitter. Next time I will not let it steep for as long and I will use less spice. Without those flaws it would have been great!

For this weeks genius hour I emailed two experts. Unfortunately neither of them have answered yet. One of them was a site based in the UK causing my messages to not go through, so I texted an Instagram account called The Real Yorkshire Pudding. If I do not hear from them in the next few days, I will contact another English bakery.

This is the message I sent to them

In the mean time I started to search up different things I could put in my tea, and I think it is going to work out really well because you can add almost anything, theres different flavours, spices and fruits you can incorporate to accomodate for your preferences. Below I will show some pictures of things I might add to my tea!

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Some of the things Im thinking about incorporating is; lemon, chamomile, hibiscus and possibly lychee (because its really good in bubble tea!) STAY TUNED!