Culinary affairs

BH did a rather spectacular toad in the hole yesterday. I think it was using small cocktail sausages rather than full size ones which resulted in the interesting sculpted appearance. Note the graduation from front to back, further evidence of the temperature gradient in our fan oven, sold to us on the basis of being free from such things.

Tasted quite good too. Cocktail sausages without too much meat and entirely without additives like leeks, apples or anything else of that sort, all too commonly added to the humble banger these days.

Today was my turn, so I made an experiment too, using gluten free white mix instead of flour in the cheese scones - white mix being a confection of potato, maize, rice, tapioca, buckwheat and some other bits and pieces, formerly used to substitute for flour in things we were sharing with FIL, things like apple crumble on a Sunday. BH had used most of it up in spongy things, spongy things in which I would not have known about the substitution, and this evening there was just the 12 ounces left needed for cheese scones.

As the scone confectioner I certainly knew about the substitution, with the dough having an entirely different texture from that made with flour. It was also rather crumbly, nothing like as sticky as wheat flour dough would have been. Then the scones did not rise quite as much. They were entirely eatable, but there was an atmosphere of boiled potatoes about them, there was not much springiness about them, and, when warm, they were more inclined to squash. I think I would have known even if I had not.

We don't think we shall be replenishing our supplies of the white mix.