Men, women and everyone welcome!

Meeting Type:                  Monthly meeting

Meeting Date:                  11/04/2013

Meeting location:           The Shaftesbury N19

Opened at:         7:30pm                                 By:          Holly Peterson

Attendees:         12 attendees

Apologies:         

Approval of previous minutes:  Taken as read

Items discussed:             

Actions agreed:                               

Report from Treasurer: There was no report from the Treasurer, as this occurs quarterly.

AOB:                      CC had her camera with her to take photos to use in press correspondence.

Next meeting:                  09/05/2013         And thereafter:                13/06/2013

Tweeting your MP is easy — visit the Find Your MP website, enter your postcode, and then go to their website where they hopefully have their twitter ID listed. Ask them to support the training of more midwives.

Full story below:

WI Life article July 2012

A few tips:

I baked a test cake using natural food colour.  It was tasty, but sort of browny-pink.  For the real cake, I used a whole pot of caterer’s red gel food colouring.  That worked much better and gave the lovely colour you see.

Also, I am the world’s worst (ok, maybe not, but close) froster.  I can make really tasty cake, but I can’t frost for a damn.  So this cake got a few iterations of frosting.  I ended up just doing a smooth layer with a piped top, then chucked (literally — with some help from one of the bridesmaids!) silver baubles and turquoise glitter on it.  The bottom is just the cake sprayed silver using the Dr Oetker silver shimmer spray, which is just awesome.

Lastly, I don’t agree with the Joy of Baking’s frosting recipe for this cake, so I used my own, which is basically:

1 tub cream cheese
500 grams icing sugar (you might need closer to 1 kilo)
1 tsp vanilla extract
20 grams soft butter
milk to adjust consistency, if needed

Basically, just mix them together until it is frosting consistency. It’s easier to use if you then refrigerate it for 30 minutes or so before using.

.

Date Cake (nb: this recipe is reduced two thirds from the original, so that it fits in my pan.  If you have a HUGE bundt pan, increase everything by half)

1 lb. dates
1 c. brown sugar
3/4 c. butter
2 eggs
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 1/2 C flour
1 t. b. soda
(dash salt)
1 1/2 c. pecans

Chop dates and break up nuts and mix together with a bit of flour to keep from sticking.  Butter and flour (very well!) a large bundt or tube pan.
Cream together butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Mix together flour, soda and salt.  Add to butter mix, alternating with buttermilk (starting and ending with flour), just until combined.  Stir in dates/nuts.  Turn into pan and smooth top.  Bang pan on counter.  Bake at 325F for at least 1 hour (probably 1 hour 15 min). Cool in pan for 5 minutes and then turn out onto rack.  Cool completely (about 2 hours), wrap and cover.

Here it is:

Date cake

This is my great Aunt Esther’s Stollen recipe.  She was from the German part of the family, so this comes from Germany, by way of America.  I know most Europeans like marzipan in their stollen, but we never used it, so this is the traditional version for me.

Stollen (2 large)
1 c. warm water
1 1/3 package yeast
½ c + 2 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
4 eggs
½ c. + 2 Tbsp butter
4 ½ c. + 2 Tbsp flour
½ c. + 2 Tbsp almonds
½ c. dark raisins
½ c. light raisins or sultanas
1 Tbsp grated lemon and/or orange peel

Measure water into large mixing bowl.  Sprinkle on yeast and stir.  Add sugar, salt, eggs, soft butter and ½ flour.  Beat 10 minutes on medium speed (or by hand).  Blend in remaining flour, fruits and almonds.  Cover tightly.  Let double, then stir down and refrigerate (overnight if possible).  Punch down and divide in half.  Shape each ½ into loaf (oval).  Put on cookie sheet.  Brush with melted butter and fold over nearly in half and press edges down.  Let rise to double.  Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes, then turn down to 350 and bake about 10 more minutes.  Glaze with milk and sugar icing.

Glaze:
Icing sugar
Warm milk
Mix to the consistency of double cream, and drizzle on stollen while warm.

Tasty:

For the first kind, we took masa (ground white corn) and cooked it into a paste (actually, Gerry did that bit!).  We then wrapped it in banana leaves, along with an amazing masa harina (chili paste), chick peas, olives, red pepper and cooked spiced rice:

Inside the banana leaf tamales

We made a lot of these

All the banana leaf tamales

We then also made a plainer kind, with uncooked masa and a tasty corn and bean mix in them.

Holly and Gerry making tamales

We also made a lot of these:

Corn husk tamales

It took all afternoon, but Gerry was very patient and generous as we learned to fold and tie them.  And we had all.the.tamales left — even after eating lots we all had some to take home.  Thanks Gerry for showing us a great time and good skill!

Celebrating GVWI’s first birthday, Alex Wynick from Islington Now has written a lovely feature piece about us!

You can read the full article on the Islington Now website.

Meeting Type:                  Monthly meeting

Meeting Date:                  10/01/2013

Meeting location:           The Shaftesbury N19

Opened at:         7:30pm                                 By:          Holly Peterson

Attendees:         22 attendees

Apologies:         

Approval of previous minutes:  Taken as read

Items discussed:             

Actions agreed:                               

Report from Treasurer: There was no report from the Treasurer, as this occurs quarterly.

AOB:                                      Sophie has raised £100 pounds for GVWI through her card making business.

Next meeting:                  07/02/2013         And thereafter:                14/03/2013