Grandma Tholen's Danish Pastry

 

Probably in the 50's my grandma's neighbor, from Denmark, taught her to make braided bread stuffed with almond paste and vanilla pudding.   Sometimes pecans as well. And then frosted with buttercream (or cream cheese icing) and maraschino cherries.  And we have called them Danish Pastries ever since!

Dough (This isn't the original recipe, but my mom started using this and what she does I do.)

2 T. dry yeast
1 1/4 c. warm water
3 eggs, well beaten
4 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. shortening
1/2 c. sugar
2 t. salt

Soften yeast in 1 1/4 cup warm water, let it stand until dissolved and growing.  Combine dissolved yeast, eggs, 2 1/2 cups flour, shortening, sugar, and salt. Beat until smooth.  Add remaining flour to make a soft dough.  Cover. Let rise rise until double. Punch down and refrigerate.  Roll out for Danish Pastry.

While dough is proofing, prepare the other ingredients.

Pudding

1 cup milk
1 egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons Flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat milk to barely boiling.  Previous to milk boiling, beat egg yolk with sugar and flour, when milk does boil, add a small amount of milk to egg and beat.  Add small amounts of milk, beating continuously, until completely mixed.  Let thicken and then set aside for pastry.  

Almond Filling

1/4 lb butter (113 g)

3/4 c sugar (156 g)

1/3 cup rolled oats (50 g)

2 teaspoons almond extract

Mix all ingredients together with a pastry blender.  Mixture will be grainy.

Frosting:  Make your favourite buttercream or cream cheese icing.  And cut in half a jar of maraschino (cocktail) cherries.  And break some pecans into bit if you would like.

Now it's time to assemble.  

Divide everything into six.  (I usually use a pizza cutter to divide the dough into six, and then just cut the pudding and filling into six parts.)

Roll into a rectangular share, 9 inches x 12 inches and about 1/2 inches thick.  Spread with pudding, almond filling and nuts.  Cut and braid as diagrammed below.

Let pastry raise until doubled, about 30 minutes.  Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.  Frost with icing and garnish with maraschino cherries.  Makes six pastries.  

Kitchen Update: Painted Cabinets

This is the story of how a something free off of gumtree ended up costing us £780.  And I'm not even mad about it!

We bought our kitchen second hand in 2013.  It was completely bespoke, with custom sized drawers and handles.  I thought it was really good quality, but I wanted to paint the cupboards.  Niall didn't, so we sanded back the doors and resealed them.  And that's how it has been for the past seven years.

I am so happy with our kitchen and the layout works for us.  However, the space above the fridge and next to it could be improved.  I told myself when I start working again (I stopped in February and then a whole mess of things happened, so it's just now that I am starting to look for work again) that we could get it changed.

I figured a 400 mm pull out larder unit would be a good option.  And for months I have been checking gumtree for one.  And then...magic!  One appeared for free.  Brand new, with a soft close Kessebohmer inset, which is so nice!  Niall and I picked it up that day and so it began.

We had a unit, but now doors.  And since our kitchen is bespoke and the wood has aged, there isn't a way to get a match.  I looked online and found some used cupboards about an hours away that were pretty close.  I bought those (£60) and we decided to paint.  But it was more door fronts than just the larder, so I realised I could get updates for the top of the fridge and the dishwasher.

I asked Niall to pick a color, and I would do the work.  So he chose a dark blue color.  I bought some additional cabinet carcasses from B&Q and talked to a joiner about coming to install things.  

The photo below is how the storage next to the fridge used to look.  And the larder unit, carcasses, and one of the new/used doors pre paint.

It took about a week to paint the cabinets.  Cleaning, sanding, priming, and two coats on each side plus drying time is the reason.  I started painting outside but then we started having rain every day so moved things inside.  It made the kitchen quite an obstacle course.  

I arranged for the joiner (carpenter) to come and was so excited.  It was a little chaotic doing up the kitchen while also living our lives, but we've managed.  And the second wave of lockdown happened when the rain storms started so it's not like we had any visitors.

The day the joiner came made me so happy.  He installed the larder unit, three cabinets above the fridge, a 600mm one next to the fridge and one above our other larder/dishwasher.

Once the joiner's work was done, I put on the painted cabinets and then started doing a whole host of other projects.  Things like building in additional storage drawers.  I made a list of everything that I needed to do and it was about 30 items long.

Last night I finished the list.  (Except for taking stuff to the dump and returning the tools to the shed.)  So here's the kitchen with its additional storage. 

Here's the storage above the dishwasher.

And the finished kitchen!

And for my own notes, here is the breakdown on cost.  

Cabinets/Cupboards (including hinges):  £335

Joiner:  £200

Paint:  £85

Other supplies:  £160

Total:  About £780

Also, Niall bought me a jigsaw as an early birthday present.  I didn't include that in the cost, but it has been such a good gift.  I love it!!

DIY Bed Curtain for Kids Sharing a Room

Our girls have shared a room for almost their whole lives.  At least since number 2 left our room!

There is a bit of a problem right now as the oldest can read, and we let her after she goes to bed.  The younger does not yet read and claims the light makes it 'too hard' to sleep.  We tried having them in separate rooms, but that hasn't worked.  There is also a sleeping mask, but doesn't quite do the trick.

My suggestion of putting up a curtain was met with a big thumbs up.  I tried to figure out some way to put up a curtain.  First, we didn't want to make too big of a commitment because who knows if a curtain will solve the current problem.  Undoubtedly, the kids will at some time pull too hard and down will come down the fabric.  So attaching it to the wall or the ceiling would not be ideal.

First, I tried to get an inexpensive canopy bed to hang the curtain.

But I ended up getting scammed on gumtree.  Lesson learned:  07519379638 is a scam number, phillarkin37@gmail.com is a scam email and Paypal account.  Also, don't pay for anything by gift on Paypal!

Already out £60, and speculative about the whole project to begin with, Niall did not want me to do anything expensive.  So I ended up taking apart the existing bed, buying some new timber, and using the timber to make poles on two ends of the bed.

There was a little luck, and John Lewis had a pair of blackout curtains, already sewn, that fit just right.  They were less than the blackout material!

I used a 22mm wooden dowel, which isn't quite strong enough to hold the weight of the material.  I'll probably end up buying a curtain rod with some finials drilled into the two posts down the line.  It looks a little homespun, but it fills a need.†

The curtain doesn't block out all the light, but reportedly it blocks out enough (from the lower placed reading lamp) to make sleep possible.

This one is happy with her new curtain, and says it can double as a performance stage.

What We Wish We'd Done Differently

Guys, guess what?  Our extension has been done since May!  And we have loved having the extra space.  There are still a few bits and bobs around the house, but the next project is to try and pay down our mortgage.

Building Control came and gave the a-okay on the build.  (Meaning it was done to required standard.)  

There are so many things that we love about this house that has gone through multiple renovations.  It's such a great neighbourhood, a good layout for our family and for visitors.  I'm so happy we have such a comfortable roof over our head.

There are a few minor things that in hindsight I wish I would have done differently.  Not a huge change, but just in case.

1.  Euro Cylinder Locks

We didn't specify how the door locking mechanism should work for the French doors that were put in as part of the extension build, and the builders ordered key locks.  It means we always have to have a key to lock or unlock the door, and if we leave a key in the lock it can't be unlocked from outside.  I wished I would have requested a Euro Cylinder Knob lock.  (Knob on the inside, key open on the outside.)  It's not an expensive change, about £30 plus labor.  But I've tried twice to special order the replacement cylinders with no luck.

2.  Heat Detector in the Kitchen

Our smoke detector in the kitchen was too sensitive.   Make toast...it would go.  Turn on the griddle...it would go. And it set all the other fire alarms (hard wired) off throughout the house.  We could not get them to turn off, even by turning off the mains power.  (The batteries!)  Then even without smoke they kept tripping during the extension build, to the point that we had to remove them all and go with battery only ones for a while.  After consulting with an electrician and a visit from the fire department, we switched to a heat detector in the kitchen.  It was about £30 to get one that would fit in with what was hard wired and now (knock on wood) the fire detectors remain silent.

3.  Plug in the kitchen

I don't really care, but Niall keeps talking about how we should have asked for a plug on this wall in the kitchen.  I think it's because we have to plug the vacuum in twice to clean the ground floor.  Oh, first world problems.

4.  Not Put Tiles in the Loft

We converted the loft according to every rule in the book.  We had the floor reinforced as required and then some.  And then we had the floor laid and put in tiles in the shower room.  (Well, a professional did it.)  But here's the thing.  That loft floor still moves a little.  And even with all that reinforcement, the tiles shift a little.   And a little often results in a big impact.  The grout has fallen through and a tile or two has become loose.

See?  Loose grout.  We can grout again, but it will be the same issue.  I am no fan of vinyl, but in this case I wish we would have gone with a more flexible solution.  Just a thought in case you're looking to convert a loft and are considering big tiles.




5.  Storm door lock

I searched high and low and ended up special ordering a lock to replace the 90 year old we removed from the storm doors when we first bought the house.  (It was rusted through and no longer functioned.)  But to lock the door, from the inside or out, you have to have a key.  A great big skeleton key that doesn't fit in a pocket so easily.  I would like the storm door locked at night for protection, but needing a key to open it in case of emergency (like a real fire, not just a smoke alarms going off because of toast) gives me the fear.

While the skeleton key looks pretty, it isn't practical.  I wish I would have gone with matching locks, just plain old Yale ones would do, for both the storm door and the front door.  Then the storm doors would lock when closed, not just when there's a skeleton key.  And the front door and storm door would have matching locks, so only one key required.

So, all in all, very minor things.  We have changed some, and will perhaps change more in the future. But all in all very grateful to have a place we call home and works for our family!

Guys, Our Garden

Once upon a time in 2013 our driveway looked like this.

Then we knocked down the garage, built an extension, and the driveway looked like this.

Yup, just a big pile of hardcore and ancient, broken concrete slabs, greeting the us every time we left the house.  For months and months.  We knew what we wanted to do, we had the budget, but it was just a matter of biding our time until we could get scheduled!

It took a lot of hard work (but not by us) and tons of material.

We had a really great landscaper (Peter Williamson) come and and now our driveway looks like this


He also built a new fence, since we knocked down the garage and the boundary wall.



The back garden is looking a lot better as well.  Maybe last summer or so it looked like this.

Then we had the mad digger come in and take out all the crazy self-planting sycamore trees.

No, seriously, things had to get really messy before they could get better.

We had the professionals put in a level pad for a shed (to replace the demolished garage) and a trampoline.

And then I got busy building vegetable boxes, reseeding (and reseeding and reseeding) the grass.

As of this morning, this is where we are.   Look how the grass is growing!  It needs to be cut...again!

Peter put in some posts and pavers for a bin store, 

and Niall built it.

We painted it green.

Magic!

The back of the house is still a work in progress.  But we've improved things!  In 2013 it looked like this.

And then it looked like this.  
We managed to squeeze in a table and chairs.

And then turned it into a building site.

And now we're here.

Maybe someday we'll paint it.  Or get it re-roughcaste.  But not right now.

There's a nice walkway (big enough to wheel the garbage bins) along the side of our house.  And notice all the pebbles?  That was something our architect specified to help with drainage.

Here's the paving on the side of the house going toward the street.

And here's how the walkway looks going back to the garden.  I built the gate out of left over wood from the timber cladding on the extension!

When we first bought the house, the back of the house was completely overgrown.

We had the vegetation cut back, clean-up the pavers, and were left with this.

Then we painted the fence and the coal shed door.

We dug out the massive tree trunk


And were left with a patio area crying out for some attention.


Peter came and did his magic

And the patio are is wider, smoother and ready for us to enjoy!

And the table.

There are still a few things that need to be done (like making the bomb shelter into a play fort and tarting up the front garden and retaining wall.)  But man we're close!

And, just because I had no idea how much work this garden update would be, or how much money it would end up costing, here's the run down:

Total are paved:  111 square meters
Approximate cost:  £7000 total, £62 per square meter
Cost of supplies:  £3,150
Spoil removal:  £600
32 man days, 256 hours

As a note, I completely underestimated how much time and effort would go into this project, but specifically just how hard it would be to plan and execute the calculation of slope and run and the design of pavers.  And I didn't do any of it!