Australians away!

Last Tuesday we were lucky enough to be visited by The Gell-Stennards.... E and I were stoked to see Henry and get a cuddle in. He was a pretty quiet little chap. I'm looking forward to getting to know him as he grows up. He loves standing up.... at 5 months I'm wondering if it is a sign.
I think he might take after his active parents. I expect that he will enjoy camping!

Both Dave and Fiona seemed to be happily enjoying parent-hood. For us it was great to see them, have a chat, be very scientific about children and generally have a laugh. It was great.....



This weekend E and I are heading up to the Lake District. The next post will be more photos and stories from there.

Oh, and I promised to put up the recipe for fresh and hot caramel sauce for ice-cream!

Hot Caramel Sauce (this is kind of bucket chemistry... but it works).

You need:
Butter
Brown Sugar
Milk

Put about 1 small tablespoon of butter into a saucepan and melt over a moderate heat.
Stir in about 5 tablespoons of brown sugar. It should look like a thick brown paste, but still be 'liquidy' not dry and powdery.
Heat the paste up with stirring. Ideally you want to get it to start to boil, but NOT burn.
Only when the temperature is high add about 2-3 tablespoons of milk ONE at a time. Stir vigorously between additions. The only thing that can go wrong here is the milk can curdle. This happens if the milk is added in too large a dose, or the temperature is not hot enough. So, high temp and small volumes gets around this. If it curdles... throw it out and start again!
After the milk is added to the desired runny-ness I keep heating and stirring. It should be boiling/bubbling away like mad. This is important to dissolve all the sugar grains and make the sauce smooth.
At this stage, just prior to pouring over the ice-cream you can also add flavours such as whiskey or Cointreau.

The more butter/milk ratio you add the softer the sauce goes, the more milk/butter ratio the more like toffee the sauce goes.

Another good thing to do is stir the sauce into some vanilla ice-cream that is semi-frozen and re-freeze for the worlds best caramel swirl ice-cream!

Enjoy