Bake Off with The Bake Off - Bread!

So last week, my challenge was to make a biscuit that I have never made before. This week was bread week and my challenge was to make my own show stopper bread. 
I had the stipulation that it had to be savoury, here's what I made, how I did it and the results:

Week 3 - Bread!

Sun dried tomato pesto bread with Camembert 

Ingredients:
14oz Plain Flour
120ml Milk
120ml Water
2 tbsp Butter
2 1/2 tsp Sugar
3/4 tbsp Instant Yeast
1 tsp Salt
Sun dried tomato pesto
Camembert

Firstly, melt the butter in a pan with the water and milk. Set aside whilst you measure out the other ingredients to allow it to cool

In a large bowl, mix together the Flour, Sugar, Yeast and Salt. Add the melted butter mixture and mix well. 

Once combined, tip onto floured work surface and knead for a few minutes, until smooth

Lightly oil a large bowl, place dough in the bowl and cover with cling film. Leave to rise for 60 minutes.

Knock it back by kneading for a few seconds. Split into four equal parts and roll out into circles

I decided that it was easier to place on a plate to spread the layers of red pesto and have enough space to keep rolling the other layers. Place the dough onto the plate and spread the red pesto evenly over the dough.

Roll out the next layer and place on top, cover with pesto and repeat, finally roll out the final layer and place on top. I used the plate to flip the layered dough upside down and cut around it to neaten the shape up.

Next, cut into eight equal parts.

Make a cut in the middle of each one and widen it slightly so that you will have enough room for the next step. Whilst holding the triangle by the top, take the bottom through the hole at the back and pull it forward. Then you roll the top, to make a swirl.

Repeat for all 8 pieces. Next you need to place them onto your baking tray. I used a pizza tray with tin foil underneath. I placed some of the offcuts I had leftover in a circle, to provide a nice case for the cheese to stop it from filling out, I then placed the the 8 pieces around it like a flower. They will need to prove for a little longer, so I put the box for the Camembert in the middle, to ensure that it keeps shape whilst it rises again. I left it for 30 minutes, covered in cling film. About half way through, I preheated the oven to 175c

Swap the cheese box with the actual Camembert. Now it's ready to pop in the oven!

I turned mine around half way through to ensure that I had an even bake. Mine only took 25 minutes, give it a gentle tap on the top, it should sound hollow when it's ready.

Pretty delicious looking right? It was really tasty! Definitely a hit! Between 3 of us, we managed to demolish it within about 7 minutes. 

I earned full points for this one, I'll definitely be making this again, so many different flavour combinations to try! I might try a sweet one next :)

Bake Off with The Bake Off - Biscuits!

I've been quiet for a while, I've had a couple of projects but mostly I have just been busy doing other things, but now, I'm back and I have a challenge.

I'm a big fan of The Great British Bake Off, I love watching it, love seeing the new recipes, the techniques that others use in their baking, I even love the cringe worthy moments when everything goes wrong, that would probably have had me crying on the floor if it had happened to me. Anyway, Gavin has decided to issue me with a challenge - Bake off the Bake off! 

Every week, I'm going to make something along the same theme as covered on the latest episode. This challenge is brimming with potential - whether that's fun or stress, it will probably differ between weeks! I've skipped week 1 - Cake, simply because I've made lots of cakes in the past and I'm keen to try new things. This is where the challenge starts:

Week 2 - Biscuits!
The Challenge:
4 Identical Biscuits that I have never made before

I chose Brandy Snaps

Ingredients:
2oz Butter
2oz Demerara Sugar
2oz Golden Syrup
1 1/3 oz Plain Flour
1/2 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Lemon Juice
300ml Double Cream

After preheating the oven to 180C, the next step is to oil wooden spoon handles (I know, weird, but go with it). Melt together the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan, until the sugar granules have dissolved.

Sieve the flour and the ginger together and add to the sugarysyrupybuttery mixture, along with the lemon juice.

Using teaspoons, measure out small amounts of the mixture and place onto the baking tray, you need to allow plenty of room in between each blob of mixture because they will spread out.

Bake in the oven for roughly 10 minutes (it may be a little longer if you are not using a fan oven), until they are a golden brown and well spread  out.

At this point, you are meant to leave them for a minute to firm up slightly and slide a fish slice or a pallet knife underneath them to peel them off of the parchment. I had an issue with the first batch, and the second batch, and the third batch. They all decided that they would fuse to the parchment, which was an absolute nightmare. I'm not sure what caused it, I even tried oiling the parchment lightly on the last batch. I ended up using foil on the third batch and managed to get my 4 that I needed.

Once you have managed to get them off of the parchment or foil, you need to quickly wrap them around the oiled spoon handles to create the identical roll. Leave to firm up. Once firm, whip the double cream and pipe into the middle of the brandy snaps to fill.

Mine are fairly messy, I did not press together the edges after I rolled them and the pipping was a mess too. Overall, I found the process of making brandy snaps fairly stressful. They tasted good, but I am not convinced that I could not have done them better. 

Points Awarded: 3/5

A Block of a Cake

This cake was a particularly fun bake! In all honesty, there was only one stressful moment, but that was right at the end and thankfully solved itself (more on that later).

The Project: A Block of a Cake
The Theme: Minecraft
Ingredients:
For the Cake
24oz Margarine
24oz Sugar
24oz Self Raising Flour
12 Eggs
Cocoa
Green Food Colouring
For the Icing
Chocolate Butter Icing
Green Butter Icing
Green Royal Icing
For the Toppers
Teal Fimo
Black Fimo
Pink Fimo
Red Fimo
White Fimo
Brown Fimo
Blue Fimo
Grey Fimo
Light Blue Fimo
Skin Colour Fimo (I'm not completely sure of it's proper name)
Edible Glue

I started this cake quite a few days in advance by creating the figures. Although I could have made them out of icing, I liked the idea of making them out of fimo, the recipient then gets the option of keeping them forever if they want to.
I kicked things off by making the Creeper, it seemed the easiest to start with as he is made up of a series of squares and rectangles, although I cannot help thinking that his mouth looks like a moustache...

After Creeper, the rest flowed pretty happily. I have some trouble with Steve and his stupid pickaxe though. When fimo is in the oven, it goes soft before it hardens and sets into place - Nightmare for the pickaxe handle - it wanted to curve to one side. I found a solution though :)

Now that I had my toppers ready to go, the rest of the cake was fairly straight forward. I baked three layers of the cake, the two bottom tiers were chocolate and the top tier was coloured green (thank you Gavin for the creative idea). The theory being that when cutting into the cake, it still looks like the grass block.

The sides then needed to be covered in a darker chocolate butter icing to fill in the holes and to give the desired effect of the side of the cake. It was a little tricky getting it smooth though

With the sides all good to go, the green royal icing could be placed on the top of the cake. The sides were cut in wiggly lines to give the impression of grass growing around the edges of the block. This green icing is what will form the shape of the piped grass going on top of it.

Piping was the hardest part, I finally purchased some piping stuff, only all that our local shop had was a slightly cheaper version of a piping cylinder that looked like something that my Mum used to use. As hers served her well over the years, I thought that I would pick it up and give it a try (seeing as they also had no piping bags in the shop either!). It lasted for one side of the cake and broke. I had to use a small sandwich bag with a screw on nozzle to finish the rest of the cake. Lesson learned. 

 Finally I placed the figures and secured them with edible glue and piped some more green around them. This is where I started to get worried about Steve, although he stayed in place, I was worried that he would topple over and mark the cake. Luckily, he stayed in place - what a good little Steve!

I got to see pictures of the 10 year old Birthday Boy upon receiving this cake, he looked really pleased with it - makes all the effort worth while :)

Total Time Spent: 6 Hours
Useful Tips Gained: Smoothers work like a charm on butter icing
Items to Purchase: New piping bag or cylinder. 
Items Added to Amazon Wishlist: Piping set and also some alphabet cutters
Miscellaneous Items Wished For: More piping nozzles for different effects 

A Cake fit for a Princess

I had very specific design specifications for this order - pink, pink,pink and more pink! It also needed to be two tiered, which comes with potential dangers in itself! I had a fair few nights prior to making it where I had dreams about it not working out. Thankfully I was fretting over nothing :)

The Project: A Cake fit for a Princess
The Themes: Princess Hello Kitty and a lot of Pink
Ingredients:
For the Cake:
28oz Self Raising Flour
28oz Margerine
28oz Sugar
14 Eggs
Rose (Dark Pink) Food Colouring Paste
Pink Food Colouring Paste
For the Icing:
2 1/2 packs of Royal Icing
Butter Icing
Rose Food Colouring Paste
Pink Food Colouring Paste
Black Food Colouring Paste
Yellow Food Colouring Paste

Armed with the knowledge that the 7 year old recipient is a huge fan of pink, I made the sponges themselves pink so that you have a lovely pink surprise when cutting into the cake. I knew that I would not be able to get the pinks exact so I made one half of the top tier and one half of the bottom tier dark pink and the top half of each tier, light pink, with a pink butter icing for the middle. 

Once baked, cooled and butter iced, I made the holes for where the supports need to go, so that it holds both tiers in place.

In order to gain a smooth finish around the sides, I then crumb coated the edges with a butter icing and cake crumb mix. I had to to this a few hours before covering the cake, if the cake crumb mix was not set, I would not achieve the finish that I was looking for. I did this for both tiers.

Happy that the crumb coating was set, I was able to cover the bottom tier of the cake, keeping an eye on the two holes that I had made for the supports to go. Round cakes are so much easier to cover than square ones :)

After covering the bottom tier in the lighter pink, I covered the top tier in the darker pink, again, getting that lovely smooth finish that I was aiming for

Once covered, decoration was able to begin. The request had been stripes on the bottom tier and spots on the top tier. Starting with the dark pink for the stripes, I measured and spaced 8 stripes around the bottom tier.

Once happy with the spacing, I stuck them down and tidied the ends up. then I could put the supports into place, ready for the top tier.

I placed the top tier on top of the bottom tier, ensuring that the supports were in the right place. I did not situate the top tier in the middle, as I wanted to have more of a step at the front of the cake, so I had to measure it exactly to ensure that it sat exactly where I wanted it to. When it was in place, I cut out two different sized circles from the lighter pink icing and secured them to the top of the cake.

I cut out a number 7 from the light pink icing and attached it to the top tier at the front of the cake. My original plan for the bottom of the cake was to pipe around it. However, I decided to go with twisting the two different colours together (ensuring that the twists are as even as possible all the way around). I really like the sweet flump effect that it gives and I think it fits perfectly for this cake

Next came the Hello Kitty part, I cut out the shape of her face out of white icing and used yellow for the nose, black for the eyes and whiskers and the dark pink for the bow. The whiskers were actually the hardest part, making sure that they were long enough to look like whiskers but did not drop at the edges was a real balance! Surprisingly I only had one moment where I wanted to punch Hello Kitty, but thankfully I persevered and got her right in the end. Because she was placed on a stripe, I also created a backing for her with the stripe cut out so that the stripe did not create a bump in her face.

All that was left was to add a tiara to the top and there we have it, a Princess Hello Kitty Cake

I was really pleased with the results. This was also one of the occasions where I got to see the recipient's reaction when she first saw the cake, a 7 year old who loves pink, Hello Kitty and Princesses, her big smile seemed to suggest that it ticked all the boxes :)

Total Time Spent: 8 Hours
Useful Tips Gained: Measuring gives you good results!
Items to Purchase: I need to replace by piping bag, although I decided to go in a different direction for this cake, who knows what I'll need for the next one
Items Added to Amazon Wishlist: None this time
Miscellaneous Items Wished For: Round Angel Food Tin, for no real reason than I want to make one someday.

The Best Brownies

Every month, at work, each team takes it in turns to bake cakes to sell for charity. This month was my team's turn and I decided to make Brownies, I thought I would share my recipe for these delicious things, they are one of my favourites :)

Ingredients:
150g Unsalted Butter
200g Light Brown Suguar
100g Dark Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
75g Cocoa
150g Plain Flour
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
pinch of salt
200g Milk Chocolate

I love baking Brownies, I love the process, the smell of them baking and eating them when they are still warm! The trick to a good Brownie is good quality chocolate. Without fail I will always make Brownies with Dairy Milk Chocolate (unless I'm making a variation, but more on that later!). 

I usually start off by preheating the oven to about 190°C. I find it easier to make sure that the Chocolate is chopped before starting anything else too, just so that you know everything is ready to go the minute all of the ingredients are combined. 

 Now you can start baking!

First of all, melt the butter over a low heat and add the sugar, keep on the heat and mix until combined. Then sift the flour, cocoa, bicarb and salt together in a bowl.

Add the melted butter and sugar mix to the dry ingredients and stir well. In a separate bowl/jug/cup/whatever you can lay your hands on, beat the eggs and add to the mixture, give it another good stir.

As the mixture is still warm at this point, you need to work quickly through the next part. Add the chocolate chunks to the mixture and quickly stir them in (just quickly, otherwise those chocolate chunks will melt into your brownie mixture and whilst it will still be delicious, you will also be chunkless).

Quickly spoon the mixture into your baking tin and pop into the oven. In my fan assisted oven, they usually take about 10-15 minutes. you are looking for a nice bouncy top but not too firm.

I usually add a dusting of icing sugar too, just to give it that little extra sweetness on top. 

You can do different variations, adding different types of chocolate or adding white chocolate chunks. The variation I did alongside this one was a mint chocolate brownie. Instead of Dairy Milk, I used Nestle Aero Mint and I added a good splash of peppermint flavouring to the beaten eggs before adding it to the chocolate mixture. The possibilities are endless, but I will always come back to the usual chocolate brownie, in my opinion, no other variations can beat it :)

Hot Cross Buns - but better!

Personally, I like hot cross buns, Gavin however does not like the currents and sultanas, I went in search of a recipe for a hot cross bun that he would like and in my opinion this recipe is far better than the traditional hot cross buns!

Ingredients:
For the buns:
18oz Plain Flour
1 and 1/2 tsp Mixed Spice
2 and 1/2 tsp Yeast
50g Sugar
350ml Lukewarm Milk
2 Eggs
200g Milk Chocolate
For the crosses:
Plain Flour
Water
For the glaze:
Water
Sugar

Firstly, sieve the flour into a large bowl, without doing my trick and getting flour everywhere

Then add the Mixed Spice to the mound of Flour

Add the Yeast and Sugar and mix together

Warm the milk so that it is lukewarm, add the eggs to the milk and beat lightly, then add to the dry mixture and combine it together until it forms a dough. On a floured work surface knead the dough until it's smooth and elasticy, this took me about 7 minutes of kneading to reach this point, but it depends on your kneading speeds :)

Place in a lightly floured bowl and cover with cling film, then leave it in a warm place for 1 hour to prove. During this time, the dough will double in size

Knock it back to it's original size and fold in the chocolate chunks

Divide mixture into 12, place on a baking tray and cover with cling film. Take it back to the warm place and leave to prove again for 30 minutes, they should double in size again during this time. Whilst they are proving, now is a good time to preheat your oven to 190°C 

Mix together approximately 3 tablespoons of flour to 6 tablespoons of water, the mixture should be a thick paste that can be piped. Place in a piping bag or just a sandwich bag and cut the end off and pipe the crosses on top of the buns. Now they can go into the oven!

The smell of a hot cross bun baking in the oven is, quite frankly, amazing! They took about 12 minutes in my oven, when they were a golden brown on top and hollow sounding when you tap the bottom of the bun, out they come. Whilst they are cooling, add 50g sugar and 60ml water to a small saucepan and bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Whilst the buns are still warm, brush the glaze lightly over the tops - serve warm, whilst the chocolate is still melted and yum!

Useful Tips Gained: Making a glaze - I've never actually had to make one

Items to Purchase: None

Items Added to Amazon Wishlist: None

Miscellaneous Items Wished for: Lots of ingredients to make different breads, I really need to get around to trying out some of the more exciting breads in Paul Hollywood's book