Bake Off with The Bake Off - Pastry!

Still playing catch up! This week is Pastry week! My challenge this week was to make something that I have never made before from the Pastry episode - Éclairs! The twist was that they had to be different than chocolate and cream and Gav had to like them!

Week 7 - Pastry Week!

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake Éclairs

Ingredients:
For the Choux Pastry:
65g Plain Flour
120ml Water
pinch of salt
50g Butter
2 Eggs (beaten)
For the Filling:
200g Cream Cheese
100g Icing Sugar
50g Raspberries
For the Icing:
150g White Chocolate (melted)

I decided to base these Eclairs on a cheesecake because Gav loves cheesecake and I wanted to mash the two things together to make a hybrid of awesome pastry cheesecake.

Firstly, I preheated the oven to 200C and lined a baking tray with foil. I would advise you to ensure that you have baking parchment in your cupboard before embarking on such a project, otherwise you may find yourself also using foil too, although to be fair, the foil worked fine, so use either! Anyway, I greased the foil and left it for later.

I put the water into a saucepan with the salt and butter and heated gently until the butter had melted. Bring the watery mixture tot he boil and add the flour, remove from the heat and beat until smooth. Putting the saucepan back on the heat to cook the dough slightly, so that it starts to come away from the sides - resembling PlayDough. Leave to cool.

Apologies this is a little wordier and less picture based than usual - it suddenly dawned on me half way through that I needed to be documenting this for The BaKerry! Talk about a dopey moment.

Once cooled, I added the beaten eggs to the mixture and whisked it in my mixer. The dough became very glossy looking. I then spooned it into my piping gun and piped them onto the baking tray

Hopefully yours will be less messy than mine

They were in the oven for around 15 minutes, at which point I reduced the temperature without opening the door and to 170C and left for another 10 minutes - A good tip from Mr H.

To avoid them going soggy with the steam trapped inside, I made small holes in the side of each Eclair, before returning them to the oven for another 5 minutes to make sure they were crisp. Leave to cool.

Meanwhile, playing with sugar...

Using the back of the a ladle, I created a basket. I filled some Raspberries with white chocolate too, just to pass some time

I filled some Raspberries with white chocolate too, just to pass some time and because the idea seemed delicious

Whilst the Éclairs cooled, I made the cheesecake filling. I creamed together the cream cheese and icing sugar and added the raspberries and squashed them in.

I piped the cheesecake filling into the Éclairs and spread the white chocolate on the top

Overall they tasted great, they were very messy to make though, as you can see from the picture! Needless to say, although I do not feel like rushing back into the kitchen to make another batch, I think I'll give them another whirl in the future :) 3 out of 5 points earned.

Bake Off with The Bake Off - European Cakes!

Well I'm terribly behind in writing up a few weeks worth of baking, so here I am, catching up again! This one was for the European cake week, my challenge for this week was to make a European cake, but the recipe had to include yeast and I had to have a go at spinning sugar because I had never done it before.

Week 6 - European Cakes!

Yeast Strudel with Walnuts

Ingredients:
For the Dough:
1 7g pack dried yeast
1/2 tsp Caster Sugar
1 tbsp Warm Water
310g Plain Flour
50g Caster Sugar
1 Pinch of Salt
1 Egg (beaten)
100ml Warm Water
40g Butter
For the Filling:
200g Ground Walnuts
100ml Milk
50g Caster Sugar
1/2tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbsp Honey
1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

I started off by preparing the dough as it needed time to prove. I combined the yeast, 1/2 teaspoon of caster sugar and 1 tablespoon of warm water in a jug, left for a couple of minutes for it to activate and become foamy and yeast smelling. Whilst that was happening, I mixed together the flour, sugar and salt.

I made an indent in the flour and added the yeast mixture, along with the egg and gradually the water, mixing all the while. Before giving it one final blast in the mixer, I added the butter. 

I swapped out the mixing paddle for the dough blade and let it knead for 5 minutes. I then placed it in a bowl, covered with cling film and left to rise for around an hour for it to double in size.

Whilst it was proving, I cracked on with the filling. There were no ground walnuts at our local shop, hopefully you have more luck than I did, therefore, I had to finely chop them as best I could. I poured the milk into a pan and brought to the boil, I then threw in all of the other ingredients for the filling and stirred until it thickened, then left it to cool until the dough was ready.

When the dough had roughly doubled in size, I rolled it out into a rectangle measuring approximately 12 by 20 inches and spread the walnut mixture on top. I then rolled it up like a Swiss Roll and twisted it.

Happy that it was shaped and mildly concerned about parts of the mixture showing through, I left it to prove again for another hour. 

I baked it at 190°C for 10 minutes and then lowered the temperature to 175°C (without opening the oven) and baked for a further 30 minutes.Whilst it was baking. I made the spun sugar. I used about 100g sugar, I wasn't sure how much I would make an I wanted to play around with it.

I just tipped the sugar in the pan and heated on a low heat, gradually it started to melt around the sides and I used a spoon to gently prod it to help it along a bit. Suddenly it had all melted and I was ready to go. I had a couple of wooden spoons in the fridge as I had read that by refrigerating them helped if you wanted to make swirls. Over some baking parchment, I held the string of melting sugar gradually dripping off the spoon and when it became a little wiry looking, I held it over the wooden spoon and twisted it. I was pretty happy with the results.

I drizzled some icing on the top of the cooled yeast strudel and stuck some extra walnuts on top for added decoration and then lightly placed my spun sugar swirls. 

It tasted delicious. I was fairly happy with the results, although I would have liked a more even swirl on the inside, I was happy with the bake and the taste :) 4 out of 5 from the judges!

Bake off with The Bake Off - Pies and Tarts!

So I've caught up with myself at last - just in time for another episode tomorrow! 
Last week was Pies and Tarts week for The Bake Off, Gavin decided that this week's challenge was going to be the technical challenge that the contestants took part in - the Mini Pear Pies.

Week 5 - Pies and Tarts!

Mini Pear Pies

Ingredients
For the Puff Pastry:
200g Plain Flour
100g block of Butter
100g block of Lard
1 egg (beaten)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
For the Pears:
6 Large Pears
300g Caster Sugar
500ml White Wine
2 Cinnamon Sticks
Zest of 1 orange

There is actually quite a lot of work involved in these mini pear pies, but once you break each section down, it's quite simple.

Grate the butter and lard and add to the flour, using a knife to bring the mixture together.

Add 130ml cold water to bring the mixture together and create a dough

On a floured work surface, roll into a rectangle, fold the top 3rd down and the bottom third up, turn over and spin 90 degrees, and repeat. Place in fridge, covered, for 20 minutes, repeat process twice.

In the meantime, crack on with the syrup. In a saucepan, add together the caster sugar, wine, cinnamon, 400ml water, and orange zest. Bring to the boil and leave for 3 minutes.

Add the pears to the syrup mix and bring back to the boil, then simmer for 15 minutes. 

Remove the pears from the saucepan (leaving the syrup in there), and place on a cooling rack. with a sharp knife, remove the cores.

Bring the syrup back to the boil and let it boil for another 15 minutes, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once pears and syrup are cool, roll out the pastry and cut into thin strips

Brush the pears with syrup and wind the pastry strips around the pears, starting from the bottom up. This part is infuriating, the amount of times that the pastry would unravel itself from the bottom as I was winding up near the top - argh - I got there in the end though

With the left over pastry, cut some leaf shapes and stick them to the tops of the pears

With the beaten egg, brush the pears lightly and sprinkle the granulated sugar. Pop them in the oven at 180°C for 25 minutes and you have delicious mini pear pies

Then, whilst enjoying your mini pear pies, finish off bottle of wine that you only used 500ml of - win!

Pleased to say that I got 5 out of 5 for this one - Oh yeah!

Bake off with The Bake Off - Dessert Week!

Okay, so it's been over a week since I've posted, I've been away, so I have a little catching up to do! My challenge from the week before last was from Dessert Week. Gavin selected the self saucing desserts for me to try out. Here's how it went:

Week 4 - Desserts!

Self Saucing Double Chocolate Dessert

Ingredients:
For the sponge
190g Self Raising Flour
30g Cocoa
100g Caster Sugar
90g Butter (melted)
175ml Milk
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
200g Milk chocolate chunks
For the sauce
350 ml Milk
185g White Chocolate
240ml Water

Preheat the oven to 180°c and grease the individual dishes. Then sift the flour and cocoa together and add the sugar. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Combine melted butter, milk and eggs and pour slowly into the well, stirring whilst pouring.

The ingredients need to be stirred with a wooden spoon until smooth, but do not over beat, I would recommend mixing this by hand.
Pour mixture into the prepared dishes.

Chop up the milk chocolate into chunks and add to the mixture.

Now for the sauce, in a pan add the milk, white chocolate and water. warm over a low heat, until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth

Whilst the sauce is cooling slightly, I melted some extra chocolate over some cling film and popped it in the fridge, just to make it look pretty.
Once the sauce is cooled slightly, pour gently on top of the mixtures. You might make less of a mess than I ended up making.

Pop into the oven for roughly 25 minutes and it's ready.

I was a little nervous about mine and I'm fairly sure I left it in the oven for longer than 25 minutes, thinking it was not ready yet and the sauce kind of baked with the sponge, so the self saucing was not actually very saucy. Overall it was chocolatey, gooey and really delicious, but it was not self saucing.

Just 2 out of 5 for this one. Stupid sauce.

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