The Great British Bake Off Week 7 - Chocolate Eclairs

You can feel that the show is nearing the end now, with only a few weeks left of the competition and all the bakers being a really good standard... it's so hard to choose a winner! However it was Kate's turn for the chop this week, leaving 5 bakers in next week's quarter final. So it was only right that I had a go at the choux pastry show-stopper of chocolate eclairs.

I've taken the recipe from The Great British Bake Off How To Bake recipe book (which I would recommend any budding baker to buy as it has lots of traditional and simple bakes to try).

Ingredients

• 100g plain flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 75g butter
• 3 free range eggs
• 300ml double cream
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100g dark chocolate 

Start by putting the salt and butter into a saucepan with 175ml of water and heat (but don't boil) until the butter has melted. Then bring to the boil before turning off the heat and sifting all of the flour into the pan. Mix quickly until it's all combined into a soft dough. Heat on the hob again for another couple of minutes, just to cook it slightly. The recipe said that this will help the dough easily come away from the sides of the pan but mine had already done this so I chose to only heat mine for a minute. Now tip the dough into a large bowl and leave to cool. I would recommend starting to preheat your oven to 200°C at this point.

Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk slightly to break them up. Then, once your dough is cool, mix them in gradually using an electric whisk. If your dough is becoming too liquid, like mine did, stop adding the egg otherwise your pastry will collapse during baking. Now pipe the choux pastry to your desired length and thickness onto a greased and lined baking tray using a piping bag. Remember to leave space between each eclair as they will grow during baking.

Put your eclairs into the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180°C and open the oven door to let the steam out. Bake for another 15 minutes, after which time your pastry should be golden and crispy and ready to take out of the oven (but don't turn it off as you'll be using it again in a minute). Please note that if you've chosen to make mini eclairs, they will not need to be baked for as long so I would recommend keeping a close eye on them. (You could maybe try the 'bake off squat' to peer into the oven!)

Whilst being careful not to burn yourself on the hot pastry, pierce a hole into the end of each eclair with a sharp knife. This is to let the steam out to help bake inside the eclairs. Now put them back into the oven for another 5 minutes. I was a bit nervous about baking them anymore as they were already quite crispy so I ended up taking them out of the oven after about 3 minutes. Once out of the oven, leave to cool before filling.

To make the cream filling, whisk together 250ml of the cream, the icing sugar and vanilla extract using an electric whisk until it is stiff enough to hold peaks (or it looks like it won't ooze out of the side of your eclairs). Now cut each eclair open down the side and fill with a good helping of cream. It should be enough to fill the inside but not too much to be able to close the eclair. 

Now for the topping, break the chocolate into squares and put them into a small glass bowl along with the rest of the cream. Heat over a pan of water until the chocolate has melted. Then turn off the heat and continue to stir until the chocolate and cream is thoroughly combined to make a thick topping. It was much runnier than I expected so I left it to cool a bit in the hope that it would thicken, which it didn't. In the end I had to carefully pour the chocolate on top of each eclair, making sure that none dribbled down the sides. Then I put them all into the fridge so that the topping could set. All that was left then was to eat them, and with my family they didn't hang around for long!

The Great British Bake Off Week Six - Gothenburgers

This is what they should look like!

When I saw the theme for this week's show I knew exactly the recipe book I would be using. My swedish friend bought me a 'swedish cakes and cookies' recipe book for my birthday and I've been aching to make something from it for ages.

At first I thought I might make the princess cake they made on GBBO this week but on second thought I decided it would probably be better to do something a bit easier for my first european bake. After a flick through the recipe book, I chose these Gothenburgers as they looked interesting and completely different to anything I've made before.

Note, you will need quite a few mixing bowls for this recipe as it involves making 3 different mixtures.

Ingredients
75g butter

This is the recipe book, although I
doubt you'll be able to find it in
any UK book shops

2 tablespoons of sugar
½ egg
¾ all-purpose flour

Piped edge
200g almond paste
1 egg white

Filling
100g almond paste
50g butter
1 egg

Garnish
strawberry/raspberry jam
icing sugar
water
75g chocolate

Before I start, let me just say that this is probably the most complicated recipe I've ever made but I think once you've tried it you'll only get better! Well the first thing you might notice is that this recipe requires almond paste. I had no idea what this was so after doing some googling I found that in England it's marzipan but in USA it's something completely different. As many of the recipes in this book are written in an American style I decided to make some almond paste. But having now made the Gothenburgers I would suggest using marzipan!

If you would like to make your own almond paste though, the recipe I used is here.

Ok start by putting the butter, sugar and egg (from the first part of the ingredients list) into a large bowl and combine using an electric whisk, adding the flour gradually. The recipe states all-purpose flour which always confuses me, is it self-raising or plain? I've made a cake before and used plain flour as all-purpose flour and this was a big mistake so I decided in this case to use self-raising flour. However, I found the mixture to be quite sticky, even after adding lots more flour, when the recipe said it should be like a dough. Looking back now, I might try plain flour next time to see if that works.


Having given up hoping to get the mixture any more dough-like, I spooned the mixture into some cling film and put in the fridge for half an hour to hopefully harden. Whilst that is chilling, make the edge mixture by beating the almond paste or grated marzipan with the egg white until smooth. Next, make the filling by beating the butter until fluffy, then adding the almond paste or grated marzipan and egg gradually whilst continuing to beat with an electric whisk. At this stage, I would start to preheat the oven to 180°C.

Now at this point the recipe said to 'roll out the pastry'. Having taken my chilled cake mix out of the fridge I realised this was going to be a problem. I decided to make the dough stiffer I would roll it in quite a lot of plain flour. It helped a little bit but the mixture did still get stuck to the kitchen worktop so I would suggest covering the surface in a thick layer of flour before rolling it out. So now carefully roll out the cake mixture to be about 1 cm in thickness, cut out circle shapes using a cookie cutter and then lay them onto lined baking trays, leaving space incase they grow whilst baking.

Next, using a teaspoon spread a thickish layer of the filling mixture onto the middle of each circle, leaving an edge free all the way round. Now, pipe the edge around each circle using the piping edge mixture. As you can see, my mixture was way too liquidy so just slumped off the side of each disk! But at this stage I just had to deal with what I'd got.

I baked the Gothenburgers for approximately 12 minutes, just until I could see that they had turned golden. Take out of the oven and leave to completely cool before decorating. Spread the centre of each with a layer of jam and then a layer of icing, made from the icing sugar and water, on top. Leave to set for a few minutes and then cut each one in half before dipping the straight edge into melted chocolate.

And there you have it, Gothenburgers. If I can make them neater next time they would make an impressive party snack. But they taste delicious and that's the main thing!

The Great British Bake Off Week Five - Goat's Cheese and Red Onion Tart

Having calmed down after last week's 'bincident', GBBO was straight back in it with another amazing episode. Pie and Tart week brought lots of yummy-looking bakes, a few meltdowns (pastry and bakers, poor Martha!) and of course what else but tonnes of innuendos!

As soon as I heard the theme for this week I knew what I would be making. A friend baked it for me at university and so I knew that this week I would be attempting to recreate her Goat's Cheese and Red Onion Tart. Having never made pastry on my own before (the only other time being when I was younger and helped mum make mince pies) I was preparing myself and my family who would be tasting it for another Baked Alaska (see last week's bake) or the cockney rhyming slang we now use... 'Baked Disaster'!

I couldn't find the exact recipe that my friend used to make this dish before so I've used a combination of Delia Smith's pastry recipe and a Lemon Squeezy recipe which then turned it into a quiche.

Ingredients

• 4 oz plain flour
• a pinch of salt
• 2 oz butter
• 3 eggs
• 200ml milk
• 4 red onions
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 150g goat's cheese

Ok let's start! First, I made the pastry by sifting the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and then rubbed the butter into the flour after cutting it into cubes. You shouldn't do this for too long, just until you have thoroughly combined butter and flour breadcrumbs. 

I then added two tablespoons of water to enable me to get it all together. After getting the dough in my hands to make sure that it was all neatly in a ball, I wrapped it in cling film and leave to rest for 30 minutes in the fridge. 

I used this time to prepare the rest of the bake as well as preheating the oven to 180°C. First I greased and lined a tart tin. I chose one with a removable bottom as this will make it easier to get the tart out later on. Then I began peeling and slicing thinly the red onions before frying them in the oil in a large pan on the hob. When starting to get soft, add the balsamic vinegar and then continue to cook, stirring often to avoid burning.

At this point my pastry had finished chilling. I sprinkled some flour on the work surface before rolling it out to the right size and thickness. It took a couple of times to get it right, first being too thin and then not wide enough to cover the tin, and this worried me that my pastry would now be too rubbery. But it was too late so all I could do was lay the pastry in the tin and pray that it turned out ok. 

Next push the pastry lightly into the edges of the tin and cut off excess pastry around the sides, although leave some on as the pastry might shrink back whilst baking. Now cover with a small layer of greaseproof paper and then pour baking beans on top. Now bake the pastry for 15 minutes, remove the beans and paper and bake for a further 5 minutes. Then take out and cut off the excess pastry from the sides.

Remember you should still be stirring the onions at this point.  Turn the hob off when you think they are done. They will be heated again in the oven but this is unlikely to cook them anymore so make sure that they are completely cooked before turning the heat off. 

In a jug measure out the milk, add the eggs and then whisk until completely combined. Now all that was left was to add the filling. I covered the bottom of the tart with the onion and then crumbled the goat's cheese on top before filling the tart case half up with some of the egg mixture. Then transfer (on a tray to avoid spilling) to the oven before pouring in the rest of the mixture or until the case is full. 

Now bake the quiche for 25 minutes, checking that the centre is completely cooked (not liquidy) before taking out of the oven. At this point I struggled to get the tart out of the tin, but with a lot of perseverance and a sharp knife I eventually managed to get it out. I served it with new potatoes and salad and was given a thumbs up from the family!

The Great British Bake Off Week Four - Baked Alaska

Well, what a show week four brought. After all of the drama of Iain, Diana and the 'bincident' there was only one bake that I could choose to feature this week... baked alaska! Let's hope I manage to keep my cool better than Iain.

Ingredients
5oz margarine
6½oz caster sugar
1½oz cocoa powder
2oz self raising flour
mini marshmallows
2 eggs
vanilla ice cream

For the meringue
2 egg whites
4oz caster sugar

To start with you have to make the cake base. I decided chocolate brownie would make a nice sturdy and tasty base. I used a simple recipe which involved combining the margarine, sugar, cocoa powder, flour and eggs together in a large bowl, sifting the cocoa and flour first to avoid lumps. When mixed thoroughly, stir in the marshmallows and then pour into a round cake tin. Preheat the oven to 180°C and then bake the brownie mixture for approximately 40 minutes, checking after 30 minutes as you don't want to over bake it.

Once baked, leave to completely cool before going on to the next stage as you don't want your ice cream to melt before you've even had a chance to put the meringue on! At this point I decided to make my cake base smaller by cutting round a smaller bowl as I had less people available to feed. During this time you can also prepare your meringue. Separate the egg whites of 2 eggs into a bowl and whisk with an electric mixer until fluffy. Then gradually add the sugar whilst still whisking to make a stiff, glossy mixture.

When your cake is cold, transfer it to a lined baking tray. Now scoop ice cream in a mound on top, leaving a border of cake around it so that it doesn't leak. Unlike on GBBO, I chose not to make my own ice cream. Attempting to make baked alaska for the first time is hard enough, I think I'll leave making my own ice cream for another day! Now completely cover the ice cream and cake with your meringue, making sure that there are no gaps. This is where the problems with my meringue started to become apparent. I'd either under or over whisked my egg whites meaning that the mixture didn't stay put and definitely wasn't mouldable, meaning that I couldn't create decorative swirls on the meringue top like I'd planned.

It's now time to bake. This part worries me because... hello... there's ice cream in there! Put your alaska in the oven for around 7 minutes, just enough to cook the meringue but not melt the ice cream. My problems went further downhill from here. During the baking, the liquid meringue slid off the top, exposing my ice cream which subsequently started to melt. In the end I made an executive decision to take the bake out of the oven to try and salvage what was left of the ice cream before that melted too! As you can see what was left was a meringue-y, creamy mess! And it tasted as such, although the brownie base was delicious if I do say so myself.

So what did I learn from this recipe? Baking something for the first time doesn't mean that it will be a success, make sure that my meringue texture is perfect before baking and most importantly... keeping your cool and not throwing a ruined bake in the bin means you can still eat the unspoiled parts like the brownie. Sorry Iain!

Next week is pie/tart week. Fingers crossed I'm more successful next time.

The Great British Bake Off Week Three - Monkey Bread

So it was bread week on GBBO with a few soggy bottoms, stern looks from both Mary and Paul, and plenty of scrummy looking bready bakes you could almost smell through the screen. Instead of choosing one of the bakes featured on the show I've decided to have a go at a recipe I found in the GBBO How To Bake recipe book called Monkey Bread. It says 'easy for kids' at the top so I shouldn't have a problem!

Ingredients

• 500g strong white flour
• 1½ teaspoons crushed sea salt
• 7g of fast-action dried yeast
• 150g melted unsalted butter
• 200ml lukewarm milk
• 1 room temperature egg
• 150g grated mature cheese
• ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes

First I started by putting the flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl and then made a well in the centre. Then I melted 50g of the butter and mixed in with the milk and egg before pouring into the well. Then using my hands I mixed it all together to make a smooth dough. I actually had to use wholemeal flour as that's what I had in the cupboard and I think this made the dough quite flaky. To help it stick together I did have to keep adding a bit more milk until I was happy. If your dough is too wet or sticky, you can add more flour as well.

Now turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for approximately 10 minutes. This is always the part that I fall down on as my arms get tired or I don't do it for as long as needed which means that my bread normally isn't as light as it could be. After kneading the dough, I put it back into the bowl and covered it with cling film before leaving it to prove for about an hour. To prove, the dough needs to be left in a warm place in order for it to rise to about double the size, which is quite hard in my house because it's so cold. This meant that my dough only rose slightly which could result in a tougher or heavier loaf.

The next stage is where this recipe starts to be a little bit different. After I'd collected my proved dough, I tipped it back out onto the kitchen counter and, using scissors, cut into roughly 60 pieces. Then I rolled them in between my hands to make them into round balls, although it didn't matter that some were larger than others. Now melt the rest of the butter in one bowl and put the grated cheese and chilli flakes in another.

This is now the fun/messy part so would be great to do with kids. Take each dough ball in turn and dip it into the melted butter then cheese mixture before placing into your prepared bread tin. I used a silicon loaf tin so that no greasing was needed. Try to place the balls in evenly to make your loaf look more appealing when turning it out. About half way through I noticed that the melted butter was starting to collect in my cheese bowl, making it harder to get the cheese to stick onto the dough balls. At this point I then started to stick the cheese on using my hands and then even just sprinkled it on top of the dough balls once in the loaf tin. I felt that it was ok to improvise at this point, just make sure that you get the toppings evenly spread out!

Once you've finished that part, put the filled loaf tin into a plastic bag and then put back into your warm room or cupboard for another hour's proving. Near the end of the proving time you might want to start preheating your oven (200˚C) so that you can start baking straight away. When I collected my bread I noticed that it actually hadn't risen any more than before but luckily didn't feel heavy when I picked it up so I was still quite hopeful that it wasn't a complete disaster! I then baked it for about 35 minutes, covering with tin foil after 25 minutes as the top had started to get quite dark.

When done, take out of the oven and leave to cool. Then turn out onto a decorative plate and slice ready to serve. My bread was still warm when I was ready to serve so was delicious with some butter spread on top which then melted.

Jordan, the somewhat maverick on GBBO this year, was the baker kicked off this week but I'd like to think that the judges would admire my choice of an unknown recipe for this blog entry.

Don't forget to come back next week to see what I've attempted next...

The Great British Bake Off Week Two - Florentines

After the fifth series started with a bang (or an explosion of chocolate cakes, sorry Claire) last week, it was a long 7 days wait for the next episode. But at the end of that wait we were generously rewarded with lots of delicious recipes, amazing 3D sculptures and a controversial incident regarding some shop-bought icing during biscuit week.

Continuing my trial of a different recipe each week, I've chosen this week's technical challenge of my family's favourite biscuit to enjoy with a cup of tea at grandma's house... florentines. Many of the bakers were a bit stumped with this one and I'll admit that although I've eaten them many a time I've never actually baked them before this week. I used Mary Berry's Florentine recipe, surely you can't go wrong following Bezza's instructions... let's hope! 

Ingredients

• 50g butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g golden syrup
• 50g plain flour
• 25g glacé cherries
• 50g candied peel
• 25g almonds
• 25g walnut pieces
• 200g plain chocolate

Start by preheating your oven to 180˚C and lining 2 or 3 trays with greaseproof paper. Measure out the butter, sugar and golden syrup into a saucepan and lightly heat on the hob until the butter has completely melted, stirring occasionally. When melted, turn the hob off and stir in the flour and chopped cherries, peel, almonds and walnuts. It can be your choice how finely to chop the ingredients as this will determine the texture of your florentines (FYI I opted to chop mine quite finely to create a more gooey biscuit).

Once your ingredients have been combined, you are ready to spoon out your mixture. This was one area I, as did some of the bakers on this week's show, fell down. As I was rushing, I didn't measure out my mixture, ending up with some florentines larger than others. This didn't bother me too much but if you want uniformed biscuits you should get 18 equal sized florentines from this recipe. So once you have decided on quantity, spoon your mixture onto your prepared trays and then flatten into an appealing circular shape. It is important to note that you have to leave quite a lot of space between each biscuit as they do spread out a lot during baking.

Bake for approximately 8 minutes or until the outsides start to go a darker brown. If you want an even colouring I would suggest baking each tray one at a time so that they are on the same shelf. Now leave them to cool on the tray (don't try to remove them from the tray to a cooling rack as they remain soft whilst still warm) before transferring them to a plate or rack ready for decorating.

The traditional decoration for florentines is a covering of zigzagged dark chocolate on the bottom of each biscuit, unlike what some of the bakers provided this week on GBBO. Again because I was rushing, this part didn't work out exactly to plan as I completely melted all of the chocolate and then immediately spread onto my biscuits, making it almost impossible to create a nice zigzag. As Mary suggests, you should temper the chocolate (melt half then add the rest before leaving to cool slightly) before spreading onto your florentines and next time that's exactly what I will do as the zigzag does give it a lovely finish.

And that's it. I'll admit it was a much simpler recipe than I was expecting. I still need to see if they get my grandma's approval for the next family afternoon tea but so far they've had the thumbs up from myself and my mum! Let me know if you've had a go at making Mary's florentines or any of the other recipes from this week.

Next week, bread week!

Great British Bake Off Week One - Swiss Roll

Property of thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk

Hoorah, the Great British Bake Off finally made it's long-awaited return to our screens this week. With plenty of yummy bakes, eyebrow-raising innuendos and hilarious Mel and Sue one-liners, it did not disappoint! To celebrate, each week I will be choosing one of their bakes to have my own go at, hopefully learning from the bakers' mistakes and trying out their techniques. This week, swiss rolls.

I found a recipe on the BBC Food website and couldn't believe how simple it seemed, surely it couldn't be that easy! Let's find out:

Ingredients

• 3 free range eggs
• 75g self raising flour
• 75g caster sugar
• raspberry jam
• a small pot of whipping cream
• a handful of raspberries
• icing sugar for dusting

Start by whisking the eggs and sugar in a bowl. I first mixed them together with a wooden spoon to make a smooth paste before whisking but I'm not sure if that made a huge difference. Then I used an electric whisk until it became light and frothy. After, I sifted then folded in the flour, being careful not to beat out all of the air my whisking helped create.

This is the point where I thought it would be great to try the pattern-making idea shown by a few of the bakers on this week's show. I put a bit of the mixture into a small bowl and then added some food colouring (pink in my case) and then after greasing and lining a shallow tray, used a spoon to make flower designs. The cake mixture was quite fluid so I would recommend adding more flour to this coloured mixture as mine started to run into each other. 

Now put the tray in the freezer, being careful that the tray stays flat whilst you carry it over as a few of my flower designs started to run at this point. I wasn't sure how long to freeze the pattern for so used preheating the oven (200°C) as a timer. Once the oven was ready I retrieved my tray from the freezer and noticed that my patterns were starting to melt quite quickly so I would recommend freezing your designs for longer, possibly 30 minutes. I panicked slightly at this point so poured all of my cake mixture into the tray to try to get it into the oven as quickly as possible. This then created more problems as I had to tilt the tray to get the mixture to cover it evenly, which in turn obviously smudging my flower designs too. So what you should actually do is spoon the mixture on to ensure that you get an even covering without having to tilt it. This should make sure that your designs do not distort.

Bake the cake for just over 7 minutes, it really doesn't take long as it's so thin so don't forget about it! Once baked, leave to cool slightly for a couple of minutes and then lift the cake and greaseproof paper onto a board. Now's another chance to try out the GBBO bakers' techniques. Whilst it's still warm, roll the cake still on the greaseproof paper and then use a rubber-band to secure it in place. Leave it in this shape until cool, I actually left mine overnight but you could leave yours for an hour if you wanted to eat it on the same day. 

Whilst waiting for it to cool, whip your cream using an electric whisk until it holds its shape and chop your raspberries ready to fill. Once cool, unroll your cake and spread with a layer of raspberry jam, then whipped cream and finally with chopped raspberries. As you can see, I made the mistake of filling mine too closely to the sides, which resulted in it oozing out of the front so be quite sparing with your toppings.

Once you have filled it, carefully roll the cake up to create your swiss roll, finishing with a sprinkling of icing sugar before serving.

So that's my attempt at a swiss roll. I'm not sure how it compares to the bakers' attempts on this week's Great British Bake Off, nor what Mary or Paul would make of it but it seemed to get a thumbs up from my family! Did you have a go at making a swiss roll this week too? Let me know how you got on and if you have any of your own tips for me.

Next week the bakers will be attempting biscuit-making to check back here to see what I've come up with...