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!