Pastry Swans

Week 32, Bake 32.

I think I'm becoming a bit of a baking nerd. Always looking for new recipes, constantly dreaming up new bakes and buy new books. Which would explain why I was getting in quite a huff this morning whilst waiting for my new book (The Great British Bake Off's new book) to be delivered. As the minutes ticked by I was (I admit it) getting rather grumpy. And so by two o clock when I saw the delivery van pull up I bounced my way to the door, ripped open the packaging and sat there eagerly flipping though the book. And so in doing this I realised that after 32 weeks I am truly a baking geek.

So here is a recipe from the book with a twist from me. Pastry Swans swimming on a blueberry sauce.

Ingredients:

• 100g of plain flour
• 75g of salted butter
• 3 eggs
• Strawberries
• 250ml of double cream
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 2 tablespoons of sifted icing sugar (for the cream)
• 2 tablespoons of sifted icing sugar (for the blueberry sauce)
• 1 large handful of blueberries

Method:

1. First make the choux pastry. To do this, sift the plain flour onto a piece of greaseproof paper.
2. Then in a saucepan put the butter and 175ml of warm water. Melt the butter on a low heat.
3. Once it is all melted, quickly bring it up to the boil and then pour the flour in.
4. Now remove it from the heat and beat it. At first it will look crap, but keep at it and it will soon come together into a dough.
5. Put it back on the heat and cook it for another couple of minutes, still beating it but less hard.
6. Now remove from the heat and put in a mixing bowl to cool.
7. This will take a few minutes so have a cuppa and pre-heat the oven to 200c.
8. Now beat three eggs in a jug.
9. Using an electric mixer gradually beat the eggs into the dough, don't do it all at once and again it will look a mess but it will get better. Don't add all of the eggs, you want the mixture to just fall off a spoon when shaken.
10. Using a 6mm piping nozzle pipe 9cm long /s/ shapes (make 12) onto a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.
11. Remove from the oven and cool until you need to use them on a cooling rack.
12. Using two spoons make 8cm long blobs on your baking sheet (approx 4cm wide) and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
13. Then open the oven door to let the steam out and turn it down to 180c.
14. Cook for a further 5 minutes. Then make a hole in the side of each puff and bake for another 5 minutes until they are dry.
15. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.
16. Meanwhile make the blueberry sauce by putting the blueberries in a pan with a splash of water and squash all the berries. Now cook for about 5 minutes until it has slightly thickened and then add the icing sugar. Cook for a further few minutes then, remove from the heat and strain the blueberries using a sieve.
17. Now make the cream, whip the cream, add the vanilla essence and the icing sugar and whip again.
18. It is now time to assemble everything.
19. Cut a puff in half, then cut the top in half to make the wings (much like a butterfly cake).
20. Pipe the cream into the bottom of the swan, cut a strawberry into slices and lay them on top of the cream. Put one of your swan necks into the base and the pipe some more cream onto. Place your wings on and you have done your swan.
21. Now using a saucer, make a pool of the blueberry sauce and place your swan in the centre.
22. Enjoy with a cuppa.