Spiced apple and raisin croustade

Week 37, Bake 37.

So this week I have been back at my lovely job and it has been the first week back at school for all the kids. The good news I received this week was that on Monday I will be now working 4 days a week! Which of course is really exciting and so I didn't do my bake on Wednesday as I decided to enjoy my last Wednesday off (till half term!) and I went back to Stourhead. I can now say that I am well and truly in love with Somerset. As one of my favourite old books says: "There is probable no English county so underrated as Somerset. All too seldom does one hear it mentioned as one of the great beauty spots of the West... Certainly there is more scenic variety to be found in Somerset than in any other part of the West - moorland, hilscape, romantic coastal reaches, coombes, woodlands, flats all are here." (Lovely Britain, P.E. Barnes)

Anyway enough of my dreamy talk about a beautiful county, here is this weeks bake. I have never made filo pastry before and doubt I will do again, but it was a technical challenge which I tried and didn't fail at.
Ingredients:

• 300g of strong white bread flour
• pinch of salt
• 30g of unsalted butter (melted)
• 150ml of water
• 1 egg
• 6 cooking apples
• 50g of unsalted butter
• 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon
• 75g of raisins
• 2 tablespoons of honey (runny)
• 100g of brown sugar
• Icing sugar to dust

Method:

1. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the centre.
   
2. Mix the water, egg and butter in a jug and beat it together. Now pour it into the well and using your hands bring the sticky dough together and knead it in the bowl until it comes away from the sides easily.
3. Now turn it out onto a floured work surface and work until the dough comes away from your hands. Then knead it like you would if you were making bread. You really want the gluten to get stretched. Once it is smooth and elasticated, cover and let it rest on the work surface for 15-30 minutes.
   
4. Meanwhile, peel and core the apples then pop them into a frying pan with some melted butter. On a low heat let them soften.
   
5. Now add in the raisins, cinnamon, honey and sugar and wack up the heat so that the sugar melts and starts to caramelise.
6. Don't let the apples break up too much and once soft and slightly sticky, remove from the heat and allow to cool.
   
7. Now it is the hard part, stretching out the pastry. You will want the pastry to measure 80x80cm stretched out in one sheet. I did this on my dining room table and used a bed sheet to make sure it didn't stick to the table or dry out. I think you could also use your table covered in cling film as this may give you some grip. Stretch out the dough with your hands then when it becomes too big, lay it on the table and continue stretching it out. I used melted butter and a pastry knife to make sure it didn't dry out.
   
8. Pre-heat the oven to 190c.
   
9. Once at the correct size cover with cling film to make sure it doesn't dry out and then cut a section of the pastry (20x40cm) to work with. Brush the melted butter on both sides them place it into the tin (a 23cm spring form tin) with the edges over hanging. Do with 5 more times making sure the whole of the tin is covered.
   
10. Now once there are 6 rectangles in the tin, spoon in your apple mixture. The fold the sides of the pastry over to cover the top. Use any left over pastry to decorate the top and then glaze the pastry with more melted butter and some brown sugar.
    
11. Bake for 30 minutes until golden and crisp.
    
12. Dust a bit of icing sugar on top and serve with fresh cream.
    

Scrabble Cookies

Week 36, Bake 36.

This week I decided I would have a go at enhancing my icing skills especially as this week I have gone 'back to school' (even though it was a training week). So here is my scrabble cookies, I am quite chuffed them especially as I didn't have a square cutter.

Ingredients:

• 380g of plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 225g of salted butter (soft)
• 200g of caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• Icing sugar
• Black food colouring

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170.
   
2. In a bowl sift the flour and mix with the baking powder.
3. Now in a separate bowl beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the vanilla essence and the beaten egg a little at a time. Keep beating until it is incorporated.
5. Beat in the flour mixture a little at a time, when it gets hard to beat bring the dough together with your hands.
6. Dust a surface with flour and roll out the dough, until it is about 1cm thick.
   
7. Dust your cutter with flour (I used a knife and cut out square with it).
   
8. Place the squares on baking parchment and pop in the freezer for 5 minutes to harden up.
   
9. Now cook for 8-10 minutes (or until the biscuits have just a little colour).
   
10. Leave on the baking tray for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
11. Now make your 1st lot of icing. Mix a little water and icing sugar together until you get a tick icing which you can pipe. Once the cookies are cool, pipe a square on the top of the cookies.
    
12. Do this to all of them, now add some more water to the icing just enough so it gets loose and can fill a square. Use a toothpick to drag the icing round all sides of the square until it is full. Leave to dry for an hour.
    
13. Now make the black icing, I added the colouring and a very small amount of water to get the right consistency, it has to be thick enough to pipe with a nozzle.
    
14. Pipe the letters on with a bigger nozzle and then the numbers on with your smallest nozzle.

Banana and Nutella Brioche

Week 35, Bake 35.

This week is my last week at my parents B&B until I head back to Somerset and my lovely job. And its been rather hot... Still even though the heat is annoying my mind hasn't stopped thinking about bake ideas, it is fair to say that I am rather obsessed now by baking. When I was 14 years old and was thinking about becoming a chef, I used to bake me and my mum a Nutella and Banana bread which was lovely, but since deciding that I wanted to become a Speech and Language Therapist instead that recipe has fallen by the wayside. So as this is my year of baking I decided to create a new one using a brioche recipe from The Great British Bake Off book. At this stage I should say that Brioche dough is a funny one and so I did spend a lot of my morning getting grumpy at it, but thankfully it turned out great.

Ingredients:

• 375g of strong white bread flour
• 1 teaspoon of sea salt
• 1 tablespoon of caster sugar
• 1 x 7g sachet of fast action dried yeast
• 4 tablespoons of milk
• 4 large eggs
• 175g of diced butter
• 1 banana
• 2 tablespoons of nutella
• 1 egg beaten to glaze.
  

Ingredients:

1. Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a bowl and mix together.
2. Make a well and pour the milk into it and add the eggs.
   
3. Now, using your hands mix all the ingredients well together until you get a sticky dough.
4. Turn out onto a floured worktop and knead for 10 minutes. The dough will be very sticky so be prepared to use a lot of flour but there is a delicate balancing act as you don't want to use too much and then the dough become dry.
5. Knead until it is elasticated and becomes smooth.
   
6. Now, pop it back into the bowl, place some loose oiled cling film over the top and let it rise. Put it in the fridge to do so as you want a slow rise and let it double in size for 1-2 hours.
   
7. Punch the dough down, re-cover and then let it rise again for another hour.
8. Make the nutella-banana filling by mushing up the banana and nutella together.
9. Line a loaf tin.
10. Roll out the dough to just bigger in width than your loaf tin and then smear the Nutella mixture around the dough leaving about a 2cm edge free.
    
11. Like you would do with a Swiss roll, roll the brioche up and then place it into the tin so the seam faces the bottom of the tin.
    
12. Now let it once again double in size, but this time not in the fridge. This should take an hour.
    
13. Pre-heat the oven to 200c. Once it is ready, cook in the oven for 20 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 180c and cook for a further 10 minutes.
    
14. Remove from the oven and tin. Tap its bottom to see if it has a hollow sound, if it does then it is done.
    
15. Serve warm.

Meringue.

Week 34, Bake 34.

Well this has been a nice week, mainly because The Great British Bake Off is on our screens again! On Tuesday, my mum, dad and I all sat round the TV and ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the cakes, gasped at the mistakes and drank our tea (as we always do in this house, we are british!). Anyway, this weeks bake was for my mum, she wanted a meringue and had seen a black Forrest meringue in The Great British Bake Off's new book. I don't particularly like cherries and so I decided to create my own meringue idea at the same time. And so this weeks bake is Black Forrest Meringue and Strawberry Meringue with a Pimms Chantilly Cream.

On a side note I have decided that I will not try to loose weight this year... I figure whatever exercise I do, it will just be contradicted by the amount of bakes I am eating so next year I will try to loose weight... I promise! (Oh, and Pimms cream does taste as amazing as it sounds!)

Ingredients:

• 4 large egg whites
• 225g of caster sugar

For the Black forest meringue:

• Cherries
• 200ml of double cream
• 100g of dark chocolate (70% solids)
• 2 tablespoons of icing sugar
• Coco powder

For the strawberry Pimms Chantilly cream:

• Strawberries
• 50ml of Pimms
• 2 tablespoons of caster sugar
• Zest of one orange
• 275ml of double cream
• 1 passion fruit

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 110c. Draw on a baking sheet circles (far apart) about 8cm diameter. Turn the sheet over.
2. In a clean bowl mix the egg whites together until you get stiff peeks.
3. Now add in the caster sugar and whisk until soft peeks form.
4. Using a piping bag and a nuzzle (wide star shaped) to pipe from the centre outwards the meringue into the circle, then to create the nest pipe once round the outside of the circle on top.
5. Bake for 2 hours, then leave in the oven to cool down with the oven temperature.
6. Now for the black forest meringues: melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan full of water. Once the meringues are cool, paint the centre of them (using a pastry brush) with the melted chocolate and cool in the fridge. Use the rest of the melted chocolate to spread onto a piece of baking parchment and allow to cool to create the shards. Whisk the icing sugar and cream together, then stone the cherries and chop half of them. Put the chopped half into the cream and mix in, then put a good dollop of the cream onto the centre of the meringue, place the other half of the cherries on top to decorate. Once the chocolate is cool you will be able to break it to create shards of chocolate and place these on top. Finally dust the meringues with coco powder and a cherry whole.
7. And for the Pimms meringue: mix the Pimms, sugar and orange zest together. Now add this mixture to the cream and whisk until whipped. Chop the strawberries and remove their hull's. Dice enough to add to the cream mixture and leave a few for decoration. Pipe the strawberry cream into the meringue nests and decorate with passion fruit and the remaining strawberries.
8. Enjoy. Warning this recipe is alcoholic....

Onion Marmalade Sausage Rolls

Week 33, Bake 33.

This weeks bake did not go as well as planned. Firstly, it was clearly too hot to make puff pastry well and secondly I did not have enough time to complete it to the standard I wanted to get to. And yet, even though the pastry was a bit dry, the taste was lovely, so I can't fully write off this recipe... next time I will just have to do it on a cooler day.

Ingredients:

• 250g of plain flour
• 250g of unsalted butter
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 125ml of ice cold water
• 400g of sausage meat
• 2 tablespoons of Worcester sauce
• 2 small hand fulls of sage and thyme
• onion marmalade (recipe can be found here)
• Egg for glazing
• Sage leaves for decorating

Method:

1. On a clean surface, make a well in the flour and cut up the cold cubed butter. Add in the salt and now using your hands bring the flour and butter together until some of the butter is mixed in but you can still see blobs of it.
2. Make sure you don't get it too hot.
3. Now mix in the cold water (this is where I went wrong, my butter melted too much and so the pastry was moist so I didn't add in the water... this resulted in a dry pastry... be awear).
4. Roll it into a ball then pop in the fridge for 20 minutes.
5. Now take it out of the fridge and roll it out and do two 'turns'.
6. Pop back in the fridge for a further 30 minutes and then do the same again. By now you will have four turns.
7. Return to the fridge and rest for another 30 minutes.
8. Meanwhile create the sausage mixture. In a bowl add the sausage meat, chopped herbs, Worcester sauce and a pinch of salt and mix using a fork.
9. Pre-heat the oven to 200c.
10. Once the pastry is ready, roll it out into two long rectangles and cut in half length ways. Making sure that the width is wide enough to allow the sausage meat in (another aspect I failed in).
11. Now spread the onion marmalade along the middle of the pastry then on top add the sausage meat in a long strip.
12. Beat an egg and brush it along the sides of the pastry then fold one side over to the other.
13. Using a fork crimp the edges together.
14. Chop into the size desired, glaze with an egg and pop a sage leaf on top.
15. Do the same with the other rectangle.
16. Cook for 20 minutes then serve warm.

Hopefully next weeks bake will go better, but on the plus side I now know how to spell sausage (I am quite dyslexic).

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.

Eton Mess Cake

Week 31, Bake 31.

Summer has finally come to England, and it has hit us hard. After weeks of rain we are 'enjoying' 30 degree heat, lovely! And so to celebrate the sun (and I guess the Olympics) I decided to bake an Eton Mess cake. I had thought about doing it for Wimbledon, but I realised if I did it then, I would be eating it by myself... and with the amount of cream and sugar in it I would be feeling guilty for the rest of the year!

Ingredients:

• 200g of softened unsalted butter
• 200g of caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 250g of self-raising flour
• 6 tablespoons of milk
• 2 large egg whites
• 100g of caster sugar
• 1 punnet of strawberries
• 250ml of double cream
• 1 passion fruit

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160c.
2. Beat the softened butter in a large bowl and add the caster sugar then beat until light and fluffy.
3. In a jug, beat the eggs together, then slowly add them into the butter sugar mixture whilst beating.
4. Make sure it doesn't curdle, if it does add in a tablespoon of the flour.
5. Once all the egg is incorporated, add the vanilla essence and mix.
6. Sift your flour and using a metal spoon fold it into the cake mixture.
7. Mix in the milk.
8. Line two sandwich cake tins and greece them. Divide the mixture between the two and put to one side.
9. Now in a separate clean bowl, beat the two egg whites together until stiff peeks are formed.
10. Pour in the caster sugar and then whisk once again until soft peeks are formed and the eggs are glossy.
11. Now divide the meringue between the two cake tins, leaving 2cm rim round the side.
12. Cook for 35-4o minutes.
13. Carefully turn them out to cool whilst you take the hulls out of the strawberries and slice them.
14. Whip your cream.
15. Now assemble the cake: Place one of the sponges on a plate, spread the whipped cream over the meringue, place your strawberries on top of this and then put the other sponge onto of it.
16. Now do a big dollop of the cream on top then place any remaining strawberries onto this to hide the cream.
17. Slice a passion fruit and spoon out its insides. Gently spoon them over the cake and that's it your done!
18. Remember all the cream, so keep it refrigerated. And enjoy!!!