Cola Gingerbread Men for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

My oh my, baking has been even more lacking.  Work is hard and distressing right now and not looking to get better any time soon, hence the sheer amount of not posting there has been.  Sorry.  But you don't want to hear about that, you're here for cookies!  Specifically, for cookie swap cookies!

I stumbled across the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap last year, after it had closed.  I was really disappointed as it looked like such fun!  So of course I immediately added myself to the mailing list so I would not miss out next time.

It wasn't until mid October that I began to wonder about whether or not the swap had opened up again.  I hadn't received any email saying so.  Some investigation revealed that yes, it had opened up, and that my email had ended up in the Junk folder.  A good thing I checked or I'd be sitting out this year too!  So I got signed up and then began plotting.

The idea for the cookies came from a book I was reading.  In the story one of the characters is a chocolatier but at one point it mentioned cola gingerbread.  Well, I was intrigued.  What an interesting idea and rather ideal for a festive gift.  Gingerbread is very Christmassy, as far as I'm concerned.  The cola is an added bonus as I have always felt that the Coca-Cola advert with the trucks and the song and the lights is the first sign that it is almost Christmas!  I don't care about what's on sale as soon as Hallowe'en finishes, it's not the festive season until Coca-Cola announces that the holidays are coming!

Anyway, I ended up having to experiment with this recipe for a couple of weeks as there was not an existing recipe for cola gingerbread cookies (that I could find).  So I was having to tamper with an existing recipe.  For my initial batches the shape held up but they caught very easily and the cola flavour was rather too subtle.  So I had to increase the amount of syrup to improve the flavour.  Unfortunately that meant the cookies spread.  Not such a big deal really, except that it meant I couldn't do my original idea for the final look.  Based on something I had seen on Pinterest, I wanted to have my gingerbread men hugging their cola bottles.  This was also part of the experimentation.  It worked well in the early batches but wouldn't in the later ones.  Flavour trumps aesthetics though for me so I just went with the spreading batches and used icing to attach the cola bottles to my little men.  Not quite as lovely but still rather cute.  The only other problem this caused was that packaging the little guys was a bit of a curfuffle as some of the bottles would come away from the hands.  I managed it in the end though and it seems they arrived fairly intact at their various destinations! 

And once my own cookies were away, the ones from the lovely bloggers who got me in the swap started arriving!  It was kinda fun to get mystery boxes of cookies.  I didn't eat any until the weekend though since the Hubby and I decided to pack them all up and take them to Glasgow with us as we were away for a shopping weekend.  You can see them in all their delicious glory in the pictures below.  From top to bottom: Cranberry, White Chocolate and Sea Salt cookies from Ellie of RovingLights; Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies from Kirsty of Ever So Sweet; and Oat and Maple Syrup Biscotti from Tina of The Worktop.  Thank you so much, ladies.  These were scrumptious and the Hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed them!

I am hoping my swapees liked their cookies just as much.  I can tell you that we certainly enjoyed eating the spares.  I'm not much of a fan of gingerbread and even I was scoffing them without thinking.  They're a slightly soft cookie which are not too hot.  The ginger and cola mix nicely, especially when you eat the cola bottle with the cookie.  Yum yum!

Recipe - adapted from Home Baking Biscuits and Cookies
Makes 36

• 350g/12oz plain flour
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 100g/3.5oz butter
• 175g/6oz light brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 tbsp cola syrup
• 2 tbsp golden syrup 
• Decorative sugar balls
• 36 cola bottle sweets
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• Cold water

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a few baking trays with greaseproof paper. 
2. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger together in a bowl.
3. Add the butter in pieces and then rub into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
4. Stir in the sugar and then make a well in the centre.
5. Add the egg yolk, cola syrup and golden syrup and mix together.
6. Knead into a smooth dough.
7. Sprinkle a clean surface with flour and roll out the dough to about 5mm/0.25inches thick.
8. Cut out gingerbread men with a 10cm/4inch cutter.
9. Space out well on the tray as these cookies spread.  Create eyes and buttons by pushing the sugar balls into the dough.
10. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown.
11. Remove and allow to rest on the tray for a minute before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
12. Once cool, mix the icing sugar with a little water to get a fairly thick icing.
13. Place a blob of icing on one of the hands of each of the gingerbread men and stick a cola bottle sweet to the blob.  Leave to set.

Baked Chocolate and Pumpkin Doughnuts

Voting has opened for the UK Blog Awards and Becca's Baking Blog is a contender.  If you could spare a vote, that would e greatly appreciated!  Just click here to do so! Thank you!

Have I mentioned work is back in swing?  Because it is.  Last week there were three consecutive parents nights to do! That, on top of an already hectic schedule and a cold that had resurfaced with a vengeance, meant that I was completely shattered when Friday finally came to a close.  I slept most of Friday evening and the majority of Saturday.  Luckily this seems to have helped deal with the cold.  That or the Hubby has caught it.  Either way, I am on the mend and the week ahead is less hectic as half of it is inservice days with no teaching (just courses).  Admittedly, there is an observed lesson to do today but that should not be too bad.  I hope.

Anyway, I am already missing my holidays so I feel like reminiscing about some of the fun I had this October break.  One such thing would be seeing my lovely Jess, who I had not hung out with since the wedding back in July!  Work made it hard to arrange things during term time so when my holidays came I jumped on the chance for a jaunt with my Jess.  Hence we went off to Edinburgh for lunch, shopping and a catch-up.  Lunch was lovely, though I lament the fact that the Pizza Hut has disappeared from the Omni Centre!  We enjoyed our Frankie and Benny's though, despite our somewhat creepy waiter.  Shopping was such fun, finding pieces for Jess's Hallowe'en costume, though I spent way too much on baubles in John Lewis.  I have such a weakness for Christmas decorations!  And cuddly toys, since I also ended up with a Toothless plush from Build-A-Bear!  Such frivolity!  As for the catch-up, it was riddled with work related ills from both parties.  It was an unfortunately short jaunt due to the awkward train schedule on a Sunday but a fun one nonetheless.  I am very much looking forward to the next one at the end of this month.  We are going to see Wicked! along with Jess's other friend Ameera.  

Now, a jaunt would not be complete without me bringing some form of baked goods with me!  And, as usual, I wanted to try something different.  I admit, there's been a bit of a gap between making these and writing about them so I can't quite remember how I settled on chocolate and pumpkin doughnuts but I did and here they are!  I do know they started out as just pumpkin in the recipe and adding chocolate was my own idea.  Possibly because chocolate and pumpkin has been a successful combination before on this blog.  I may have also been in a bit of a festive mood a la Hallowe'en.  The glaze was supposed to be orange, it just doesn't show up against the dark doughnuts, and I spent ages separating out Hallowe'en coloured sprinkles from my pot to decorate with. 

Making these reminded me that I really should make doughnuts more often.  The baked sort often take no time at all, and these were no exception.  It is one of those mix together dry ingredients then add wet ingredients recipes and the bake time is very short!  I did have to make my own pumpkin pie spice, as that is not a thing over here in the UK, but even that is done in a couple of minutes and now I have a mini supply to hand in a cute magnetic spice tin (another acquisition from my Edinburgh jaunt of which I intend to get more of) ready for any other pumpkin bakes I make.  Really, the hardest bit was the separating out of all those sprinkles and that's just something I decided to do and is not essential to the recipe.  My Hallowe'en ones did not arrive in time.  Hence why the sprinkles here are a bit sparse.  If I'd just had the colours I needed, these doughnuts would have a generous layer of sprinkles on top.  Alas, maybe next time?

Pumpkin Pie Spice - adapted from Betty Crocker

• 3 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp nutmeg
• 1.5 tsp all spice
• 1.5 tsp ground cloves

1. Combine all spices together.  That's it!  So easy.

Recipe - inspired by RainbowJewels via AllRecipes.com
Makes 6

Doughnuts:

• 100g/3.5oz plain flour 
• 30g/1oz cocoa powder
• 55g/2oz brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (see above)
• 1 egg
• 120g/4.5oz pumpkin purée
•  30g/1oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 2 tbsp milk

Glaze:

• 100g/3.5oz icing sugar
• 1 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 30g/1oz butter, melted
• Sprinkles to decorate

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3 and grease a six cavity doughnut pan with butter.
2. Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt, bicarbonate of soda and pumpkin pie spice into a bowl and mix together.
3. Add the pumpkin purée, butter, egg and milk and beat until batter is smooth.
4. Spoon into doughnut pan, or pipe in using a piping bag fitted with a large round nozzle (the latter is much easier).
5. Bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes, or until doughnuts are springy to the touch. 
6. Leave in the tin and make the glaze by combining the icing sugar, melted butter, vanilla extract and water together in a bowl.
7. Dip the warm doughnuts in the glaze to coat the tops.  Shake off any excess.
8. Dip in sprinkles and then leave to set on a wire cooling rack.

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Sausage and Spinach Quiche

We have been needing a new fridge/freezer for a while now.  The one we had was in the flat when we moved in 2.5 years ago and it was not in the best shape.  Water always collected in the bottom of the fridge and sometimes it would freeze there.  Not so great for the vegetables.  Water would always be on the back wall too and if anything was too far back on the shelves it would get wet.  Kinda gross, no?  Then there was the freezer.  It frosted up so badly and didn't seem to be properly sealed.  Things were either too frozen or not frozen enough.  We would have replaced it ages ago if we'd been able to afford it.  Now, with a combination of wedding gifts and a decent salary we have finally been able to do it!  You have no idea how excited we were.  The Hubby and I can get a bit like that whenever we get anything big and new for our home.  We'll be so giddy when we can actually afford to put a deposit down on a house.

Anyway, the point of that little bit of exposition is that we had to clear out the old fridge/freezer the day before the new one came so it could be taken away.  To avoid having too much food to pack into a cool bag to go into the Hubby's Grandma's chest freezer, I thought I would use some of the things we had to make something.  And that something was a quiche.

What's this?  I hardly ever go savoury.  We all know I have a ridiculous sweet tooth (the number of fillings I have can testify to it).  And pastry?  I have a dislike of pastry.  Not when it comes to quiche though.  I'm actually rather fond of quiche, pastry and all, so I thought now was as good a time as any to try making one.  It would make for a nice lunch if it turned out well.  

My choice of filling was obviously influenced by what was in my freezer.  However, I decided regular old pork sausage was a little dull so opted to make them into Italian sausage.  This was something I had done a few weeks previously when making meatballs (and trying out my slow cooker for the first time).  The recipe I had been using then called for Italian sausage but I was unable to get a hold of it.  Luckily, in the vast pool of knowledge that is the internet, I stumbled across a DIY recipe for it over on Back to her Roots.  So easy to do and very delicious.  So I knew I wanted that in my quiche.  Also I love frozen spinach.  I am very picky about my veggies, disliking pretty much all of them.  Yet I know I need to eat them because they are good for me so I try to 'hide' them in my food like you would with a small child.  Chopped frozen spinach is great for this.  I can see it obviously, but there is no noticeable taste.  I mix it in to quite a few of my dinners to get some greens in me.  There are shallots in this quiche too, for a little extra veggie goodness.  I am very fond of shallots, especially as they are a good size and I can use just a couple to add some extra yummy flavour to a meal when a whole onion would be far too much.  Another note I will add is that there is no cream in this quiche.  Mainly because I forgot to buy any and didn't feel like going out to get some.  So it's just milk.  It worked perfectly well as a substitute.  

This quiche is delicious.  I was so pleased with how it turned out, given it was my first try and I was making bits of it up, and how yummy I found it to be.  I thoroughly enjoyed having it for my lunch.  Unfortunately it was too much for me to finish by myself (the Hubby is vegetarian) and some of it went to waste.  Next time I'll be sure to freeze some portions.  That was just a bit hard to do when we were waiting on a new freezer to be delivered this time!

Recipe - inspired by James Martin via BBC Food

Pastry:

• 170g/60z plain flour
• 75g/2.75oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• Cold water

Filling:

• 300g/10.5oz pork sausage (about 6 sausages)
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp dried rosemary
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp Knorr All Purpose Savoury seasoning (optional)
• 1 clove garlic
• 85g/3oz chopped shallots
• 115g/4oz frozen chopped spinach (thawed and drained)
• 100g/3.5oz cheddar cheese
• 3 large eggs
• 200ml/7fl.oz milk
• Salt and pepper for seasoning
• Parmesan for sprinkling

1. Start by making the pastry.  Sift the flour into a bowl.
2. Add the butter in pieces to the flour and rub in with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add enough cold water to the crumbs to bring them together into a firm dough.  Wrap the dough in clingfilm and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Grease an 23cm/9inch loose-bottomed tart tin with butter.
5. Roll out the pastry on a lightly floured surface and use it to line the prepared tin.  Do not trim off the edges and place in the fridge to chill again (about 20 minutes).  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5.
6. To make the filling, start by removing the sausage meat from its lining and putting it into a large bowl. 
7. Add the fennel seeds, basil, oregano, garlic powder, rosemary, pepper and savoury seasoning (if using) and mix well to combine.
8. Cook the meat in a frying pan with a little oil over a medium heat until it has just started to brown.
9. Add the shallots and spinach and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat.
10. Line the pastry base with greaseproof paper and fill with ceramic baking beads.  Bake the pastry case blind for 20 minutes.
11. Remove the beads and paper and bake for a further 5 minutes.
12. Grate the cheese and sprinkle over the base of the pastry.
13. Cover the cheese with the sausage filling, making sure to spread it evenly.
14. In a jug, combine the milk and eggs, season with a little salt and pepper and mix.
15. Pour into the pastry case until it is full. Sprinkle with grated parmesan.
16. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until set.  Once removed from the oven, leave in the tin to allow it to cool and set further.
17. Once cool, remove from tin and serve.  Store in the fridge for up to 4 days.  Can also be frozen.

Great British Bake Along: Povitica

This was the last thing I was able to do as part of my bake along challenge before I really started to struggle with finding time to do it.  As I have said before, I do hope to be able to go back to the ones I missed/failed miserably at *cough*custard tart*cough*, however, it's dependent on time and the fact I am likely to be distracted with seasonal baking (I have so many pumpkin bakes in mind, it is a bit ridiculous).  I may be able to combine a few challenges with said seasonal baking but we shall see.  So without further ado, let's get on with this Bake Along (for the time being).

Week 8 on the GBBO was Advanced Dough, where the bakers were working with enriched dough.  That means there is a higher percentage of fats, eggs, milk and sugars in the dough, usually resulting in something much richer and sweeter than your average dough.  Deviating from my usual process of attempting the signature challenge, I decided to take on the technical challenge for the week: povitica.  I had never heard of it before the episode but when I saw it, I thought it just looked so cool.  I really wanted to try it as I thought it would be the most challenging.  I also thought it would also make a nice bake to take into work to share.  Sealing the deal was the fact that I had been given the book for the series for my birthday by my brothers, so I had Paul Hollywood's recipe all ready and waiting for me to try.  Obviously, having the full recipe means I did not have as much trouble with this as the bakers did.  That's not to say I did not encounter problems, but I wasn't having to guess anything.  I will admit though, I tampered with the recipe ever so slightly.  I changed out some of the walnuts in the filling recipe for hazelnuts.  I was hoping for a more Nutella like flavour.

I had two issues when making this recipe; one was minor and one was major.  The minor issue came from the fact that the recipe requires a stand mixer with a dough hook to do all the hard work of making the dough.  I do not own such a thing for I can not afford it and even if I could, I have no where that I could keep it.  My lovely yellow kitchen is, unfortunately, quite small and we already struggle to store things (which is actually a problem with our flat in general).  It makes me a bit sad when things rely on mixers in recipes.  It makes things difficult for those of us who still have to do things the old fashioned way!  So I kinda had to muddle through making the dough by hand.  I mixed with a spoon and then kneaded the dough myself for a long time until I got the texture I assumed I was aiming for.

The major issue was the stretching.  You have to stretch the dough by hand after rolling it out to double the size!  It is not an easy feat.  Initially I did not use a bed sheet and had clingfilm covering my partially opened table instead.  Disaster.  The table wasn't big enough and everything stuck to itself.  After I extended the table further I found I could not rotate my dough to fit without it falling to pieces.  So I had a brief strop, where I scrunched it up and threw it down on the table, then went and got a bed sheet and started over.  I was concerned I would somehow ruin the dough by doing this but it didn't seem to have an adverse effect.  The sheet does make things easier but I still struggled with the stretching.  The blasted thing just kept tearing, a massive hole formed in the middle and I was unable to get it to the desired size.  So in the end I got it as big as I could, patched the hole and just went with what I had.  When writing up the recipe, I realised I had been using my hands the wrong way up, so that probably contributed to my problems somewhat but oh well, I know for next time.

Putting on the filling did not prove to be too much of a problem, and neither did rolling and shaping the loaf.  Really, after the stretching mess, everything else was pretty simple and I did end up with a pretty good looking povitica.  I was so pleased when I cut into it and could see all the spirals and that it was cooked all the way through, unlike most of the poor bakers' on GBBO.  I will say, once I tried it, it wasn't really my cup of tea.  But I'm fussy.  You all know that by now.  The lovely ladies I work with all seemed to enjoy it as once again it was eaten up rather fast.

Recipe - adapted from Great British Bake Off: Big Book of Baking


Dough:

• 300g/10oz plain flour
• 40g/1.5oz caster sugar
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tsp fast action dried yeast
• 30g/1oz melted butter
• 1 large egg
• 150ml/5.5fl.oz lukewarm milk
• 1/2 vanilla pod

Filling:

• 60g/2oz butter
• 4 tbsp milk
• 200g/7oz hazelnuts
• 80g/3oz walnut pieces
• 100g/3.5oz caster sugar
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 vanilla pod
• 1 egg yolk 

Assembly:

• 15g/0.5oz melted butter
• 1 egg white, beaten
• 100g/3.5oz icing sugar
• Cold water 

1. Put the flour and sugar into a large bowl.  Add the salt to one side and the dried yeast to the other.
2. Add in the butter, egg and milk, along with the seeds scraped from the inside of the vanilla pod.
3. Mix them the ingredients together until they start to form a dough, then knead with your hands until it is soft, smooth and stretchy.  (Much easier to do if you have a mixer fitted with a dough hook I'm sure.  Alas, I had to do it with a wooden spoon and my hands).
4. Give the bowl a light coating of oil, shape the dough into a ball and place inside.  Cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour, until the dough has doubled in size.
5. Whilst you wait, make the filling by putting the butter and milk into a small saucepan and melting gently together over a low heat.  Remove the butter from the heat.
6. In a food processor, combine the cocoa powder, sugar, walnuts, hazelnuts and seeds scraped from the vanilla pod.  Blitz into a sandy powder.  Some nut chunks are okay as it will add a nice texture.
7. Add the egg yolk and milk/butter mixture and pulse to combine.  Set aside.
8. Spread a clean bed sheet over a large work surface or table and dust with flour.
9. Roll out your dough into a rectangle that measures 30x50cm/12x19.5inches on the bed sheet.
10. Brush the surface of the dough with the melted butter.
11. Dust your hands with flour then ease them under the dough and carefully start stretching it out from the centre. (Paul Hollywood recommends doing this with your palms facing down so you are using the top of your hands).  It will become very thin and translucent (you should be able to see the sheet through it).  You are aiming for your rectangle to measure 60x100cm/24x39inches.
12. Spread the filling gently over the dough, taking care not to tear it. (If necessary, add a little warm milk to the mixture to loosen it up if it is difficult to spread).  Cover the dough as evenly as possible.
13. Prepare a 1kg loaf tin by greasing it with butter.
14. Starting at one long edge of the dough, gently roll over about an inch of dough to start your roll, then carefully lift the sheet to slowly roll the dough up tightly like a Swiss roll.
15. Carefully pick up the rolled dough and ease one end into the bottom corner of the prepared loaf tin.
16. Wrap the roll around the base of the tin in a U shape and then continue to lay the roll on top of itself to form a second U shape.
17. Place the tin inside a large plastic bag, seal and leave to prove for about an hour.  
18. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4.
19. Remove the tin from the plastic bag and give the top of the dough an egg wash with the beaten egg white.
20. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes before turning down the oven temperature to 150°C/300°F/Gas Mark 2 and baking for another 45 minutes. (Cover the top with foil if it starts to burn).
21.  Allow the loaf to cool in the tin for 30 minutes after removing from the oven.  Then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
22. When the loaf is completely cold, mix the icing sugar with a small amount of water to make a runny icing.  Drizzle the icing over the top of the loaf and leave to set.

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Great British Bake Along: Viennese Gugelhupf

I have to say, I am quite disappointed with myself.  My Bake Along challenge kinda fell apart after I started work.  It's been a tough eight weeks which I have been struggling to cope with.  Things have not been going as well as I would have liked.  It also wasn't helped by the fact I got into a car accident a few weeks back, which has had me too scared to drive a car since.  Consequently, commuting to and from work has become a longer process.  Now that it is the school holidays I am hoping to get back out in the car for some practise and to boost my confidence again.

Anyway, that's why my posts stopped for a while.  A pity, since the Bake Off has finished.  A bit hard to do a bake along when I have nothing to bake along to, huh?  So I figure I will catch up with the two posts I was unable to get done after a bake and then hopefully somewhere along the way I'll be able to try out a few things I never got a chance to do.  Sadly, there does not seem to be much point in a commentary any more, since whatever I say will be a bit redundant at this point.  So we'll just skip straight to the bake. 

What week was this one...6?  Yeah, 6.  So this was the week of European Cakes.  I chose to take on the signature challenge and make a yeast leavened cake inspired by the cakes of Europe.  I had to go hunting for ideas for this one, since I had no idea where to begin.  I didn't know any names of cakes so looking took a while.  Eventually though, I found something called a 'gugelhupf' which could be made in a Bundt tin, which I had.  Once I had a specific term to look for, finding a recipe was not too hard.

Making the yeasted dough did not feel much different from making a regular cake batter but there was a time where I was worried it would not rise.  It took a while to do anything on the first proofing, and I think most of the rise came from the baking.  Thankfully it turned out rather well.  I took it into work with me and it was promptly eaten by the staff, which was nice.  I like it when people enjoy my baking.  It is not a really sweet cake so if you aren't one for lots of icing this might be for you.

Recipe - adapted from About Food

• 85g/3oz raisins
• 85g/3oz mixed candied peel
• Orange juice to cover, and for making the glaze
• Breadcrumbs for dusting tin
• 2.25 tsp dried yeast
• 125ml/4.5fl.oz lukewarm milk
• 180g/6.5oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 4 eggs
• 120g/4oz caster sugar
• Zest of 2 lemons
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 500g/oz plain flour
• 85g/3oz blanched, chopped almonds
• 2 to 4 tbsp milk
• Icing sugar

1. Put the raisins and candied peel into a bowl and cover with the orange juice.  Cover the bowl with clingfilm and leave to soak overnight.
2. Prepare a large Bundt tin by greasing it well with butter and sprinkling with breadcrumbs.
3. Put a teaspoon of sugar into the warm milk and add the yeast.  Leave to proof for around 15 minutes.
4. In a large bowl, mix together the butter and sugar until it is pale and creamy.
5. Add the eggs one at a time, beating into the mixture after each addition.
6. Mix in the vanilla extract, salt and lemon zest.
7. Beat in the flour and yeast mixture until a sticky batter forms.  You can add the extra milk a little at a time to thin the mixture if needed.  It should jut drop from the spoon when lifted.
8. Drain the raisins and candied peel and add them and the chopped almonds to the batter.  Fold in gently.
9. Spread the batter into the prepared Bundt tin, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm spot until it has almost doubled in size.
10. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and then bake the cake for 40-50 minutes.  A skewer inserted into the cake halfway between the centre and edge should come out clean.
11. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
12. Make the glaze by putting a few tablespoons of icing sugar into a bowl.  Add a teaspoon of orange juice at a time, mixing after each addition, until you get an icing with a slightly runny consistency.
13. Drizzle the glaze over the cake and then leave to set before finally dusting with icing sugar.

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Exciting news!  This blog has entered into the UK Blog Awards 2015.  Voting starts November 10th so hopefully I can count on your support!

Great British Bake Along: Vanilla Bean Baked Alaska

Firstly, I have to apologise for the lateness of this post.  Finishing the bake was delayed by the fact that it was for my birthday and my birthday was on a Monday.  Then the rest of that week ended up being quite stressful with almost no time for me to relax and do something that wasn't school work.  Hence the post wasn't getting written.  The same thing ended up happening this week, though with a little less stress.  It's here now though so I guess it's better late than never.  I would also like to say that unfortunately, there won't be a bake along for episode 5.  At least not yet.  I did attempt a custard tart at the previous weekend but it didn't work out and there hasn't been time to try again this week.  I'll try and come back to it after GBBO is finished.  Anyway, enough apologising, let's get on with this thing!

Well, episode 4 was certainly a dramatic one!  And yet once again I don't feel like I have much to say.  Admittedly, it may be because my memory is a little fuzzy on the details since it has taken so long to put this post together.

The signature bake was self saucing puddings.  A rather fascinating idea though not something that appeals to me.  I'm not really a sauce person.  There were so rather pretty puds though.  We all liked Diana's teacups.  Very cute.

I know I wouldn't have liked the tiramasu challenge.  I hate working with such thin cake.  Not to mention the chocolate tempering.  I really should try tempering chocolate at some point but since I got a temperer as one of my birthday presents the desire to try it has become even smaller.  Good on Martha for winning the challenge though.  It was about time she came top in something!

But we all know that the part of the show that everyone remembers is the showstopper round and 'Bin Gate'!  Poor Iain.  I feel I may have had a similar reaction if it was me.  Though I'm not sure I would have removed the ring and let the ice cream go everywhere.  I'm not sure I would have had the guts to bin it either because the thought of having nothing to present would be worse than presenting a destroyed Alaska (although that would still be devastating).  And I don't feel Diana did anything deliberately but if you took it out of the freezer why just leave it on the side?  Tell him!  Or find it a different freezer.  It really wasn't surprising that Iain went home.  The Hubby was outraged.  There was a lot of ranting at the result.  I was just thinking that Norman was lucky.  If Iain hadn't binned his bake, I think Norman would have gone that week.  He's still keeping it too simple.  But then, I probably can't talk.  I'm all about vanilla this week, as you are about to see.

I deviated from the usual plan this time.  I did not do the signature challenge.  I did the showstopper!  Though mine is not as amazing as some of the stuff that cropped up on GBBO and my flavours are so simple.  But why the change?  Well, it was my birthday!  I am now actually 26 and don't just think I am 26 like I have been doing for the past year (25 just doesn't exist for me apparently).  I am now too old for a railcard!  I have to pay full fare for train rides now.  This makes me sad!  But that is besides the point.  The point is, being my birthday, I needed a birthday cake.  Week 4's GBBO featured desserts and the showstopper was Baked Alaska!  Well how fortunate was that because I had been considering making myself some kind of ice cream cake concoction for months now!  Admittedly, I was thinking an Arctic roll but Baked Alaska had also featured in the thought process.  So when it cropped up on GBBO I knew it was meant to be as I could kill two birds with one stone!  I could bake along and I could make myself a birthday cake at the same time.  Fabulous!

Now, once again, I did not do this in the designated time.  I thought I probably could have done but then my ice cream didn't churn on day one.  I was having the same problem last year.  Despite leaving my ice cream maker's bowl in the freezer for the designated amount of time, my custard was still custard after an hour.  It was also late by this point so I couldn't even do it the old fashioned way.  So I put the custard back in its bowl and returned it to the fridge, then cleaned out the ice cream maker and put it back in the freezer.  I turned the temperature on the freezer down and left it overnight.  The next day I tried again and, would you believe it, it worked this time!  I don't know if it was the change in temperature in the freezer or the custard being chilled longer but I wasn't complaining!  I had beautifully churned ice cream and it tasted delicious!  One part was down!  The cake part was done easily and was one of the lightest cakes I have made.  I was rather pleased.  The final part was the one I was dreading: meringue.

And not just any meringue either.  Oh no.  I was going to attempt Italian Meringue.  In the few attempts I have had at making meringue in the past I have not been successful.  My mixture wither won't hold its shape or adheres itself to whatever it is being baked on.  It is my other nemesis, after ganache.  But Baked Alaska calls for meringue so I had to make meringue.  I decided on Italian because it is cooked whilst you make it, it's pipeable and it is impossible to overwhisk.  The part that made me nervous was the sugar syrup.  I often burn any sugar I attempt to turn to syrup.  Especially when I am having to get it to a specific temperature.  And if I'm not burning the sugar I'm burning myself, which is even less fun.  However, it turned out not to be so bad after all.  In fact, it turned out pretty awesome.  I just wished I'd had a better idea about how I wanted to decorate the thing.  It's a little slapdash if I'm honest but ah well.  Maybe next time.

But of course, the most important thing for me is the taste.  And it tasted AMAZING!  So so so good!  The ice cream is some of the best I have made and the meringue was lovely and sweet.  Soft but yummy.  Adding some jam to the cake was also a good idea as it added a little extra flavour.  I may not have scored great on appearances if I was presenting it on GBBO (which I wouldn't, I'd put more effort in) but I was super happy with it.  It also kept okay in the freezer as it took us a few days to eat the whole thing between us.  It still tastes good even when it isn't straight out of the oven.

Recipe - makes 1 x 6inch diameter Baked Alaska


Vanilla Ice Cream - adapted from The Perfect Scoop 

• 125ml/4.5fl.oz whole milk
• 75g/2.5oz caster sugar
• 250ml/9fl.oz double cream
• Pinch of salt
• Half a vanilla pod
• 3 large egg yolks
• 1/3 tsp vanilla extract

1. Put the sugar, milk, half of the cream (60ml) and salt into a saucepan and heat gently.
2. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and add to the milk mixture, along with the pod itself.
3. Once warmed through, remove from the heat, cover and allow to steep for half an hour.
4. Put the rest of the cream into a large bowl and set a mesh sieve on top.
5. Prepare an ice bath big enough to sit the bowl of cream in.
6. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks together.
7. Slowly pour the warm milk mixture into the egg yolks, whisking the entire time, and then put the mixture back into the saucepan.
8. Cook gently over a medium heat, stirring the mixture the whole time and being sure to scrape the bottom of the pan as you do so.  Keep stirring until the mixture has thickened and coats the back of the spoon. (Do not let mixture boil).
9. Pour the custard through the sieve into the cream and stir together.  Add the vanilla pod back to the mixture and add the vanilla extract.
10. Place the cream bowl in the ice bath and stir the mixture continuously until it has cooled.
11. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the fridge.
12. When ready to churn, remove from the fridge, take out the vanilla pod and then freeze in the ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.
13. Whilst the mixture churns, line a flat sided bowl with a diameter of 15cm/6inch with clingfilm (it can be slightly smaller but not bigger).
14. When ice cream is churned, spoon into the prepared bowl, cover and place in the freezer to firm up.

Vanilla Sponge - adapted from Mary Berry's Baking Bible

• 2 large eggs
• 75g/2.5oz caster sugar
• 50g/1.5oz self-raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas Mark 5 and line a 15cm/6inch diameter round tin with greaseproof paper.  If it is a shallow tin, make sure the edges of the paper stick out over the top to a good height.  This cake rises a lot.
2. Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl and beat at full speed with an electric whisk until the mixture is extremely pale and creamy and has thickened enough to leave trails when the whisk is removed.
3. Sift the flour over the surface of the egg mixture and gently fold in with a metal spoon.
4. Pour into the prepared tin and tip about carefully to ensure an even spread of mixture.
5. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until sponge is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
6. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before using.

Italian Meringue - adapted from James Martin via Good Food Channel
Make the meringue just before you need to use it. 

• 50ml/1.5fl.oz water
• 200g/7oz caster sugar
• 1 tbsp glucose (optional)
• 3 egg whites

1. Put the sugar, water and glucose if using into a saucepan.
2. Place over a medium heat and stir until it starts to boil.  Wash down any sugar crystals from the sides with a brush dipped in cold water.
3. Attach a sugar thermometer to the pan and increase the heat to cook the sugar syrup rapidly.
4. When the temperature reaches 116°C/240°F, beat the egg whites with an electric whisk in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks.
5. When the temperature reaches 121°C/250°F, remove the syrup from the heat.
6. Slowly pour the syrup into the egg whites in a thin stream, whisking the mixture the entire time.
7. Continue to beat the mixture until it is cooled completely.  This will take about 15 minutes.

Assembly:

• Cake circle
• Ice cream
• Italian meringue
• Strawberry jam

1. Preheat the oven to 230°C/445°F/Gas Mark 8.
2. Cut the sponge circle in half.  Place one half onto a heatproof plate.
3. Coat the inside of one half with jam and place the other half back on top.  Coat the top with jam.
4. Remove the ice cream from the bowl and place on top of the sponge.
5. Either spoon the meringue over the ice cream and cake or put into a piping bag and pipe over, making sure there are no gaps.
6. Put into the oven for 3-4 minutes until the meringue has become well browned.  Serve immediately.

Great British Bake Along: Apple and Pear Green Tea, Cinnamon and Raisin Rye Rolls

Well, we're only on week 3 and already my schedule is getting messed up.  I was expecting a little bit of disruption but not this much.  I am currently drowning in work as I get settled in at my new job.  Being a teacher is hard!  And being a new teacher is harder!  There is still so much that needs organising and I am currently struggling to stay on top of things.  That being said, it should hopefully get a little easier (just a little) and I'll be able to establish a routine for myself that allows me time for work and rest.

Anyway, that is the cause of the delay for this Bake Along Challenge!  I was desperate to get it up before the next episode though so Tuesday night was spent rapidly editing photos (which ended up being taken without natural light, boohoo!) and typing things up!  So without further ado I present this (or last) week's:

As always I'll give my thoughts on the episode, which this week featured bread!

Admittedly, I don't have a lot to say this week.  This is in part to having a bad first proper day of work (kids started back on the Wednesday) and was feeling tired and miserable and wasn't taking notes.  So unfortunately there is little commentary.  That should hopefully not be the case with the next one.

Anyway, I will say I was surprised at Norman.  As I said last time, I was expecting him to do well this week but he's still being too simple.  I get that that is what he likes but this is GBBO!  You have to work outside the box.

Luis gets it!  It's no surprise he won star baker this week.  He created some spectacular things.  Even his signature rolls looked ridiculously impressive with their two colours and the swirl.  Very cool indeed.  Of course, Kate also did amazing.  It's just such a shame her showstopper did not cook properly and turned out raw because it looked stunning.  Quite a few did actually.  I really liked Richard's.  I want to try making something like that some time, when I'm not so busy.  Ham, cheese and spinach maybe?  Yum yum!  I also wouldn't mind attempting ciabatta, even though I'm not the biggest fan of it.  It's all right but just a bit flour-y for me.  I dislike overly floured bread.

And Jordan went out!  There was a massive chorus of 'Noooooooooooo!' at the mother-in-law's house (since we all gather there to watch it) when they announced it.  We all loved Jordan.  We didn't think he was the best baker but he was fun and inventive!  I still need to watch him on Extra Slice.  We all thought Norman was going to go because he keeps being criticised for being too simple.  He's really going to have to step it up because we're delving into the fancier categories now.  It's desserts next after all!  But we shall see I guess.

So I decided to keep with doing the signature challenge and hence I tried to make 12 rolls that used rye flour in 3.5 hours.  I'm going to admit this right off the bat: I did not finish these in the time limit, though I do think it would be entirely possible to do it.  I just happened to be distracted by building furniture and then the need to have tea. We do have a really nice new bed now though!  But that's getting off track.

I really wasn't sure where to start.  I knew I wanted to add some flavour to my rolls because you never do plain and simple of Bake Off.  The question was, what do I add?  I was at a loss and the internet was not being terribly helpful.  I knew I didn't want to include cheese, since the Hubby doesn't like cheese, and I didn't want to do anything that the contestants had done.  After much searching and consideration, I thought I would try cinnamon and raisin.  But I wanted to go one step further than that because that still seemed a bit of an obvious choice.  So I was hunting around for flavours that go with cinnamon and raisin.  This was even less successful than the original search.  The two were rarely combined with anything.  It was pure chance that I stumbled onto a listing for tea which was 'Apple, Cinnamon and Raisin'.  Now that sounded interesting; apple tea.  Another search yielded that Twinnings sold an apple tea.  It was too late to order it for the Friday shop but we would be going to town on the Saturday and I figured I would find it in the supermarket or the health shop.

Turns out neither had purely apple tea.  There was apple and cinnamon but I wanted to add the spice separately.  So I ended up opting for Apple and Pear Green Tea instead.  I know pear can work with raisins and cinnamon too, so figured that would be fine.

The next job was finding a recipe which would allow the incorporation of tea.  This was much easier though, since really I just needed to find a recipe that used water, which could be substituted with tea.  Stork's website yielded such a recipe and I just made the necessary adjustments to incorporate the flavours I wanted in place of theirs.

The rye rolls turned out pretty well, if a little inconsistent in appearance (I gave up on weighing all the different bits of dough).  The tea part is subtle but still noticeable.  The most prominent flavours though are the cinnamon and raisins.  They tasted good.  The Hubby is enjoying them.  He compares them to cinnamon and raisin bagels and says they are very good toasted.

Recipe -inspired by Stork
Makes 12 rolls

• 4 Twinnings Apple and Pear Green teabags
• 375ml/13.2fl.oz warm water
• 40g/1.5oz butter
• 340g/12oz rye flour
• 340g/12oz strong white flour
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3.75 tsp fast action yeast
• 3 tsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp olive oil 
• 155g/5.5oz raisins
• 1 egg

1. Steep the teabags in the warm water for 2-5 minutes.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Put the flours, cinnamon, salt, yeast and sugar in a large bowl and mix together.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the tea (without the teabags) and the melted butter.
5. Mix together to form a dough.
6. Knead the dough until it is nice and smooth (about 10-20 minutes).
7. Coat the dough in the olive oil, place in a bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in size (about 1.5 hours).
8. Stretch the dough out into a rectangle shape, place the raisins in the middle and then gather the dough up around them.
9. Knead the dough for at least 5 minutes to evenly disperse the raisins throughout.
10. Divide the dough into 12 equal sized pieces.
11. Divide each piece of dough into 3 pieces.  Roll each of these pieces into sausages about 25cm/10inches long.
12. Plait the three pieces together then pinch the two ends together to form rings.  Place the rings onto two trays coated with greaseproof paper.
13. Cover the rolls and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 210°C/410°F/Gas Mark 7.
14. Beat the egg and brush over the top of the rolls.
15. Bake the rolls for 10-15 minutes until they are golden and sound hollow when tapped underneath.
16. Leave to cool on a wire rack before serving.