Hello!

The other week at college I had the chance to make some classic French pastries, based on two that I had seen on my travels to Paris- the classic Gateau Opera and the famous Mont Blanc. Now if you havn't heard of these already, I'll give you a brief introduction!


The Gateau Opera is a classic French cake made up of layers of joconde sponge soaked in coffee syrup, which are sandwiched together with coffee buttercream and chocolate ganache. It is a very rich and decedant pastry, and goes down rather nicely with a cup of coffee (although is probably best served in small slices)!

The Mont Blanc you may be less familiar with unless you have actually been to Paris or are generally fanatical about patisserie (like me!), but it actually dates back to the 15th century. I first came across this pastry in Angelina, as they are well known for their version. It basically consists of meringue, vanilla cream and sweetened chestnut puree, but is certainly an unusual looking dessert! Infact, you might say that the chestnut puree looks a bit like worms, but I like to describe it as 'spaghetti' as this sounds a little more appetising!

I took both of these recipes from Claire Clark's fantastic book, Indulge, as I am a big fan of the woman and her work. I have made a couple of cakes from this book before which were delicious, and I'm happy to say that these two I tried this time were as good as I had expected. My personal favourite out of the two would have to be the Gateau Opera as I love both chocolate and coffee, but the chesnut cream in the Mont Blanc is also absolutely divine!

I would say that these aren't the easiest of desserts to prepare as there as so many different components to each, but the end result is certainly worth it! I guess if you don't really have the time or energy to make them, you could always travel to Paris and try them there!

Although not a coeliac myself, I do like to cater for customers who cannot eat gluten, and so now and again I experiment with a new recipe, in my search for the best. Banana bread is something that is quite a popular afternoon snack (which I also consider to be 'half healthy' as it contains fruit!) and so I thought I'd attempt my own gluten free version.


I stuck to a fairly simple recipe and substituted the regular flour for gluten free flour, whilst also adding a little xantham gum. As well as this, I threw in a few milk chocolate chunks, just to make it a little more indulgent!

The cake rose quite well in the oven, and once baked and cooled, it did slice rather nicely without crumbling and falling to bits (as a lot of gluten free cakes tend to do!). The interior was lovely and moist, and a slightly crunchy crust had formed on the outside. Unfortunately most of the chocolate sank to the bottom, but I melted a little more to drizzle over the top of the loaf to make up for this- perfect!


I often find that using gluten free flour can give baked goods a strange taste, but the banana flavour came through well, and the chocolate certainly gave it that extra yummy factor! All in all, I'm happy with this one and I'd definitely make it again!

So whatever you might be doing this Valentines Day, please do make sure you treat your loved one (even if that may be yourself!).

For as long as I can remember, we have always had a shop-bought Christmas pudding on Christmas day. This year, two small 'extra special' (I'll let you guess the shop) Christmas puds were added to the shopping basket but I decided that I wanted to make a 'buche de noel' or chocolate log as it's known here in the UK. Now I don't have anything against Christmas pudding, infact, I love it (especially with a good helping of brandy butter) but I just fancied doing something different, for three main reasons:
1. I've never made a yule log or even a swiss roll before so I wanted to have a go at it,
2. My sister is the only one in my family who doesn't like Christmas pudding so has to silenty sit and watch us eat it while she has to put up with yet another mince pie,
3. I love chocolate, enough said.


Anyway, I found a recipe in the Delia Smith Christmas book and got to work. I used her recipe for the sponge- a simple mixture of beaten eggs whites, sugar and cocoa powder baked in a swiss roll tin. Now I'm not a huge fan of cream so I thought that I'd add some melted milk chocolate to the whipped cream filling to make it really chocolatey.


For the final outer icing, I actually made two types. The first was a bit like a rich chocolate sauce- dark chocolate, butter and syrup, and the second a simple chocolate butter icing. The butter icing was slightly lighter in colour so I was able to use a fork to create a two tone effect on the outside of the log so it looked more like real wood.


I felt that my chocolate log wouldn't be complete without some festive holly leaves, berries and ofcourse a little robin red breast so I made these out of icing and marzipan, then dusted the whole thing with a little icing sugar and grated white chocolate for that snowy look!


Unfortunately, everybody (except me) was far to full to manage any pudding after the huge turkey my mum bought from the butchers, but the log lasted a good few days in the fridge without drying out and was still rather tasty! However, as we missed out on Christmas pud this year, I am now really craving some, and so I am looking forward to new years day when we will probably pop that in the microwave after dinner- yum!

For my birthday this year, my parents bought me a day course at the Artisan School of Cookery for making chocolate and that day finally came today! This school offers a range of short courses from subjects such as baking to others like brewing for people of all abilities, even complete beginners. Of course the courses don't come cheap, but I think they make a lovely gift and an interesting day out if you're looking for something different.

The day started with a talk by Ross Sneddon, a Scottish pastry chef and chocolatier, about chocolate making, where we got to taste three different types of chocolate that we would be working with that day.

This was soon followed by the practical part, in which we started making chocolate bars, truffles and ganache. The chocolate bars were infused with lime zest and cinnamon, the truffles with vanilla and the ganache with praline and salted hazlenuts- yum! It was rather theraputic and enjoyable melting and stirring chocolate (and of course eating a fair bit along the way!) although also pretty messy!

Overall I found the day to be very relaxing and the teacher, Ross Sneddon, was friendly and helpful, happily giving advice to all that asked (including me!).

Although Ross was a firm believer in using and eating the best quality chocolate you can find, reminding us that all those big brands we buy in the supermarket are full of rubbish, he still hasn't put me off! Yes they are full of sugar, but at the end of the day, I love sugar. Oh well!

I call these cookies 'favourite cookies' because whenever I make a batch, everyone just seems to love them! Infact, I'm often quite suprised that my family and friends tend to choose these cookies over other treats I have made in the past such as brownies and cupcakes. I guess chocolate chip cookies are a firm favourite with most people and appeal to both children and adults alike. They make a great 'anytime' snack whether for morning coffee, afternoon tea or midnight munchies!


The recipe I use gives a soft cookie with a slightly crisp edge. For chewier cookies I use a different recipe which cotains egg and more sugar- this type of cookie spreads more, resulting in a thinner cookie with a chewy texture. Both types of cookie are good- it just depends on what you fancy. What is important for me is that the cookie has a soft or chewy centre, rather than a crunchy/crisp texture, as is the case for biscuits. My test for a good cookie is to break it in half- if it bends then it is a true cookie, if it snaps then it is a biscuit!

Okay, so you're probably wondering why I've been a bad girl? Well, it's fairly obvious really...I've not updated my blog quite a while (as you may have noticed!). However, that isn't to say I haven't been baking. Quite the opposite really. I've been very busy baking, cake decorating, and trying to fit in a little college work inbetween (eek!). I was planning to wait until college was over until I made my next blog post, but tonight I decided that would be far too long, and that I would get straight to work on a new update. So here it is! As I have made quite a lot of sweets and treats in the past few months, I thought I would share a few of the best with you.

Last week we celebrated a special occasion, as my (not so) little sister Helen turned 21 years of age. With help from my sisters boyfriend Rabbi, me and my parents organised a suprise jungle themed party for Helen last Saturday, which, luckily we managed to keep a suprise until the big night! The party was a success and everybody seemed to have a brilliant time.

I put myself in charge of the sweets and cake (not suprisingly) and created a birthday cake that tied in with the jungle theme. I'd actually been planning this cake for a long time as last year, I said to myself that Helen's 21st birthday cake would be the best cake I've ever made! I really wanted to live up to my own expectations...

The finished cake consisted of three tiers made from different types of sponge: fruit cake, chocolate cake and victoria sandwich. The best three types of cake in my opinion! I decorated the cakes in animal print designs and made jungle animals out of marzipan (I also sneaked in a Tigger, did you notice?)

Everybody was certainly very impressed with the cake (including Helen) and although it took a lot of work, I felt a great sense of achievement once the finished piece was put together- the hard work always pays off in the end- especially when you eat the first slice!
I managed to get a few close up shots of the marzipan animals as I think they are kinda cute. What do you think?

Earlier on in the year I bought a book called Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery by Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas, owners of the famous Primrose bakery in London. It's a great book with a variety of cupcake recipes and some lovely pictures. I hadn't actually tried out any of the recipes until now and I'm wondering why I waited so long as the cupcakes were absolutely delightful! The first recipe I chose was for vanilla cupcakes, although I substitued the vanilla extract for almond and added a little cherry jam to make vampirish cherry and almond ones instead.

I bought some lovely 72% cocoa dark chocolate the other day so I thought I'd make good use of it by using it as a coating for biscuits. I thought dark chocolate would combine beautifully with ginger so I got out Leith's baking bible and found a recipe for ginger nuts- small crunchy biscuits flavoured with the spicyness of ground ginger. These biscuits are made by the melting method ie. the butter sugar and syrup are melted together before adding the flour. I placed small balls of the dough onto a baking sheet because I thought they would easily spread whilst baking-which they did! All in all this was a very easy recipe that gave good results but next time I might try adding chopped crystallised ginger for an extra kick!
The butterflies pictured here are shortbread half coated in luxury white chocolate and very indulgent they were! I stuck to using my normal shortbread recipe from Leith's baking bible which uses both plain flour and ground rice to give a lovely crumbly texture. I always like to finish my shortbread with a sprinkling of caster sugar as the biscuits themselves are not overly sweet and you can't go wrong with a bit of extra sugar!