Claire Elizabeth: 2010

butter icing

trying to find the perfect chocolate cake...and gluten free

07:38

almond

Gluten Free Carrot Cake....and a new method of photography

11:48

Edd Kimber

Book Review: The Great British Book of Baking

16:17

For the past couple of months I have been watching The Great British Bake Off, a series by the BBC which tested the baking skills of ten home bakers from around the UK to see who would win the title of the best amateur baker. The competition was judged by Paul Hollywood, a famous baker, and Mary Berry, a well known baking writer. The contestents travelled to different places in the UK and were faced with various baking challenges each week including cakes, bread and pastry. It was so nice to watch people with the same passions as me and follow their journey as they progressed over the weeks. I was very happy to see both Ruth and Edd in the final, as they were my favourite two from the beginning! The final episode was very nerve racking but in the end it was Edd who the title, although both contestants equally deserved it :) I was also very happy to find out that Both Ruth and Edd both have their own blogs (see links at the end of this post) and I can't wait to try out some of their recipes!

The judges- Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry

Now onto the actual recipe book... I actually found the content to be a little disappointing, although it is a lovely presented book with beautiful pictures and a lot of recipes (120 in total). It has plenty of traditional English recipes which is great but I guess most of them I have seen before so there wasn't much in the book that was new to me! I suppose I would have liked to see more recipes from the contestents as some of the things they made on the show were really interesting and different. Overall, I would say this book is still worth purchasing, especially if you don't have any old English baking books like me! I bought mine off Amazon for £10 which I thought was a very reasonable price for a hardback book, especially since the RRP is £20!

Edd Kimber- The winner!

I really hope there will be more baking programmes hitting our screens soon because life just isn't the same without my weekly dose of tv baking fun!

You can check out Ruth and Edd's blogs' here:

Ruth http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/

Edd http://he-eats.com/

...and buy the book from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-British-Book-Baking-best-loved/dp/0718157117

fruit cake

First attempt at gluten free baking...

11:56

butter cut-out biscuits

Move over Tunnocks!

16:21

Chocolate marshmallow teacakes have been on my baking wishlist for a while now. I guess I have unconsciously been putting off making them because I thought it would be quite tricky, especially as I've never made marshmallow before. Me and my sister Helen love the Tunnocks teacakes you can buy in the supermarkets and they are something my mum often ate throughout her childhood so I guess it must run in the family!

To make these it was a three stage process. First I had to make a biscuit base that was not too sweet (because of the sweet marshmallow that would be on top) or too crunchy as I wanted the teacakes to be easy to bite into with a melt in the mouth texture. I came across a recipe for butter cut-out cookies in 'How to be a domestic goddess' by Nigella Lawson and decided to give these a go as she states that they hold their shape whilst baking but still have a 'melting buttery texture'. I'm happy to say that the cookies delivered in both of these categories- so far so good!

The next challenge was the marshmallow- something I was quite nervous about making as it involves cooking sugar with egg whites and using a sugar thermometer-eek! Turns out this was much simpler than I thought. I found a recipe from my Primrose Bakery cupcake book for marshmallow icing and decided to use this as I wanted a really soft, melt in the mouth consistency. Once the sugar mixture reached the right temperature, I transferred it straight into a piping bag and piped out marshmallow 'blobs' onto my biscuit bases.

The final step was to coat my marshmallows in a nice thick layer of chocolate. This was probably the trickiest part as trying to coat anything in chocolate is always awkward! In the end I just dropped the whole biscuit into the melted chocolate, moved it around until the whole thing was covered then removed it using two forks. I also made some white chocolate ones and even a 'Wagon Wheel' type biscuit using two larger biscuits sandwiched together with marshmallow and a blog of raspberry jam-yum!

Ok, so the teacakes don't look as perfect as the Tunnocks version but my goodness were they delicious and they certainly didn't last long between me and my sister!

birthday cake

Yaba Daba Doo!

11:39

banana

Banoffee Bliss!

16:12

birthday

Another birthday :)

15:43

bread

La brioche francaise!

16:06

Brioche is one of my favourite enriched breads. I never realised how good it is until I actually tasted some real french brioche myself in France. I have not delved much into the world of bread making- my last attempt was back at Easter time when I tried to have a go at making my own hot cross buns. Unfortunately, due to the cold weather, the dough failed to rise and the resulting buns were rather dense and tough (although still rather tasty). With the summer finally here I decided to give bread making another bash and make a brioche loaf. My reason for choosing brioche (other than the fact that it is delicious) is because over the weekend we had a couple of French guests visiting from France to stay with us. My mum suggested I make some brioche- maybe she thought that making a brioche loaf would make them feel more at home or something- anyhoo, it was a great excuse for me to get in the kitchen and try and improve my bread making skills!

Making the dough was quite a long process, as it required three risings in total. One before adding the butter, one afterwards and one final rising (proving) before baking the loaves in the oven. Luckily, it rose beautifully and was a pleasure to make. I found that the dough was too sticky to need by hand so I used our electric beater with a dough hook which certainly did the trick. I was rather nervous before putting my two loaves in the oven, as I so desperately wanted them to come and perfect and impress our French guests. However, I needn't have worried as the resulting loaves came out of the oven looking golden brown and smelling delicious- just as brioche should.

I found that my homemade brioche was slightly different than the commercially made stuff as it was more buttery, crumbly and much less sweet. Infact, it almost had a mildly salty taste. Needless to say, it was still thoroughly enjoyed by everyone, and we have a spare loaf in the freezer for next time! As well as this, we were also lucky enough to receive a 1kg brioche from Roger Sicard in the Vendee and my goodness is this stuff addictive! It's beautifully moist, doughy and sweet with hints of vanilla and strong tastes of rum, which really does work- definetely something I should try adding in the future!