Technical Bake 2: Iced Fingers

I'm not doing the technical bakes in any order. I have decided that number two is the iced finger. I remember having these when I was growing up, yummy doughy fingers with sweet icing. These Paul Hollywood fingers have the addition of fresh cream and strawberry jam and I have to say their addition makes for a great afternoon sweet treat.
I started to make these last Sunday morning and I made the full amount, 12 iced fingers. Might as well go the whole hog. With all the ingredients surrounding me I added all the dough ingredients to a bowl, holding back about a third of the water. I put my bowl on the scales so that I could add the rest of the water but for some reason I just added all the water in my jug rather than weighing it and got a very, very watery dough. I know it's supposed to be watery but this was too much. So I had to throw it away and start over. Second time around I got it right.
The dough was still very wet and kneading was almost impossible, I had more on my fingers than on the surface. In the end I just gave up and put in back in the bowl to rise and hoped for the best. An hour later and it had risen beautifully and after knocking it back I divided into 12 balls which I then rolled into finger shapes and placed on a greased tray. These are covered and left to prove for 45 minutes until doubled in size and all touching. They then went into a preheated oven (200 degrees) for ten minutes. These were left to cool and I made the icing. I followed Paul's instructions to dip the roll in the icing and then smooth it with your fingers, it worked a treat. I then piped the cream and tried to pipe the jam but I bought jam with fruit bits in (I know!) so a spoon did the trick.
One of the things that Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry looked for in the 12 iced fingers was a consistent size. On that, I'm afraid I failed. But I think Paul would have been happy with my "bake". They were soft, sweet and moreish (I had two, I confess). The extras came into work with me on Monday and got an office thumbs up.

Deathly Beautiful!

A friend recently gave me some Halloween themed cupcake holders and last week, it being Halloween and all, I decided to try them out. I didn't make Halloween themed cakes, in fact they were rosewater flavoured butterfly cakes! I use Nigella's cupcake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Godess, it never fails. I replaced the vanilla extract with rosewater to give a delicate floral flavour. So these may have been spooky on the outside but sweet and soft on the inside.

Technical Bake 1: Tarte au Citron

My challenge began yesterday with my mini Tartes au citron a la Mary Berry's masterclass. I decided to do mini ones because if I had a whole one, well it would be eaten. Simple really!
I started with the pastry and rather than dividing by two I made the full quantity and then froze half of it (more tartes in the near future). The cleverest thing about this recipe is Mary Berry's tip for rolling out the pastry. I always have that problem of getting the rolled out pastry from the work surface to the tart tin without it breaking up and Mary has the solution. Roll the pastry out on the base of your tin! Place it on some greaseproof pastry and mark a circle about 4cm bigger than your base, flour the base and then place the ball of pastry on top. You then roll out as normal, moving the paper rather than the pastry. Once it is the correct size fold in the edges, lift the base and drop into the tin. You can then unfold the pastry and press into the fluted edges, no breaking or sticking, genius! The other tip was to use tinfoil to hold your baking beans for the blind bake, it makes it so much easier to support the beans and to take them out half way through. As a result of these I managed to get two almost perfect pastry cases, something I have never managed before. Thanks Mary.
The top tip for getting the filling into your case without spilling any is to fill the case once it is on your baking tray in the oven. As my tartes were smaller I knew I needed to alter the baking time, so I left them in for 20mins (rather than the 30-35 in the recipe). I checked them for the "wobble" but they were pretty much set so I was a bit worried that I had failed on the first hurdle. I took them out and let them cool for about 5 minutes before moving them from the tins to the serving plates.
All that was left was the tasting. I dusted them with icing sugar just before I served them and we dove in. The pastry was nice and thin and it wasn't soggy and the filling was smooth and lemony. I think that Mary would have been pleased with my first effort and now I know how to do it I will be making it a lot more often.

My Mission Should I Choose to Accept It...

Instead of being out enjoying our great summer (!) I have been enjoying the wonderful Great British Bake Off. I missed the first episode but from then on I was hooked, what great telly! I loved it. And the right person won, Jo was great. Just amazing what they achieved. With the announcment of the winner I thought that was it and was away for a couple of weeks and came back to another two episodes. God bless the series link on the sky machine. Masterclasses with Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood where they have made all the technical challenge bakes with lots of hints and tips. What a treat. And as I was watching the second one yesterday I had an idea, I would make all eight. It was just an idea and then I thought, why not? They are all yum and I will learn lots too. So that is my mission and I have accepted it. There isn't a timeframe on this (not practical really) but over the next few weeks I hope I can complete the task. I'm looking forward to all of them but I think the Battenburg may be the last one, my least favourite. I have chosen to start with the Tarte au Citron, not sure why, it just looked so good. I'm going to make two mini ones rather a big one so I have decided to halve the ingredients. So more later with results and pictures.

Knitting Projects Finished Over the Summer

Just a couple of my knitting projects completed over the summer (I have another on the go and another that I'm working on at the moment).
As mentioned before the cushion has yet to be delivered and the doggie is happily ensconced in his new home.

Buttery, Sugary Heaven

A friend went to Paris during the summer and came back with tales of a Breton pastry called Kouign Aman. I had never heard of it and neither had my friend but after having it about three times during her week there she was a convert. I needed to try this new confection. My friend sent me the link to a blog by an American living in Paris with a recipe for the Kouign Aman and with visitors from France coming that weekend I had my opportunity.
My sister-in-law and my niece lent a helping hand, the former reading the instructions and the latter helping with the mixing etc. David Lebovitz's recipe was very easy to follow with pictures along the way to help you keep on track. This is just a mixture of water, flour, sugar, butter and yeast and what you get at the end is divine. I followed the cooking time and temperature to the letter of the recipe but it cooked in less time (30 minutes) and was a bit burned. I served it anyway (I had some other cakes too so not a disaster) and by the end of the evening there was none left, it was a hit.
After that weekend I was using the oven to bake some bread and noticed that there was a lot of solidified butter at the bottom of the oven and realised that it was butter that had escaped from the Kouign Aman! I had put it in a loose-bottomed tin.
I had cause to make it again the following weekend for a friends house warming. I learned my lesson about the oven temperature and timing but not about the loose-bottomed tin! I used a smaller springform tin and the tart rose better than the first time but there was butter escape again. I guess it gives me an excuse to make it again and this time I will steer clear of the loose-bottomed tin!
The reaction to the second one was similar to the first, there were people fighting for the last piece. It's great that you can create such a wonderful taste from just five ingredients isn't it?
P.S. I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures but they looked pretty much the same as the ones on the blog, really they did!

Brioche Bread

One of my baking experiments over the summer was a brioche. I made the Colomba successfully and brioche is a similar dough, ie enriched with butter and eggs, so I figured I was half way there.
One of my acquisitions in the last couple of months was the first Ottolenghi cookbook and it has become my go-to cookbook. The savoury recipes are so good, lots of flavour and spice. They are bit phaffie but worth it. On the other hand, the phaffiness of the baking section hasn't endeared itself to me. There seems to be two steps too many in most of the recipes. Don't get me wrong, the finished product is very good, it's just the journey that is a bit over long.
Having said that, I chose the recipe for brioche from it. The one thing I would say about this particular recipe is that it only gives instructions for a stand mixer, there isn't an alternative hand method, which I found annoying. I have a stand mixer so I used it. They say follow the recipe the first time and then go off piste. The result was a loaf that tasted like brioch but had the texture of bread. Not that lovely soft, teary texture that a briche should have.
We ate it all the same because it tasted good but a brioche it was not. Next time I will find a recipe for a handmade one and see if I can succeed that way.