2nd bake for 2023 🙂 I have made this before from a cookbook I bought in Portugal many years ago. As I’m having fun with baking this year, and that means, baking recipes from my cookbooks, I thought what better way to spend a new years day than making flaky Read more…
I was recently gifted a cookbook by a fellow Italian student and chef, Ray McVinnie. “Everyday * Sunday” by Ray McVinne. No sooner had I opened the cookbook, at the last page (as you do!), I discovered a pudding from the Limousin regions in the centre of France which is Read more…
The last bake and this was one of the scariest looking bakes in the book. So after 13 months and 13 days I have finally baked all the recipes out of the Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking as well as 30 of my own recipes. Exhausting, but fun, fun fun!!! 🙂 I have learnt so much about baking and time management too. And it just shows me that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. I have loved all the baking, it’s been so much fun, though stressful at times, but well worth the effort. I’m really pleased I did it.
I had already done a Baked Alaska so I knew this was going to be a big bake, but this recipe which was Nancy’s Showstopper, involved making your own ice cream, not one, but three different ice creams!!! Eeeekkk
I needed a bit of time for this one, it took about 24 hours!! No kidding, because each time I made an ice-cream and placed it in the mould I had to leave it to set for 4 hours. It was fun making ice-cream, in fact each ice-cream used different ingredients and a different process. My challenge was that I didn’t have an ice-cream churner but I got away without one, I used my electric beater with the paddle attachment, hey improvisation is a great thing, saved me money and having to acquire another appliance for the kitchen. So I made the forest berry ice cream with frozen mixed berries, caster sugar and cream. Not having any creme de cassis in the house I used Pacharán made from blackthorn berries (close enough to blackcurrant in my book).
I whizzed the mixed berries with caster sugar, added cream and Pacharán liqueur, then put it into the mixer to churn until firm. (well, mine didn’t really go firm so to speak, but nothing that the freezer couldn’t fix). So I poured this into the mould and placed another smaller bowl on top to make the hole for the next ice cream. Fun, fun fun. ;/
Time to go to bed and have another crack at the next layer in the morning! For the next ice cream, which was strawberry and mint, I needed an unusual ingredient which I had never bought, a can of
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There’s nothing like the smell of fresh herbs and freshly blended tea. I recently bought some tea from the market. One brand appealed to me from Grow Eat Heal. It was called heart & soul, and was full of rosebuds and camomile. Sounded yum and smells delicious. hhttps://www.groweatheal.co.nz/ The other I bought for my husband, called Anxietea. Who doesn’t need a bit of de-stressing in their lives? https://www.bettertea.co/
These teas are the perfect accompaniment to my very rich chocolate fondants which I am very excited to say is my second to last bake. Woohoo.
It’s not that I haven’t loved doing this challenge, but challenge it has been, don’t get me wrong. It has been a huge commitment and a lot of work, fun as it was learning and baking my way through a text book of recipes. But all good things must come to an end and I am looking forward to being free and moving on to the next thing/challenge, whatever that may be. I will still bake and post when I get the chance, or see/make a great recipe that I want to share.
For this bake, Richard’s Signature Bake, I knew I was in for more than one process, they are always a bit more complicated these signature bakes. First I made the coulis. Cherries being out of season, I had to use preserved cherries, never mind. So I boiled together cherries, sugar and lemon juice, and then blended this in a food processor.
I then added brandy to a dozen or so cherries and left these to soak it up! If you’ve never made fondant, you should. It’s not hard or complicated, it’s just the timing of the cooking that’s the important thing to get right. Here’s the recipe in case you are keen! 🙂 https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/richards-black-forest-chocolate-fondants There’s also a link to buy the cookbook in case you are really keen!! So to make the fondants, I
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This is a showstopper by the way. Not sure my sponge was up to par, but they certainly looked the part, cuteness wise and tasted like a true showstopper. Speaking of showstoppers, have you ever wanted to go to a restaurant for years, never gotten around to it, then the restaurant closes. That happened to me with an Italian restaurant in the city. But fortunately for me it has reopened, under another name, in a different location so I finally got to go. It was amazing, beat my expectations hands down. Not to mention the fact we had a 5 course degustation menu.
So good, Monzù
taste of Napoli,
I’d highly recommend it. http://www.monzu.co.nz/ The answer is don’t wait to try something new, do it now. I guess I learnt that and got lucky.
Well I had never tried an entremet, didn’t know in fact what that was, so here goes.
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Special things are worth preserving and sitting down to a cup of tea the other morning I saw birds in my newly fruiting fig tree. Ahhhhh. I love figs, and it’s the first year it’s fruited (I banned the husband from pruning it so there’s a pretty good crop!) So I raced out in my pajamas to chase away the birds and save my figs. I now pick them slightly early to beat the birds to the prize. I really should just get a net, another trip to the hardware store, dangerous place that and expensive once you’ve perused the shelves and aisles for everything else you might possibly “need.” Might be best to avoid it, but I will keep rescuing my figs. From someone who doesn’t always have success in the garden, I would recommend planting a fig tree. You might get lucky too.
Povitica, what is it? Well it is in the bread section of the recipe book, so I am making bread of sorts, Eastern European sweet bread as it turns out, but reading the recipe ahead made me scared of what was to come!!! It was nothing I had ever done before. Here is Paul’s Povitica recipe if you want to give it a go btw. https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/povitica_92623
I made the dough by adding flour, sugar, salt, yeast, melted butter and beaten egg to the free standing mixer fitted with the dough hook and then added the seeds from 1/2 vanilla pod along with lukewarm milk. I mixed this for 8 minutes to make a soft smooth and stretchy dough.
I tipped the dough into an oiled mixing bowl, covered and let rise for one hour, until doubled in size. Now time for the scary bit…
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That’s right you heard it here first, but what a great combination. Dried fruit in you lamb, chilli and coriander pie. Not only that, it was full of butternut pumpkin and ginger!! Yum! I really want to get into cooking like this on a regular basis, where you finely chop and then fry off a mixture of aromatics and spices (in this case), onion, chopped ginger, garlic, chilli and ground coriander to flavour your dish. At my cooking class in Bali, all the recipes were based around this style of cooking. I loved it. https://thebakersdozenbakeoff.com/2018/10/11/paon-bali-cooking-class-ubud/
Then to this aromatic spice mixture I added the diced lamb and browned this off. Then I added the vegetable stock and brought this to the boil before transferring to the oven for 30 minutes. After that it was time to
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This was not a hard bake. With only 5 bakes to go, it feels like the end of a marathon and everything is a bit of an effort. I’m trying to grind on and get a second wind because I do still have some quite complicated bakes to do!!! Ahhhhhh. So this was a pleasant treat, a wee treacle tart with just a few ingredients. It’s actually one of those tarts you could whip up at the last minute if you needed a dessert because there are very few ingredients. The filling is just grated apple, lemon zest and juice, homemade breadcrumbs(!!) and golden syrup. It makes a nice textured, a little bit zingy filling and you know it’s good for you because its got apple.
To make the pastry, I added
(more…)I was peeling the potatoes to make mashed potato. It’s been a while but the kids and husband love mashed potato and sometimes its just fun to please. I looked at these potato skins in the sink, all full of fibre and thought they were just too good to go Read more…
I am nearly done with my bakes! I can’t believe it. This is the last cake from the recipe book and WOW, what a cake. But, this spectacular torte was a mare to make. I laid the ingredients out on the bench and it took me at least 36 hours to get up the courage to start. Finally one evening before dinner, I made the decision to make the sponges, all 12 of them!!! So I cut measured circles out of baking paper, and laid them on baking trays. Then, you know the drill, I beat 8 eggs with caster sugar until the ribbon stage and added the flour. I spooned the mixture evenly onto the circles of paper and baked for 8 minutes.
Now that’s a lot of sponges. Six 20cm wide and six 15 cm wide. Job done. I decided to get a head start on the next step, the caramel for the caramel butter cream, so I put 800g of sugar in a pot with 100ml of water and dissolved this over medium heat. Unfortunately, it went from a bubbly lump of sugar to a hard lump of sugar, so I called it a fail and decided to do it in the morning!
So in the morning with 12 sponges done, I set to to make the caramel butter cream again. Luckily I had bought more sugar as 800g is no small amount. Well, you wouldn’t believe it, but it happened again!!! A hard lump of white sugar instead of clear sugar syrup going to golden caramel. So I decided to
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