Paper Cupcakes

This is a make which spans the bauble and bake categories of my blog. Rodina and I made these paper cupcakes with a stencil that I bought and some free gift paper from a craft magazine. These were pretty easy to make. Just draw round the holes in the stencil, cut out then fold and stick. The cupcakes are made up of a “cake”, its case and a topper. The trickiest part was interlocking all the parts together to make the icing. But once it was done it looked really good and realistic with the swirling effect. I also messed up when tracing the shapes out. The cake part was a little jazzier than I expected as I traced onto the wrong (well the right) side of the paper!

Big Yummy Fruity Cookies

My Big Yummy Double Chocolate Cookies were such a success (on several occasions) that when my friend and baking assessor/mentor Rodina came to visit I just had to roll the recipe out. This time though I tried it out with a plain mixture and a mix of dried cherries, cranberries and blueberries.

Method 

Same as before. Although this time I got cocky and didn’t look at the book as much. So after creaming the butter and sugar together, the egg and the dry ingredients all went in together. I was in a bit of a panic when I realised but it was all ok in the end.

Results 

Tasty cookies! They still were really good. However, I used the same weight of fruit as chocolate chips and I think this meant there was too much volume. In each cookie bite you didn’t get much cookie flavour as the fruit overpowered it all. Rodina was impressed and has taken the recipe to bake at home.

Score: 8/10

Soundtrack: A random mix of pop music from Rodina’s Iphone

Mini Cheese & Onion Quiches

So in my attempt to master shortcrust pastry but not make the same thing over and over I decided to make my first savoury bake. I used the recipe from the BBC website for the pastry this time (here) and the overall recipe is from another baking blog called Simply Veggie (here).

Method

I did a few things to try and improve my pastry. I left the butter out of the fridge for a few minutes before using and the room in general is warmer today (despite the falling snow). I tried to focus a bit more on what I was doing and making sure I mainly used my fingertips. Also, the recipe is for a smaller amount which reduced rubbing in time. I also used a knife to stir in the water and added it a lot more slowly and carefully. I used my hands to squish everything together at the end.

The dough looked a little better this time, although it was still pretty pale and I could see some small tell tale butter smears. I left in the fridge for longer this time, and tried to be gentler when rolling out and cutting.

The filling was simple to make with fried onions, grated cheese and an egg and milk mixture. I knew that this reduced pastry recipe would make fewer rounds and in the end I just about got to fill one 12 hole bun tray. I had scaled down the filling quantities but still had quite a bit left over –omelette for dinner!

Results

There were no soggy bottoms and no fillings exploding over the edge. The pastry still wasn’t that crumbly melt in the mouth texture I was going for. It still had those “layers” and the kind of hardish chewiness. However, the pastry was a lot softer than before, so an improvement. The filling was great, although I could have cooked the onion for a little longer (or used a bigger pan!).

Score: 4/10

Soundtrack: Radio One Chart Show

Jam Tarts

So, I managed to make good pastry with my mum and a food processor, but now it’s time to do it myself and by hand. The Good Food: Easy Baking Recipes book suggested that I use pre made pastry, and Lorraine Pascale only had a complicated recipe involving eggs in her book. So I decided that I knew what I was doing and just went for it.

Recipe

110g Butter

225g Plain Flour

Water

Strawberry Jam

Method

First I rubbed together the flour and the butter. I decided that I knew pastry needed to be cold so I used butter straight out of the fridge. The rubbing together seemed to take ages and eventually I was making everything into more blobs not less. So I decided to start adding the water. I stirred everything together with a metal spoon (as I thought I had heard something about that too). In the end the mixture turned out a bit sticky so a little more flour was added. It was at this point that I began to worry. The dough was very pale and looked and felt more like bread than pastry. It was also suspiciously stretchy.

After resting in the fridge for 20mins I started to roll it out. It still wasn’t right but I decided that I might as well see how it worked out. The dough was very light and I have to admit you could still see some smears of butter in it. I was going to try out all sorts of different jams in my tarts but I went with plain strawberry so as not to confuse things further. I filled my normal 12 hole bun tin so also made some mini tarts.

I then put a small amount of strawberry jam on top of each “pastry” case. After 15 minutes in the oven the tarts were ready to be taken out of the oven and set to cool.

Results

I think these weren’t the complete disaster I was predicting but they weren’t far off either. I have managed to create some kind of slightly flaky, fairly chewy approximation of shortcrust pastry. But I am pretty sure where I went wrong. First you do need softer butter so that it takes less time to rub in. To be honest I knew I didn’t get breadcrumbs like I should have. Second I need to take more time and be more careful with adding the water. For this bake my usual slapdash, relaxed approach isn’t the best. So, there will be a lot more jam tarts in the making to perfect this one…

Score: 2/10 (Because I can’t bear to give a 1, and as a whole they are ok, just not as what they should be like.)

Soundtrack: Hands, Little Boots

Big Yummy Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’m dipping into another baking book Christmas present for my next bake. This time it’s Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale. I really liked Lorraine’s TV programs as she obviously loves making yummy food but isn’t afraid to make things easy (or even cheat a little) to get there. Her book has some simple classics but also other things that have a very modern twist. There is also a tips and tricks bit with lots of useful info.

This evening I decided to cheer myself up with some chocolate cookies. This is something that I have baked a lot in the past but usually use the ready made packet mixes. Cookies are something I really love and buy from the supermarket too so I always have high expectations!

Method

This recipe uses an electric mixer to mix together the ingredients. First, I creamed the light brown sugar and softened butter (which, in a first, I remembered to get out of the fridge well beforehand) then added an egg and vanilla extract. At this point the recipe said not to panic if it looked a bit wrong, but I am pleased to say at no point did mine look like a disaster! Then I added the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and cocoa powder. In Lorraine’s recipes she always uses plain flour and bicarb rather than self raising. The mixture then formed a really stiff dough and I “mashed in” the chocolate chips; white, milk and dark.

The recipe says to make 8 or 9 large cookies but I got 8 large and 3 slightly smaller. The balls of dough were set onto lined baking trays and put in the oven. One thing I have always got wrong with cookies in the past is the cooking time. I tend to panic that the cookies look far too soft, leave them in too long, and then they turn out really, really hard. So this time I followed instructions to the letter, telling myself they were meant to look soft and gooey when they came out of the oven. And I am glad that I did!

Results

Wow. I am so impressed with these cookies. They might even be the best thing I have ever baked. First, they are very chocolaty (which is always a good thing in my opinion) with just the right amount of chips. Second, they have a crisp outside and a very soft inside which is just how I like them. Other people might prefer if they were left in the oven for a tiny bit longer. They might be a bit chewier then.  When I tried them they were still a little warm so we will have to see what they are like completely cool and also when they are a few days old (if they last that long!!).

Update: Everyone at work also agreed that they were awesome, even cold. They didn't last very long at all...

Score: 9/10 (Amazing, but I’m sure Lorraine’s would be better…)

Soundtrack: A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation, The Wombats

Oma Bonka’s Apfelstrudel

For dessert for my New Year’s Eve dinner I decided to take a first delve into one of my new baking books. On the request of my boyfriend I went for “Grandma Bonka’s Apple Strudel” from the Hairy Bikers Big Book of Baking. I really enjoyed the television series that went with the book. The Bikers travelled all around Europe find the best bakes and cakes. I like finding out about and trying foods from all different places so this book is perfect for me. This recipe is from Austria.

Recipe

I used shop bought filo pasty sheets and layered them up, brushing them with melted butter at each layer. I then covered them with toasted breadcrumbs and then the filling: apples, sugar, cinnamon and sultanas. Then the pastry was rolled up like a swiss roll, brushed with butter and placed on a baking tray to put in the oven.

Results

This recipe was quite easy and simple to make and I enjoyed having a little bit of help in the kitchen from my boyfriend. When I wound up the strudel I didn’t get it that tight and so it was a lot fatter than I had expected. In fact it was huge! I think this is because the apples were sliced and so in quite large pieces. Although I had one too few apples it still made quite a lot of filling. Bits of the filling kept falling out of each end when I rolled it too.

The strudel was left in the oven for the recommended 40 minutes. However, even after that amount of time the apples were still a little hard. That could be because I chose granny smiths and not softer eating apple. The strudel sliced well and tasted good with cream all the same. I left what remained after serving in the warm oven. The next day, after zapping it in the microwave, the apples were soft and it was even better than the night before. The book says it makes 24 slices but with my massive portions I think it will do for about 8 or 10!

Score: 6/10

Soundtrack: 18 Months, Calvin Harris