great british bake off

Bake Off Final 🏆🍰👑

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The night has finally arrived, my baking pal’s self claimed favourite night of the year so we all head to her house for a bit of a ‘cake do’. We all bake and gorge and watch Mary Berry do her thing… It’s always a really enjoyable night catching up with friends and eating yummy things. {not very slimming world friendly however 🙈} 
Tonight rightly or wrongly I tried a new recipie, as I write I haven’t tasted it or compared it to my other baker extrodinarres but despite a central crack it looks pretty ok. Here’s how to make it thanks to Rachel Allen. 

 {Ingredients}

  



{Method}

 1. Melt the butter and mix in crushed biscuits, press into prepared tin

2. In a food processor or with an electric whisk mix all the other ingredients, leaving half the crushed raspberries until the final mix!

3. Pour this mix on top of the biscuit base

4. Finally bake at 180 deg for 40-45 mins. An important tip I got given post crack was to leave it in the oven to cool for at least and hour without opening the door to avoid this!

Happy Bake Off.. 

   

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Bake Off-Semi Finals

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One last week before the big final. We have a get together in my equally baking obsessed pal’s house every year so I am planning my bake already but tonight the theme is chocolate and as I am posting this late I decided to share a recipe  full of ingredients you can get very easily and is also easy to whip up!

{Chocolate Biscuit Cake}~courtesy of my baking obsessed pal and odlums.ie 

Ingredients:

  • 275g / 10oz Butter
  • 150ml / 1/4 pt Golden Syrup
  • 225g / 8oz 70% Dark Chocolate
  • 400g Packet of Digestive Biscuits (roughly crushed)
  • 1 Packet of Maltesers

Method: 

  1. Line a 15cms/6″ cake tin or a 2lb loaf tin with a double layer of greaseproof paper.
  2. Melt the butter, syrup and chocolate in a pan over a low heat. Stir to make sure all the ingredients are well mixed together.Add the biscuits, maltesers and stir well.
  3. Transfer to prepared tin. Level it on top and press down well to avoid “air gaps”. Allow to get cold and hard. Wrap completely in greaseproof paper and store in a fridge.


Now what to bake for next week! And not sure how great that will tie in with my slimming world plan.. 😁

Bake Off-Quarter Finals

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And just like that is was the quarter finals. This week is pattiserie and the first recipe that sprung to mind was both my husbands fav and one from a family friends’ late granny-eclairs/profiteroles. Granny Nancy made them like nothing I’ve tasted since but here is a simple recipe if you would like to give them a try. They are a little easier than they seem.

{Ingredients}

65g/2 ½oz Strong White Flour

150ml/ ¼ pint Water

50g/2oz Butter

Pinch of Salt

2 Eggs (beaten)
Whipped Cream for filling and Milk chocolate melted with a little butter for topping.

{Method}

1. Preheat an oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas 6 and grease a flat baking tray.
2. Place water and butter into a saucepan over a low heat until butter melts.
3. Bring to boil.
4. Reduce heat and add sieved flour and salt.
5. Stir quickly until mixture forms a soft dough and leaves sides of saucepan. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
6. Add the eggs gradually and beat until mixture is smooth and shiny.
7. Transfer mixture to a piping bag, fitted with a thickish plain nozzle.
8. Pipe lengths of mixture (well spaced) onto the greased tray or in a rounded shape to make a profiterole/bun. 
9. Bake for 20 minutes approx, until well risen and golden brown in colour.
10. Remove from oven and slit along one side straight away. Cool on wire tray.
11. When cold, fill with whipped cream and spread with chocolate on top.
Enjoy with a lovely cuppa and some Paul puns!  
Photo thanks to my fab friend baker who is the granddaughter of the fabulous Granny Nancy! 

Bake Off Bakes-Wk 3 🍰

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The theme this week was bakes of the Victorian era.. I wasn’t too keen or too familiar to be honest so I decided my spin on it this week would be an old classic-Victoria Sponge!

{Ingredients}

200g Self Raising Flour

200g Soft Butter 

200g Caster Sugar 

1 level teaspoon Baking Powder 

4 Beaten Eggs 

2 tablespoons of milk

{Method}

1. Cream the butter and sugar until pale then add the eggs slowly 

2. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix then add milk

3. Divide between greased cake tins and bake at 180 deg for 20-25 mins or until golden brown and a clean knife can be inserted as a test!

4. Allow to cool and fill as desired.. Some suggestions below!

Fillings-

  • Jam centre with a sugar topping, simple but my favourite
  • Strawberries and cream centre
  • Lemon curd and cream centre

I can almost smell it-Enjoy!

Bake Off Bakes Wk 2 {kind of}

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Eek so I missed another one due to being away and it was ‘free from’ week and I have a lovely post coming up on that soon. Plus I missed it and forgot to record it when I was away and let’s face it I saved your thighs by not adding to your baking consumption!

So onto this week, it’s pastry so lots of lovely options but one of my faves is Bakewell Tart 🍒. Mine wasn’t great last year but I got this recipe from odlums.ie

{Ingredients}

Pastry:-

170g cream odlums flour

Pinch of salt

75g Unsalted butter

Filling:-

170g strawberry/raspberry jam

110g unsalted butter

110g caster sugar

110g ground almond

3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk.

1tsp almond extract

Handful blanched flaked almonds

{Method}

Rub flour and butter together with fingertips until crumb like texture add pinch of salt, and enough cold water to bring mixture to a smooth dough like form. Refrigerate for 30 mins.

Roll out the pastry. Grease you’re round tin( with a little butter), before settling in pastry.

Onto the filling, add butter and sugar into a bowl and blend into a creamy paste.

From there add in the rest of your ingredients, ground almond, eggs and essence and whisk. You’re mixture should be smooth and creamy!

Now to spread the raspberry jam, I like quiet a lot so make sure to be extra generous!

Pour in the filling and place in a preheated fan oven of 200C/gas mark 6 for 30 minutes until lightly golden brown on top, with five minute to go sprinkle you’re flaked almond on top to toast nicely!

Enjoy, I’ll be nibbling a rich tea after my start in slimming world yesterday which I’ll fill you in about soon!

Bake Off Bakes-Wk 1

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So this is the first in the series of Bake Off Baking, I know I’m 3 weeks late…☺️ Last year I baked something weekly according to the theme but this year my hips won’t lie so that is not an option. This year I am going to share yummy recipes relating to their weekly theme. This week it is desserts so ahead of tonight’s show here is one of my favs to whip up. I made a large one last year but was feeling particularly gluttonous so here is a slight alternative. 

{Individual Banofee Pies}:

Ingredients: Digestives, melted butter, caramel condensed milk, bananas, whipped cream & flake

Wine/Trifle glasses to serve

Method: Crush the digestives and melted butter together

Pat into the bottom of your desired dish-let it set a little in the fridge

Add a good dollop of caramel and chopped bananas on top.

Pop the whipped cream on top along with a sprinkle of flake and you are done.

Leave in fridge to cool and take out 10 mins before scoffing!

Enjoy..