Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges: Cherry Cake

 Lately, I haven´t had time for blogging nor for baking and cooking, as I´ve been really busy with other projects.

It´s also been a long time since the Bakers&Friends met up so after nearly one and a half years we finally got round to getting together to catch up over lunch and as is the norm, we all brought savoury and also some sweet snacks. I had some glace cherries that needed using, as I didn´t get round to making a Christmas cake last year, so decided to do a Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and make  Mary Berry´s cherry cake. which I wanted to try. Also it was the first time I used my Bundt mould too!!

The bake is not a difficult one to do if you follow the recipe closely despite it being a technical challenge although without the recipe I´d probably be lost. I didn´t alter anything and the result is a lovely spongy cake. Although glace cherries are not my favourite, I really liked this cake and it was a hit with my Spanish Bakers & Friends so I´ll definitely be making it again although it can be quite hard to find glace cherries in Spanish supermarkets!!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Hot Chocolate Souffle

 It´s been awhile since I´ve done a GBBO technical challenge and when trying to decide what to make for Valentine´s Day this year, I knew that this Hot Chocolate Souffle was the perfect dessert for this special day.

My husband isn´t a fan of fondant or buttercream and while I like to experiment and perfect different skills on Valentine´s bakes...it is pretty much wasted on him. However, he does love anything chocolately so thought I´d be onto a winner with this souffle.And this delectable, gooey,chocolately yet light souffle did not disappoint.Chocolate is always a necessity on Valentine´s Day!! I think both of us could even have gone back for seconds!!!

This is not the first souffle I´ve made as I´ve already made Mary Berry´s lemon souffle(here´s a link to my previous GBBO souffle challenge) also for a GBBO challenge, and they were also delicious if a little sunken.This is only the secod time I´ve made souffles and the first time being out of chocolate. The recipe(click here for the Queen of Baking Mary Berry´s recipe!) itself is actually fairly simple if you follow it closely although I think it´d be a whole lot more difficult under the time pressures and only the basic outlines of the recipe that the contestants had to face. The hardest part for me was adding the cooled cocoa milk to the eggs and whisking as I thought it hadn´t cooled enough so I thought the eggs had started cooking and then when I put it back on the heat , it didn´t appear to be thickening!I thought it was going to be a complete disaster!!
                                                  The only changes I made to the recipe were that I only made half the amount as the original recipe is enough for 8 people and as I don´t have a souffle dish big enough, I decided to make it in individual ramekins,which were pefect portion sizes. Half the recipe made 3 and 1/2 ramekins-thought the 1/2 portion would´ve been ideal for my toddler but he didn´t seem too keen and surprizingly (or maybe not!) my daughter wouldn´t even try it! Oh well,more for us...tomorrow´s dessert is sorted out too!! I also made a heart template and dusted the souffles with icing sugar to decorate it more for Valentine´s Day. Served warm with a nice dollop of cream or ice cream and you have the perfect Valentine´s dessert to dive into.This dessert has now become a new favourite of mine and one that I will be making again!                    

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Bakewell Tart

OMG, I started doing this blog post about 2 months ago at least and didn´t get any further with it!! Things have been really hectic what with birthday parties, ballet shows, parent´s visits etc, not to mention a 10 mnth old screaming baby that is spending more and more time awake and is not happy to be sat anywhere and is constantly disgruntled....hence making it difficult to do anything, let alone blog or even bake and/or cook!!! By the time, I finally get the kids off to bed I´m not so far behind myself as I am constantly knackered!!!

So going to keep this blog post really short but sweet...kind of like me,really....hehehe!!!As I love both Cherry Bakewells and Almond Slices, both of which you can find the recipes on my blog if you click on the links, and as I´ve never actually made a Bakewell Tart before, I decided to make it for this "month´s" Great British Bakeoff Technical Challenge. I wasn´t worried about this bake as I´ve already mentioned I´ve made both Cherry Bakewell tarts and Almond slices which are very similiar and in my opinion fairly easy bakes. I can imagine that they could be more difficult if you didn´t have a recipe to follow though. The hardest part is the shortcrust pastry as it got very sticky and broke quite a lot...I think the best tip I can give you here is to roll it out on top of clingfilm and then place another layer of clingfilm on top of the pastry so it´s between the rolling pin. However, this Mary Berry recipe(click on the link for the recipe) does not disappoint and it is worth the effort as it´s delicious...I´ll definitely be making this again!!As I made it quite awhile ago, I don´t remember if there were any other issues or difficulties in making this bake.

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Wobbly Apricot Tart

Sleepless nights even before the baby comes, having to get up at least 3 times in the night to go to the toilet or for a midnight snack or just because you are so uncomfortable sleeping on your side, not to mention eaing like a horse and backache! Oh, the joys of being pregnant! I´m trying to bake as much as possible before the little one comes along as I´m not sure if I´ll  have much time(or energy!) after the baby is born! Even cooking and baking is starting to be difficult now, as if I´m stood up too long I get backache and just bending down to take things out of the oven is becoming a real effort!

I had some leftover marzipan and as I love marzipan and thought this dessert looked delicious,I decided to make this Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge recently.It is actually quite simple to make, the hardest thing to make probably being the pastry and getting it thin enough for a tart. This particular tart pastry contains egg,which makes the dough much stickier and harder to work with... I always seem to find pastry with egg in much more difficult to handle! I rolled out the pastry between two sheets of clingfilm but it still stuck a little to the clingfilm. I´d be grateful for any other tip about how to roll it out without it sticking and breaking! My other problem was that I didn´t have a big enough fluted tart tin so had to use a cake tin so combined with the trickiness of the pastry, the presentation of the tart isn´t quite as nice or as professional as I´d have liked...it looks a bit more like a pie than a tart. However, this tart is absolutely delicious! I hadn´t expected it to go down with some of my family as they aren´t so keen on marzipan but they thoroughly enjoyed it too!Plus it´s a great way to use up any leftover marzipan too!So, here´s a link to the recipe. I thought it looked like loads of marzipan so didn´t put quite the full amount in but it is absolutely delicious, so don´t skimp on the marzipan!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Sachertorte

It´s been awhile since I did a Great British Bake Off technical challenge so it was about high time I did do one and with my husband´s Saint´s day and my birthday looming up, it was the perfect excuse to make this Sachertorte, particularly as my husband is somewhat of a chocoholic!

I have made a Sachertorte once before to a German recipe I´ve got so I wasn´t too fazed with this particular technical challenge as it is much easier than it actually appears. The thing I dreaded the most was piping the word Sacher across the cake as my piping skills are somewhat lacking to say the least!

Mary Berry´s Sachertorte recipe is easy to follow and results in a delicious and professional looking cake,which is lovely and moist.The cake is fairly straightforward to make. Things you have to watch out for is overmixing the flour,I think I did this but I´m not sure how as when I cut into the cake it had various air bubbles in the sponge which has never happened to me before with any cake.Also,the recipe tells you to whisk the egg whites till stiff but not dry so I was a little uncertain as to what this meant and whether I whipped the egg whites to the correct stiffness!

I practiced piping the word "Sacher" a couple of times onto greaseproof baking paper but a plastic wallet would be ideal too before finally piping it onto the cake when I was happy with it. As you can see, it´s not 100% perfect but I was quite pleased with the end result as it´s ain´t half bad for an amateur baker like myself!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Banoffee(or Strawboffee) Pie

Well, it´s that time again....time for another Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and as you have probably noticed I´m not doing these challenges in any particular order other than by what I fancy!!

I´ve only had Banoffee Pie once before which my mother made and I´ve been wanting to make it myself ever since as my mother´s was simply to die for...the only problem is I don´t like bananas. As strawberries were in season at the time I made this, I decided to replace the banana with strawberries, turning the banoffee pie into a strawboffee pie!!

I usually like to try and stick fairly rigidly to the technical challenge recipes but as I already had some frozen homemade shortcrust pastry I decided to use it. This is a great dessert to make if you need something quick or that doesn´t take too long to prepare, you could always make the pastry ahead of time and freeze it or even cheat and use ready-made pastry if you´re short of time. This recipe is Mary Berry´s and is fairly straightforward to follow. The most difficult or challenging part of the recipe is making the shortcrust pastry and making the toffee sauce.

I only made half the amount of the original recipe and up to making the toffee sauce,  didn´t come across any problems.However, I found that the toffee sauce didn´t appear to be setting and eventually put it in the fridge for about half an hour to an hour. It seemed to have firmed up after this time so I put the strawberries on top of the toffee sauce(they didn´t appear to sink,which was definitely a good sign), then whipped up the cream and placed that on top . All appeared to be well however when I cut into the pie, it became clear that the toffee had nowhere near set and it was one, huge runny mess. I liked the taste of the pie although after a couple of mouthfuls, I found it quite sickly so I don´t quite know where I went wrong.I definitely had some issue with the toffee sauce not setting properly but I also wonder if I put too much condensed milk or something, as it was far too sweet. It certainly wasn´t as good as my mum´s version and I will definitely have to play around or practice this dessert as so far I don´t think I´ve managed to fulfil this challenge. Definitely a disappointing result!Let me know if you are also taking part in the Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and if you´ve had any disasters with the recipes.What would you like the following challenge to be?

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge: Victoria Sponge Cake

 It´s back....The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge and even better, we have another person who´s decided to participate in this challenge...my good friend,Amélie from Amélie Cuisine. We decided to meet up and bake the technical challenges together and to start with opted to do a Victoria Sandwich cake using the very same recipe that the Bake Off contestants had to follow. I hadn´t realised that a Victoria Sponge cake was one of the technical challenges and as I have made Victoria Sponge cakes before, I found it quite an easy technical challenge. Probably the most difficult part is avoiding the cake from rising unevenly when baking, so you have a level cake.
                                                     
We followed the recipe to the letter, put it at 170º in a fan assisted oven and cooked for the amount of time the recipe stated. We left the cakes outside on the window sill to cool while we made and ate our lunch, brown bag fried chicken (very delicious),chips and vegetables. We had a little trouble getting the cakes out of the tin,despite having greased them, as they stuck a little and one sponge broke a little. We decided to add some fresh fruit to the original recipe to jazz it up and for decoration so we placed some halved starwberries on top of one layer, then piped some whipped cream on top of the strawberries, then placed the top sandwich on. We piped more whipped cream on the top layer, then decorated it with a ring of raspberries then blackberries, another ring of raspberries and halved strawberries,stood upwards, then sieved icing sugar over the berries.You couldn´t even tell that one of the sponges was a little damaged! We were so proud of our Victoria Sponge cake....I think it´s one of my nicest looking cakes so far!! Amélie made the bunting, which is a great touch to add to any cake....I´m definitely going to have to learn how to do that too!!

Finally, we got round to trying it and it was delicious. The sponge was light and spongy, the cream,jam and fresh fruit really complemented it and made for a really delicious cake. It was so good that I even went back for seconds....between the four of us we almost ate the whole lot! It must have been good as my daughter doesn´t always eat or even try cakes etc but she tucked in and ate quite a lot too! It´s my new favourite Victoria Sponge cake recipe...definitely worth giving a go and surprizingly not that difficult to make.Here´s a link to the recipe:Victoria Sandwich. Enjoy!

The Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges Challenge: Hot Lemon Soufflé

I love The Great British Bake Off, in fact I am obssessed with it and can´t wait to see the new series in August! It has inspired me even more to become a much better baker than I currently am and to persue my dreams so in order to try and achieve both these things, I´ve decided to challenge myself to bake all the technical challenges from all of the various seasons myself and chart my progress here on this blog. Some of the technical challenges I have actually baked already (but not many!) and I want to follow the exact recipes that the Great British Bake Off contestants had to follow.

So here is one of the first technical challenges I decided to tackle: Lemon Soufflé. This was the very first time I´d tried to make any sort of soufflé before and soufflés are renouned for being a little tricky. However, I followed the recipe very carefully and was pleasantly surprised that they aren´t really all that difficult after all. I halved the recipe so it served only two people and whether my ramekins are bigger or what, I don´t know but the souffle mixture didn´t completely fill them up. I made these awhile ago but I don´t remember having any particular problem. I  think I took the soufflés out of the oven just a tad too early, because as you can see in the photo, the soufflés sunk a little although on the whole, I was very happy with my first attempt at a soufflé. The soufflés themselves are lovely and light, with a sharp,lemony burst. Absolutely delicious!We gobbled them up and could easily have eaten more! I´ll definitely be making these again and perfecting my soufflés!If I were you, forget about your soufflé hang-ups and go and try this recipe! It really is a winner!

Mincemeat & Apple Pie (7th March, 09)

I´d been wondering for awhile what to do with my leftover mincemeat after Christmas....it was a huge jar....and came across a recipe for Mincemeat & Pear flan in my mum´s Mary Berry's Desserts & Confections. This is a slightly adapted version of the recipe but is definitely a great way to use up that leftover mincemeat and is sure to be a success. Again, had a few struggles with the pastry as was fairly sticky so added a bit more flour, then when attempting to put it in the pie dish it kept breaking but eventually managed to get it in, in one piece. All cup and teaspoon/tablespoon measurements are American.

Ingredients (Serves 8-10)
Pastry
175g/6 oz (1 cup)plain (all-purpose)flour
30g/1oz (2 1/2 tbsp) caster (superfine) sugar
120g/4oz butter (1 stick)
1 egg
Streusel topping
30g/1oz(4 1/2tbsp)plain (all-purpose) flour
20g/2/3oz ( 1 1/2 tbsp)light soft brown sugar
30g/1oz (2 tbsp) butter
Filling
leftover sweet mincemeat
1-3 apples,Fuji best as you don´t need extra sugar, peeled and thinly sliced, depending on how much mincemeat leftover(as I only had a little mincemeat about 1/4 jar, I used 3 apples to fill the pie
lemon juice
cinnamon

Method
1. Sift flour and mix together with sugar in a bowl and rub butter into flour till it looks like breadcrumbs.
2. Add egg and mix until dough holds together(if very sticky add a little more flour). Roll into ball and refrigerate for an hour.
3. Mix together flour and brown sugar in a small bowl and rub butter into flour till it looks like breadcrumbs for the streusel topping. Refrigerate.
4. Roll out the dough using a floured rolling pin on a floured surface till it´s slightly bigger than the 22cm/8 in pie crust.
5. Line pie dish with pastry crust and trim the edges, then crimp the edges.
6. Spread a layer of mincemeat and then place the layers of apple on top fanning out in an attractive way (see before pic. below)


7. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the apples to stop them from turning brown and sprinkle a little cinnamon over the apples for flavour and then sprinkle streusel topping on top.
8. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degrees C (425 degrees F) for 25-30 mins, taking care that pastry does not burn.(see notes)
9. When pastry and streusel are a nice golden brown colour, take out of the oven and serve hot with cream or ice cream.

- I´d suggest either cooking the apples a little before placing them in the pie or cook the pie at a lower temperature for a longer time as my apples were a little undercooked but the pastry was ready and I didn´t want it to burn. It still looked and tasted great though!