Home Sweet Home Bake Along (55-60!)

How was it February since I last posted? Dear me, how time seems to run away. I have been baking, quietly, in the background, although I think I'm rather off kilter with Gill!

I have baked:

A very ugly Flourless Chocolate Cake cake. Like Gill I suffered a spring-form tin water ingress issues, despite wrapping the tin in foil. Soggy edges, but a rather pleasant middle.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Shortcakes - I changed the shape on these to a wedge (for ease) and added white chocolate chips for added excitement. These made a rather excellent Sunday night supper for The Fair Physiologist, The Pure Mathematician in Exile and me.

Chocolate Pie - this one is in fact not 57, but I accidentally made 57 here: Chess Pie when I skipped over Chocolate pie believing I had already made it (I think I had, but not during the bake through) - this is fab - chocolate biscuit crust, chocolate pastry cream/custard/pudding, whipped cream. Everything the doctor ordered.

Vanilla fudge - another somewhat dubious fudge attempt on my part - not sure if it is the sugar thermometer or me, but these needed reboiling. Jolly yummy once finished though! My squares were rather thin because I never seem to have the tins demanded by Home Sweet Home.

Cinder Toffee (Honeycomb) cupcakes. Yum. That is all.

Lemon cake. Stupidly tried to make cream cheese icing on the hottest day of the year so far. Very slide-y layers. Jam oozing. It was like the Princesstarta all over again... Still, a few butterfly sprinkles and all was well with the world again. It was well received, despite its ugliness.

Oh. Yes. I also made some espadrilles. The Kindred Spirit wonderfully bought me all the required items for production two birthdays ago. She visited this week, and I suddenly remembered that amid other projects I had forgotten to make them; so I did. And they were fun, and easy, and I have new summer shoes! Yay!

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Home Sweet Home Bake Along (48-52/100)

Sorry it has been so long! Life rather got in the way of blogging, although baking did still go ahead. Therefore this post is a bit of a round up of the last 5 bakes from the Home Sweet Home book. These five bakes have taken us past the halfway mark, which is a nice place to be. I have a great deal of sympathy for and growing amazement with Julie Powell (of "Julie and Julia" fame) - 524 recipes in 365 days sounds an absolute nightmare and rather bonkers to be honest. Hey-ho. On with the baking:

First up were: Chocolate Praline Cupcakes. Still got the leftover praline somewhere. Delicious but far too much of it.

Then came: Mississippi Mud Cake; three layers of far too much chocolatey goodness.

Third were Toffee Pecan Thumbprint cookies: Weird cream cheese dough. Not sure I'd bother again, but they were all eaten, so no complaints on that front.

Next up was Peach Pie: Mine was rather more cooked on top than on the bottom, which is the trouble with a non-fan oven, it turns out. Maybe if I put a pound in a pot for every dish the oven messed up I'd quickly save for a fan one. Hmmm, there's a thought. (Also turns out chocolate pie was next, not peach pie, my addled brain went a bit mad there apparently; hey-ho, will make chocolate pie when Gill is making peach pie!)

Then finally came Cinnamon buns: Always amazing, always fun, always eaten. Yum.

Next up: Grasshopper Slices...

Gluten Free Pita Breads - Great British Bake Off (#GBBOBloggers2015)

Having missed the deadline last week, I am determined not to this week!

These were surprisingly good, and if someone had served them to me, without saying what they were, I doubt I would have realised that the subtle difference was that they were gluten free. The nigella seeds provide a nice bite and flavour, and take them from pita almost to the realms of naan breads.

Even though all of my breads were made, shaped and baked in the same way, 5 made pockets, but 3 didn't. I cannot explain this.

Also, I only made 1/3 of the recipe, and it still made 8 standard sized pita breads! I couldn't find psyllium powder, I used intact husks, which worked exactly the same.

Recipe (From BBC Food)

Ingredients
30g/1oz psyllium powder
750g/1lb 10oz gluten-free bread flour blend, plus extra for flouring
3 tbsp nigella seeds
15g/½oz sugar
1 tbsp salt
21g/¾oz instant yeast
3 large free-range eggs
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
6 tbsp olive oil
Method:
1. Mix the psyllium powder with 300ml/10fl oz water. Set aside to allow the mixture to thicken.
2. Tip the flour and nigella seeds into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and salt to one side of the bowl and the yeast to the other. Crack the eggs into the centre of the flour, add the vinegar, olive oil and the psyllium mixture. Combine the ingredients to form a soft dough. Gradually add about 300ml/10fl oz water - you may not need it all, although the dough should be soft and slightly sticky.
3. Place onto a floured surface and knead to form a smooth dough. Place back in the bowl, cover and leave to rest for 1½ hours, or until doubled in size.
4. Heat the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas 9 and place 3 heavy baking trays in the oven to heat up.
5. Dust your work surface with flour. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and shape each one into a ball. Roll or press the pieces into oval shapes about 4mm thick.
6. Remove the baking tray from the oven and dust with a little flour. Lay four pittas on each tray and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until puffed up and cooked through. The pittas should have a slight colour to them. Remove from the oven and wrap in a clean tea towel - this helps keeps them soft.

I am entering this in #GBBOBloggers 2015 and #CookBlogShare, which this week are both being hosted by Kirsty at Hijacked By Twins

Baguettes - Great British Bake Off (#GBBOBloggers2015)

I love bread, so bread week is one of my favourites! I am continuing my baking of the technicals, and this week, it was baguettes. I was pleased with how these turned out, overall.

My sizing was a little off - these were sadly not four evenly sized baguettes. However, they had a wonderful crust, and a lovely open structure. I didn't have a proper razor to slash the baguettes, and none of my knives were sadly quite sharp enough.

 
Two of the baguettes had a good sheen, but two didn't, and I'm not quite sure why. It may have been that I was switching between recipes (a very similar recipe is in Paul Hollywood's "How to Bake"), and one had me to knead in oil rather than flour, or it may have been to do with position in my (non-fan) oven.

Recipe (From BBC Food)
Ingredients
olive oil, for greasing
500g/1lb 2oz strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
10g/¼ oz salt
10g/¼ oz fast-action yeast
370ml/13fl oz cool water
Method
1. Lightly oil a 2¼ litre/4 pint square plastic container with olive oil. (It’s important to use a square tub as it helps shape the dough.)
2. Put the flour, salt and yeast into the bowl of a freestanding mixer fitted with a dough hook (don’t put the salt directly on top of the yeast). Add three-quarters of the water and begin mixing on a slow speed. As the dough starts to come together, slowly add the remaining water, then continue to mix on a medium speed for 5-7 minutes, until you have a glossy, elastic dough.
3. Tip the dough into the prepared tub. Cover and leave for 1 hour, or until at least doubled in size.
4. Dredge a linen couche with flour and lightly dust the work surface with flour.
5. Carefully tip the dough onto the work surface. Rather than knocking it back, handle it gently so you can keep as much air in the dough as possible. (This helps to create the irregular, airy texture of a really good baguette.) The dough will be wet to the touch but still lively.
6. Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Shape each piece into an oblong by flattening the dough out slightly and folding the sides into the middle. Then roll each up into a sausage – the top should be smooth with the join running along the length of the base. Now, beginning in the middle, roll each sausage with your hands. Don’t force it out by pressing heavily. Concentrate on the backwards and forwards movement and gently use the weight of your arms to roll out the dough to 30cm/12in long.
7. Lay a baguette along the edge of the linen couche and pleat the couche up against the edge of the baguette. Place another baguette next to the pleat. Repeat the process until all 4 baguettes are lined up against each other with a pleat between each. Cover the baguettes with a clean tea towel and leave for 1 hour, or until the dough has at least doubled in size and springs back quickly if you prod it lightly with your finger.
8. Preheat the oven to 240C/220C Fan/Gas 9 and put a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven to heat up.
9. When the baguettes are risen, remove them from the couche and dust lightly with flour. Slash each one 4 times along its length on the diagonal, using a razor blade or a very sharp knife. Transfer to a large baking tray.
10. Fill the heated roasting tray with hot water, to create steam, and put the bread into the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the baguettes are golden-brown and have a slight sheen. Cool on a wire rack.

I'm entering this in #GBBOBloggers2015, which this week is hosted by Jo's Kitchen.

I'm also entering this in #CookBlogShare, which this week is being hosted by Kerry Cooks

Baguettes previously: Sourdough Spelt Baguettes

Cheese and Rosemary Breadsticks - Home Sweet Home Bake Along 34/100

Not so many pictures this time, as these were made in the middle of a mad week of baking for a birthday-housewarming-tea-party type event. It was fun. And chaotic. And I keep finding icing and biscuit crumbs in strange places.

These are definitely better the day they are made - just cooled a little from the oven.

I'm hideously behind again, so for all the latest bakes, check out Tales of Pigling Bland!

Ingredients:
Dough:
180ml lukewarm water
1 1/2 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp fast action yeast (they use 1+1/2 tsp dried yeast)
210g strong white bread flour
1/4 tsp salt
Coating:
80g parmesan cheese, finely grated
60g gruyere cheese finely grated
1 tsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
60ml olive oil (probably don't need quite this much)







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Doughnuts - Home Sweet Home Bake Along 33/100

Well, my fear of deep fat frying has been well and truly conquered by this Bake Along! And, can I just say, I'm so glad it was.

These were rather good, and even when they were past their best the next day, people gobbled them down, mighty quickly.

I ended up with a very sticky dough, and had to add extra flour in order to be able to roll it out, rather than spread it, but Gill didn't have that problem.

Other than the stickiness, these were incredibly quick and easy to make - I made them after getting home from work one evening.

I'd make again - perhaps for a film night, or similar?

Ingredients:

2 tsp fast action yeast [they use 1tbsp dried yeast]
60ml lukewarm water
2 tbsp caster sugar
190ml warm milk
1 large egg
30g butter, melted
340g strong white flour
700ml [the volume required will depend on your pan, but you'll need the oil about 2 inches deep] sunflower oil for frying
For dusting:
100g caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon




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Olive Loaf - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (27/100)

And we're back. New house, new kitchen, new oven. The oven slightly shocked me - it has no fan! I didn't even know modern ovens came without fans. One day, once I'm over the shock of filling a house with furniture &c. I may consider replacing it - check back in 20 years or so. Anyway, on with the bake through!

I love the idea of olive loaves. Indeed I love olive loaves themselves. But there is a caveat - I prefer them as yeasted loaves. Although I didn't have an issue with dryness that Gill had, I was slightly unconvinced by this texture.

Imagine if you will, a cross between an olive flavoured cake and a scone. The texture was very much scone/cake, but the flavour totally savoury. Odd.

However, The Fair Physiologist and I very much enjoyed it for our lunch in the glorious summer weather we had this week.We followed this excitement by going out to buy a watering can for my new garden. It was all go round here.

I'm playing catch up at the moment, so look out for a deluge of posts over the next hours/days. Gill suggested I might just skip over the ones I am behind. My dear reader, you will be pleased that I reacted in shock and amazement that I might not get to bake Mocha Marshmallow Cake.

Ingredients:
Loaf:

600g Strong flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp crushed garlic
1 tsp maldon sea salt
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary
2 large eggs
125ml olive oil
250ml whole milk
1 tbsp honey (I think I would reduce this next time, it gave a disconcerting sweetness)
200g pitted black olives, roughly chopped (I used tinned olives, and slightly less than this, as I failed to remember that the weight of tinned olives is the undrained weight, when doing my shopping online)
2 tbsp black olive tapenade (I used "olive pate" as this was all I could find when shopping and seemed close enough)

Top:
1/2 tsp sea salt
3-4 fresh rosemary springs (Their sprigs must be tiny - I picked 4 for the entire loaf, including the chopped rosemary, and still had 2 left over by the time I had thoroughly decorated)





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Chocolate Hazelnut Buns - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (25/100)

Now these were rather good! Sticky, sweet and indulgent - perfect bank holiday tea food.

These nicely rounded off a barbeque and part 3 of The Hobbit (the only part I have ever seen) with The Fair Physiologist, The Pure Mathematician in Exile, Little Boy Red and The Aerospace Godfather.

I can neither confirm nor deny that they also served as the starter.

This is one I will be aiming to bake again. So far I have come to the conclusion that many of the recipes in this book very easily fit into two categories, "bake again" and "don't bother"!

For an extra chocolate-hazelnut kick, I substituted half of the butter in the filling with chocolate-hazelnut spread (Nutella) - yum!

These are best eaten fresh and warm on the day they are baked, but if there are leftovers (haha) a quick 15-20 seconds in the microwave (per bun) the next day, is almost as good.

A word of warning: If you eat these in front of a 10 month old who is not allowed anything so sweet and sticky, he will pull the most pitiful looks and repeatedly point at your plate, giving you the worst guilt trip ever. Just saying.

Ingredients: 
Dough: 
300ml lukewarm whole milk
25g caster sugar
1+1/2 tsp dried active yeast (that's 1 tsp "quick" yeast or "fast-action")
500g strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
85g unsalted butter, cubed
Filling: 
50g unsalted butter, softened (I substituted 25g of butter for 25g of Nutella)
100g caster sugar
100g finely chopped hazelnuts (I just whizzed whole nuts in a coffee grinder until I had something resembling chopped nuts)
25g cocoa powder
1 large egg, beaten (for glazing before the oven - I didn't bother, the buns are hidden under so much sugary glaze that this didn't seem necessary, but if you weren't making the sugary glaze, might be worth it)
Glaze: (optional)
50g unsalted butter, softened
300g icing sugar, sifted
125g full-fat cream cheese




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