Welsh Cakes are on the cards!

After a family wedding in South Wales I was finally given the family welsh cake recipe from Dan's Mam (grandma).  She makes the most amazing welsh cakes - I have never found any others that come even close (not even M&S!). So I now have a plank (lovely wedding present), and the sacred recipe - I just need time to make them now!

We seem to be in the midst of wedding season at the moment so time is very limited for baking! Welsh cakes are on my bake list not this weekend but next so stay tuned for my post on them :)

Not a soggy bottom... Argh!

So on Thursday I made a treacle tart for the dinner party we were going to on Friday. I've made one before but it had a soggy bottom, so I was determined not to have the same problem again.

I made sure I rolled the pastry nice and thin, added enough breadcrumbs to the golden syrup so the mixture wasn't too wet, and when I put it in the oven, I put it on a super hot baking tray.

But alas, another soggy bottom! A bakers worst nightmare!

But despite all this it tasted lovely so not all was lost. And the lattice work on top was pretty good, if I may say so myself (top tip- put the lattice pastry in the freezer rolled out for 10 mins before assembling. It means you can manipulate the pastry without it stretching and becoming mis-shapened.)

(Recipe taken from the great British bake off show stoppers recipe book and also in Mary Berry's baking bible)

P.s. forgot to take a photo before it got devoured so only have a pre-bake shot.

At said dinner party we received a pasta machine as a wedding present from some lovely friends - so exciting. So whilst not technically baking, hopefully I will be trying my hand at homemade pasta sometime soon. Watch this space...

Croissants - Délicieux

A few weeks ago, I attempted croissants.  I had been dying to do them for ages so couldn't wait to get started.  It was a two day process and I have no idea how the french have them ready for breakfast - mine were ready at 3pm on Sunday!

So I started on Saturday evening making the dough.  I combined them quite quickly and didn't really work the dough very much so as not to overwork it.  I clingfilmed the bowl and waited for it to rise.  I don't know if it is my house, but everything always seems to take a lot longer to rise than the recipes say. So about 3 hours later (not 30-45 mins as stated) my dough had doubled in size. I knocked the dough back and put it in the fridge to chill to the morning.

In the morning, I started to "bash" the butter.  It had to be cold but pliable.  This would moulded into a square to go into the middle of the dough.

The 'flaps' were then folded in to seal the butter in, and the first of 3 roll-fold-chill processes were begun.  Now I got this recipe from the second GBBO cookbook, and I think there are some flaws in the recipe.  I'm fairly sure when you fold a 60 x 30cm rectangle into 3 lengthways, you aren't going to get a perfect square.  So I had to freestyle it a bit, but I think it wrked out all right in the end.  So after folding, the dough had to be chilled for 30 minutes before the next roll and fold.

So this process was carried out three times before I could roll it out for the final time.  It had to be rolled out into a rather large rectangle (clear the decks! my worktop was just big enough to cope with everything taken off it).  It seemed every time I rolled the dough it seemed to shrink back again  - it was a very elastic dough.  But I persevered and got the required dimensions in the end! 

Now for some precision cutting of triangles.  Out comes the ruler!

The recipe also said that all my triangles should fit on two baking sheets.  I don't know how big their baking sheets are but I needed four! And I made 20 croissants just like recipe said, so that is another mystery.  Never mind, I made do with what I had, and chilled again.

After the final chill, it was time for the roll up.  This was the fun bit, to finally see them come together.  They were a bit smaller than I thought they would be, but they still had another rise to go before baking.

3 hours of proving later (was supposed to be an hour) and I'm still sure that they hadn't doubles in size as they were supposed to but I couldn't wait any longer.  So after an egg glaze they went into the oven.  And a little while later... ta-dah!

Nom nom nom! They were delicious :)

Until my next bake...

The Blog Begins...

So, I've decided to write a blog.  I'm currently on a journey to broaden my baking horizons and so I want to document it all somewhere. My mum suggested a blog, so here it is.  I'll start with some pictures of some of my historical bakes.

This was the birthday cake for my mum.  I had a lot of fun with sugarpaste on this one.  There is something quite therapeutic about covering a cake.

These were my first attempt at macaroons.  I used the Mojito Macaroon recipe from the second Great British Bake Off recipe book and they were amazing.  They didn't keep very well though so definitely one to make and eat as soon as possible.

Victoria sponges are my ultimate go to.  They always get me out of a sticky situation and they have never failed me yet.  I love these mini ones, finished with a sprinkling of icing sugar.

This was a croquembouche that I just knocked up one day :) A batch of choux pastry buns, filled with a lemon pastry cream and assembled with caramel.  Looked lovely assembled, but looked a mess as it was started to be deconstructed! 

This was Paul Hollywood's eight strand plaited loaf (GBBO book 3).  I started to plait the dough but it wasn't quite right so I undid it and started again and I was pretty impressed with the end product.  It made for a great ham sandwich :)