Garlic & Rosemary Breadsticks and Focaccia

After watching the Great British Bake Off masterclass last night with Paul Hollywood making olive breadsticks I knew that I had to make them, and make them soon.

With no time like the present I got up early to make dough. I wasn't going to let the small issue of having no olives stop me and instead chose to add rosemary and garlic, along with a few chilli flakes.

The dough is quite a wet one and it was really helpful watching it on the tv before making them as I was able to see the consistency of the dough and watch the technique of forming the breadsticks. I made just over a third of the quantity that Mr H made (he used 1kg of flour), which still made quite a few breadsticks, as well as a small Focaccia.

Garlic & Rosemary Breadsticks

350g strong white bread flour

7g salt

7g yeast

glug of olive oil (approx 50ml)

280ml cool water (approx)

handful of fresh rosemary

3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

Pinch of chilli flakes

Flour & semolina for dusting

• Mix the flour, salt, yeast, oil and half of the water together in a food mixer
• Add the rest of the water with the motor running until you get a thick cake like batter, adding more water if necessary
• Add the rosemary, garlic & chilli flakes
• Mix for 10 mins on high speed
• Put dough into a large rectangular plastic food box (lidded)
• Prove for approx 1 hour, until doubled in size
• Dust the work surface with semolina & flour 
• Prepare a baking sheet by dusting with flour & semolina
• Tip the dough out and sprinkle with more flour & semolina
• Cut the dough gently into strips and as you lay onto the prepared baking sheet stretch them gently
• Bake in a 220 C oven for approx 20 minutes, until browned & crispy

You can reserve some of the dough to make focaccia - I sprinkled with a little sea salt before baking - it makes such a soft bread

The Great Bloggers Bake Off - English Muffins

The Great British Bake Off may be over but The Great Bloggers Bake Off isn't. We are continuing with our baking for as long as we can so please feel free to continue joining in.

This week Mary Berry & Paul Hollywood are showing us how to make some of the bakes from the show (and more) during their Masterclasses. Tonight saw a whole orange cake, Olive breadsticks, Angel food cake, chocolate cake and English muffins. The breadsticks looked amazing and I will definitely be making some of those very soon.

We are opening up the linky once again and encouraging bakers to link up their Bake Off Masterclass inspired bakes. They can be a bake shown in one of the bakes or previous shows that you didn't get around to trying out during the series. The linky will be open until the end of November to give everyone a chance to include as many bakes as they like - please only include bakes that have been featured in this series of the show and masterclasses.

I have never made English Muffins before & seeing other people make them in week 2 of the bake off made me really want to try them even more, but as I was on holiday that week I never got around to it.

I used Paul Hollywood's recipe but as you can see from the pictures, rolling the dough out to 2.5cm thick was NOT a good idea as they rose into monster muffins and ended up being too thick to cook fully on the griddle. In the end I cooked them on each side on the griddle and then popped them in the oven for an extra 20 minutes or so on very low to finish cooking in the middle.  I think 1.5cm will be a sufficient thickness for next time.

We ate the muffins toasted with cheese and ham for lunch in the car on the way to see my parents on Sunday afternoon, and they were delicious!

English Muffins - makes 8

300g Strong white bread flour

6g dried yeast

6g salt

15g Caster sugar

15g Stork 

1 egg, beaten

approx 170ml milk

Semolina for dusting

• Add the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, Stork, egg and milk together to form a soft dough, adding more milk if necessary
• Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for approx 10 minutes
• Put the dough into a greased bowl and cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place for approx 1 hour, until doubled in size
• Lightly dust the work surface with semolina and flour
• Roll the dough out - I would say to approx 1.5cm, Mr H says 2.5 but what does he know, hey! (see above)
• Using a round pastry / cookie cutter cut out circles and lay on a baking sheet dusted with more semolina
• Sprinkle more semolina over the tops and leave to prove for 30 minutes
• Preheat a flat griddle pan over a low heat and griddle the muffins for approx 10 minutes on each side, or until cooked through 

rising into monster muffins

some of the neater, more muffin like muffins

the rest of the doughnut looking muffins

I was sent some Stork to use in my Great Bloggers Bake Off bakes, a versatile butter alternative

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels

Yesterday was a long day that started at 5.45 with the run to swim practice and ended around half past midnight after a girls night out. Although it could have been 1.30 or even 11.30 as I was confused by the clock change!

Somewhere in between haircuts, shopping and taxiing the footie fans of the family to and from the station I managed to bake a cake for my Mum's birthday and some pretzels.

I used the same soft pretzel recipe that I've previously used for the pretzels although I did use self raising flour and butter this time as per the original recipe.

I was in a bit of a rush to go out and got Hanna to help and didn't bother with the bicarb bath and instead just brushed with melted butter and cinnamon sugar (equal parts cinnamon and caster sugar).



They were very nice & the kids loved them, although they do seem more like little bread rolls than pretzels. Next time we'll definitely do the bicarb bath and roll them out longer to keep the pretzel shape.

 

Mega Spooky Marshmallows

At 7.30 this morning whilst having my usual mooch around Asda whilst Hanna swam at the leisure centre I spotted these big beauties...

In a sleepy hungry haze I grabbed a pack and put them in my basket.

With 5 minutes of free time between swimming, taxiing, haircuts, shopping and a girl's night out I used a ready made tube of chocolate icing and piped some ghost faces on a few marshmallows.

Simple, yet effective treat for a Halloween party.

Birdseye Chilli Jelly

I am a big lover of chillies and up until I was pregnant with Jack I ate quite a lot of them, in fact I possibly ate pickled chillies or chilli flakes on every meal. I think you begin to lose your tastebuds as they never really seemed very spicy. Due to pregnancy heartburn I cracked the habit and now only have them occasionally. I sometimes make a jar of pickled jalapenos but these days they last a lot longer than they used to.

I'm also a bit partial to spicy chutney and my favourite chilli jam has made a reappearance this year, this time sweetened up with some plums. You can find my recipe for chill plum jam here and my Asian chilli jam here.  A few years ago (and possibly a few more) I spent a few months living and working in Cornwall, and whilst I was there I acquired a jar of chill jelly. I can't remember where it came from but I think a housemate picked it up during a visit back home to Dorset. The jelly was set and had little birdseye chillies dispersed throughout the jar. I used it in quite a lot of my cooking as well as on toast and crackers. I wanted to recreate the jelly but the only recipes I could find on the Internet had apples in too so I decided to have a bash without a recipe for guidance and see how it turned out.

It has the right look about it, and definitely tastes just like the chilli jelly that I remember from all those years ago, however it has more of the consistency of golden syrup than jelly.

I won't give up and next time I will add a little more pectin (or add pectin that is in date, oops) to see if that will help. If there are any jelly making experts out there please feel free to give me some advice.

Birdseye Chilli Jelly - makes 1 jar

200ml vinegar (I used Sarsons distilled pickling vinegar)

200g Granulated sugar

Dried birdseye chillies (I added approx 50)

1/2 tsp Pectin powder

• Add the vinegar, sugar & chillies to a pan
• Bring slowly to a boil and simmer gently for approx 15 minutes to release the flavours of the chillies
• Stir in the pectin until dissolved
• Turn up the heat and bring to a boil and boil rapidly for 4 minutes
• Remove from heat & pour straight into a sterilised jar and crew the lid on
• After it has cooled a little, give it a gentle shake to disperse the chillies

The Great Bloggers Bake Off - Week 10 - Pumpkin & Chestnut Picnic Pies

Well that's it, Great British Bake Off is over for another year (apart from Mary & Paul's Masterclasses) and the winner has been announced.

It was anybody's game really as it was all quite even up until the final wedding cake round. I did really like the look & sound of Ruby's vegetarian pie but she never managed to pull off the wedding cake. To be honest I don't think any of them were particular show stoppers, but they do have limited time, which must be really hard to deal with.

Anyway, it was a bit of a shocker that Frances won, I really thought it was going to be Kimberly or Ruby.

Back to reality and the baking hasn't stopped for us quite yet...

The challenges this week are :

Signature : Picnic Pie

Technical : Pretzels

Showstopper : Wedding Cake

I decided to go with picnic pies, nothing big or creative, but tasty all the same...with distinct layers (sorry no rainbows though)! The pastry is light and flaky and they are lovely served warm or cold, with a spoonful of chilli jam. I love chestnuts and the chestnut and mushroom filling in these pies is similar to that used to stuff mini yorkshire puddings last Christmas.

Pumpkin & Chestnut Picnic Pies - makes 8

for the pastry

175g plain flour

175g cold butter, diced

pinch of salt

1 tbsp chopped fresh Thyme

1-2tbsp cold water

for the filling

tbsp Olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

75g chestnut mushrooms, finely chopped

75g prepared chestnuts, finely chopped

1 tbsp chopped fresh Thyme

salt & pepper

knob of butter

100g steamed pumpkin, cut into 1cm pieces

100g Goats cheese, crumbled

1 egg, beaten

Make the pastry

• Add the flour, salt, butter & thyme to a food processor or mixer & pulse/mix until it resembles breadcrumbs
• Add the water in small amounts & mix until the dough comes together
• Roll into a ball, flatten and wrap in clingfilm & place in the fridge whilst you make the filling

Make the filling

• Preheat the oven to 180C & grease 8 holes of a muffin pan
• Heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat
• Add the onion & fry for 3 minutes until softened
• Add the garlic, mushrooms, chestnuts, thyme & the butter
• Fry gently for approx 8 minutes until the mushrooms have cooked through
• Set filling aside whilst you roll the pastry
• Roll the pastry until approx the thickness of a £1 coin
• Cut out 8 circles large enough to cover the base & halfway up the sides of a muffin pan 
• Cut out 8 smaller circles for the pie lids
• Spoon some of the mushroom/chestnut mixture into the base of each pie
• Add the pumpkin on top and then the cheese
• Brush around the edge of the pies with beaten egg
• Place the lids on & crimp the edges (I used the end of a teaspoon)
• Brush the pies with beaten egg
• Bake in the oven for approx 30 minutes, until golden brown

What will you bake this week?

This is your last chance to gain an entry into the Great Bloggers Bake Off giveaway, which you can read more about here.

Please also take the time to read the rules & grab the badge here.

Pumpkin Bean Burgers

I have a massive selection of cookery books but I'm always happy to receive more, they make a great bedtime read, especially if they are full of nice photos to accompany the recipes.

Lorraine Pascale's 'A Lighter Way to Bake' is one of those books, with a photo to accompany each recipe, plus a lot more.

After all the Great British Bake Off baking that I've been doing it's a welcome relief to have some lighter recipes to try out. Don't get me wrong, they are not diet recipes but may include a little less butter and a little less sugar, as well as alternative methods of cooking and serving to cut a few calories.

Some of the recipes that caught my eye are Walnut, Honey & White Chocolate Cakes, Coconut & Lime Loaf, Skinny Cafe Late Butterfly Cakes, Brown Sugar Espresso Chocolate Dipped Meringue Kisses, Peaches & Cream Eclairs with White Chocolate & Raspberries and Cake with Blueberries & White Chocolate Icing, plus a lot, lot more.

Each recipe has nutritional information with it alongside that of a comparable recipe. I chose to make Butternut Squash Bean Burgers with Apple, Mango & Chilli Salsa which are 188 calories per burger vs 494 calories in a comparison recipe. As there are an abundance of pumpkins around cheaply at the moment I used pumpkin instead of butternut squash in my burgers.

Pumpkin Bean Burgers - makes 6

200g prepared Pumpkin, peeled & cut into 1cm pieces

spray oil

2 red onions, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 red chilli, finely chopped

small handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

400g tin of kidney beans, drained

400g tin of cannellini beans, drained

1 egg white

finely grated zest of 1 lime

salt & pepper

coating

3 slices of wholemeal bread, lightly toasted

1 egg white

• Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking sheet with baking parchment
• Cook the pumpkin/squash in a pan of boiling water for 3-4 minutes until just tender, drain really well
• Heat a little spray oil in a frying pan over a medium heat & fry the onions until softened & a little browned, for approx 8 minutes
• Prepare the burger coating by whizzing up the lightly toasted bread in a food processor
• Tip the crumbs into a wide shallow bowl and season with salt & pepper
• Lightly beat the egg white in another shallow bowl
• Add the garlic , chilli, paprika and coriander to the onions and cook for a further minute & remove from heat
• Tip the kidney & cannellini beans into a large bowl & lightly crush with a potato masher
• Stir in the onion mixture and the lime zest, egg white & salt & pepper.
• Fold in the pumpkin/squash until mixed through
• Form the mixture into patties with dampened hands
• Dip the burgers into the egg white, coating them fully & then into the breadcrumbs until evenly coated
• Spray each burger with a little oil & place onto the baking tray
• Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until crisp & golden

My burgers weren't quite as neat as Lorraines but they did taste good - I made a mango salsa & served the burger on a crisp lettuce leaf (lighter option for myself) and in ciabatta with oven baked paprika fries for everyone else

     

I received the book for the purpose of this review

The Great Bloggers Bake Off - Week 9 Round Up

Another week and some more fabulous bakes. There were a lot of canapés, as we expected, a few Opera cakes, as we'd hoped, and only one Charlotte Royale, which we are not at all surprised about - on the show they seemed like so much effort and didn't look particularly nice either.

There are some great ideas for canapés here and if you are planning on having a Christmas or New Year party these would be great. 

Opera Cakes

1. Amaretti Opera Cake - Bluebird Sunshine
2. Opera Cake - Cafe Bebe
3. Citrus Burst Opera Cake - Vanilla Stitches
4. Caramel Apple Opera Cake - Bakerama

Canapes

1. Thyme & Black Pepper Profiteroles - Mummy Mishaps
2. Chilli & Haggis - The Crazy Kitchen
3. Cakes, Photos, Life
4. Viennese Biscuits - My Cupcake Habit
5. Duck Spring Rolls - Mummy Makes Cakes
6. Hijacked by Twins
7. Carole Finds Her Wings
8. Jennifer's Little World
9. A Wannabe Foodie
10. Multi Layer Mummy
11. Focaccia & Salmon - White Lily Green

Charlotte Royale

Easy Charlotte Royale - Jo's Kitchen

Myself & Jenny were very impressed by the effort that went into making the four amazing Opera cakes and they all look very tempting. We therefore decided this week to present the prestigious title of Star Baker Week 9 to an extremely delicious sounding cake and one that we both agreed on without discussion........

{drum roll......}

The Star Baker title goes to.....

{dramatic pause}

Jen at Bakerama with her Caramel Apple Opera Cake. Caramel & Apple are one of mine & Jenny's favourite combos and our mouths were watering looking at the cinnamon apple oozing out! Congratulations Jen, please contact Jenny for your badge.

As a thank you to everyone that has entered over the weeks we are having a prize draw - you can read more about it here. There is still one week of baking left so if you haven't managed to bake something yet there is still time to gain an entry.

Chicken 3 ways {review}

I don't tend to cook a big Sunday roast very often, mainly because I'm not a great fan of them myself. There's also a lot of peeling and steaming and roasting involved, not to mention the mountain of dirty pots and pans afterwards. All this said, my family do like their Sunday roast so I have been making more of an effort recently and have so far produced three Sunday roasts on the trot, hurrah for Mum!

Last weekend I had a helping hand with the roast from Asda who now have a range of fuss free chickens, all ready for the oven. There is no need to season the bird as it is all done for you, you don't even need to touch it as it comes in it's own roasting tin inside it's own roasting bag. All you need to do is pierce the bag once (you are even told where to pierce), pop it onto a baking tray and into the oven, as simple as that.

There are a variety of flavours - extra tasty, garlic & herb, lime & coriander, Mexican, Piri Piri, sage & onion stuffed and tikka. They are a minimum size of 1.6kg but I was lucky enough to find one that was 1.79kg!

I wanted the Mexican chicken but unfortunately they didn't have any at my local store and instead opted for garlic & herb. 

There are exact cooking times on the package so you don't need to worry about calculating the time based on the weight of the bird. The packaging advised cooking for 90 minutes but by using my trusty meat thermometer it was ready after 80. If you wish you can cut the packaging open before the end of cooking time to brown the chicken off. I decided not to as I was going to remove the skin anyway.

The meat was lovely and succulent and I served up a roast dinner with all the trimmings.

Roast chicken dinner

I filled everyone up with plenty of stuffing and roast potatoes to ensure that there was still some chicken leftover for the next day as I had plans for it. The husband would have been even happier if I'd included some Aunt Bessie's Home BakeYorkshires which he absolutely loves with any roast dinner! I do love these ads from Aunt Bessie's with Mabel & Margaret showing how quick & easy it is to cook up a roast dinner (even midweek!) with a helping hand from Aunt Bessie's.

Sponsored video 

Chicken & Sweetcorn soup

I boiled up the carcass with a couple of onions, strained it and blended it before adding some sweetcorn and a little cornflour to thicken it

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

 

I fried up some onion and peppers before adding the remaining chicken and some barbecue sauce. Once heated through I lay a tortilla in a frying pan, covered with the barbecue chicken and some grated cheese, added another tortilla on the top and heated gently on each side.

Butcher's Selection Simply Roast in the Bag chickens are available from Asda for £5

I was provided with a giftcard to enable me to purchase the chicken & other ingredients

More Fridge Cake - Cadbury Oreo & Daim

Just when you think that you couldn't possibly have any more chocolate another two bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk arrive in the post! This time there was a bar with Oreo and another with Daim (why is it no longer Dime?). 

Rather than eating the bars in one fell swoop I decided that I would make yet more fridge cake as I didn't allow anyone to eat the one I made for the swim club bake sale so made another, which turned out to be very popular. I didn't put any biscuits in this one and just let the flavours of the chocolate bars speak for themselves & we weren't disappointed.

Cadbury Oreo & Daim Chocolate Fridge Cake

300g Good quality chocolate (mixture of dark & milk)

80g Butter

50g Golden syrup

Bar of Cadbury Oreo, chopped
Bar of Cadbury Daim, chopped

• Melt the chocolate, butter & golden syrup in a large bowl in the microwave or over a pan of boiling water until smooth
• Spread one third of the mixture into a small baking tin lined with greaseproof paper
• Spread the Oreo Chocolate over, followed by the Daim
• Pour the remaining chocolate mixture in the pan to cover the Cadbury chocolate
• Refrigerate until set & cut into pieces

I was provided with the Cadbury bars for the purpose of this post

Great Bloggers Bake Off - Week 9 - Chilli & Haggis Canapes

It's nearly all over *sniff*, what are we all going to do with ourselves without Great British Bake Off on a Tuesday night and baking challenges throughout the week. It's a sad time...

This week there were canapés of choux, shortcrust and an other type...I loved Frances' carrots, tomatoes & cauliflowers best.

The Charlotte Royales were varied with Kimberly's being 'perfect' and Ruby's being a lot less than...

I was intrigued to see the Opera cakes, lots of different flavours, lots of different layers...Ruby's was a mess yet she managed to get all of the positive comments...hmmm something fishy going on there I think....

Anyway unfortunately it was Beca's turn to leave. I do believe that Ruby should have gone but she has been put through to the final in the hope that she will pull it out of the bag and go on to win, only time will tell.

I decided to have a go at some canapes which made a nice lunch for the husband to take to work. He loves Haggis and has it whenever we go to Scotland, one of the best ways we ate it was with a sweet chilli sauce as a starter, which gave me the idea for these bitesize choux buns. I added chilli & rosemary to the choux which were really tasty even without the filling, a few may have disappeared straight off the baking tray...

Chilli & Haggis Canapes

Choux pastry
70g Butter
150ml Water
100g Plain Flour
2 Eggs
good pinch of dried rosemary & chilli flakes

filling
1 pack of Macsween 60 second Haggis (regular or vegetarian)
50g Chilli Jam
100g Cream cheese

to decorate
slivers of fresh chilli

• Preheat the oven to 20O C
• Place the butter and water into a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted, bring to the boil.
• Remove from heat and stir the flour quickly in and beat well until the mixture leaves the sides of the saucepan and forms a ball
• Leave to cool slightly then gradually beat in the eggs
• Leave to cool before filling a piping bag & piping small balls onto a greased baking sheet, spaced well apart
• Bake for 15-20 minutes until crisp & golden
• Allow to cool whilst preparing the filling
• Microwave the haggis as per directions on the pack
• Allow to cool slightly before mixing with chilli jam & cream cheese, beating well
• Cut a small slit in the choux bites
• Using a piping bag pipe a small amount of filling into each
• decorate with a sliver of chilli on each

I received the haggis for the purpose of review

Getting Creative with Cadbury

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.

Did you know that this coming week is National Chocolate Week? What better excuse do you need to put the diet on hold and indulge in one of our most popular foods that has been around for centuries.

I turned to Pinterest for some baking inspiration before I went shopping for some Cadbury Chocolate supplies and decided to make decorative chocolate bowl to take to a friend's house next weekend, filled with chocolates.

 

source

The idea looked easy on paper (or in this case the laptop screen), and I set about covering my bowl in foil, melting the chocolate and then piping it over the foil. As per the diagram I popped it into the freezer until it was set, ready to remove the bowl and peel the foil away, easy peasy.

Have you ever seen those 'Pinterest Fail' websites?

I present you with my exquisite chocolate bowl.....

 

FAIL!

It was all going so well until I attempted to remove the bowl which had unfortunately decided not to budge. Time for a back up plan (another Pinterest idea) to re-melt the chocolate and use balloons to make edible bowls for the kids ice cream.

This time we had success (albeit not as neat as the original idea), but the kids loved them.

Next up I needed to make some cakes for the swimming club fundraising bake sale. I suggested fridge cake to Hanna and she was confident that they would be a good seller.

Fridge Cake with Cadbury Treatsize

250g Cadbury Dairy Milk

50g Butter

1 tbsp Golden syrup

125g Cadbury Chocolate fingers, broken up

Cadbury Treatsize bars - 4 each of Fudge, Chomp, Curly Wurly & Buttons

• Line a small baking pan (approx 26cm x 16cm) with greaseproof paper
• Melt the Dairy Milk, butter & golden syrup in a heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water 
• Remove from heat & stir in the broken chocolate fingers
• Add half of the mixture to the lined baking pan
• Lay the fudge, chomp & curly wurl bars over the mixture & add the remaining mixture on the top
• Decorate with the buttons before placing in the fridge until completely set
• Slice into squares or bars

With all this chocolate around I knew the family would be disappointed if I didn't make them a cake too, and with it being Dacquoise week in The Great British Bake Off it would be rude not to attempt one wouldn't it! I adapted Mary Berry's Hazelnut Dacquoise recipe for the meringue layers.

Cadbury Chocolate Dacquoise

Meringue

200g ground almonds

25g Cocoa powder

25g Cornflour

300g Caster sugar

6 Egg whites
pinch salt

Filling

250g Cadbury Fruit & Nut

150ml Double cream

200g Full fat cream cheese

To decorate
12 Cadbury Twirl bites

• Mix together the almonds, cocoa powder, cornflour & 100g of the caster sugar in a bowl
• Whisk the egg whites and salt with an electric mixer until they form soft peaks
• Add the remaining caster to the egg whites with the motor still running, 1 tbsp at a time
• Continue whisking until stiff & glossy
• Fold in the nut mixture until well combined
• Using a piping bag with a plain nozzle pipe 3 large swirls onto greaseproof paper (each approx 20cm in diameter)
• Bake in a preheated 130C oven for 1 hour
• Turn the oven off & leave to cool for 45 minutes with the oven door open

To make the filling

• Add the chocolate & cream to a large heatproof bowl over a pan of boiling water & stir until melted
• Remove from the heat & beat in the cream cheese
• Refrigerate for approx 20 minutes & then whisk until thick (if it isn't thick enough to support itself then place in the fridge for another 10 minutes before whisking again)

To assemble

• Pipe 12 blobs of filling onto the top meringue layer 
• Pipe the remaining filling onto the other 2 layers
• Layer the middle layer onto the base & the top layer onto the middle
• Add a Twirl bite onto each blog of filling on the top layer
• Refrigerate before serving

How will you be celebrating National Chocolate Week?