Vegetarian Sweet & Savoury Mince Clanger

Another week of Bake Off is over, and last week there was only one bake that I wanted to make, and it definitely wasn't the Cumberland Rum Nicky or the Victorian Savoy Cake, as I knew that the kids wouldn't touch the Rum Nicky, and I had neither the time or the inclination to make the Savoy cake.

I knew that if I got the fillings in a Clanger right the kids would love them, as they love my pies and pasties, and I wouldn't be left having to eat them all. As I had some vegetarian mince in the freezer, and a couple of jars of home made mincemeat from two years ago in the cupboard, I knew that this could be the winning combination I needed, as everyone in the family loves both savoury mince and mince pies.

Instead of making the Clangers with suet pastry, as they're traditionally made, I decided to opt for my usual favourite pastry, which always turns out well, and works perfectly in pasties.

Well, what can I say. They turned out better than expected, and barely lasted any time at all once the husband and kids walked through the door on Friday. I used the pastry scraps to make a few mince pies, and they were also inhaled.

The pastry was light and crispy, yet substantial enough to hold the filling, and the size was just right, and with just the right amount of filling. I love making pies and pasties, and am now thinking of other sweet and savoury combinations that would work, and be perfect in a lunchbox or to take on a picnic or day out.

Classic Thin & Crispy Margarita Pizza

This week has been a bit of a hectic one, with two trips to the physio (one for me and one for the accident prone eldest child) , a trip to the opticians to try and convince them that my new glasses are no good despite the number of adjustments to the arms they made, as I still couldn't see my computer screen clearly - a sure sign that I'm getting old!

Then I spent far too many hours working in front of my computer wearing my old scratched glasses with hazy sections in the middle of each lens whilst I wait for my new (hopefully improved) specs.

Fast forward to the weekend and I finally got around to making pizza for this week's Bake Off challenge. Some of those on the show turned out to be a bit of a dogs dinner, and I'm not sure where they went wrong, but it makes for good tv, and makes be feel better about my own rustic efforts.

Home made pizza is so much better than store bought, in my opinion, but sometimes needs must, and the kids don't seem to have the same palate as me, and don't mind where it comes from, although if you mention Domino's their grumpy little faces soon light up.

I'm not a fan of stuffed crusts or deep pan, as there's just way too much bread for my liking. Thin and crispy authentic pizza bases are definitely the way to go, and simple toppings are usually all that's needed. I used Paul Hollywood's pizza base recipe from his 'Bread' book, which is a nice and simple basic recipe. It makes enough dough for 3 decent sized single person pizzas, and it's easy to roll out or shape into a thin base.

I happen to have a pizza stone, which I've had for years, and it's perfect for cooking crispy bases, as you heat it up in the oven first, and it starts to cook the base before it even gets into the oven, which seems to make it easier to remove too. I also happened to have an unopened box of semolina in the cupboard with an expiry date of sometime during 2015, but it was still perfectly fine, and gave the base that authentic finish.

For the topping I stuck to the classic margarita style, with passata, mozzarella and fresh basil. I would've preferred more basil on top but Asda let me down that morning with my online shop and delivered a manky basil plant with barely any decent leaves on, which I only noticed as I went to pluck a handful of leaves once the pizza was cooked. The pizza still tasted great though, despite the lack of greenery, and it was thin and crispy, just the way I like it.

one of the few decent basil leaves (insert all the eye rolls)

If you're following a low carb diet & a bread base isn't really your thing then you could try making the base from a protein powder, such as pea protein. See more here for the best pea protein powders.

Portuguese Custard Tarts (cheats version)

Last week's Bake Off brought us savoury pies, pastel de nata and hand raised pies. I considered making savoury pies or a hand raised pie (like these hand raised pork pies I made during Bake Off 4 years ago), but time ran away with me at the end of last week, and I was out on Saturday. Instead I opted for my own version of the Portuguese custard tart, which was easier and less time consuming than the recipe the bakers used during the technical challenge. I've neither eaten or made these before, despite holidaying in Portugal many times. I've never really been a fan of egg custard tarts, as I've always found them to be a bit, well, eggy, and I guess I thought these would be much the same.

Instead of making rough puff pastry, or using shop bought puff pastry, I made my own cream cheese pastry, which is my pastry of choice now when I make pies and pasties as it's so easy to work with, and it tastes so good. It's not quite as flaky as puff, but a lot lighter than shortcrust, so it worked really well in these tarts, resulting in a light & crisp casing for the non eggy custard.

I cheated a little when it came to the custard filling, mainly because I wanted to see if a cheap 25p tin of custard would actually work as a filling, and believe me it did work, and these dozen tarts didn't last more than a couple of hours! The custard was soft, and not at all rubbery or eggy, and by using shallow bun tin (the kind we all used to bake fairy cakes before American muffins and fancy cupcakes became a thing) there was just the right amount of custard for the quantity of pastry. If I was making them again I would probably leave them in the oven for a few more minutes or roll the pastry a little thinner.

If you wanted to make these tarts even more quickly, and with even less effort you could use ready rolled puff pastry - one sheet of puff pastry would probably make 18 or 24 small tarts like mine, or 12 if you wanted to use larger muffin pan moulds. Baking at home doesn't have to be tricky or time consuming, and with a few little 'cheats' you can make your home baked goodies look as though you've been slaving away for hours on them!

A little bit of a swirl visible on the underside of the tarts - I wonder if it would've been enough for Mr H & Prue!

Toffee, Apple & Pecan Steamed Pudding

After being very quick off the mark making my Caramel Stroopwafels following last week's Bake Off, I've slipped back into 'just making it in the nick of time' for pudding week. Once I'd clapped eyes on those mouthwatering steamed puddings I knew exactly what I was going to make at the weekend.

We have a small apple tree in the garden, and it's always produced a bumper crop of eating apples. We have no idea what variety they are but they're a really crisp and tart red skinned apple that are great for eating. They're not so great in a pie as they hold their shape a little too well, unlike a Bramley, but are really good in cinnamon apple cakes, toffee apple cinnamon buns or apple custard tarts. Saturday morning I picked a couple of apples from the tree & added them to these extremely simple to make steamed pudding. My family don't usually have the patience for a proper steamed pudding, so I often end up 'steaming' them in the microwave instead (like my 'mum's emergency chocolate cake'), but this time I gave myself plenty of time for steaming, and left it simmering away for an hour and a half. The pudding smelt amazing when I turned it out, and the apples had dispersed themselves nicely throughout the cake, and softened nicely, but not turned to mush. The toffee sauce was also really simple to make, and was adapted slightly from the caramel that I used in my Stroopwafels.

This recipe was a total win, and the family loved it, although they weren't all keen on having pecans on the top so I ate most of those!

Caramel Stroopwafels

Tuesday night tv is a bit of a treat at the moment isn't it, starting off with Bake Off, followed by Dr Foster. This week was even more of a treat for me as the husband was away so I had the remote control to myself, with no risk of popping out to make a cuppa during an ad break and coming back to football, or any other random sport, on the screen.

What a night bake off was, starting off with some delicious caramel shortbreads, followed by a few grainy stroopwafels in the middle, and ending up with some epic (and one not so epic) caramel cakes.

A few days ago I thought about attempting to make waffle wafers or cones this week in my waffle maker, so when I saw the stroopwafels on Bake Off I knew that I had to make them, it was fate. I must admit that I was a bit hesitant after watching all the bakers fail with their caramel fillings, with not one of them having the right consistency, although the making of the actual biscuit didn't look too complicated. I've eaten stroopwafels a few times as they seem to be readily available in coffee shops, as well as supermarkets and trendy Scandinavian shops. The way to enjoy them is to pop one on top of your warm coffee to soften the caramel, and allow the caramel and cinnamon flavours to come out.

As the dough has yeast in I was kind of expecting it to be like bread dough, but it was more like a cookie dough - whether that was right or not I don't know, but it worked. My waffle maker is only a cheap one bought from Lidl a few months ago, and for the stroopwafels to be as thin as they should be the waffle maker really needs to be shallower, which meant mine were a little on the chunky side.

Apart from burning my fingertips slicing the stroopwafels open, the whole process was pretty painless, relatively quick, and a lot less messy than I'd anticipated. I decided to make the caramel in the microwave to avoid burning a pan, which seemed to work really well and resulted in a lovely smooth caramel. The recipe I used called for treacle, but as I didn't have any, following a recent store cupboard clear out, I instead used maple flavour golden syrup.

Apart from looking a little rustic, I was extremely pleased with how these turned out. They had just the right amount of crispness, and the caramel was just the right amount of sticky. I know I should've cut a perfect round with a cutter, but I decided not to as the shape wasn't too far off round anyway.

If I was to see these in a coffee shop wrapped in cellophane and tied up with string, I would definitely be tempted to buy some, and I'll definitely be making these again, especially the 'wafel' part, which would be great served with ice cream.

Cardamom, Orange & Cinnamon Teacakes

Following Bake Off last week I decided to go for the signature bake and make teacakes. I don't recall ever making teacakes before, although I have made hot cross buns, which are very similar, as well as many other kinds of sweet buns.

I haven't made bread for a while but I did have some in date yeast and bread flour in the cupboard, so all was well, or so I thought.

As I'm always looking for ways to cut corners and save time whilst cooking and baking, I opted to make the dough in my bread maker before adding the dried fruit and spices after the first prove.

Whether it was the yeast or the flour, but one of them wasn't working in my favour, and there was barely a rise on the dough, but as I wasn't really paying much attention when I took it out of the bread maker, I carried on regardless.  It was only after I'd added the fruit and spices, rolled the dough into balls, flattened them out and left them to prove for an hour or so that I realised that I wasn't get a rise out of my buns that day, and perhaps the yeast was dead.

I baked the buns anyway, and despite being a little on the small side, they were perfectly acceptable, albeit a little dense and more on the English muffin side that the teacake, but everyone loved them anyway.

Once I'd replenished my yeast and flour supply I tried again, and this time the teacakes rose perfectly well, and again everyone loved them.

I love cardamom (especially in gin) but I took a risk not knowing if everyone else in the family would feel the same way. I need not have worried though as they loved them, even my 8 year old flavour connoisseur.

There's something so comforting about a toasted teacake in the afternoon, especially now the weather has turned so autumnal.

Peanut Butter & Nutella Sandwich Cookies

I can't believe that it's the third week off Bake Off tomorrow and I haven't joined in with any baking this time around. I used to bake at least once or twice a week around the themes, but I guess that's how I came to put on half a stone each series! Thank goodness for kids who will quite happily eat my baking, especially at the moment when it doesn't happen very often.

It's bread week this week so I don't know how I'm going to resist the smell of freshly baked bread if I decide to join in, as it's so hard to stop at just one slice. Ohhh, why does the food that tastes so good have to be so bad. 

It was hard to resist one of these cookies when I took them out of the oven, but a little disaster put paid to that when I knocked a glass of water over the baking sheet and ended up with around half of the biscuits getting wet and looking like they had been dunked in tea for too long. Thankfully I managed to salvage enough for the photos, which meant there was one each for the husband and kids, and none for me, hurrah! You may also notice that some of the cookies are a little on the scorched side - this, I blame the oven for! The fan broke on my main oven a little while ago, and since then the heat distribution within the oven seems to be a touch on the unpredictable side, to say the least. I really should get the repair man out..

The cookie recipe calls for only three ingredients, making them extremely easy to make, and an ideal recipe to bake with children. In fact the first time I made these cookies I made them with my youngest when he was just two, and then last year I used the recipe to make Halloween spider cookies. This time I filled them with a creamy Nutella filling, which also had just three ingredients.

Great British Meringue Crown with Strawberries & Pimms

Well, that's it, Bake Off is officially finished as we know it. What it's going to be like once it moves over to channel 4 & loses Mary, Mel & Sue is anyone's guess. 

I haven't managed to join in with the bakes as much as previous years for a number of reasons. I was on holiday for the first week so managed to get out of making jaffa cakes, although I may still try them at some point. Week 2 was biscuit week and I made Rhubarb & Custard Viennese Whirls. Week 3 was bread and I made a Cherry, Chocolate & Almond Bread Ring. Week 4 was batter, and I made these delicious Maple & Cajun Spiced Filled Yorkshire Puddings, inspired by an afternoon tea at Ma Pluckers in Soho. Week 5 was all about pastry and I made breakfast pastries in the form of Maple, Apple & Cinnamon Pinwheel Pastries . It all went to pot in October and I never baked anything for weeks 6-9, but I was determined that I would make something for the grand finale, whatever it may be.

Thankfully the final episode was kind to us, and I was spoilt for choice as to what to bake. In the end I decided to make a meringue crown, as I do love a pavlova.

My Great British pavlova was made up of 3 tiers of red white and blue meringue, filled with strawberries and cream and a touch of Pimms, all topped off with a gold replica (cough, cough) of Queen Victoria's crown.

I used 6 egg whites in total for the meringue (same recipe that I used here, but with increased quantities), and for the coloured layers I brushed some food colouring paste into the icing bags before filling them - I might have gone a bit overboard with the blue! I was inspired by Candice's meringue crown and piped my own over a silicone mould before spraying with edible gold spray.

I folded freeze dried strawberries into the cream for the bottom layer, orange zest in the middle layer, Pimms, mint and fresh strawberries in the top layer, more strawberries around the sides and popped the crown on top.

I am joining in with the Mummy Mishaps Great Bloggers Bake Off