Bake Off Bake Along: Week 5 - Cherry Bakewell Tart

Another week in the tent of dreams, and another bake that usually wouldn't phase me...but did. Its as if the baking Gods (i.e. Paul) knew I was using shop bought pastry and let me down. This week saw a patchwork of pastry and a leak. Pastry week was a flop.

A flop until I got some treats from the lovely Debenhams gang from their Tala range. My baking armoury is ready Paul, bring on botanical week! There's everything from icing nozzles to pastry making tools - star baker I'm coming for you.

But for now, I tried every which way to ensure that there were no soggy bottoms. With the blind bake, I pricked the base and loaded up with baking beans in a bid to dry out the pastry. My mistake was in chopping surplus pastry off before the blind bake rather than after, and it shrunk down the sides of the tin. I tried to patchwork in some new sides but it didn't work so much. Mary would have called in informal and Paul a mess. And ultimately it sprung a leak!

C H E R R Y   B A K E W E L L   T A R T
(Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food, serves 8)

1 block of shop bought shortcrust pastry (sorry Mary and Paul!)

2-3tbsp morello cherry jam

125g unsalted butter

125g caster sugar

125g ground almonds

1 egg, beaten

1tsp almond extract

50g flaked almonds

80g icing sugar, sifted

2tsp cold water

• Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Roll out the shortcrust pastry on a well floured surface until its the thickness of about a pound coin. Use the pastry to line an 8 inch tart tin. Prick with a fork to avoid any air bubbles, line with baking paper and baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes to dry out the base.
• Spread the base evenly with the cherry jam.
• Melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Add the sugar, almonds, egg and almond extract and stir well. Pour into the pastry tin and cover with the flaked almonds.
• Bake for 35 minutes until golden and the frangipane is mostly firm.
• Make the icing with the icing sugar and water, pour into a piping bag before drizzling over the top of the tart once slightly cooled.

Thanks to the fab guys at Debenhams for sending over some Tala baking treats. Will certainly keep me going with bake off bake along! Check out their range here.

F O L L O W   M Y   B A K E   O F F   B A K E   A L O N G...

     

Week 1 - Jaffa Cakes
Week 2 - Iced Doughnut Biscuits
Week 3 - Chocolate Twist Babka
Week 4 - Giant Churros
Week 5 - Cherry Bakewell Tart
Week 6 - Brownie Bottomed Coffee Mousse Cake
Week 8 - Cherry, Marzipan and Cherry Cake

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Bake Off Bake Along: Week 10 - Chocolate, Amaretto & Morello Iced Buns

Ten whole weeks has flown by. What will we all do with our Wednesday evenings now?

Baking along with the TV series has been both great fun and stressful. From the time my pastry fell apart, the nuts fell off my mokatines and my frangipane literally fell out the oven. I've also gotten over my fear of making pastry, kind of, and also brioche.

I'd have like to have made something more like a showstopper for my final bake. But then again, I'm pretty sure I've said that every week. Instead, for each challenge I've tried to work on things I've never made before as a good excuse to expand my repertoire.

And so, onto the final...

I chose to make iced buns a little differently. Regular iced buns remind me of the time someone once bought supermarket iced buns into the office. They were stale, lacking in jam and the lurid icing was too cloy. And just plain miserable.

I made brioche buns, stuffed them with morello cherry jam and frosted them with my favourite chocolate and amaretto ganache. For the brioche, I used a trusty Dan Lepard recipe and the filling recipe from my last bake for the frosting.

Unfortunately I didn't quite get enough jam in and the ganache was a little difficult to work with. I wanted it to cool slightly before frosting so as not to drip down the buns too much. But then it got too cool and too firm, and therefore a little lumpy once reheated slightly.

Here's a few pointers for brioche...

• ensure eggs and butter are at room temperature and dissolve the yeast into liquids at a warm to the touch temperature
• its best to use regular yeast, rather than a quick rising supermarket one, and the fresher the better
• be prepared to do a lot of mixing. For a long time you may think there's absolutely no way everything will come together to form a dough. Just keep adding small chunks of butter, bit by bit
• when the dough is ready and has come together perfectly, it'll cling onto the dough hook of your mixer and slap the sides of the bowl
• if kneading, the dough will feel sticky and loose. Persevere, otherwise adding more flour in will make the buns pretty tough
• butter helps to give brioche that nice rich flavour but also helps to shape the dough. If you need to shape the dough in some elaborate fashion, chill it for a good few hours to firm up the butter and it'll be more pliable
• the warmer your room, the quicker the dough will rise
• although, for optimum flavour, prove overnight in the fridge and leave to stand at room temperature for two hours before baking
• if you're making regular brioche and not frosting buns, brush the tops with egg yolk before baking for a super shiny top

And so that's it, my final Bake Off bake along recipe for the year!

Here's how I got on with the previous 9 weeks:

   

   

  

Thanks Amanda and Ala for hosting such a fun challenge x

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Bake Off Bake Along: Week 9 - Amaretto Millionaire's Chocolate Tart

I'm just going to put it out there, chocolate week is my week. I was so excited to be let loose with a chocolate tart. The possibilities really were endless: peanut butter, chocolate bakewell and a cheesecake tart were a few of the ideas I'd had.

After my pastry disaster in week 6 I almost chickened out and bought shop-made pastry. I had to give myself a little pep talk and went with the idea that if it fell apart then at least I'd have something to write about. 

The chocolate pastry wasn't so difficult to make after all, I used a Tom Kerridge recipe. I did roll it out too thin and it fell apart when trying to place it in the tin though. So instead I opted for the ultimate cheats method...whack a big lump of pastry in the middle of a tart tin and squidge it around the corners until it resembles a tart. To Kerridge's recipe, I added a base layer of salted caramel and a malteser and white chocolate drizzle topping. 

It may not be as visually impressive as a chocolate sculpture show-stopper but this is the most decadent dessert you can possibly make. 

For the best chocolate pastry, salted caramel and chocolate ganache, follow these tips:

• pastry can be made up to 3 days ahead and is the perfect opportunity to give it a good chill before rolling and shaping. Wrap well in clingfilm to keep dry. Once ready to use, leave out at room temperature for 20-30 minutes until its soft enough to work with.
• alternatively, to freeze uncooked pastry, shape into a disc and wrap well. Store for up to one month in the freezer before leaving to thaw in the fridge for a day. Or to freeze an uncooked pastry tart that you've already shaped, freeze in the tin until firm enough to wrap.
• when rolling pastry and you've got some spare, flour your work surface with cocoa powder when making chocolate pastry.
• roll the pastry out to the thickness of a pound coin, rolling from the centre outwards and turning a quarter turn after each roll. This will ensure a nice even thickness and that the pastry doesn't stick to the work surface.
• use the rolling pin to gently drape the rolled pastry onto and lower onto the tart tin. Gently lift edges and ease into the corners with a rolled up ball of dough, you don't want to poke any holes with your nails.
• a good way to even out the top is to roll your rolling pin over the top of the tart tin to chop off any remaining pastry edges.
• chill for 30 minutes before blind baking. I like to be safe and prick the base of the tart with a fork a few times, then cover with cling film or baking paper and pour over some baking beans or uncooked rice. Yes, cling film can go in the oven!
• for the easiest guide to making salted caramel, Izy's guide has handy gifs.
• when making ganache I always think of Ashley's video, here.

And to see how I've gotten on with the rest of the challenges...

  

  

 

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Bake Off Bake Along: Week 8 - Chokatines

Despite having a good few days off work to relax (and eat), I still didn't feel ready for this challenge of the Bake Off Along. I feel like I've said this every week, but this week was even harder than the last!

With a choice between cream horns, mokatines and something I can't even remember the name of. I went for the one that didn't involve pastry. Mokatines. I'd like to start by asking, has anyone ever seen or heard of these before? Mary and Paul have been really sneaky this year in finding recipes that no one's ever seen before. Little secret squirrels.

I turned these mokatines into chokatines, using Mary's recipe here for the genoise sponge and making a regular chocolate frosting to finish. I brushed the sponges with apricot jam like in Mary's recipe and tried to coat with chopped hazelnuts but they didn't really stick. So I figured you can't have too much chocolate frosting, right?

I've never made genoise sponge before, its a little different to a regular mix. Here's some tips to avoid Paul's flat sponge disaster:

• genoise sponge is naturally airy and doesn't use any raising agent. At first, it looks like the quantities of ingredients are very small, but by whisking up the eggs and sugar you'll create the volume needed for a good rise.
• by whisking eggs and sugar together the egg proteins are broken down to allow the egg to whip up larger and quicker.
• the mix should double in size and hold a thick ribbon (the point at which point a trail of batter from the whisk will sit on top of the mix for 3 seconds).
• there are a few methods to whisk up the mix. Either cold, over a bain marie or half and half. Applying a little heat will help the mix to whip up quicker, but working cold works just as well, just takes a little longer.
• use superfine sugar like caster sugar to ensure a really light, super fine crumb in your bake as it will dissolve evenly.
• when folding in the flour, do not over mix as this will only knock out any of the air you've worked so hard to get. 
• when folding in the melted butter, ensure its almost fully cooled. Pour around the side of the bowl also otherwise any of the remaining heat will cause the mix to collapse.

I would have included a photo of the inside to show even layers, but they collapsed. Still tasted great, my frosting just wasn't stiff enough to hold it all together.

And, here's how I've been getting on with the rest of the challenges:

   

   

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Bake Off Bake Along: Week 7 - Raised Gala Pie

I can't quite get my head round the fact that we're edging closer to the Great British Bake Off finals already. Baking one recipe a week is a challenge enough, let alone having to do 3 like the contestants do. There's no way I'd ever cope on the show.

Most of the last week has been spent deliberating what to bake for Victorian week. I don't like game, fondant icing and fiddly decorations leaving very little leeway for Mary and Paul's challenges. Hopefully no one will mind that I decided to make my own game-free hand raised pie. Its got pastry and meat so I should be ok, right?

My Grandad absolutely loves sausage meat pies so this, Gala pie was for him. Packed with pork mince, sausage meat, bacon and scattered with quails eggs.

For the filling I used the Hairy Bikers' recipe, adding far more sausage and bacon to fill a generous 2lb loaf tin. To ensure I was making Paul-approved pastry, I used his own recipe, here.

The pie itself was so dense it didn't quite cook all the way through, particularly the thick crust. To rescue it, it'll be wrapped in individual foil servings and warmed in the oven as it wasn't made to be eaten the same day. I should have taken it out the loaf tin half way through the bake to get some colour. I was chuffed at how well the quails eggs cooked though, well worth how fiddly they were to peel. 

And here's what I learnt:

• hot water crust pastry is relatively simple to make. Rather than hours of cooling and folding the key is to make a rough dough and to work into shape whilst still warm. If it starts to cool it will crumble so can be warmed again if needed over a pan of simmering water.
• supposedly you can also make hand-raised pies with the same pastry, where you don't use a tin or mould. When warm its quite slithery, so I wouldn't. Why else are there intricately detailed pie tins?
• as this type of pastry is quite fatty its good at holding juicy fillings making it ideal for pies. If you're particularly worried about a juicy filling or gravy in your pie, then brush the pastry with egg yolk before filling. The protein in the egg yolk will form a barrier against moisture.
• hot water crust pastry should be a rich brown colour once cooked, unlike mine. If you fancy making this one yourself then cook it for half the time in the tin to allow it its shape and to firm up. Then cook out of the tin on a baking tray to get some colour. Alternatively...
• this type of pastry doesn't need to be blind baked so ensure to use a tin that conducts heat effectively, i.e. something glass or black metal. I used a light coloured loaf tin which doesn't seem to hold heat too well.
• another way of avoiding a soggy bottom is to place the tin on a pre-heated pizza stone or heavy baking tray so allow extra heat into your pastry quicker. The trick is to get the pastry to crisp up quickly before the filling cooks.
• another lesson I've learnt is to allow some space between the filling and pastry lid to allow steam to escape which will help it to cook throughout. Use a pie funnel, cut slits on the top and don't pack any gaps full of bacon (like I did). 

For some tips and frangipane disasters, see how I did in previous weeks:

   

  

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