Baking Challenges

Eight-Stranded, Plaited Loaf!

 

Recently I've had some time off from work and it's given me a chance to bake some different things. I've never tried bread before, so I thought I would attempt the famous Paul Hollywood, Great British Bake Off, Eight-Stranded, Plaited Loaf!

I'm not going to lie, this was extremely difficult to make! The actual bread wasn't that difficult to make, kneading the dough was extremely fun!

The plait is pretty complicated and the dough was pretty sticky, so every time I went wrong I had to start right from the beginning as the strands were impossible to untangle!

In the end, it wasn't too bad for a first attempt! Next time I might try some seeded bread rolls.

Chocolate Macarons

 

I attempted to make Macarons twice, the above is my second, much better attempt! I used a really basic recipe from BBC Good Food, unfortunately it left a lot of the finer details out! It felt a little bit like the Great British Bake Off technical challenge to be honest! 

So these turned out a lot better because I blitzed the dry mixture in a food processor to make it finer (A mixture of plain flour, ground almonds, coco powder and sugar). Without doing this, you get a really lumpy texture to the macaron! 

I also left them to 'dry out' before putting them in the oven, this let them form a crust on top (they should be dry to the touch) and this stops them from cracking in the oven.

Finally, I baked them on a really low temperature (140 degrees C) for a longer time, so that they dried out slowly (as the wet part of the mixture is egg white) and didn't burn!

I filled these with chocolate ganche, but the flavour combinations for these little treats are endless!

Thanks for reading!

Homemade Afternoon Tea

Afternoon Tea on a budget

I've always wanted to have a good afternoon tea in a posh hotel, but never been able to afford it! So I figured I would try and make my own homemade Afternoon Tea for my other half and I.

My ideal Afternoon Tea, has to include the classic and delicious Victoria Sandwich Cake! This one is made from a really basic vanilla sponge recipe and filled to the brim with strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream...YUM!

 

 Tasty Finger Sandwiches

 

The next essential food item, must be the finger sandwiches! I'm afraid to say I didn't make the bread for these (stay tuned to see my first attempt at bread), but the egg mayonnaise inside is definitely

homemade! Cress was the perfect match for the egg, but you could also use Rocket leaves.

Heavenly Scones!

Surely the best part of an Afternoon Tea is the scones with lots of jam and clotted cream! I've never made scones before, and never eaten the plain variety (I tried the ones with 'dead flies' in when I was younger and hated them!). These are so easy to make, they only take about 20 minutes to prepare and bake! I used a basic recipe from BBC Good Food (excellent online resource for quick recipes).

So two very big (and happy) bellies later...

It took a fair amount of time to make all the elements for the Afternoon Tea, but it was well worth the wait! If your super hungry, you could always just make scones and have them with a big pot of tea.

The great thing about making your own Afternoon Tea is that you make what you like. You could make a more refined version by making Macarons or Iced fancies!

Thanks for reading!