Let's bake well!

A family favourite of ours is Bakewell Tart, something we usually buy and have never made before so I decided to rectify that. I used Mary Berry's recipe here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/bakewell_tart_90600

and adapted it slightly. I made a bit more pastry than needed as a pastry amateur, and just used the leftovers to make mini jam tarts. I also left out the flaked almonds and icing drizzle on top and covered ours with a thicker layer of icing and half glace cherries! I would recommend watching the video on the link about blind baking if you haven't done it before (plus it's Paul, so good time for an ogle). Here's a few pics of mine in progress:

 'Breadcrumbs' for pastry

'

 Pastry lined tin with a few bits of patching up

 Big little man patting down the baking beans

 Filled tart- think I may have used a little too much jam!!

 My tart after 22 minutes, so glad I checked it as any longer and we would have been in BIG trouble. Recipe says 35 minutes to bake, check yours lots!!

Topped with icing and cherries!

Mmmmmm

xxx

Tricolor bread!

I adore freshly baked bread and today fancied baking something a bit different so I did a bit of googling and stumbled upon this recipe:

http://dolcevitadiaries.com/2013/09/20/tricolour-braided-bread-with-pesto-sundried-tomatoes-and-garlic/

I then adapted it to make my own tricolour bread with sundried tomatoes, pesto and garlic. It is a really soft and delicious bread, bursting with flavours!

Yummy Mummy's Tricolour Bread
Makes 1 large loaf

500g strong bread flour,
7g (1 sachet) of fast action dried yeast,
15g butter,
1 1/2tsp salt,
1tsp sugar,
300ml warm water,

10 sundried tomatoes, chopped into small pieces,
2 heaped tsp pesto,
2tsp chopped/crushed garlic.

1. Mix together the bread flour, yeast, butter, salt and sugar. Knead for several minutes until you have a smooth and stretchy dough. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.

2. Knock the dough back and seperate into 3 equal balls.
3. Knead the sundried tomatoes into 1 ball, the pesto into another ball and the garlic into the third ball. Roll into long sausage shapes.

4. Plait the 3 strands of dough together, tucking the ends under. Try and plait with an even tightness all down the loaf, you can see on my finished loaf I plaited tighter as I got near the end, ooops! 

5. Place onto a non stick tray and cover. Preheat the oven to 210C. Leave the loaf to rise for about 45 minutes.

6. Brush the top of the risen loaf with milk, then bake at 210C for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes turn the oven down to 180C and leave to bake for a further 20 minutes until golden on top. The loaf should sound hollow when you tap on the bottom.

7. Leave to cool on a wire rack then enjoy!

xxx

Mmmmmmm doughnut muffins...

I find food innovations fascinating and am determined one day to try a cronut (croissant meets doughnut) and a slice of pizza cake (think several pizzas stacked up and cut like a cake- my husband thinks it sounds grim). I guess these should really be called duffins or muffnuts‽ (not sure on that one!!). Anyway, I've had this recipe knocking about the kitchen for a while now and finally got round to trying it today, and boy, I was not disappointed:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1853652/doughnut-muffins

These doughnut muffins are so delicious warm from the oven and do really taste like hot doughnuts from Brighton pier, with added yummy jam, and not a deep fat fryer in sight!

A couple of things I found that might help you out:

• I used a Pyrex jug to pour the batter into the muffin tin and found this helped make less mess.
• I found that I only had enough batter for 10, rather than 12, I probably need to be a bit less generous with it!
• The recipe says to use 7oz of sugar to roll them muffins in but I found I didn't need anywhere near that amount, I would start with 4oz and add more if you run out.

Time to add the jam!

Covering over the jam (stealing batter from 2 of them- I did clean them out before baking or it would have been an awful, burnt mess!)

Ooops, one fell apart when I took it out the tin- chef's perks!

Happy baking!

xxx