Great British Bake Off Challenge: Mini Pork Pies with Quails Eggs

I know it's been a while since I last posted an attempt at one of the Great British Bake Off Technical Challenges, but I have still been making my way through them slowly. I'm just too lazy to blog about them! As soon as I showed John the list, he requested the pork pies straight away. However, I'd never used hot water pastry before, I almost never cook with pork and I barely even knew what gelatin was. It was definitely a recipe that made me panic! However, they've made two different pork pie style pies on the GBBO, and so I knew I had to overcome my fear! I started with the mini quail's egg pork pies, as they were made in a tin, rather than being hand raised. 

The recipe I used was this one, straight from the Great British Bake Off. The recipe was pretty easy to follow. The only slight issue I really had was on sizings. I found that the sizes of pastry discs to cut out that the recipe gave were much too big for my muffin tin, and there would never ever have been enough pastry if I'd done them all that size. As it was, I used all the pastry, and less than half the filling. Maybe do 1 and a half times the pastry, or less of the filling. In the end, I mixed up some more pastry used the rest of the filling to make another large pie that we had warm for dinner with veggies and gravy, so it all worked out for the best! 

The hot water pastry was easier than I thought actually. It was odd having hot pastry to work with, but it behaved itself well. I didn't roll it out quite thin enough, but I think that was my fault rather than the pastry! The rest of making up the pies was quite easy, just mix up the filling, boil and peel quail's eggs, then put it all inside the case and put another pastry disc on the top. 

Making up the pies 

Ready to go in the oven

Baked! 

The next difficult thing was getting the jelly into the pies. you mix gelatine with stock, then pour it in through the hole in the top of the pie. I don't know what I did wrong, but in almost all of my pies, there wasn't any space really between the filling and the pastry for the jelly to fill. A bit of wiggling did allow it to sort of pour in, but after they'd set and I cut it open, the jelly went in between the meat rather than round the edges. It didn't stop them tasting nice, but I'd love to try and get it right next time. 

I need 3 hands for photographing cooking. 

Finished pork pie the next day, after being left to set. 

Despite my misgivings with the jelly, they still made a delicious part of our picnic! 

So, pork pies successful (mostly). Not looking forward to the scary hand raised ones still on my list though! 

Great British Bake Off Challenge: Chocolate Roulade

I made this a while ago, and the photos have been patiently waiting until I could be bothered to type it up! 

When my whole family got together just after Christmas (I told you this was old!), Mum knew I would happily make the dessert. A quick look down the list of Great British Bake Off technical challenges, and one definitely popped out at me...a decadent chocolate roulade. Now way back when I was doing my GCSEs, in Food Tech, we had to design a cake. I made lemon swiss roll with a variety of flavourings. I spent weeks trying out different flavourings, sizes, toppings and ingredients, and so I like to think of myself as a bit of a dab hand at rolled up cake! Whether its because of this past practise, or just because this cake was really easy, this came together beautifully, and left the whole family in a state of chocolately bliss! 

Ingredients:

6oz good quality dark chocolate

6 free range eggs

6oz castor sugar

2 tbsp cocoa powder

300ml double cream (this is how much Mary Berry's recipe asked for, but we used a lot less, maybe only 180ml or so)

Icing sugar, to dust

Method, with photos:

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas mark 4.

Line a 13x9 inch tin with greaseproof paper.

You start by melting the chocolate, then separate the eggs, with all 6 yolks in one large bowl, and all six whites in another. Whisk the egg whites until stiff (not dry, you should be able to hold them upside down without it falling out). Add the sugar to the egg yolks and whist until the mixture leaves a ribbony trail when the whisk is lifted.

Stir the melted chocolate into the egg yolks. 

Fold the egg whites into the egg/chocolate mixture. Do 2 tbsp first to loosen the mixture, then add the rest and fold in gently. Try to keep as much air in as possible. Sift in cocoa powder and gently mix in. 

Pour into a tin, and level by tilting the tin and gently encouraging with a spoon. Try not to squash out more air than you can help. Bake for 20-25 mins until risen and the top feels firm and slightly crisp. 

 

Once its out, leave it to cool completely in the tin. While its cooling, whip your cream. If you have a crazy father like mine who is convinced he can't eat cream, make some buttercream for his section. That does make it horrendously sickly, but my Dad has the sweetest tooth known to man! 

Once the roulade is cooked, get a large bit of greaseproof paper, sprinkle it with icing sugar and turn the roulade onto it, with a long edge nearest you. Peel off the paper that it was cooked with. Spread it with the cream, leaving a border along each long edge. Make a cut, about 1cm in from the edge, along the edge closest to you, halfway down through the sponge. Starting from this edge, roll it up. Be quite firm, and use the paper to help if you want. It doesn't matter if it cracks. 

Put it onto a serving dish and serve! It was DELICIOUS. It doesn't need anything with it, and you'll feel sick after even a small piece, but it'll be in that very satisfied, I still want to eat more kind of way. 

Next time you have a need for a fancy pudding, make this. You won't regret it! Just make sure there aren't too many people coming over. You'll definitely want leftovers. 

Original recipe is here, on  the Great British Bake Off section of BBC food

Bake Off Challenge: Latticed Treacle Tart

When I showed my Dad the list of things I had to make for the Great British Bake Off Challenge, straight away he requested the treacle tart first. Just like me, he has a real sweet tooth, and any recipe that includes 400g of golden syrup has to be good!

I had a lot of fun making this recipe. It was fairly easy actually; I think the bakers got off lightly this week. I've made a treacle tart before, so the only bit that was worrying me at all was the woven top. Some of the bakers made a real mess of it, so I was surprised how easy it was. But then, I did have the luxury of watching Mary Berry make hers on the masterclass before I had to attempt it! 

And, of course, it was delicious! There was more lemon in it that I expected, which gave it a much fresher taste than some treacle tarts I've tried. Served warm, with a bit of custard or clotted cream, it was YUM! 

Recipe for Woven Lattice Treacle Tart (from the BBC food website)

Ingredients
For the pastry:
250g/9oz plain flour
130g/4.5oz butter plus extra for greasing
3 tbsp cold water (I had to use a bit more than this)
For the filling:
400g/14oz golden syrup
150g/5.5oz fine breadcrumbs
2 lemons, zest and juice
1 egg, beaten, to be used as an egg wash.

Method
1. First make the short crust pastry: measure the flour into a large bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (alternatively, this can be done in a food processor). Add about three tablespoons of cold water and mix to a firm dough, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
2. Grease a deep 18cm/7in loose-bottomed fluted flan tin with butter.Remove about 150g/5½oz of pastry from the main ball and set aside for the lattice top.
3. Roll the rest of the pastry out thinly on a lightly floured work surface and line the prepared flan tin with the pastry.Prick the base with a fork, to stop the base rising up during baking.
4. Place the reserved pastry for the lattice top on cling film and roll out thinly. Egg wash the pastry and set aside to chill in the fridge (the cling film makes it easier to move about). Do not cut into strips at this stage. Do not egg wash the strips once they are on the tart as it will drip into the treacle mixture.
5. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and put a heavy baking tray in the oven to heat up.
6. To make the filling, heat the syrup gently in a large pan but do not boil. Once melted, add the breadcrumbs, lemon juice and zest to the syrup. (You can add less lemon if you would prefer less citrus taste.) If the mixture looks runny, add a few more breadcrumbs.
7. Pour the syrup mixture into the lined tin and level the surface.
8. Remove the reserved pastry from the fridge and cut into long strips, 1cm/½in wide. Make sure they are all longer than the edges of the tart tin.
9. Egg wash the edge of the pastry in the tin, and start to make the woven laying lattice pattern over the mixture, leave the strips hanging over the edge of the tin.
10. Once the lattice is in place, use the tin edge to cut off the strips by pressing down with your hands, creating a neat finish.
11. Bake on the pre-heated baking tray in the hot oven for about 10 minutes until the pastry has started to colour, and then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F/Gas 4. If at this stage the lattice seems to be getting too dark brown, cover the tart with tin foil.
12. Bake for a further 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden-brown and the filling set.Remove the tart from the oven and leave to firm up in the tin. Serve warm or cold.

Great British Bake Off Challenge

I'm currently back at home for a few months, having left Japan and waiting until I know what university I'm going to go to in the autumn. Like most of the country, I am rather addicted to The Great British Bake Off, and, like the two years before, really enjoyed last years series (although Brendon, smug git that he was, did deserve to win and Ryan was a complete idiot). So, with some spare time on my hands, and having an oven again (hurrah!), I have decided to work my way through as many Great British Bake Off challenges as I can.
Since there are some I don't actually like, I'm not promising to make all of them, but once I get going, my stubborness will probably mean that I do make them all!

To start me off, here's a list of all the technical challenges. Series 1 is definitely a lot simpler, I've made most of them before, but it'll be fun to give them all another go. They get a bit more dodgy as they head through series 2 into 3, but I'll give it all a go, and I promise to post all my results on here, however awful! I'm not going to cook them in order, but will bake the ones I feel like or have time for, whenever!

Series 1
Cakes: Victoria Sandwich
Biscuits: Scones
Bread: Easy White Bread
Puddings: Souffle
Pastry: Cornish Pasty

Series 2
Cakes: Coffe and Walnut Battenburg
Tarts: Tart au citron
Bread: Foccacia
Biscuits: Brandy Snaps
Pies: Pork Pies with Quails Eggs
Desserts: Chocolate Roulade Completed (blog post) 7th April 
Patisserie: Iced Fingers
Final: Sachertorte

Series 3
Cakes: Rum Babas
Bread: 8 Stranded Plaited Loaf
Tarts: Treacle Tart  Completed 5th Jan
Desserts: Creme Caramel
Pies: Hand-raised Chicken and Bacon Pie
Puddings: Queen of Puddings
Sweet Dough: Jam Doughnuts
Biscuits: Chocolate Teacakes
Patisserie: Frasier Cake
Final: Fondant Fancies

So, that's my list! I started today, with the treacle tart. More about that tomorrow!