Back from Hong Kong and I’ve caught up with Week One of GBBO and what a way to launch the series. The signature challenge was a Madeira cake and this simple yet delicious cake managed to challenge a few of the bakers. A distinctive crack and dome was the quality that the judges were looking…
Carrot Cupcakes with Lemon Icing
Carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes, with the natural sweetness of the carrot working with the spice and the tanginess of the cream cheese frosting. This vegetable cake is incredibly light and moist because of the use of oil instead of just margarine, allowing more air to be incorporated. Although the classic carrot…
Tea-soaked Raisin Couronne with Orange Icing
Valentine’s Day may have passed for another year but that doesn’t mean you can’t still show your love. And I love making bread so I thought I’d devise an original recipe for a couronne. A couronne, meaning crown, is a showstopping sweet loaf and I’ve filled mine with tea-soaked dried fruit and topped it with…
White Chocolate Mendiants
I’m continuing my exploration into making confectionery this week by giving you my recipe for the simplest little sweet treat you could imagine, and what’s even better they took me a matter of 10 minutes to make in total. These are my White Chocolate Mendiants. The great thing about mendiants is that you can…
Guest Post: Reindeer Cookies by Rebecca Herd
I’ve really loved how down to earth Rebecca’s Christmas recipes have been. They’re simple and something that you can do with little children across the festive period. You can see Rebecca’s other guest posts: Ginger and Fudge Cupcakes and Star-topped Mince Pies I love the way these turned out and how creative you can be…
Guest Post: Star-topped Mince Pies by Rebecca Herd
I loved having Rebecca write posts for my blog so much so I asked her to write a couple more Christmas-inspired posts for me. You can check out Rebecca’s last post here: Ginger and Fudge Cupcakes After writing my last post, Andrew asked if I would mind writing a Christmas post for his blog. As…
Guest Post: Christmas Panettone by Paul Roughan
For my next Christmas Guest Post, I’ve invited Paul from beerandbaking.net to bake something sweet and sticky for the blog. Like myself, Paul is a food blogger and shares his adventures in baking on his blog. I met Paul on Twitter through BakeChat and I’ve seen many of his fantastic bakes, including a Nutella Star…
Guest Post: Bûche de Noël by Luca Marchiori
I’ve got another one of my Guest Posts from a fellow food blogger, Luca Marchiori for the 2nd post in my Bumper December. I met Luca on Twitter, as seems to be the case all too often these days, and when he started tweeting these amazing bakes I discovered his blog. Then I had the…
Cornflake and Almond Tart
I managed to get myself, somehow, hired to make a couple of new twists on some old classic desserts. I took the opportunity to widen my baking repertoire and delve into the world of 1980s school dinner desserts. I came across a cornflake tart which I’d never heard of before. As I read the recipe,…
Guest Post: Ginger and Fudge Cupcakes by Rebecca Herd
Unlike my last guest post, you will not have heard of the author of this guest post. Rebecca Herd is a true foodie like me, as you’ll discover below. I met her on Twitter through Bakechat, a Twitter discussion organised by the 2013 bakers from GBBO in which we, as a baking community, asked (and…
Guest Post: Brunch Pies by Deborah Manger (of GBBO fame)
Anyone who has watched The Great British Bake Off will know the writer of this guest post. Let’s say that she was heavily involved in ‘Custardgate’ so much so that she even stole the custard. I contacted Deborah Manger, a former contestant on the show, about the possibility of writing a guest post for me…
All Butter Almond Cookies
There’s something about the smell of freshly baked biscuits and toasted nuts that makes these biscuits to die for. They are ridiculously simple to make and you’ll be surprised that such a small quantity of dough will make a huge batch of biscuits, so these are great for parties or giving as gifts for friends’…
GBBO 14 Episode 10 Review: The Final Week
So there we have it, Nancy Birtwhistle is the Champion of The Great British Bake Off. Best Bake: Nancy’s Red Windmill and Luis’ Village in Chocolate Signature Challenge: 24 Viennoiserie The traditional Danish pastries, which consist of either an enriched brioche-style bread dough or a laminated pastry, were the bakers’ first challenge of the Final. Taking normally…
GBBO 14 Episode 9 Review: Patisserie Week
What an amazing semi-final this week. Some of the trickiest challenges to date saw off one of the Bake Off’s flavour powerhouses in history. They faced Signature Baklavas (however you pronounce it), a Technical Schichttorte (a grilled German cake) and 24 Showstopping Entremets. Was there any favouritism from the judges this week however… find out…
GBBO 14 Episode 8 Review: Advanced Dough Week
The quarterfinal of the show did not disappoint with the bakers being tested with all manners of tricky enriched doughs. Chetna and Richard both had firsts ever on this week’s show and Nancy once again mesmerised with her use of technology. Find out my thoughts below. Eliminated: Martha My Elimination Prediction: Luis (see the rest of them…
Andrew in the Kitchen 