Teacakes always remind me of my primary school days when me and my mum used to go to the breakfast club before school and have a toasted teacake for 30p. Times have changed and the teacakes in the supermarket just don’t compare to freshly baked homemade teacakes, warm from the oven and with lots of…
Tag: Great British Bake Off
Giant Linzer Cookie and Linzer Sandwich Cookies
Named after the city of Linz in Austria, Linzertorte is said to be the oldest cake in the world dating back to a Veronese recipe from 1653. Its popularity rose after being taken over to Milwaukee by an Austrian traveller. The linzer cookie is a derivative of the linzertorte made by cutting out shapes of…
Salted Caramel Choux Buns
Choux pastry has grown to become one of my favourite pastries to make. It’s simpler in comparison to its shortcrust and puff cousins, you don’t need to roll it out and worry about overworking the pastry and what’s more, it’s also incredibly versatile, capable of making sweet and savoury bakes. Today I’m doing a sweet…
Salted Caramel White Chocolate and Lemon Savarins
Inspired by the Savarin Technical Challenge in Patisserie Week of Bake Off, I decided to put my own spin on the savarin and I created my Salted Caramel White Chocolate and Lemon Savarins which are a perfect treat to have in front of the fire this winter or Bonfire Night! This sticky enriched dough is…
Halloween Cho-oooooh Buns
Choux pastry seems a bit daunting to make and I myself have often been put off making it after getting choux buns which turned out more like blinis. But after doing extensive reading into how to make choux pastry, I think I’ve finally managed to get the technique right and I get perfectly risen and…
Exploring Chocolate Tarts: Cremamocha Tart
The final chocolate tart in my series ‘Exploring Chocolate Tarts’ is my Cremamocha Tart; a shortcrust pastry base filled with a coffee flavoured smooth chocolate ganache. The coffee flavour comes from the addition of Camp Coffee, a chicory-based coffee flavoured essence which can be used in baking to produce a coffee flavour as well as…
Exploring Chocolate Tarts: ‘Nuts for Chocolate’ Tart
You might have seen my recipe for Dark Chocolate Teacakes using Mr Toms but I chose to reinvent the way in which I used it in a bit of an experiment to make my Nuts for Chocolate Tart. Mr Tom is essentially a peanut praline bar and so I decided to crush it up into…
Exploring Chocolate Tarts: Bitter Chocolate Tart
The second of the chocolate tart recipes in my ‘Exploring Chocolate Tarts’ series is my Bitter Chocolate Tart. The shortcrust pastry base is filled with an intensely flavoured chocolate ganache-style mixture and is baked in the oven to set, giving it a smooth texture. The foundation of the filling is a ganache made with milk…
Exploring Chocolate Tarts: Chocolate Brownie Tarts
I’ve been wanting to do a series of different versions of the same bake and everything seemed to come together all at once. I found another one of my reduced bargains from Marks and Spencer and it was ready rolled shortcrust pastry for 80p and it tied in perfectly with the arrival of my Food Thoughts…
Cornflake Streusel Cake: Revamped
This is a revamped version of the original Cornflake Crumble Cake but this version is much lighter and fluffier. A simple way to elevate any cake is by adding a streusel topping, a mixture of flour, butter and sugar almost like a crumble. My little twist on the classic streusel is to use Demerara sugar…
Making a Gingerbread Oven Showstopper
Inspired by The Great British Bake Off’s Biscuit Week Showstopper in which the bakers made a 3D gingerbread story containing at least 8 characters or objects, I decided to have a go at the challenge myself, by making an oven completely out of gingerbread. My Gingerbread Oven is currently baking 10 gingerbread diamond biscuits and…
Dark Chocolate Teacakes with Marshmallow Meringue and Mr Toms
You may remember that I told you that I bought some silicone hemisphere moulds from my time in Hong Kong when we went to Shanghai Street in Yau Ma Tei, which you can read about here. I just couldn’t resist having a play with them as soon as we got back and I decided to…
Homemade Vanilla Custard Creams: #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong
Whilst the Rio Olympics sweep the nation, you might know that Bake Off starts in just under 2 weeks time on Wednesday 24th August. On Twitter, @kuskus1 and @Rob_C_Allen are hosting the #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong where the Twitter baking community will be baking along with the new series. Currently we are doing a few pre-bakes and from…
Product Review: Sugar and Crumbs Icing Sugar
I was contacted by Sugar and Crumbs to test, try and review some of their flavoured icing sugars. You can find their fantastic website at http://www.sugarandcrumbs.co.uk/. I was eager to try the products out, because I had seen so many of the Twitter baking community use Sugar and Crumbs in their bakes. The three flavours…
Peanut Butter Cake with a Chocolate Topping
Peanut butter is always a favourite with its rich smoothness working well with many other flavours. Whenever I make anything with peanut butter, I always like to celebrate both its smooth and crunchy counterpart, adding texture into all my peanut butter bakes. Here I create a smooth chocolate topping for the cake, which complements the…
Andrew in the Kitchen 