My Great British Bake Off - Part 2

Last week I posted about my baking exploits and shared the recipes for the cakes I had baked.  Now for Part 2 and details of the cookies I made.

I don't know about you but there is something very relaxing (and probably very British!) about sitting down with a cup of tea and a biscuit to catch up on some reading, blogging or crafting.  Now with two growing teenagers in the house biscuits do not last long once made so I made sure that I made quite a lot of the different types of cookies and then split the batches between the biscuit tin and the freezer.

I am not the best at getting my cookies to look like they do in the professional photos but they always taste fab so I figure looks aren't everything,right?!

First up was Ginger Cookies

Ingredients	Method
6oz SR Flour 2oz butter 4oz brown sugar 1 tsp golden syrup 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 med egg	Mix all of the ingredients (not including the egg) in a bowl        Beat the egg separately and then add to the mixture        Take small spoonfuls of the mixture and plop on a greased or lined baking sheet        Bake in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 180°C for about 20-30 mins until golden.

The recipe said to take a handful of the mixture and roll into a ball and put on the baking sheet but it was so sticky (even after I had added extra flour) that rolling it wasn't really very practical. Strangely the recipe I was following ommitted to give details of the oven temperature and cooking time but I did it on the temperature above and for that time and they turned out fine.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies were next:

Ingredients	Method
150g SR Flour 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda 125g butter 125g light soft brown sugar 2tbsp golden syrup 1 tbsp vanilla extract 150g chocolate chips	Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.        Sift the flour and the bicarb of soda together in a separate bowl.        Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl together and then beat in the golden syrup and vanilla and stir in the flour and bicarb of soda.  Finally add the chocolate chips.        Take a teaspoon of the mixture and put on a greased or lined baking sheet (flattening it down slightly with the back of the spoon).        Bake for about 10 mins at 180°C/Gas 4

Finally, Almond Squares

This is a bit like bakewell tart but a whole lot easier!

Ingredients	Method
8oz flour 2oz ground almonds 2oz sugar 6oz butter 2 egg yolks Topping 4oz ground almonds 6oz sugar 1 egg 2 egg whites	Rub together the flour, almonds, sugar and butter to make fine breadcrumbs        Add the 2 egg yolks to the breadcrumb mixture and mix together        Roll out the pastry like mixture and put on a baking tray (similar to a swiss roll tin).        Cover in a jam of your choice (we used homemade strawberry jam - yum)        Whisk together the egg whites and single egg, together with the ground almonds and the sugar for the topping.        Spread over the top of the jam.        If you want at this stage you can sprinkle over some flaked almonds.        Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C/Gas 4 for 30 mins or until golden brown.        Leave in the tray to cool and then cut into squares and enjoy!

I really hope you enjoy having a go at these recipes and sitting down with a nice cup of tea with your feet up.

What are your favourite recipes I would love to hear your suggestions so that I can try them at home.

Enjoy!

Sharon x

My Great British Bake Off - Part 1

I don't know about you, but I always feel far more enthusiastic and energetic when the sun shines.  Maybe that is why I found myself being super motivated this weekend and channelled that motivation and enthusiasm into baking.

If you ever needed to rely on me to actually feed and nourish you, you would probably starve!  I have to confess that my husband is the one that does the cooking in our house.  He's very good at making his own sauces for curries and chilli etc and, unlike me, everything is ready at the same time (I do struggle with my timings!).

However, if you were happy to simply live on cakes and cookies then I'm your gal!

So it was that this weekend, enthused by the lovely weather that I decided to go on a bake-a-thon and stock the cupboards and freezer with supplies for the month.

My daughter seems to have inherited my dessert genes and is really the cake baker in the family.  I am not quite sure how she does it but her cakes are always so moist, and they come out of the tin in one piece!

Now I should add at this stage that we have frozen a lot of what is about to follow and haven't just "pigged out" this weekend!

First up was the tried and trusted Ginger Cake from the Dinner Lady Cookbook.  We amended the recipe from the one in the book slightly, but it always tastes absolutely great and never seems to last very long in our house.

Ginger Cake

Ginger Cake

Ingredients

Method

225g self-raising flour 2tsp ground ginger 2tsp mixed spice 115g brown sugar 115g golden syrup 115g butter 2 eggs 150ml milk

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl.        Melt the sugar, syrup and butter in a pan for 5 minutes.  Be careful not to boil.        Beat the eggs and milk together.        Add the beaten egg mixture, together with the melted butter mixture to the dry ingredients to make a soft batter.        Pour into a 1lb loaf tin and bake in a preheated oven (160°C/325°F/Gas 3) for 35 minutes until springy to the touch.

Next up was Golden Syrup Cake.  One of the blogs that I follow is A Spoonful of Sugar Designs and they recently posted a recipe for Golden Syrup Cake.  Now I LOVE golden syrup so just had to try this recipe.  You can find the details for the recipe on their website here.  We tried half of the cake and froze the rest and I have to say that it was delicious, lovely and moist, a little bit chewy and, for those of you who are perhaps not to sure about the idea of a golden syrup cake, didn't taste overwhelmingly of golden syrup.  Even my son (who has the fussiest tastebuds and doesn't like syrup) enjoyed it.

Golden Syrup Cake

Next up was a chocolate cake.  This was another one I tried from a blog that I follow over at Retromummy.  

Chocolate Cake

Again, we froze half and have indulged in the other half. This was one of the nicest chocolate cakes I have ever tried.  I can find that most other chocolate cakes have a tendancy to be a bit dry but this one was lovely and soft and moist.  We will definitely be making this one again.

Finally, the last cake in our Great British Bake Off was Fruit Cake.  Again, this is a tried and tested recipe in our house although I am not entirely sure where the original recipe came from.  I do know that the original recipe calls for seperate measurements of currants, sultanas and mixed peel.  As we invariably never seem to have these individually in our baking cupboard we usually cheat and use a total quantity of mixed fruit which has a bit of everything in it.

Fruit Cake

Ingredients	Method
4oz butter 6oz caster sugar 6oz currants 6oz sultanas 2oz mixed peel (or 14oz mixed fruit) 8fl oz water 1tsp bicarbonate of soda 1tsp mixed spice 4oz plain flour 4oz self raising flour 2 eggs	Put the butter, sugar and fruit into a pain and bring to the boil for 1 minute. Let the mixture cool for about 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly. Add the eggs to the mixture and beat in. Add the flours a little at a time and mix in. Pour the mixture into a 2lb greased tin and bake in a pre-heated oven (140°C) for 1 hour 15 mins.

This is the moistest (is that even a word?!) fruit cake ever.  Packed full of fruit but not dry and crumbly, perfect to have with an afternoon cuppa.

I also made (LOTS) of cookies at the weekend but I think I will save all your waistlines for now and let you have  the details for the cookies in Part 2 later.  For now, if you decide to try any of the recipes above I hope you enjoy them as much as my family do.  I would love to hear what you think of them and what your favourite cake recipes are.

Sharon x