Have you ever had one of those days where you think everything is going so well? Then BAM everything goes to pot?! This weekends baking was a whole lot of that.

Strange surroundings
Unlike most weekends I was not baking in my native kitchen, but a garden. We were visiting my parents to help decorate, what is to be their new kitchen diner, which meant there was now oven, work surface or stove. But I’m forever the optimist with an over active imagination that I wasn’t going to let the little things stop me. So instead of the giving up I decided the best idea would be to utilise the garden in what my dad decided to call al fresco baking. I dug out my mums scales from the numerous boxes of kitchen equipment being stored in the shed, grabbed the camping stove and set to work on the patio table!

First things first and this week that means pastry. For this challenge we’re talking rough puff. The bakers on the show used various techniques to make this, from Kates all in one to Nancy dabbing the fats on the surface of the flour and egg dough. So I’ve decided to go with a mixture here, so I mixed half in with the flour mix and the rest dabbed on the dough. The main thing was keeping the fats relatively cool, easier said than done when you’re workng outside and the sun is heating up! Working on a well floured surface, you have to start the first part of the rolling and folding. Rolling it into a long rectangle, then folding the top third down over the middle third and folding the bottom third over the top of that.  Next turn the pastry 90o and do the same again. Then wrap it and fridge it so that the fats can harden up again. This process has to be done about 4 times all together.

What a lovely pear!
While the pastry was doing its thing in the fridge it was onto the pear poaching. This bit was pretty simple. Peel the pears leaving the stork and poach I a liquor of water, cinnamon, orange zest, auger and white wine…yum! This all went well enough, albeit I had forgotten the orange and had to use a lemon instead. After the pears had been simmering I the liquor for a good 15 mins it was time to take them out and reduce the delicious smelling liquor to a syrup. It smelt a bit like Christmas but with an aroma that only wine can give!

Half way through the reducing there seemed to be little change I the consistency. It wasn’t until I heard a little burst of air I realised why. The gas in my camping stove had had run out! Luckily there was a spare and with this quickly changed the reduction was a lot quicker, and I had to be careful it didn’t boil over or burn.

Due to the baking restrictions this weekend, I decided that there was no way that I was going to be able to do all the baking in one day let alone 2 hours, so I split this recipe over the two days. Other than the pastry rolling/folding and the poaching the rest of this bake was going to take place on Sunday.

The next day
After a morning of painting a ceiling and looking like a paint speckled student I washed off what I could and started to prep for the next stage of the bake.  This time as the sun was still shining I decided to tackle this step inside, but not in the house but my parents caravan instead!.  This caravan is fancy, It even has an oven! It was cooler, building dust free and was going to be my saviour, hopefully.  Armed which the pastry, pears, rolling pin and knife it was time to tackle the tricky part of dressing the pears.

Rolling, stripping and wrapping!
The recipe says to roll out 60cm x20cm, and not more than 5mm thick.  if you roll this pastry out to that length the thickness is going to be considerably larger than it needs to be. I just kept rolling it to a thickness I was happy with.  Next the strips needed to be cut, apparently you need 18-20 and at a width of 8mm.  Have you ever tried cutting pastry to a specific mm?  Trust me it’s not easy, even with a ruler, I found its best to just do it by eye.

PrePEARation
The pear prep did not stop with the poaching. Now that they were cool, the core at the bottom needed to be removed with a melon baller. Simple but tricky because the fruit is soft and you don’t want to bruise it, or break the stork off.

Strips cut and pears prepped, it was time to start wrapping the bad boys.  Starting at the bottom and turning the pear like rather than the pastry it was all starting to come together. Once the pastry wrapping had gotten over the ‘bum’ of the pears I starting to wrap the rest while sitting it on a plate.  This was when it started to get tricky.  Wrapping the ribbon of pastry round the pear in a circular motion meant that the ribbon started to get twisted. I had to keep untwisting it, hoping it didn’t break, which it inevitably did at times. Other difficulties were making sure that the layers were slightly overlapping so that the pie case was secure all the way around the pear.  It wasn’t until the pastry wrapping was complete that I found that in some places this was what had happened, but it was too late to fix.

Once all the pears were wrapped and placed on the baking sheet they were decorated with a pastry leaf, brushed with beaten egg and then sprinkled with the granulated sugar.

Heating up and melting down
During the pear prep the caravan oven was eating up to 180oC.  It been a long time since I have used a gas oven, so I have forgotten some of the heating traits.  The baking of the pears helped to show all these in the end.  The top of the oven is hotter than bottom, which meant that they all cooked from the top down. Panic! The tops started to brown nicely but the pastry bottoms were still raw and melting slightly.  Thinking on my feet, I made some little tin foil hats to sit on the top, in the hope that it would save the top from burning. These hats soon turned into jackets as the cooking continued, leading to them taking a lot longer to cook than the alloted time.

With a mood well and truly deflated I removed the over tanned pies from the oven and left them to cool, while I heated the syrup up to a pouring consistency.  I know presentation is paramount but there is only so much you can do with burnt topped pies, where the pastry has slipped and created a pastry puddle at the bottom.

Afterthoughts:

1. Once the the pears are wrapped with the pastry, put them back in the fridge for the pastry to harden up again, otherwise it the fats will melt too quickly in the oven causing the pastry to slip down.
2. Make sure the layers overlap
3. Make sure the syrup doesn’t burn, and maybe add some butter at the end to it loosen up and make it more like a caramel sauce.

Overall the pears tasted great, they were poached well and the flavour was good. The pastry, albeit burnt in places, had good colour and flaky layers.  But the best bit in my opinion was the winey mulled syrup…now that was lovely and made the pears more pallatable, for me the pear hater!

 

 

After last weeks episode this week seems a little muted.  Not only have we lost Diana at the start (from an injury unrelated to the show), but two time star baker Richard had a poor week, and the youngest baker Martha had a really emotionally time.  Other than the custard tarts the boyfriend is not keen on this weeks challenges, he even asked if I would do the showstopper instead….Three tiered pie (only if they were savoury)!

Signature bake – A Family Sized Custard Tart
There were some interesting flavour combinations going on with this weeks tarts, the main one that stood out for me was Chetna’s.  Rice in a custard tart, that’s new! It was just a shame that her flavours weren’t strong enough to make an impact, the presentation was beautiful though.  One of the technical challenges last year were custard tarts, and that was the first time I had made them.  They were smaller, and could have been baked a little longer, so I’m looking forward to improving on the skill.  The main thing to remember, according to Paul, is that the tart needs to have good textures, crispy pastry and a silky custard.

Key Points:

1. Don’t work the pastry too much otherwise you’ll end up with it being tough chewy rather than crispy and melt in your mouth.
2. If adding fruit puree to the custard, be careful as to the quantity of eggs to liquid. It needs to be correct so that the custard still sets in the oven.

I have few ideas in mind for this.  I’m taking my inspiration from a roasted fruit breakfast I once saw on a programme from Nigella Lawson.  Its got an amazing subtle flavour from the orange flower water. I’ve got to make that stay present and not get lost with the other flavours, without it being over powering. It’ll definitely require some creative thinking!

Technical Challenge – Mini Pear Pies
Other than this weeks challenge I will side with Louis on this and I won’t be wrapping fruit in pastry any time soon.  I’ll agree they did look impressive once they were done, but I am not the biggest fan of pears, I simply don’t like their graininess.  I have however poached pears before, as a sweet accompaniment for cheese and oat crackers. Now these almost turned me, I just didn’t have enough cheese to mask the grainy texture! The last time I made puff pastry it was far to warm. Although I took my time, everything including the cold pie filling was just too warm and there was not much puff in the layers.

Key Points:

1. The pastry must be well chilled between each rolling out and folding
2. The pear must cool down before attempting to wrap the pastry around it.
3. Coat the cold pear with poaching liquor to act a glue for the pastry

The main question to consider is, do I try to do this within the 2 hour time frame as on the show?

Showstopper challenge – Three Tiered Pie
I do not envy the bakers this challenge. Hotwater pastry, its great, strong and crispy, but can be a pain to make and you almost burn your hands doing so! The benefit of using this pastry is that you can put every thing in the pie raw and cook it all in the oven. It was good to see Chetna get her groove back with this last challenge, it shows that sometimes you should trust in what you know!

My Favourites this episode:

1. Yippee, finally Kate has been awarded Star baker.  Her tart may not have been particularly strong with the flavour of Rhubarb, but it definitely looked impressive.
2. Nancy was definitely brave this week. She didn’t let Paul shake here with the shallowness of her tart and with choosing to do hand raised pies, that takes guts!.
3. Louis had another good week, almost faultless.  It is bad that I’m getting bored of his success?

Sadly it was Normans times to go this week, and there was no amount of fancy french accent or scottish poetry that was going to save him. Paul even gave him a big pointer as to what he was expecting to see from his tart, only to be disappointed with Norman’s offering. And lets not even mention the lavender Meringue!

This weekend, I’m going to be faced with an extra challenge. I will doing my baking in a different kitchen.  I’m visiting my parents, but they are in the middle of having their kitchen refurbished and only have a camping stove and a microwave! Instead I will be relying not he charity of their friendly next door neighbour.  On the plus side, it means there will be more mouths to feed and less pears for me!

 

The idea of self saucing seems pretty simple, there are few ingredients for these simple little lemon pots so what can possibly go wrong?

Like I said in my previous post (about the show), I’ve made chocolate fondants before and they are lovely but they can be very rich and filling. Fondants are great for warming you up in winter and the gooey liquid centre is a great surprise (especially when it works). However seeing as it I’m trying to be hopeful in thinking that the summer isn’t over, I’ve decided to go with the other self saucing method, to create a pudding that makes it’s own sauce in the bottom of the dish. Using the inspiration of summer I decided to go with zesty lemon as the main flavour with a few additions.

Testing, testing
The bakers on the show would have had time to develop a recipe and practice with the flavours, so I’m going to do a few variations with these little puds. It’s nothing fancy but I’ve been tossing with the idea of adding raspberries and poppyseeds. I don’t think they’ll go brilliantly together so I’m going to try plain lemon, lemon and poppyseed, lemon and raspberry. I have concerns about the poppyseed, as to whether they will sink to the bottom of the pudding in the cooking process and end up as a seedy layer in the sauce. Also will the raspberries hold or create a burning jam like substance in the bottom of the dish? Only one way to find out…

All new things
The first part of the job is to separate the egg yolks from the whites. It’s a messy job, which can either be done with the aid of the shells, your fingers or a nifty gadget if you have one. I prefer the egg shell method but it can pierce the yolk membrane, so it was the messy finger method for this. Once separated the next part was to cream the butter, sugar and lemon zest. Easy, however there didn’t really seem to be enough butter to cream to the usual light and fluffy consistency that is calls for when making regular sponges. After a period of whisking it still looked grainy, but seeing as this is all new, I’m going to go with it and trust the recipe.

Next I added the yolks, lemon juice and milk, mixing the whole thing together until well combined. What I was left with was a thin batter that needed to be poured and folded into stiff but not firm egg whites. Looking back now, I think it would have been better to fold the egg whites into the batter, as it would have blended better rather than look like cottage cheese!

Thinking ahead
Along with trying out the different variations on flavour, I’m going to try a few variations on the presentation too. In light of this I will use ceramic ramekins to serve the pudding in the pot and silver pudding basins to tip the pudding out into a plate.  Three silver darioles and a ramekin had a few raspberries put in be bottom, the rest were left empty.

Once there pudding mixture was mixed I ladled it into each of the pots, until I had two remaining. In these two I wanted to try out the lemon poppyseed combo, so I added a tablespoon of seeds into the remaining mix then poured that into the remaining pots. The pots need to be cooked in a water bath, or if you prefer to more fancy term, a bain–marie. This basically means putting the tins in a roasting tins and pouring in some boiling water to the halfway mark.  Then its into the oven.

Size matters
The recipe that I am using as a guide, is making a giant pudding, cooking it in a large pie dish.  There is very little difference between making a large pudding and a mini pudding, but I’m concerned about the timings.  The large pudding requires 35 minutes cooking, so the smaller times should take less time right?

Nicely does it
Once they puddings had been in for 25 minutes I took one out to test it.  They had a soufflé esqe quality to them for sure, which made them wonderfully light and fluffy.  The test pudding was a from a silver pot, so it needed to loosened and tipped onto a plate.  Bad move, as you can see from what can only be described as a splat it needed a little longer in there oven. SO I left the rest to cook for the same length of time as a large pudding needed.

Second time lucky?
The next pudding to tip out again, had better hold, but was definitely not attractive. Overall I think these desserts are definitely better kept in the ramekins.  The raspberries gave a nice sweetness to the sharpness of the lemons. The poppyseed variation worked too, and the seeds stayed in the batter, rather than sinking and the seeds gave it a nice crunch too.

These are not the best looking desserts in the world but they are certainly fresh and zingy which is what I wanted.

 

This new challenge doesn’t feel immensely technical to me. The only thing that you need to bake is the sponge, the rest of it is just about measuring it out into equal portions so that it is evenly distributed throughout the cake. If it is does correctly it should mean that you get a balanced mouthful of everything in every bite. The aim is to do it as neatly as possible so that you get even layers that are clearly visible when you take it out of the tin, and when you cut into it.

Simple sponge
Looking at the recipe from BBC/Berry the method is very similar to a Swiss roll. That being said I’m going make sure my eggs and sugar are whisked well, using the hand blender so that I can get as much air in there as possible. I don’t want a skinny sponge, this is going to be hard enough to slice in half without it being too thin. Once it is has reached the ribboning stage and has a good volume, I added the sifted flour. ‘Fold in gently with a metal spoon’ always an odd turn of phrase.For me folding is origami and clean clothes, bed sheets, you certainly can’t fold a cake mix into an origami swan! So, mix in the flour with a metal spoon, using gentle figure 8 movements, until it is combined, but still airy. All the flour needs to be combined, unlike what Norman said on the show! Once poured into the pan, it needed to be tilted as if playing a labyrinth so that it was an even layer in the tray. Then into the oven it goes.

A Boozy Brew!
While the sponge was in the oven, the next step was to make the liquor. There is a tiramisu recipe from Nigella that uses Illy Espresso liquor, not something that is easily available, unless you know where to look. Luckily I recognised the shop on the programme as one near my work, so the other year my dad got it as a Christmas present…lucky man! Anyway this recipe used a slightly more economical version using instant coffee, brandy and hot water.

Mascarpone Marvel
Three tubs! Not 1 or 2 but 3, and not on their own either. They need to be mixed with double cream and icing sugar! This is not a dessert is not for the health conscious

Grating on my nerves!
Have you ever tried grating chocolate without it melting in you hands? If you manage to get to successfully grated remember to stick it straight in the fridge after, as the shavings will melt on contact with your warm hands.

Baking + Chocolate = Mess! Whether it is melted or mixed, tempered or grated, later in the day you will find it melted on clothes or up your arm, no matter how careful & clean you were!

Nicely does it – Part 1
Once the sponge is cooled it’s time for the technical bit. Slicing it in half! Getting down low so that the whole thing is at eye level it started sliding the long thin blade through the sponge. Luckily I could use the handle of the know as a guide. As long as I kept the handle touching the work surface, then it would be as even as I could make it. Unfortunately there was some slight unevenness to the sponge, which meant I needed to be inventive with the extra bits to make my layers even.

Time to pile on the layers
The first layer was the sponge, as it was the bottom one it was not a good idea to use the uneven layers for this, so I saved those for the middle. Once the sponge was in the bottom it became clear that my tin was a little big so was going to have to use something to fill the extra space…luckily I have a few cook books that could help.

The boozy brew needed to be evenly split between the four layers, so with a few extra bowls it was divided equally into four, along with the mascapone filling.

Spooning over the liquor worked well enough however I think next time I’ll be using a pastry brush for and even coating. Once absorbed it was time to spread over the creamy layer. Best to use a nice bendy palette knife for this part. Lastly sprinkle over a generous (cool) handful of the grated chocolate. The rest is easy, just keep repeating the process until there is nothing left. Then chill as long as possible.

Temper Temper
Other than the dusted cocoa and grated chocolate on the top the recipe calls for tempered chocolate decoration. For this process I have caved and given in to the gadgetry and bought a digital thermometer. Melting the chocolate is easy, anyone can do it, but somethings need to get a little technical. I followed the instructions on the recipe for this part, heat to 53C/127F then allow to cool to 31C/88F. Once it was cooled your meant to pipe it using a piping tube made of baking paper. Quite frankly for me that means potentially more chocolate mess. There is a reason there are plastic disposable piping bags out there, and for me this is just one of them! I didn’t really have any plan for the piping so that part was a little trial, error and general doodling.

Nicely does it – Part 2
When every this is ready it was time to present. The major dilemma was trying to to figure out how to get off of the lose bottom of the tin. Eventually after a few minutes of umming in and arrhing there was only one thing that would going to working. Tipping the tray slightly, it was a process of pushing the cake very gently, while pulling the baking parchment under the try. Similar to when used to cover your school books with sticky back plastic, just a bit messier!

Bellisima!
As you can see there was a good definition of the layers, especially when you cut it. To make it look better, it would probably be better if I have trimmed the sides. Another idea would be to have a very thin layer of tempered chocolate where the current grated chocolate chocolate is. This would create more texture to the dessert and add a little crunch, similar to a Vienetta. I’m not going to get away with not making this again, it seems to be a clear winner.

My dad is really missing out this week, this is one of his favourites but I have a feeling it’s not going to last until next weekend!