Oh my lord where do I start! This weeks episode was definitely the most high octane so far! What with having to contend with the temperature when it came to the chocolate tempering but also the whole freezer fiasco with the ice cream for the Baked Alaska. I’m so pleased that I’m not going to have to do that challenge this weekend. For starters I do not have, but much desire, an ice cream maker but also I don’t have the freezer space! The big question is what’s “sort of unacceptable” for Mary Berry?

Signature Bake: Self Saucing Puddings (8)
First things first, I’ll be honest, I have made chocolate fondants before, so the other challenge for me is to make something that isn’t chocolate. I like the idea that Kate had, with using the toasted flaked almonds around the out side, but I wonder if this would still work if I choose to do a sponge that creates it own sauce instead of a fondant.

Key points:

1. The sponge needs to be kept nice and light, something that will bake in very quick time. Strong enough of bake quickly but strong enough to hold the molten centre
2. There are two different versions: Fondant and a sponge that creates its own sauce at the bottom
3. Sauce has to have the right consistency, but have some texture too

I’m keen to do something that is fresh and light with the flavours, but can you get this with a hot pudding? Seeing as I have made the fondant before I’m going to try the other technique. I’d like to include pistachios in something as they are one of my favourite flavours, however what can I mix them with that isn’t chocolate? Hmmm time to get that thinking cap on!

Technical Challenge: Tiramisu
Ive made a tiramisu before, but the cheats way, using sponge fingers or squares bought from the shop. These sponge fingers are lucky to make it to the tiramisu dish as I’ve usually eaten half of them beforehand! The main thing I can foresee causing me a problems  is the same things as the bakers on the show; making a sponge that is thick enough to slice horizontally while still being light, and the damn chocolate tempering! I really hoped that I would get away with not having to buy any equipment this week, but I am going to have to bite the bullet and buy that digital thermometer.

Key points:

1. Keep the layers even, so that there is an even distribution of flavours in every bite
2. Soak the sponge with an even amount of the coffee and brandy so the sponge changes colour but still holds its shape

Show-stopper: Baked Alaska
Crikey this challenge was definitely heated and I don’t mean the temperature in the tent either!
You would hope that the BBC would have re-thought doing this challenge considering the weather, but no, lets just make the bakers sweat a bit more. There were some stand out flavour combinations going in this week, with Marthas Key Lime pie and Iain’s Black sesame ice cream. Unfortunately we will never see see how Iain’s Alaska would have turned out as his reaction was the “unacceptable” that Mary was talking about. My favourites from this episode:

1. Kate was so close to getting star baker this week, that I feel that she was robbed. She was so close with her signature bake and her showstopper was praised for its. Hopefully she’ll get it next week.
2. Martha is doing so well, her technical was number one. I like the idea of her peanut butter fondants were a great idea, its just a shame they didn’t work our so well.
3. Richard really did deserve to win this week, everything he made this week was great.  he even managed to pull it out of the bag when he had to make a second sponge for his tiramisu.  That man has definite staying power!

Norman is really balancing on a fine line. He keeps sticking with the traditional flavours but in the words of Hollywood “your playing it so safe that your beginning to fail” Each week he says that he is going to up his game, but we see little improvement. I really believe that if poor Iain hadn’t lost his cool, we would have seen Norman leaving this week.

I feel so disappointed with the outcome of the show that I was practically screaming a the TV. When your all making the same the dessert, why would you not put someones ice cream back in the freezer?!  I love that Sue tried to help by suggesting trying to save it and I was a tiny bit pleased that karma bit the culprit on the butt (not naming names here). I have to say that if the same had happened to me, stronger words would have been said. I’m sure that there were many said by Iain, but thats the wonder of editing.

I’ll miss Iain beard and Irish charm. Hopefully we’ll get to see his final Alaska on the Extra slice show on Friday.

This weekends baking will definitely have to be shared around the friends and family, plus there must be a bit of exercise too. I love desserts, but there are only so many a girl can eat!

The signature this week was “12 Right royal rye rolls… an alliterative challenge.” I was feeling a little unsure about this one not only because it was something I’ve not really attempted before, but because it was bread (even though I really enjoy it).

My mother has baked bread every week for as far back as I can remember, and although I can bake it, I have problems getting it to prove/rise enough. I have tried a few techniques of placing it in an airing cupboard, by a radiator and in front of a hot oven. I’ve even tried putting the oven on the lowest heat then switching off and leaving the door open while leaving the dough in the middle of the oven (in a covered bowl of course). This last oven method does work, I think it over works the yeast and even though it rises well on the first prove the second is not so good and it doesn’t do much more in the oven when it’s cooking.

So you can understand my anxiety when it comes to this challenge. Not only have I chosen a recipe that uses fresh yeast but rye flour has a low gluten content that requires you to work it more in order for it to rise!

“Rye is an extremely difficult flour to work with because it had less gluten it very tricky because you really have to work that protein to build the gluten up to create the sacks that the air will sit inside”  (Paul Hollywood)

I have to say I agree with what Diana had to say on the show, working with rye certainly helps to concentrate the mind! Hey ho off we go….

I’m met with a lot of options when to comes to choosing a rye bread. You can use just rye flour, or you can mix it with regular and/spelt flour. The flour itself comes in a variety of options, dark, light and wholegrain, to mention a few. It’s a very popular european style bread and a lot of the recipes on the show were working from a base similar to german pumpernickel, danish rugbrød, all the way through to a scandinavian dark rye.

I’ve decided to go with a dark rye flour for my rolls and work from a recipe which is a version of the Scandinavian Vört Limpa, commonly made at Christmas. The dark rye reminds me of a fabulous loaf that we used to get served in the restaurants in Warsaw, when I went on holiday as a teenager. There is a pretty square in the old part of town that has restaurants and bars around the outside. Whenever you sat down to order they would bring you a basket with a wide variety of bread to chose from. I always went for the dark rye, as it had a slight nutty sweet taste to it, and a tiny bit of sourness. Whenever I see anything similar nowadays I always make a beeline for it.

The dark rye that I have chosen needs to be mixed with an equal quantity of regular strong white plain flour in order to increase the gluten levels in the dough. To the flours I also need to add the spices (clove, nutmeg and ginger) along with the salt and sugar.

Now I’ve heard of adding beer, ale or even stout to a bread but this is the first time that I have ever come across a recipe that asked for port in addition to ale! This bake also required me to use fresh yeast.  I have a few tins of the Allisons fast action and dried yeast stored in my fridge, which I think I’ll have to replace as I don’t think I have used it enough! Anyway this rye recipe required fresh yeast and I was a bit worried about where to get this.  I don’t really have any fresh bakers where I live and  the only bakery I could think of was in my local Sainsburys.  I know they bake things in the store, but is that just baking things from frozen ar are they actually making things fresh?  The answer, my dear friends, is that they do bake from fresh and if you ask at the counter they are more than happy to sell you it in 50g portions at 20p each! Brilliant, I just have to figure out what I’m going to use the last 10g for!

It’s important to note that the yeast and alcohol mixture is mixed together in a large bowl so that the dry flour can be added gradually.  I didn’t realise this until I read the next step of the recipe, so I quickly had to change bowls and create more washing up! As the dough comes together it is then turned out onto the floured surface to knead. It’s important to knead this dough well, and that means for a longer time than usual, though hopefully not as long as Jordan who did it for 40mins!

Once the dough was at the right consistency I put it bake in a bowl and used the oven door technique, that I mentioned earlier.  This dough takes considerably longer to rise than the ciabatta that I’d made earlier.  Luckily I have blogging and washing up to distract me from the long wait!

The next stage of the bake was to added the last few remaining ingredients to the proven dough.  During this stage you want to be gentle but firm with the dough, and you don’t want to knock all the air out but you do want the fruit and seeds to be evenly distributed throughout.

After this I weighed out the dough into 13 portions.  Thirteen, not twelve as there is a point to baking a bakers dozen, so that  you can try and test your bake in case it need to bake for longer etc.  The only person on the show that seemed to have the forethought to do this seemed to be Chetna, which eventually saved her in the end.

Now that the rolls were portioned and rolled into mini baguettes it was time for the second prove.  I was worried about where I would be able to find a bag large enough to put two trays in, that wasn’t a black sack, but as always I managed to find one on eBay! Leaving them to prove for another 30 minutes I have time to think and about the decoration and glaze.  The recipe I’m using calls for malt extract to be brushed over the rolls after they come out for the oven, which will create a nice sheen to the rolls.

A sheen is great but I want these babies to have a little extra, so I decided to cut a pattern into them. I’ve cut slits into bread dough before but I always find that it snags a bit when using a knife.  After spending a little bit of time reading up on this it seems that the general consensus is to use a razor blade or a bakers blade/lame. Luckily I have a boyfriend that likes to cut-throat shave so we have plenty of fresh razor blades in the bathroom cupboard.

I know that rolls on the show have to be identical, but I’ve decided to play about with these, by having six rolls dusted with flour and the other six glazed with the malt extract.   Cutting the rolls just before they were due to go in the oven so that they have a nice clean cut that will expand on baking.

When cooking bread and especially these rye rolls, steam plays a big part in creating a good crust. The best way to do this is to have a roasting tray in the bottom of the oven and when you put the rolls in, also fill this tray 3/4 with boiling water. Next time I must remember to boil the kettle before I put the rolls in the oven, and not rush around 30 secs after! Once the rolls were in it was time to sit and wait for the aroma to fill the house!

“The real danger is when they glaze it and it gets too dark before the middle is done”
(Mary Berry)

Glazing the rolls after they comes out the oven gave them a nice sheen, but do it the moment that they came out otherwise the glaze won’t spread and dry, instead leaving them sticky. The only problem with the glaze is that it made them taste sweeter, so they verged closer to a hot cross bun than a savoury roll. The flour dusting looks good but I’d be keen to try the yeasted crust technique that Nancy did. It gave them a nice texture and would like to see this in action. I could do with practising the cuts with the razor blade.

I still like the idea of the two tone rolls that Kate and Louis made and I wonder whether these rye rolls could be made the same way, maybe having the spices in one dough and the fruit in another? I’d be keen to try a few more variations, especially experimenting with the seeds and spices. I haven’t to try to them with cheese and salami as suggested but I’m a little hesitant, that this will work. We’ll just have to see…

 

This challenge starts with a little confusion. After watching the programme and going on the BBC website I can see that there are some big differences in the recipes. I know that the contestants are given very simple and basic recipes but the one on the BBC site is clearly different. For starters it seems to have three stages of proving not the regular two, and the first stage stakes 6 hours! As one of my rules with the technical challenges is to try and copy exactly the same recipe that the contestants I need to find the recipe that they have used. The first thing I do is check the Paul Hollywood How to Bake book that I have sitting on my shelf in the kitchen. There is one recipe for ciabatta, that looks similar, but I don’t remember the bakers using oil in the recipe. I realised that there was only one thing for it, so I decided to re-watch the programme again and try to catch a glimpse of the recipe.

Luckily there were a few moments where the recipe is in shot and after a few rewinds, I’ve managed to get the same recipe as on the show

500g strong white bread flour
10g salt
10g yeast (fast action)
440ml warm water
Semolina for dusting

The second thing to do is to get the retro Kenwood Chef down from the cupboard. I say retro because it isn’t as fancy as the new ones, but it works just as well. I bought it from my aunt a few years back when I finally had a big enough kitchen that I could store it in. It came with so many attachments that I haven’t yet been able to use them, let alone understand them all! Anyway, out it comes and with the dough hook attached. The dry ingredients have to be mixed together before adding the warm water. It’s important to keep the salt and the yeast separate, as the salt will stop the yeast from activating. The next step was to add ¾ of the warm water, and mix until just combined. I was a little distracted at this point, because I was trying to take pictures at the same time. I’d let it combine a little too much before adding the last ¼ of the water. When I did add it, there was a bit of slopping and splashing from the bowl, leaving a bit of mess to dry up later!

After mixing it for 8 minutes the dough reached the right consistancy, smooth and stretchy. For the first prove of the dough the bakers on the show all had a tall clear square containers. I have many similar containers but none that were square, so this ending up being the item of equipment that I needed to buy for this challenge. The reason that it needs to be square container is unclear, but I think it is so that it encourages the dough to climb the sides, and create larger air bubbles which is a key characteristic in ciabatta. The dough needs the rise at room temperature, which is great because room temperature is something I can do with no need for a gadget!

The good thing about using the clear container is that you can tell when the dough is ready tip out. What was funny though is that the dough had just started to touch the lid of the container when I was about to open it, as soon as I unclicked the sides of the lid the dough instantly rose reacting to the release in the pressure. I love seeing these chemical reactions in cooking, it reminds me of the magic behind it all!

Emptying the container onto a pre prepped flour and semolina surface, it kept its shape, even though it looked like a blob from a sci-fi film. Unfortunately I don’t think I oiled my container enough, as the dough did not come away as smoothly as the ones on the show and I had to get my fingers messy and scrape the last few bits out. The dough definitely had a life of it own as it just spread out over the surface so I had to work quickly to try and keep as much air in it as possible and shape it into 4 loaves. Trying to avoid touching it as much as possible, the transfer of the loaves to the baking tray was really tricky. How exactly are you supposed to lift a near liquid dough onto a tray, without knocking out the air that you worked so hard to get into the dough? I used my dough scraper as much as possible to help in the transfer but its difficult to keep the shape.

Eventually they were on the tray, I left the loaves to rest another 10 minutes while the oven got to temperature. I placed the loaves in front of the warming oven for good measure. The heat coming from the door and the use of the giant plastic bag, would help the loaves to prove for the second time. They didn’t really rise much this time, instead they just spread out a little more. Dusting them one last time with the flour they were placed in the oven for 25- 30 minutes until golden brown. It was hard to tell when they were the right colour because of the flour, so it back to the old hollow knock on the bottom of the loaf that was the final decider as to whether they were cooked through enough.

I always find it hard to have to wait until bread has cooled down until you can test it. My mum is the same, and can never wait til a bake is cooled before trying it, always managing to pinch a biscuit when I’m not looking. Anyway I managed to distract myself enough with the prep for the next bake that when I did get to making the first cut to the loaves they were nicely cool.

As you can see from the pics, the dough has managed to keep most of the air bubbles as needed, without looking like the pitta texture that Chetna had. They had a good rise, but the shape on them could have been better and more even.

For a first attempt at these loaves, I’m pleased with the outcome and will be doing them again. If anything the flavour is better than shop bought and you have the added bonus of the aroma while your baking it…heavenly!

 

 

 

Bread week this week and not one of my favourites. Don’t get me wrong I love making bread, the kneading and the smell of it baking, it’s just the bits in between I have problems with. As Paul Hollywood said, you need to be a patient baker this week, especially when it came to the technical. I’m just to need a little more patience as bread dough doesn’t like to rise in my house, and I don’t have the warming drawer like they do on the show, which could be a bonus for this weeks technical. Back to the show…

Signature Bake: Rye Rolls (12)
I’m not sure what I’m going I do for this weeks signature bake, do I go sweet or savoury? I’m going I have to look around for inspiration, but I like the idea of using two doughs like Louis and Kate. Let’s hope my proving methods work to ensure a good bake! Key tips:

1. Rye flour has a low gluten content which can make it difficult to work with, so you really need to knead it for longer
2. Additions can be made to enhance the colour; black treacle, honey or cocoa.
3. Be careful if your adding a glaze before baking it as it will darken the bake and lead to you removing it from the oven under baked
4. Add fillings after the first prove otherwise they could prevent the dough rising

I always find in odd when they say you have to present a certain number of rolls etc, and yet the bakers don’t think to make one extra for testing. Surely this would be the sensible idea as it means you can check the flavours and whether it’s fully cooked. There were a few people on this weeks episode who could have definitely done with making a bakers dozen (13).

Technical Challenge: Ciabatta rolls (4)
This weeks technical challenge, 4 ciabatta rolls, shouldn’t be effected too much by my lack of a warming drawer as it need to rise at room temperature. Great, I can do that, I’ll just have to occupy myself for the long duration it takes to rise I that square box. Do I need to do it in a square box too? If I’m sticking to the rules I guess I have to!

I have made a few breads Paul Hollywood’s How To Bake, and a lot of them are wet doughs. This is a another one and messy one too! Also where do they get all these giant clear bags from? The only bags that size, that I have, are black sacks which are not conducive to bread making! Is there such a thing as a proving bag?

Show-stopper: Centrepiece Loaf
There was definitely a variety of centrepieces on show last night, some more successful that others.  It seemed that the main school of thought, when adding fillings to your loaf, is to keep is as dry as possible.  Avoid using a fillings that produce a lot of moisture when cooked, as they will prevent the dough from cooking.  Another key thing to note is to be careful when trying to create a pattern inside the loaf as well as on the outside. My favourites from this episode

1. I thought Kate had a really good week this week.  After a few near misses in the last week it was great to see her reaction to her Rye Rolls. Star Baker was almost hers after she was the most patient in the technical, but unfortunately her show-stopper let her down.  Personally I thought it looks great from the outside, this the slashed and twists but it was the inside that let her down. The spiral inside her loaf restricted the rise in the oven, leaving the middle under baked and raw.
2. So far Louis has been consistent throughout all his bakes in the series so far. He is creative and imaginative with both his flavours and designs.  His Rye Rolls were genius or as Paul said; “Pure Alchemy!”
3. I was pleased to see Iain be able to pull himself back from last week, and it good to see that his flavour combinations finally got the thumbs up from the Paul and Mary.

It seems that Norman was sticking to his traditional guns this week, although he did add flavours to his show-stopper, it just was not in the creative way the judges would have liked. I think he’ll potentially be the next baker to go, but from the preview of next weeks show, WI Diana could be in the firing line too! Jordan’s show-stopper was definitely what it said on the tin for him, but not in a good way.  It was too wet, and too ambitious.  Just because you like lot of different flavours together on their own, doesn’t mean that they are going to work in one bake. Sadly there will be no more Captain Chaos, and his crazy coloured wardrobe will certainly be missed.

This week is definitely going to be interesting adventure. By the end of it I can guarantee I will have a face and hair flecked with flour but that my flat will smell heavenly (hopefully)!