Great British Bake Off Challenge No. 2 - Bagels!

I am a relative novice when it comes to bread - so far I've made 4 loaves of bread, 1 batch of white rolls, and 1 batch of wholemeal rolls!  But I vowed I would make one bake from each show, and bagels seemed easier than flatbreads or eight strand plaited madness!  Bagels always seemed so complicated to me, what with the boiling before baking, but they were actually easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Here is the full recipe....

And here is my simplified, Juliarised version :)

Ingredients:

• 7g sachet yeast
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 450g bread flour

Method:

• Tip yeast and 1 tbsp of sugar into a bowl.  Cover with 100ml warm water.  Leave for 10 mins til frothy.

• Pour 200ml warm water, then add salt and half the flour.  Add the rest of the flour in small amounts and keep mixing til you have a soft sticky dough.
• Knead for 10 mins until the dough is smooth.  Shape into a bowl and leave in an oiled bowl.  Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 1 hr.

• Heat oven to 200C.  Divide the dough into 10 pieces (abt 85g each).  Shape each piece into ball, then flatten with your palm. 
• Now for the fun part!  Stick the handle of a wooden spoon into the middle of the ball, and spin!  You want to make the hole nice and big, abt 3-5 cm wide.

• Boil water in a large pan and add the sugar.  Use a slotted ladle to drop bagels in (I managed to do 2 at a time).  Cook for 1-2 mins, turning over halfway through.  Set on clean tea towel to get rid of excess water.

• Place on baking tray lined with baking parchment and bake for 20-25 mins.  Check your bottoms - you want to hear a hollow sound when you tap.
• Enjoy with cream cheese or whatever your topping of choice is!

Upcoming challenges... Mary Berry's Treacle Tart!  White chocolate torte!  Mississsippi Mud Pie!  Sticky toffee pudding!

Great British Baking Challenge No 1 - Upside Down Cake!

Ok, I have decided to honour the 3rd annual Bake Off by trying at least one challenge from each show.  (I know I should do all 3 - but I have a life lol!)

This week, I attempted the signature bake from Week 1 - Upside Down Cake.

I decided to make Lorraine Pascale's Dulce and Banana Cake.

My first tip - never ever EVER leave your caramel for a SECOND let alone for several minutes while you search for your camera to take pictures!  I had a lovely burnt mess at the bottom of my pan lol!  However, apart from that one snaphoo, the rest of the bake was easy peasy simple pimple :)

This is my adapted recipe (I didn't have treacle, so I used golden syrup, and I didn't have wholemeal flour, so I just used all self raising.  I also had no light brown sugar, so I used dark.  Oh, also I had no salt!  Lol, it still came out fine)

Ingredients

For the sticky topping

• 50g/2oz butter, plus extra for greasing
• 50g/2oz soft dark brown sugar

For the sponge

• 150g/5½oz butter
• 175g/6oz soft dark brown sugar
• 4 medium free-range eggs
• a couple of drops of vanilla extract
• 175g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• 2 small firm bananas

Method

Grease and line a square tin.  Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

For sticky toffee - Melt sugar and butter over medium heat.  When its all melted, whack up the heat and stir like crazy!  When its a nice light brown colour (and not burnt), pour it into your tin and tip to spread around.

For sponge - Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at time, beating hard between each addition. Add vanilla.  Then fold in both flours, the baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, golden syrup.

Slice the bananas and arrange across tin.  Plop the cake mix on top and smooth. Pop it into the oven for about 35 minutes.  Check with a skewer.

Cool cake in the tin, then turn out onto a plate (Be brave - its better if its quick, just like a plaster lol!)  Take the tin off and peel off the baking parchment.

Cut into squares and eat straight away while its still warm and sticky and gooey!  YUM!

Very easy to make - I acheived it at 7pm on a Sunday evening!

Now come on GD staff, you know you need to comment if you want me to bring you goodies next week..... :)

Who wants to be a millionnaire?

I loooooooooooooooooooooove Millionnaire's Shortbread!!  I love the chunky chocolate on top, the gooey, sticky caramel beneath, and the crunchy shortbread finish!  It's my absolute kryptonite, yum!

My favourite recipe is from my trusty sidekick 'Baking Magic'

First of all, you need to make the shortbread.

Ingredients



• 250g butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 125g corn flour

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale anf fluffy.
3. Sift the flour and corn flour, then stir into butter mix until smooth and creamy.
4. Press the mixture into your greased tin (size depends on how thick or thin you like your shortbread!)
5. Prick with a fork, then bake for 20 mins until pale gold.  Cool in tin.

Next, you need to make the caramel.  This was my first time making caramel from scratch.  I didn't have any condensed milk so i used evaporated milk - and it worked perfectly!

Ingredients

• 175g butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 4 tbsp golden sugar
• 1 tin condensed (or evaporated) milk

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a pan and heat gently, whilst stirring.
2. Once all the ingredients are melted, turn up the heat, and keep stirring while it bubbles.
3. After about 5 minutes, it will be thick and golden.
4. Pour over the cooled shortbread and leave for 30 mins to set.

Finally, melt 350g milk chocolate and spread it on top.  Immediately, before it has a chance to set, pipe melted white chocolate in lines in one direction across the top.  Get a cocktail stick, and drag the chocolate in alternative directions.

You have to do it v quick - as you can see I mucked up the middle one!