Gingerbread Stars

Hi Guys
I made some Gingerbread for the first time ever this week....conclusion....this wont be the last time I bake them.. Seriously even Hanzel & Gretal would happily gorge themselves on these babies........yes I judge my baking success by whether fictional fairytale characters would happily eat them.....doesn't everyone??

I used the BBC Food gingerbread recipe.
I am sure everyone and their mother has made  gingerbread before but this new novice loved everything involved in the process. From the delicious intoxicating scents that wafts  all over the house when they start baking to the lovely lingering cinnamon smell that clings to the biscuits tin afterwards. Mostly importantly the delicious taste. These were soft and chewy in the middle and crisper towards the edges, the only way  any biscuit should be, full of that yummy Gingery Cinnamon  flavour. YUM!

Note:Mine took 11 minutes in the oven don't move them from the baking tray as soon as you take them out as they are delicate let them rest so the softer middle becomes stable. They will firm up after they have sat a while so best to get them out earlier otherwise you will get really hard bics.

I'm entering these lovley things in to lots of challenges as they are yummy and festive which goes with the themes for this month.

Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Festive Food Gifts

Calendar Cakes hosted by Rachel from Dolly Bakes and co-hosted by Laura from Laura loves Cakes. Their theme  is Jingle Bell Rock.

Treat Petite hosted by  Cakeyboi and  Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Happy Holidays.

. Alphabakes which is being hosted by ros from the more than occasional baker

and lastly the GBBO 

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New segment: Inspired By.......Chocolate and Hazelnut Cookies

I lose a lot of time drooling over lovely delicious blogs, and a lot of these I'll just admire or comment on.....but sometimes I see some bakes that I think....I'm so making me some that! because of this I thought I would start a  Inspired by segments where I make those things that have caught my fancy from fellow baking blogs using their recipe or adapting slightly.

This week I was Inspired by Baking makes things better, I saw some lovely Chocolate and Hazelnut cookies on their blog. I love this flavour combo so Melissa and Courtenay  kinda had me hooked from just the title! As the only chocolate cookies I've made before are Nigella ones I thought I would use that recipe and elements from the girl's recipe.

The only changes to Nigella's recipe  were that I added a handful  of hazelnuts that I toasted, this brings out the flavour of them otherwise you bite into bland hazelnuts. Plus some chocolate spread which is what Melissa and Courtney did.

These  were some seriously nice cookies! Super chocolatey with lovely crunch of Hazelnuts here and there. My only critique was I think I baked these a tad too long, so I didn't the chewy cookie texture I like in a cookie.....but they were still super delicious. Very glad I made them!

Cherry & Almond Viennese Biscuits

Hiya,
just one week left of GBBO!....I'm not sure my achy bakey heart can bear it! This week I've made biscuits because Ruby made savoury biscuits in her canapé signatures...I don't do savoury I'm all about the sweet so I made some sweet biscuits.

As a baker and lover of everything sweet/baked I have a few flavour combos that I LOVE...quite a few actually. I seriously love anything Bakewellesque, I even hear the words almond and I'm THERE....I don't even wait to find out if its with the traditional Raspberry or equally delicious Cherry. Seriously how inviting, cosy, and just plain old delicious are these flavours ppl?! Yes I'm assuming your are ALL fellow Bakewell flavour lovers.As my mind  can't ,shan't  and just stubbornly won't  contemplate the idea that there are people amongst us who may not be fans  (feel free to suspiciously look over your shoulder at those nearby....ARE THEY ONE OF THEM?!)

Right on to the these beautifully biccys, I saw them on The Baking Explorer. Kat changed this Hairy Biker recipe to use delicious Cherry and Almond flavours. So I have Kat to thank for introducing my beloved flavours to me in a lovely new way. These biscuits were awesome! Crumbly buttery Viennese biscuit, lovely Almondy buttercream and sweet Cherry jam. My beloved Bakewell flavours in beautiful biscuit form.

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Thoughts on bake of finale: I think all the girls are amazingly talented, but I feel Kimberly should win purely on her consistently amazing baking, awesome interesting flavours not to mention some of the reviews she has got off Paul....come on... amazing. I 've read some of the favouritism stuff that's been going around about Ruby....I don't know... she is awesome as well but if they look at it fairly from ep1 to now the only fair decision in my eyes is that Kimberly is crowned. Having said that I can  EASILY see them handing it to Ruby, if she pulled something epic out of the bag. Talented France has made it this far but I think her past style over substance issues will come back to haunt her so I don't think she could steal it from the others. 

What do you guys think? Who deserves it?! Who will win!? 

I'm sending this to the The Great Blogger Bake Off which is hosted by  Crazy Kitchen and  Mummy Mishaps 

White Chocolate & Strawberry Eclairs

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As each week goes we grow closer to GBBO finishing!...its going so fast. This week was pastry week; the signature bake was Suet Pudding after hearing exactly what is was....I'm felt wondering why ppl Why? How can they eat that?!  The technical was  Religieus, Choux Pastry fashioned in the shape of nuns filled with Crem Pat and topped with Ganache. Last but not least the was a Puff Pastry show stopper. You know your in trouble when Paul questions your methods from the off.....Glen and his SPECIAL puff pastry way....poor Glen.

I've been really bad with trying to bake along but I'm getting this week out on time..(ish) I decided to go with Choux Pastry and make some Eclairs. I chose to try white chocolate and Strawberry...a combo I hadn't tried before believe it or not. I chopped some strawberries and folded it in to the Whipped cream then dunked them in white chocolate!

I didn't know what to expect with these but they were seriously nice. The Choux pastry (Paul style critique coming your way) was lovely and crisp but still had a nice chew to it if that makes sense. The Strawberry Cream was sweet and refreshing it had a really nice strong Strawberry flavour. The white Chocolate was lovely too not too sweet which it sometimes can be.  All in all I was very happy.

I'm sending this to the The Great Blogger Bake Off which is hosted by  Crazy Kitchen and  Mummy Mishaps .

GBBO Petit Four challenge/ Chocolate& Orange Profiteroles

Hey guys, so I, like fellow obsessed baker have been watching GBBO very week since it came back into our baking telly lives. When the series returned I wanted to bake something from one of the challenges but only if they were baking something which tempted me..and sorry but Angel cake, Bread nor Floating Islands got me fingers itching to bake or my taste buds interested. Then I didn't have time attempt any showstoppers/signatures that did interest me.....what can I say sometimes I'm not very organised hence my  week 4 bake coming to you now.

       

So week 4 was dessert week and I decided to bake something in the Petit Fours category, meet my cute little Chocolate +Orange profiteroles. This is a flavour combo I love which has graced my blog before in many a form, you just can't beat lovely Milk Chocolate with a delicious Orange kick...mmm.
I used a Paul Hollywood recipe which I have used before, very straight forward and very painful on my poor arms I waited till my twin was around to help me and we tagged team the mixing part.

My Filling
Small pot of double cream think it was 100 ml ish
Icing sugar
Orange Extract
Milk Chocolate 100g

 I whipped some double cream which I sweetened with icing sugar and flavoured with Orange Extract. I melted the Milk Chocolate drops and added a tablespoon of Orange Extract. Once the profiteroles had cooled I  dunked the top of them in to the melted chocolate,and once they had set filled them with the whipped cream using a piping bag.

Verdict
SOOO delicious.You bite into the lovely crisp choux pastry and then you get a mouthful of  the sweet orange flavoured cream which is finished off nicely with the gorgeous orange chocolate which tasted exactly like Terry's chocolate orange. Definitely worth the tired arms! I was very happy.

Thoughts on GBBO 4 
I'm really enjoying having bake off back, I have had a soft spot for Ruby and Ali since ep 1 when some of their bakes went VERY wrong...they were so gutted poor things.
I think Kimberly is definitely one to watch out for, she is very consistent and completely wowed Paul in this pie and filo week...getting reactions from paul very baker dreams of I'm sure.
I'm still impressed from the awesome chocolate work Rob did in ep1.
I felt SO bad for the all style and no substance comment poor Frances got, very bakers worse nightmare!.......and he said it twice slap in the face much?!  Could that comment be the writing on the wall for Frances?! who is your fave?  and what do make of all the lovely remaining bakers?

Blueberry Cupcakes

Hiya

How hot has it been?! I haven't baked in a while as I can't be bare the heat of the kitchen. These were made BBH (Before the British Heatwave!)
How pretty is this colour people? As I loved my Lemon +  Blueberry cupcakes I fancied a complete Blueberry one so here are the pics of my Blueberry baking labour.

With these I used my usual cupcakes recipe and just chucked some blueberries in at the end. As I had some Bonne Maman Blueberry jam I decided to use this to flavour my buttercream. A thing to note was that I had to use a lot of the jam to get the Blueberry flavour I wanted, loads actually, but as the jam isn't really sweet it thankfully didn't make the buttercream too sweet. Next time I think shall use fresh Blueberries in the buttercream, as I think that would  be an easier more effective way of getting a lovely Blueberry flavour. 

Recipe for Blueberry Buttercream

100g Unsalted Butter (Lurpack)

200g Icing sugar

3 heaped tablespoon of Blueberry Jam

Method

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar till you get a  sandy consistency, then add the rest of the icing sugar along with the blueberry jam. Beat this all together till everything is incorporated.This is where I stop and check if I'm happy with the flavour and add more Blueberry jam if necessary. Normally I'm carefully to not over beat however I'd heard about beating your buttercream a lot to get a nice light fluffy buttercream. So hoping I wouldn't take it too far.. I gave it ago...and er...I  think I may have beat it too much. It was certainly lighter in consistency but I felt it made it way too soft really, which made piping trickier plus I felt it made it taste buttery which was a bit odd .

On to the flavour, I seriously loved these! The cupcake was lovely with juicy blueberries in and around. The buttercream was a lovely Blueberry flavour. Light consistency + lovely flavour...loved it.  

Stalk me on Bloglovin....if u like :)

Hey,
Yeah I'm a bit slow...but google reader has gone, if you would like to keep up with my baking world then you can follow me on bloglovin. The icon is on the right. According to bloglovin I have to post this in a post

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Boo..no yummy pics in this post...just admin stuff.