Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2011

{the great british cake off}

Round here, we are crazy about The Great British Bake Off, a BBC cooking competition that has contestants cooking everything from loaves of bread to meringue pies. An hour of deliciousness every Tuesday evening at 8pm. (And, lucky for those of us outside the UK, episodes can be seen online here)


Of course, after seeing all that amazing food, we wanted to try it for ourselves. Many of the recipes are available on BBC Food, and we've also found that some of the contestants have blogs -- not only do they share the things they cooked on the show, but add other things that they're cooking in real life, too. My favourites are Jason (because I wanted him to win) and Holly (because her recipes seem the tastiest, if a little too perfect), but the whole list of sites can be found here.


The first dish to be cooked up by our very own home cooks: Best Ever Bakewell Tart Cupcakes, (our recipe, based on Holly's recipe). Slightly almondy sponge cake, raspberry jam, and a dollop of icing. Here's Chef Alice gently blowing crumbs from the tops of the cakes, while Chef Louise finishes filling them with jam, Chef Mum adds the icing, and lucky little Chef Tilly eats the cut-out middles of the cakes.


Twelve of them disappeared frighteningly quickly. Make sure you check out the finished cakes over at The Fable of the Table -- with fresh raspberries on top, they are rather pretty. And, dare I admit it, we're making another batch tonight, with a different kind of icing...

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Pepperkaker

We dusted off our aprons and oiled up the rolling pin today, and got baking some pepperkaker (or 'papa-nacker', as Justin calls them!) using this recipe. With lots of golden syrup in the mix, our dough was extremely sticky, hence the flour everywhere! 


With rather a shortage of cookie cutters, we ended up freehand-cutting our little pepperkaker people: a Justin, an Astrid, a Tilly and a (rather horsey) Bella.


Yes, Tilly is about twice the size of Justin and I... we're not winning any prizes for photographic accuracy!


They're very tasty, although perhaps a little thick -- the recipe said it made 30 to 40, and we got about 12 out of our dough!

And if you're in the mood to make a batch of your own, perhaps try out some of these beautiful designs:




And there's a delicious-looking recipe for fancy-schmancy pepperkaker (or 'Pfefferkuchen' as Mum calls them) over at The Fable of the Table, if you're up for a bit more of a zesty biscuit!

Friday, October 30, 2009

Horsey Num Num

I've been baking with my 'Drommar' cake pans! IKEA has these fun pans out at the moment, which give your cakes the little bit of 'gallop' they've been missing:


My choc-tastic Drommar is Devil's food with chocolate frosting and a mini-marshmallow heart.


And this is a fun Dalla horse Drommar which looks so much like varnished wood, I'd have trouble actually eating it, I think!

Photos from here, my camera, and here

Neigh! Neigh!
xo

Monday, October 19, 2009

Big Box of Yarn

Yes, it really is my lucky week! The postman also brought me this big box of yarn from Justin's Grandma!

She had heard I was into knitting, and so gathered up this collection of unusual treasures! There are yarns that look like feathers, yarns that look like confetti got spun into them, yarns that are fluffy, yarns that are fuzzy, and everything in between!

Unfortunately, there are no yarns that are for chewing on.

So, I'm looking for unusual projects worthy of these special yarns! Any ideas?

I've also been baking today, and used a favourite banana bread recipe (not mine, so I'm not sure I can give it out, sorry!) to make little muffins to take to a friend's house tonight. Texan women can bake like no other, so I'm hoping my offering will be well accepted!


Hope you're having a lovely week of autumn beauty!
xo