Florentines Great British Bake Off Technical Challenge

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  The Great British Bake Off is back on T.V.  I don't watch much television but have made a point of watching this series and trying each of the technical challenges.  Florentines is something I haven't baked before so I was looking forward to trying these out. 
  
  
  A Florentine biscuit (or, more correctly, a Florentine) is an Italian pastry made from setting nuts (most typically hazel and almond) and candied cherries into a caramel disc, which is then often coated on the bottom with chocolate.
  Using Mary Berry's recipe below:
  
  
  
  
  
  50g butter
• 50g demarera sugar
• 50g golden syrup
• 50g plain flour
• 25g dried cranberries or glace cherries, finely chopped
• 50g candied peel, finely chopped
• 25g almonds, finely chopped
• 25g/1oz walnuts nuts finely chopped

200g plain chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line three baking trays with baking parchment or silicon sheets.

Measure the butter, sugar and syrup into a small pan and heat gently until the 
butter is melted. Remove from the heat and add the flour, chopped 
cranberries or cherries, candied peel and nuts to the pan. Stir well to mix.

Make 18 florentines (approx 18g each) by spooning six teaspoonfuls of the mixture on to 

each of the prepared baking trays, leaving plenty of room for them to spread during cooking.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown. Leave the florentines to cool before lifting onto a cooling rack using a palette knife.

Melt chocolate in microwave on low setting until just melted and smooth.

Spread a little melted chocolate over the flat base of each florentine and leave to cool slightly before marking a zigzag in the chocolate with a fork. Leave to set, chocolate side up on a cooling rack.

After baking these for the first time they were so delicious I decided to bake larger florentines so I doubled the recipe and placed 18 slightly domed tablespoon measures on a baking tray (approx 36g each), baked for 15 minutes.

The photos below are of my larger size florentines !

Chocolate Mousse

My eldest son Sebastian is always asking me to make Chocolate Mousse, this recipe is from Leon and is really simple.

100g dark chocolate (high cocoa solids)
30g unsalted butter
2 free range egg yolks
1 shot of dark espresso
zest of 1/2 orange
3 free range egg whites
20g sugar

Melt the chocolate & butter until smooth on a low setting in the microwave
Whisk the egg yolks until nearly white and thick

Gently stir the whisked yolks into the butter & chocolate, then stir in the coffee & orange zest

Using an electric hand whisk to whip the egg whites to soft peaks, then add the sucrose and whisk for another minute to get that shine.

Gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate mix until no white streaks are left, do not over mix or you will knock all the air out of your mousse.

 Divide between 4 pretty dishes and chill for at least 1 hour

Bank Holiday Brunch Pancakes

Woke up this morning thinking what can we have for breakfast, no bread in the house again, although I did make homemade Ciabatta yesterday.

Decided to whip up some fluffy pancakes and top them with scrambled egg & baked beans.


Pancakes
200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 medium egg
300g milk
3 tbs melted butter

Sift flour and baking powder together into a bowl
Beat together the egg, milk & melted butter
Gently whisk together with a hand whisk, do not over mix or your pancakes will be tough and chewy.
Lightly grease a non stick frying pan and heat over a gentle heat
Spoon a ladelful of mix into pan (I fry 3 pancakes at a time)
Flip over when golden brown and fry until golden on both sides.

Top with scrambled eggs & baked beans

Cherry Season

It's cherry season !  I love cherries, so shiny, tender and sweet.  Last season I was contacted by a lovely lady called Liz Mount who owns an English Cherry Farm in Aspley Guise Milton Keynes. 

Liz asked if I would bake her a cherry cake for a photographic shoot for their new website.  She dropped off a lovely stash of cherries to my bakery.  The resulting cake looked amazing and is now on their website. www.englishcherry.co.uk 



I was excited that their cherries were ready to be picked last week, Liz kindly dropped a crate of cherries over to the Bakery as I had a recipe that I wanted to try out.

After eating half of them as nature intended (perfectly tender and sweet), I plucked all the fresh green stalks from the remaining cherries and used them in three different ways.

Cherry Bakewell Victoria




Cherry Coulis
400g Cherries
100g Caster Sugar

Simmer gently over a low heat until thick and reduced.
Remove stones and blend with a stick blender.
Leave to cool into a jammy goo.

for the cake:
2 x 8"sandwich tins greased and lined
225g butter
225g caster sugar
165g self raising flour
60g ground almonds
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp baking powder
5 medium free range eggs

With a hand mixer blend all ingredients together until light and fluffy.
Transfer to tins and bake for 30 mins at 170 C.
Remove from tins and cool completely.

for the cherry buttercream:
175g butter
350g icing sugar
half of the cherry coulis

Beat the butter & icing sugar together until light & fluffy
add half of your cherry coulis and beat again.

Spread half of the buttercream over one half of the cake, spread the remaining cherry coulis over the buttercream and place other sponge on top.

Top the cake with other half of buttercream, toasted almonds and fresh cherries ! Enjoy

Cherry Vodka

Place 400g fresh cherries in sterilised kilner jar, pour over 160g caster sugar and then top up with 500ml vodka.

Shake well.

Store in dark place and shake often.

Leave for at least 3 months, longer the better.

Haven't made this before so I will let you know how it tastes in a few months, and what I decide to do with the cherries !

Cherry Smoothie

I love smoothies, quick way of packing nutrients into your body.  I love the colours that they produce too !

Banana
Handful of Stoned Fresh English Cherries
Greek Yogurt

AND BLEND !

Think I will have to visit the cherry farm before the season is over, as I need some more.

Breakfast Pancakes

Often there isn't any bread left in the house and I'm not keen on cereals so I whip up these small fluffy pancakes for breakfast.  They are so easy and lovely with a few frozen berries sprinkled on before flipping over.  I have tried so many different recipes for these pancakes and decided to make my own version which I must say worked perfect this morning.

I use a mug for the measurements:
1 mug self raising flour (I use Mc Dougalls Special S.R. flour)
half a mug buttermilk
half a mug milk
1 TBS melted butter
1 egg

Beat the egg, buttermilk, milk & butter together
Add flour and gently stir together, should be thick whipping cream consistency.

Lightly grease the frying pan with some oil/butter, add tablespoon of batter and drop on some frozen berries if desired and fry on very low heat.
When golden on bottom flip over and cook until golden brown.

Serve with syrup, butter or jam. They freeze very well too.

Baked Spaghetti Tangle

Its Friday evening and the house is empty Lee is down the pub and the boy's are round their cousins house ! This means that I can cook whatever I want for dinner just for me.

This is what I made and it was so good I will try again with different flavour combinations.  The recipe is from Nigel Slaters book EAT.

The recipe below is for 4, so I halved it and ate half and half again !

Preheat oven to 180 C
Spaghetti 500 g
Pancetta 12 slices cut up
4 cloves garlic
vegetable stock 200ml
double cream 400ml
large handful parmesan cheese

Boil the spaghetti 10 mins until al dente then drain and rinse under cold water.
Fry the pancetta and garlic in a little olive oil until crisp.
In a bowl toss the spaghetti, pancetta, vegetable stock and cream together.
Season with ground black pepper.
Tip into a baking dish and sprinkle with parmesan.
Bake at 180 C for 30 mins.

Going to try the leftovers cold for lunch tomorrow, if Lee doesn't eat it when he returns from pub.

Oat Cookies

Whilst sitting in the garden drinking my morning coffee I was staring at the daisy circle waving at me that I accidentally mowed down last Sunday, I was thinking about food again.


There were no nice snacks in the house so I flicked through Nigel Slaters book EAT and decided to whip up his oat cookies.  Samuel's not keen on oats, so I decided to drizzle them in chocolate to make them more appealing.

 
























Set oven 180'C
120g Muscovado Sugar
120g Butter softened
120g Porridge Oats
60g Plain Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1 Egg Yolk

In kitchenaid mixer, cream the butter, sugar together until light in colour, add the egg yolk oats and flour & baking powder.

Roll into 9 equal balls in the palm of your hand and place on lined baking sheet.


























Flatten into rounds the size of a digestive biscuit and bake for 12 minutes until light golden brown.

Drizzle with melted chocolate

They were very nice, I asked Samuel what he thought, the chocolate was licked off and he left the biscuit !