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Christmas bake: Christmas pudding

Christmas pudding is a dessert that can split families: people wither love it or hate it and for me, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without it. This year, I decided to make my own and the preparation for this started three months ago (you can make it a year in advance if you want to).

To make this traditional treat, start by soaking 500g mixed fruit in 100ml booze overnight (I used whisky because we didn't have brandy and I didn't want to splash out on a bottle just for this).

The next day, mix together 60g self-raising flour, two eggs, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 150g breadcrumbs, 250g vegetable suet, 200ml stout, 250g muscavado sugar then finally fold in the mixed fruit and alcohol mixture.

Grease a two-litre pudding basin with butter and slice a whole orange skin. Place these strands in the bottom of the bowl and  pour the mixture into the basin. Cover with greaseproof paper and a layer of foil, ensuring there's a pleat in the middle to ensure the pudding can rise and steam for five hours.

Leave the pudding to mature for at least three months before reheating by steaming again for two hours.

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Christmas bake: Stollen

Stollen has become a Christmas staple in my house at Christmas with its sugary outer shell and moist, fruity and almondy inside.

Although we buy it every year in either a whole form or the Stollen bites that are also delicious, I've never made it before so decided to give it ago. Be warned: this recipe made a huge Stollen,so I would recommend halving the ingredients to make a family-sized bread.

To start, mix together 500g strong plain flour, 100g caster sugar, a teaspoon of mixed spice, a couple of drops of both vanilla and almond essence and stir in 200g melted unsalted butter. Whisk together 12.5g yeast and 250ml lukewarm water and combine with the dry ingredients.

Knead for about 10 minutes and fold in 500g mixed dried fruit until everything's combined.

Leave in a warm place for at least an hour, until the mixture has doubled in size.

Knock the dough back and roll out into a large rectangle. The dough should be around 1.5cm thick.

Now roll out a 250g block of marzipan into a rectangle the same size and lay over the top of the dough. Now roll the whole thing up, put on a baking tray and cover with clingfilm. Let the dough rise again, until doubled in size.

Place the Stollen in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celsius and cook for an hour.

When the Stollen has completely cooled, cover with melted butter and sieve on icing sugar to make the loaf look like a winter wonderland!

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Week 12: Bagels

I love a good bagel, especially from the Bagel Shop along Brick Lane. Mmmm!

I've never made bagels before, but wanted to try out the boiling technique to see if I could make them as deliciously chewy as the old Jewish bakery.

I started out with goodtoknow's recipe again for this week's challenge because a few of the ones I found didn't include the blanching process - I wanted to be 100 percent genuine!

I halved the recipe because it was only me eating them and I thought making 8-10 was a little too much, especially as they don't last long!

So I mixed 300g plain flour with a teaspoon each of yeast, sugar and salt and added 150ml warm water and a little drizzle of oil. After mixing, I found the mixture to be a little too wet so added some extra flour (around 50g).

I kneaded with the dough hook for about 10 minutes until smooth and stretchy and left to rise for two hours.

After the two hours, the dough was doubled in size.

I knocked it back and split into five portions. I made each portion into a sausgae, looped in round my hand and squeezed the two loose ends together to make a circle.

I stupidly didn't grease the baking tray which meant after rising for another hour, they were well and truly stuck to the baking tray, making them appear a little squashed - so make sure you oil it!

Next, I plunged each round into boiling water and after 30 seconds, flipped each over to boil the other side for 30 seconds.

I then dried each round of with kitchen paper, returned to the oiled baking tray, glazed the tops (it's recommended to use egg but I used milk) and cooked for 25 minutes and left to cool for five minutes before munching!

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Week 11: Lemon curd Cannoli

I discovered Cannoli a couple of years ago and they are one of my favourite pastry-based sweet items so I decided to make them. I have a big fear of deep frying without a deep fat fryer so facing my fear was an achievement too!

I used two recipes and merged them together for this recipe.

The first recipe I used was goodtoknow's and the second was The Food Network because I didn't have any Marsala and wanted to make sure white wine (or Martini as I used) was OK.

I began by making the Cannoli pastry mixture. I mixed 200g plain flour and 25g butter together to make a breadcrumb-like mixture. Next I put the 3 tablespoons of caster sugar in and one egg yolk. I transferred to my food mixture and added in 100ml Martini (the goodtoknow recipe said 100ml Marsala, while Food Network said dry white wine).

The mixture seemed a little too wet so I added a little more flour (probably around 10g) and kneaded using my dough hook for about five minutes.

After leaving to rest for 10 minutes, I rolled the dough out to be around 2mm thick and cut small circles using a biscuit cutter.

Now: the deep frying. I heated up a casserole dish of oil until a small piece of dough dropped in sizzled, rose to the top and browned.

The trickiest part of making Cannoli is to make the tube shape without Cannoli moulds. I used a wooden spoon handle to wrap the pastry circles round and secured with a little egg white.

I had three wooden spoons so lowered all three at once into the hot oil, then as each Cannoli turned light brown on the outside, I slipped them off the spoon so the inside could be browned too. After a couple of minutes of flipping them over until golden brown, I removed the Cannoli shells from the hot oil onto some kitchen paper to drain.

20 Cannolis later, I started making the filling. I whisked up 100ml double cream, a tub of marscapone and half a jar of lemon curd, plus around 50g caster sugar to make a light cream.

I piped the filling into the cooled pastry shells and voila, lemon curd Cannoli!

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Week 10: Chocolate Orange Pond Pudding

I fancied making a steamed pudding and after watching a load of Paul Hollywood's Pies and Puds, I thought I'd attempt his chocolate orange pond pudding. Not only does it have a silly name, it's been a while since I've cooked a chocolatey pudding.

The pudding comprises a suet pastry spongey outer and melting chocolate in the middle, along with a whole orange. Apparently, it's based upon Sussex pond pudding which doesn't have the chocolate and has a lemon inside it instead of an orange.

So, I combined 185g self-raising flour, 125g suet, 20g caster sugar and 15g cocoa together, followed by 175ml milk to make it into a sticky pastry. I then rolled a third of it out to make the lid and the rest I lined the bowl with.

The next steps I wasn't quite sure of. Hollywood says to 'Put half of the butter (75g), dark brown sugar (75g) and chocolate (12.5g) in the lined basin. Pierce the zested orange all over with a skewer and sit it on top. Add the remaining butter (75g), sugar (75g) and chocolate (12.5g).'

I wasn't sure whether to combine the butter, sugar and chocolate first or not so I just sprinkled them in with the orange in the middle.

I then put the lid of pastry on the top, made sure it was fully stuck to the rest of the pudding, covered with greaseproof paper and foil with a pleat in the middle, secured with string and steamed for two hours and 15 minutes.

Now, the moment of truth that always fails with my steamed puddings: Turning it out onto a plate. My puddings usually collapse or get stuck to the bowl.

Hurrah! It worked, although the juices didn't ooze out as per Paul Hollywood's creation (I'm guessing this is the pond part of the name) when I cut into it, but it did look pretty hot if I do say so myself. It also tasted delicious and even got the compliments of Al.

Note: The orange isn't for eating.

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Week 9: Holly's Wizard of Oz Cake

Although I usually shy away from making decorated cakes in weekly baking challenge, I have three in three weeks to make and this is definitely the biggest challenge I've ever experienced in baking.

Holly showed me a picture of a Wizard Of Oz cake produced by ChoccyWoccyDooDah:

Bit amazing, huh?

Not to be deterred, I set about making the cake. 

As my chocolate cake with ganache has become my 'star bake' now and always turns out well, I thought I'd make that.

I started off with making the fondant figurines because they needed to dry out before constructing the cake. So, I produced them all using the same method as Mel's baby shower bears, using different coloured fondant and adapting the shapes a little (I cheated and bought them all ready coloured because I was under time pressures).

The tin man had a slightly different shape - more of a barrel head and body with round sides and a flat top and bottom.

Also, I made Dorothy's body from white fondant and overlaid her dress to make it look as though the white blouse was under her dress.

I used thin rolled pieces for all the hair, the lion's mane and of course the scarecrow's hands and feet to represent straw.

Once the figures were made, the next day, I set up to make the cakes.

All together, I made five cakes: two large square, one large round and two smaller round.

From the two square cakes, I made a series of circles, each a little smaller than the previous one. When stacked, the cakes made a tower.

I put the smallest circle to one side and put all the offcuts into a big bowl.

Next up, I stacked the cakes, one on top of each other, leaving the single large round cake and smallest cake circle to one side.

I then shaped the tower with a knife to make a smoother tower.

I then brushed each of the cakes with sugar syrup, made with 200ml water and 200g sugar, boiled down together for around 10 minutes to keep the sponges moist.

I decided to use buttercream for the crumb coating because then i thought it would be easier to add the ganache on top. I really didn't want any air to get to the cakes because this would dry them out, so I thought two layers would suffice.

I also coated the singe large round cake in sugar syrup and then buttercream.

I added a little ganache to the cake offcuts and squeezed/mashed up to make into a compact mixture. This 'cake pop' mixture was then rolled into cigar shapes to make the turrets in the tower. I put these cigars in the fridge overnight to firm up.

I put both cakes in the fridge so the buttercream would set. Once set, I removed from the fridge to warm up a tad (really cold cake would cause the ganache to crack) and started making the ganache from 500ml double cream and 500g dark chocolate.

I warmed the cream to just below simmering and then poured on top of the broken up chocolate, whisking all the time.

Once made, I didn't have long to cover the cakes before the ganache set, so poured two thirds over the tower and a third on the cake. Working quickly, I spread all over the cakes with a palette knife.

Once covered, I left them overnight for the final day: construction.

The first step in construction was to cover the tower in green fondant icing. I wet the ganache a little to make it tacky, rolled out 250g green fondant and covered the tower, smoothing it down. I stuck the smallest circle of cake on the top - this is where I would attach the turrets for the Emerald City.

Next, I covered the cake board with a layer of green fondant and covered the large single cake too.

I placed the large cake on the board to decorate because I wanted there to be a common aspect between the board, cake and tower.

I left some greaseproof paper on the bottom of the tower so I could arrange it on top of the large single cake without marking the bottom cake with chocolate smears.

I positioned the tower on the bottom cake so I could start marking out where I wanted to put the yellow brick road on the tower, characters and flowers.

Once marked, I attached the characters in their positions with cocktail sticks (a little ungraceful) and removed the tower for decorating.

To make the yellow brick road, I made some tapered long sausage shapes and flattened slightly, then made the cobble effect using a cocktail stick (the side rather than the point).

I stuck each sausage on individually.

The red flowers brought all three layers (board, cake and tower) together. I used red fondant and a flower plunger cutter to make the flowers. I stuck all these on with edible glue.

The final step on the cake was the Emerald City on top of the tower. The large turrets in the centre were produced by covering the cake pop cigars in fondant icing, then attaching them using a cocktail stick. The smaller turrets round the outside of the smallest sponge circle were made front fondant sausages, cut down to varying lengths and attached with cocktail sticks.

I left the whole cake to dry overnight and left the final construction until I got to the venue.

All in all, a happy customer!

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Week 8 (part 2): Plum Clafoutis

Although not strictly baking because it doesn't really have much flour in it, I decided to make a Clafoutis because I'd just got Michel Roux Jr's book and thought it was a bit of a break from the yeast extravaganza I've had recently.

However, I really don't like prunes, neither does Al, so I decided to use plums.

What I didn't realise is that Clafoutis is essentially a baked custard, with very little flour in it, which obviously cuts down the cars for me.

My first attempt at Clafoutis was rather pitiful because I forgot to put the flour in and the mixture leaked all over the oven rather than setting in the tart tin because I used one with a removable base and didn't line it properly.

This was my second attempt....

First, butter your flan tin.I used a loose-bottomed tart tin,so lined it well with foil to stop the mixture leaking out the second time around.

Put the plums (I used around six) in the dish in a neat pattern.

Whisk three eggs with 60g caster sugar, using an electric whisk until light in colour, thick and fluffy.

Add 25g plain flour and then 350ml milk in a steady stream, while still whisking lightly. Finally, add 30g unsalted melted butter. Pour over the plums and cook at 160 degrees celsius if you're using a fan oven for around 30 minutes. Let the clafoutis cool down to room temperature and eat!

I love custard so enjoyed the Clafoutis. However, the next day, there was a little watery liquid in the package I put in the fridge which I assume came from the plums. It made it a bit watery and after two days I threw the rest away because i wasn't particularly mouthwatering anymore.

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You're gonna hear me roaaaar!

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Week 8: Croissants

Last week, I thought I'd make croissants as boyfriend likes a croissant for breakfast at weekends and when he's on holiday. There's been a bit of a delay posting this update because the first batch didn't work out particularly well so I thought I'd re-form them, freeze and re-test. The second time was better, but I think the cooking times and temperature need a bit of an experiment with before they're totally correct.

I used Michel Roux Jr's recipe for these croissants, from his latest book, 'The French Kitchen'. I halved the recipe because 15 small croissant seemed quite a lot for just one (and a half) of us.

Roux Jr. tells you to dissolve the fresh yeast in warm water mixed with milk powder. As we only have a Tesco Express near us (and a Co-Op), I was pretty limited with my choices so opted for dried yeast (7g) dissolved in 200g milk.

Next up, I added 400g plain flour, 10g salt, 40g sugar and 20g melted butter. I kneaded for around five minutes until the mixture felt smooth.

I left the dough to rise until it was about doubled in size (it took around 40 minutes).

Next, I rolled out the dough to around A5 in size, landscape orientation (Roux Jr. said A4 but as I was using half the dough, I thought it should be half the size - this may have been where I went wrong).

I spread 150g butter over the surface of the dough, then folded one third over the middle, followed by the other half into the middle. Next, I turned this stack round by 90 degrees so the open seams were on the left and right rather than top and bottom.

I then rolled out the dough again to make a rectangle of about 20x13cm (again half the size Michel Roux Jr. specifies) and repeated the folding, again folding the left side into the middle third and then right side over this. I finished by folding top to bottom, wrapped the rather slippery dough in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour.

The next step is where it gets a little confusing in Michel Roux Jr's book. He says 'repeat the process of rolling out and folding,' but doesn't specify how many times. I decided to repeat as above once more and then rolled out to a thickness of around 1cm.

Now it's time to start shaping the croissants. 

First time round, I cut the dough into squares and cut each square into two triangles. I then rolled each of these up, starting with a long side and rolling to the point.

After leaving these to rise for around 20 minutes, I covered four in an eggwash and put in an oven heated to 180 degrees celsius. 

After around ten minutes, the outside and bottom was burnt, inside still a little raw, so I turned the oven down and left for another five minutes. Th outside was charred almost and inside more like bread than layered pastry.

I decided to unravel the other croissants before freezing them and re-shape to produce more layers.

So, taking the triangles with almost equal sides, I folded them in half, took the point and pulled it out, shaping it into a very long triangle.

I then rolled these up again and froze, feeling much happier about the shape.

A couple of days later, I decided to try and cook a batch again, so I tok four out of the freezer and left to defrost for an hour, as advised by Roux Jr.

This time, I started the oven on 160 degrees celsius and baked for around 15 minutes (until they were looking a little too brown for my liking).

Although better, they still lacked the flakiness. 

Next time, I think I'll reference another recipe to try and get the recipe right.

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Week 7: Chelsea buns

After my previous disaster with brioche last week, I decided to try making another dough to try and improve my efforts.

Chelsea buns were suggested on Facebook so off I went to buy some better yeast. 

This was another Great British Bake Off recipe, so I expected only the best results - naturally.

First up, the dough. I measured the 500g and 1 teaspoon of salt into my food mixer with the hook attachment installed.

I then put a 7g sachet of yeast in the centre. This yeast was much finer, so no big blobs of yeast in this creation!

Then, as directed, I warmed the 300ml milk and 40g butter (although used a microwave rather than a pan on the hob) until the butter was melted and added this to the flour and yeast mix, turned on the mixer and added an egg.

I mixed for five minutes with the dough hook (you can knead for five minutes if you have the arm power) and then coat in a little oil so it doesn't stick and put in a bowl to rise for around an hour, or doubled in size.

After the dough has risen, knock it back on a floured work surface and roll out into a rectangle.

Melt 25g butter and spread over the rolled out pastry. Sprinkle 75g brown sugar over the top, followed by 2 teaspoons cinnamon and 150g dried fruit, going right to the edges (unlike Paul Hollywood, I didn't want to waste an ounce of this delight).

Then roll up tightly into a sausage and cut into even portions - around 12.

You'll need to put these onto a buttered baking tray, cover and leave to rise for another 30 minutes or until risen nicely.

Now pop into an oven preheated to 190 degrees celsius and bake for around 20 minutes.

Leave to cool and then heat up 2 tablespoons of milk and two tablespoons of sugar together (I found I needed double this) to make the glaze.

Pour over the top of the buns and devour.

The buns worked out very well, but I found they didn't have a particularly long shelf life - probably only around three days in a tupperware box. I found I had to warm the rest up before eating to make them a little more moist.

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Week 6: Chocolate Brioche

This was a suggestion by the boyfriend who has chocolate brioche for breakfast probably once a week, but it's the shop bought variety and he's not that keen on the Nutella-like chocolate flavouring they put in the middle.

So, naturally, I decided to take on the challenge because I don't have a huge amount of experience with bread.

I used the French master and my favourite chef of all time,  Michel Roux Jr.'s recipe for this because I thought it would turn out to be the best.

My first issue came along when Michel tells you to mix 15g yeast with 70ml tepid milk. Simple, you say? Not when you only have sub-standard pellet yeast apparently.

I warmed the milk until tepid and sprinkled the yeast is. I started mixing and all the yeast came together in a big clump. So I started again. Same happened.

I added to 500g plain flour and six eggs in the food mixer with the dough hook attachment and prayed the yeast would break up. It didn't.

I found myself picking out the biggest lumps of yeast by hand and kneaded with the bread hook on medium speed for about 10 minutes until the mixture was springy, smooth and coming away from the sides of the bowl.

It didn't smell particularly yeasty ad I thought it should do, so I sprinkled a little more yeast in. The mixture was now speckled with yeast. Ooops.

Anyway, undeterred (I thought the yeast would dissolve at some point), I softened 350g butter and added 30g caster sugar.

I then added this mixture to the dough mixture a little at a time on a low speed (a faster speed will make it splash out of the bowl because the mixture is very slippery).

When it was all combined, I kneaded for another ten minutes on a medium speed.

Now, time for rising. I left the bowl in a warm place to rise for around two hours, by which time it has risen - hurrah!. Also, the brown specs of yeast had disappeared - double hurrah.

Time to knock back the mixture and add the chocolate.

I turned out onto a floured board and it looked awesome - like a network of tiny elastic bands - pretty much like this image I found on Google:

Anyway, trying to work it as little as possible, I folded in some shards of chocolate I'd smashed up with a rolling pin, put in a fresh bowl, covered it with clingfim and put it in the fridge for about six hours to firm up.

Now, time for making the buns.

I didn't want to make as many as Michel Roux Jr suggested (it would probably make about 12 buns), so I split the dough in half, putting the other half in the freezer.

I didn't have any brioche tins, that look like this:

So I just split the dough into six, then took away a third of it. Rolling each part into a ball, I made a dimple on the top of the bigger half and put the smaller piece on top - like a snowman.

After shaping all the balls, I left them to rise for 90 minutes.

This is where I discovered a brioche tin was needed to hold them together. My brioche snowmen were a little wide and flat because they'd risen outwards rather than up.

Ho hum. I continued despite this latest drama and tried to re-shape the buns and brushed each with an egg yolk wash.

I put them in an oven heated to 200 degrees, then after 15 minutes, turned the temperature down to 180 degrees. Michel Roux Jr. says to cook them for another 30 minutes, but after 10 minutes, they looked done. I tapped the bottom and it sounded hollow enough so I removed them from the oven.

I left them to cool and then served to the boyfriend. Although a little yeasty-tasting and dry because they were so flat, I don't think it was an awful attempt.

I'm pretty sure they would have been perfect had the yeast dissolved properly and I'd had a brioche tin, making them rise up rather than out!

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Week 6: Charlotte Royale

For all those who watched the Great British Bake Off (I think it was one of the last episodes), you'll recognise this cakey dessert delight.

The contestants didn't do that well on it, apart from Kimberly who made it look a doddle, so naturally,I decided to give it a go as my first challenge for last week.

Although I was happy to make the swiss rolls, I didn't want to faff around making jam too, so I cheated and bought some good quality strawberry jam.

I used Mary Berry's recipe, so started with the swiss rolls sponge (my first time at making swiss rolls) by whipping up six large eggs and 150g caster sugar until pale, fluffy and thick. Now add 150g self raising flour, folding it in carefully so you don't lose the volume. It should be about three-times the size it was with just the unwhisked eggs and flours.

Fill two swiss roll tins (i just used a shallow cake tin we often use as a baking tray - about 2cm high) that has been lined with baking paper on the bottom. We only have one, so I cooked half for around12 minutes at 220g then quickly turned out the first cake onto baking paper sprinkled with sugar ready to cooland then put the second sponge in the oven.

After both sponges had cooled, I spread with jam and rolled up into swiss rolls. So far, so good.

While they're cooling, put six sheets of gelatine in cold water and leave to soften.

Now, onto the custard which was probably the biggest challenge this week. I've only made custard once and it wasn't particularly successful because it curdled, but it did taste delicious.

Warm 600ml full-fat milk in a saucepan and while it's heating up (don't let it boil), whisk together eight egg yolks and 100g caster sugar until it goes pale and fluffy.

When the milk has almost boiled, pour into the egg yolk mixture, whisking hard to stop it becoming scrambled eggs. Now, put the mixture back into the pan on a low-ish heat and whisk until it resembles thin custard. Mary Berry said it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Remove from the heat, sqeeze out all the water from the gelatine and add the floppy sheets to the custard whisk in until dissolved.

This point is VERY important. Put the custard back into the bowl to cool.

I didn't do this - just left it in the hot pan and it curdled. I had a small panic and then Googled how to fix it. Thank god for Delia Smith. If the custard does curdle, put in a teaspoon of cornflour and whisk. It worked an absolute treat! Hurrah! My custard was saved.

Puree 550g either strawberries or raspberries (I used the former because I couldn't find anywhere stocking raspberries) and put through a sieve to produce a puree. Add to the custard.

When the custard is completely cold, but not set, whisk up 450ml double cream until it's in soft peaks and fold carefully into the custard.

Stir in some roughly chopped strawberries and it's time to construct!

Line a 2 litre glass bowl with clingfilm and slice the swiss rolls into slices around 1.5cm thick (mine were thicker and I ran out).

Now line the bowl tightly, using offcuts to plug any gaps. Make sure the whole thing is lined well otherwise the bavarois will seep through.

When you're convinced the bowl is lined, stir the bavarois mixture and pour carefully into the swiss roll-lined bowl.

If, unlike me, you have some swiss roll slices left, float them on top of the bavarois and cover with clingfilm.

Mary Berry suggests you leave in the fridge overnight to set, but I'm too impatient so put it in the freezer for a couple of hours then returned it to the fridge to make sure it was ready for boyfriend's dinner.

Turn out onto a plate (VERY nerve wracking) and cut. Now breathe!

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Week five: Chocolate Eclairs (Chocolatey Clares)

When I was little, Chocolate Eclairs were my favourite cake/pastry because I thought they were actually called Chocolate Clares.

My mum reminded me the family used to call them Chocolatey Clares after me, so they probably made me feel a bit special.

I've never made choux pastry before so I thought they would be a good challenge and would help improve my piping skills, which are particularly dismal.

I decided to use the challenge master Paul Hollywood's recipe this time around because he promises it will make crispy choux pastry.

The recipe tells you to heat up 120ml water and 50g butter in a pan until it starts simmering. Take off the heat and pour in 65g plain flour that you have sifted onto a piece of greaseproof paper. Mix hard until it comes away from the sides and put back on the heat to cook for a minute.

Leave the mixture to cool, then put it in a food mixer. Start the mixer off on a medium speed and add two eggs that have been whisked together a little bit at a time. It will appear lumpy at first but will soon combine to give a shiny pasty, sticky mixture.

Now, the challenge. Paul Hollywood says to put the mixture into a piping bag with a large nozzle on the end. I don't have a large enough nozzle for my piping plunger, so I piled the mixture into a freezer bag and cut of the end to about the size I thought they should be.

Make sure you've well-buttered a baking tray and start piping strips on the mixture onto the tray. Leave a gap between each because they will expand. I managed to make 10 choux worms, although they weren't particularly uniform in size or shape so I think my piping skills need more practice.

Put the pastry in an oven preheated to 200 degrees celsius for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 170 then bake for another 10 minutes.

Take the pastry out of the oven and make a hole at the end of each to let the steam escape and stop them going soggy. I used a skewer and later used these holes to fill with cream.

Return the pastry to the oven until completely crispy. Paul Hollywood says five minutes, but I think they needed longer than this so I kept them in the oven for ten minutes.

Now leave them to completely cool on a wire rack.

While they're cooling, make the chantilly cream. Whisk 200ml whipping cream or double cream with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until thick.

When the choux pastry has completely cooled, pipe the cream into the buns. Paul Holly wood says to cut the length of one side and then pipe the cream in there. I prefer to have the cream hidden in the middle, so used a long piping nozzle to pipe it in the middle of the pastry.

The last step is to melt 100g chocolate (I used dark chocolate) in a bowl over some simmering water and then dip each Eclair's top in the chocolate. Leave out to cool (don't put in the fridge because they will crack) and eat when cold.

They may not win me star baker, but they tasted pretty good!

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Week four and a half: Mel's Baby Shower cake

I volunteered to make a cake for my friend's baby shower and it was certainly one of the biggest challenges so far. Not because the cake itself was complicated to make, but I wanted to make something highly decorated.

After looking at loads of baby shower cakes on Google and Pinterest for inspiration (including some rather distasteful labour-inspired cakes), opted to make a cake with building blocks with two teddy bears sitting on top - how cute!

I used the same cake mixture as the chocolate engagement cake in week three, but instead of falling short of mixture here, I decided to start with extra amounts of ingredients from the beginning - 300g flour, butter, sugar, 90g cocoa, a little baking powder and four eggs - although I ended up adding a sixth because the mixture was a little stiff.

I split the mixture into two square (24cm) baking tins and baked for 25 minutes.

After leaving the cakes too cool for an hour so they were completely cool, I made the chocolate ganache, spread it in the middle and added a crumb layer, left that to dry before covering in cling film overnight.

The next day, I coated the cake in one layer of white fondant. Unfortunately, the chocolate came through and the cake looked a little lumpy still, so I added a second layer of fondant.

Now, onto the decoration. 

After a lot of consideration, I thought it best to make the building blocks out of marzipan because I thought they would be more solid than pure icing. I use a 500g bloc of marzipan and covered two in pink icing, two in green (I used Dr. Oetker's colouring gel because that's all that was available at my local shop. Also there wasn't any blue so I opted for green).

Next, onto the teddy bears. 

First, I made six balls of icing: One large coloured, one slightly smaller coloured, two even smaller coloured, both the same size, the fifth even smaller and one in white, the same size as the smallest coloured ball. Here they are lined up, but without the white one.

Next, I took the largest ball and pinched the top and bottom, to make a dimple in each corner - this is where the arms and legs will be attached. I sat the ball on its slightly flattened bottom.

Next, I took one of the two identical balls and roll into a sausage shape. It needs to be double the length of a leg. Cut diagonally in the middle.

Now, I bent the bottom of each of the legs up and pinched the bottom to make a foot.

I did the same with the other, same-sized ball, but didn't turn the ends up. Instead, I made them slightly tapered at the ends to represent arms.

To attach the arms and legs, I first added a dab of edible glue the slanted ends of the legs and then positioned the torso of the bear on top, making sure the legs looked natural.

I then added the glue to the arms and attached these too, holding until they didn't move. I put one arm across the bear's chest, the other wrapped around the green bear.

To make the head (sorry, I forgot to take pictures), I took the second largest ball and ensured it was round. I took the white ball and squashed it slightly to make a round nose. I attached it in the bottom third of the head ball using edible glue. I made a nose and smile mark with a cocktail stick. Next, I made holes for the eyes, just above the nose.

Finally, onto the ears. I split the smallest pink ball in two and flattened them to make ear shapes. I added a tiny white blob to go in the middle and then attached to the head.

I added lines on the head and torso to make the bear look like it had been stitched.

To attach the head to the body of the bear, I put a little edible glue on the bottom of the head and attached it to half a cocktail stick. I then put the other end of the cocktail stick through the body.

Now, onto the final part of the cake: bringing it together.

I attached the marzipan blocks to the cake using edible glue, ensuring they were close enough together for the bears to sit on top.

Next, I put the bears in the middle of the blocks and glued them on using the edible glue.

Finally, I cut out the letters using icing cutters and stuck them on using edible glue.

The finishing touch was an icing ribbon around the bottom of the cake.

The only problem with this cake? It didn't fit in my storage box so I had to buy a new one!

[weeklybakingchallenge-blog-blog]

Week four: Battenburg

This was a challenge set by the boyfriend's sister and what a fantastic challenge it was!

After watching many Battenburg disasters on Great British Bake Off and other TV shows, I though it would certainly be challenging to get the chequerboard effect right. I've never even eaten Battenburg so had no idea what to expect, flavour wise.

I found a recipe that said it would make two cakes and instructed to make them separately, but who am I to follow instructions?

The pink cake needed 140g self-raising flor, 175g caster sugar, 175g soft butter, 50g ground almonds, half a teaspoon baking powder, three eggs and of course pink food colouring (or red as I used).

The yellow cake uses exactly the same but without the pink colouring.

I noticed after putting both the pink and yellow mixtures into 23-inch square tins that there seemed to be a lot more pink mix than yellow. Thinking this may be a problem, my brain went into overdrive and I thought I could make a 3x3 chequer board.

After 25 minutes, the cakes were ready and the yellow cake had a bit of a wonk on. I quickly turned it out on the rack (top down) to try and get it to settle, which it did - kind of.

After both cakes had cooled a bit, I stacked them on top of each other to try and work out my next action.

Unfortunately, anyone who knows me will be up on the fact that I am very impatient. So naturally, I started cutting using a ruler to get a straight line. I started by cutting of a thin strip down one side to make it straight and then used the ruler's width as a guide to cut the slices.

I get bored with measuring, so thought this was the best plan of action.

It was when I ran out of cake I realised there were not enough strips to make a 3x3 grid. Ooops.

Never to let such a small thing make me down, I carried on and decided to make three smaller cakes. Hurrah!

The next challenge was trying to separate the two layers after they'd steamed together. Another silly decision and breaking of the essential Battenburg rules apparently.

Strips separated, I icing sugared the work surface in preparation for rolling the marzipan.

Again, no measuring (and using only enough marzipan for two cakes, not three), I tried to split the marzipan equally.

Job done and I started rolling the marzipan out. Again, no measurements. After spreading apricot jam on the marzipan, I began building my pattern with one yellow and one pink strip next to each other, sandwiched with melted jam and the opposite colours on top, sandwiched together and to the bottom strips with jam.

Not came the tricky part - pulling the marzipan ends over the cake.

FAIL!

The marzipan stuck to the board and completely ripped.

Not to be deterred, I simply took the cake off the marzipan, screwed the marzipan into a ball and re-rolled, ensuring I over-sugared the board.

Second attempt worked a treat - Hurrah!

Onto the second cake and the same happened again (who said you always learn from mistakes?) but was a success second time round.

Third cake, the inevitable happened - not enough marzipan so I had to roll it really thin and although it didn't stick to the board, it dip rip in places.

The final step was cutting off the ends of all cakes the level them up - an the moment of truth - do they show the signature chequerboard effect?

YES!

[weeklybakingchallenge-blog-blog]

Week 3: Engagement cake

I've always loved cooking for other people, so what better way to try out my skills than producing an engagement cake for my boyfriend's brother and his new fiancee?

Boyfriend's mum and I had decided not to get one made by one of the many cake places in our local area because they were very expensive and we had a very short timeframe to get it made.

After deciding we wanted a heart-shaped chocolate cake, with sugar decorations and something very OTT, I set out to make the cake.

On the Thursday before the engagement party, I made the sponge. I used a basic chocolate cake recipe - 200g self raising flour, 200g caster sugar, 200g butter, three eggs, 60g cocoa powder, two tablespoons milk.

I only had one heart-shaped baking tin, so baked the first cake at 160 degrees celsius for 25 minutes. After leaving the first cake to rest in the tin, I then removed it and put it on a cooling rack so I could make the second cake for sandwiching.

I poured the remaining mixture into the tin and then discovered there wasn't enough mixture! Ooops.

I quickly rustled up an additional half mixture (100g flour, 100g sugar, 100g butter, one egg, 30g cocoa powder, a little milk) and poured it into the second tin.

Thankfully, it baked up well and I left both cakes to completely cool before sandwiching them together with chocolate ganache (250g dark chocolate, 235ml double cream heated, then whisked with the chocolate until melted).

I then applied a crumb layer of ganache around the outside of the cake which is a light coating to help the fondant stick and smooth out any bumps from the sponge.

I left this to dry for around five hours and then covered in fondant.

I left the fondant to dry until the next day and then my mother in law and I began decorating the cake to the max the next day with fondant icing flowers and buttercream icing lettering.

Finally, mother-in-law added gold touches with edible paint and sprinkled the whole cake with edible gold heart confetti.

The result was definitely an over-the-top gold cake. Tasty and moist inside.

A challenge pass, I think!

[weeklybakingchallenge-blog-blog]

Week 2: Eggless chocolate sponge

This idea came about on a rainy, windy, generally miserable British day.

I wanted to bake something, but didn't have any eggs. I didn't fancy making biscuits so I set about trying to find a recipe that didn't include eggs, or anything else missing from my baking cupboard.

I came across a recipe that included 300ml boiling water, 85g butter, 300g self raising flour, two tablespoons golden syrup, 25g cocoa powder. The method said to melt the butter in the boiling water with the golden syrup then combine with the dry ingredients and bake in a baking tin for 50 minutes in an oven preheated at 160 degrees.

After 50 minutes, the cake didn't seem cooked enough - a probe came out with a sticky mixture on the end, so I left for another five minutes after which it seemed ready to take out of the oven.

After cooling in the tin, I removed the cake and put it onto a cooling rack.

When cutting the cake later on, it seemed dry and bitter.

The next day, it had formed a hard crust around the outside, despite me keeping it wrapped up in a tupperware box.

The recipe did suggest adding a chocolate glaze which I didn't do because I didn't have any dark chocolate to hand. Maybe if I'd added any kind of icing, it would have helped keeping the moisture in.

Unfortunately, the eggless chocolate cake was a fail...