Cooking from the homeland - Stroopwafel week

I admit the title 'cooking from the homeland' may be slightly over stretching my Dutch heritage, but nonetheless, the pressure was on the get this one right! Yes, week three already, caramel week was in its full sticky glory. Not only did it dawn on me that I've never actually made caramel but this week looked particularly industrial, with temperature gauges and wafer makers making their way into the baking tent. So my commitment to this challenge has reached new heights, having invested 23 British pounds on a wafer maker which I will probably never use again. Was it worth it I hear you ask? That is still to be decided. There was much controversy over this technical challenge through almost all of the bakers having got it wrong, so I didn't have much optimism for this challenge. 

The Bake

Having waited five days for this wafer maker to be delivered you can understand my late timing of this blog post. I had a few hurdles I had to overcome, mostly due to my laziness and lack of accurate ingredients- I decided to be creative. I used golden syrup instead of maple syrup, due to having forgotten to buy it. And the butter I wanted to use was questionably past the best before date.

The bake was actually reasonable easy, maybe the easiest of the technical challenges but definitely the most time-consuming. Waiting for the sugar to completely melt is like watching paint dry, I waited an hour then gave up. The wafer making, on the other hand, was very enjoyable and cutting it open was very easy. 

The Result

These little caramel treats appearance far excelled my expectation, however, the taste seemed to divide opinion. I think the issue was due to the excessive vanilla essence put into the recipe. Now maybe Prue loves it that way but I had a Tesco own brand one and it just tasted far too medicinal and frankly, I couldn't even finish it.. which is saying quite a lot with my sweet tooth! Whether it was the Tescos own brand vanilla essence, the questionable butter or the substitution of maple syrup that affected the taste- that will remain a mystery. Also, I had the same issue with the caramel becoming grainy like the other bakers, Horray, this means I'm basically the same standard right? Anyways, onward and upwards, and on to the next bake. Think I shall leave the stroopwafels to the dutch!

B is for (cottage) Bread Week

Its bread week and round three! I was quite excited for this bake despite an ominous feeling of quite how inexperienced I am in baking let alone bread. Bread is not something to underestimate, the precision is worse than the average cake it can be fatal.. well if your bread's life rests on its structure and taste.. then yes, fatal. Anyways, I am thoroughly enjoying these technical challenges as it really is making me bake things I wouldn't usually bake, as I didn't actually know cottage bread existed before this bake-off. 

So Sunday was bake day, and ... I didn't bake as I felt too hungover- good start. So MONDAY- bread day! This bake has been full of firsts, first time I have ever bought lard. Yes, things just got exciting. Busy kneading away and waiting hours for proving the bread was ready for shaping, and it was not an easy feat. It looked a lot easier on TV, and I made a new rule for myself that I wasn't allowed to youtube 'a how to' as I did have the whole recipe and an infinite amount of time. So I guessed how to knead and shape which actually showed on the end result as the bread came out very lopsided. Looking back I think I over proved, despite plopping my fingers through multiple times the structure was weak. 

So the end result, despite what looked like a complete blob, it tasted brilliant! After hours and hours, at least it tasted nice. To conclude: bread week- taste = 8/10 (quote)- structure... room for improvement. Happy baking everyone, until next time. 

Week two- Fortune Cookies

This week is fortune cookies and watching GBBO I slightly died. Watching these professional bakers sweat, curse over these sugary treats snapping through their fingers only made me more nervous for the bake ahead! But actually, these cookies were not nearly as hard as I thought imagined. In fact, they may have been my best bake yet. The rule is to act fast because they become so hard so quickly there is almost no time to mould them into shape.

The actual batter so incredibly easy even I didn't have a problem, I found a handy trick to get the bubbles out of the mixture I would blow on it. So it was bubble free with a sprinkle of salvia. Lovely I know.


Anyways this bake was so easy the hardest part was to remember to put in the fortune cookies in. Once you have the shape covered, you are good to go, I've got a couple of dodgy shaped cookies- hope that doesn't affect the fortune?

So the fortune cookies went so well, my parents even decided I should make a business out of it. Not too shabby for week two! Stay tuned for week 3 cottage bread next.

The Technical Challenge

Yes, yes I know! its has been far too long since my last post. I apologise to all my fans. It has been such a hot summer the thought of putting the oven on is unimaginable. But not to fear, winter is near! And The Great British Bake Off is back.. (yes I know, but it's Mary Berryless and lacking a mel-sue-ffle) But I would say it wasn't a complete disaster as I would have expected, in fact, I was pleasantly surprised. It still has the same light-heartedness and impressive bakes that made it so lovable. As for the newbies, Prue is a great replacement and Noel is acting as though he has to remain sober in front of his parents which was amusing.

 Anyways... I thought it might be a good (if not good, at least amusing) idea of doing the technical challenges each week with the bakers. So this week, week one, was chocolate rolls. A challenge I found very exciting as I am a little obsessed with Cadbury's one. Anyways for this technique, I decided because I am so hopeless at baking, yes I will be allowed to watch the show to do it. And yes, I will get the whole recipe. Things will go wrong regardless so I thought I may allow myself small allowances.

So week one, how did it go I hear you ask.. It wasn't a complete failure! In fact, it went relatively well! Although, I had absolutely no knowledge of what I was doing was accurate but I stuck to my gut. The sponges were horrendous lopsided but strangely it worked. The only thing I would do is use less butter-cream as it felt far too sweet. Not a bad first week! Stay tuned for more.