Tummy Adventures

Archive for September 2016

GBBO episode 3: 'Lacy' heart pancakes

So apparently GBBO introduced a new challenge this season, Batter Week! Yes, I was just as confused as you were when I saw the title, but apparently the only coherent thread of commonality running through all the bakes was that they were all some sort of batter fried (either pan, or deep) in oil.

Trying to redeem myself from my technical challenge failure in biscuit week, I decided to give Batter Week's technical challenge another go. I mean, how hard can pancakes be right?

Well, I'm here to tell you that pancake art is completely overrated. I took a basic pancake recipe (see below) and just added some more flour according to the challenge to make it stiff enough to hold it's shape. But because it's stiff now, the batter cooks to become a rubbery, tasteless piece of thing, not at all reminiscent of the fluffy pancakes we've all come to know and love. So I don't know what Paul Hollywood was on about in this challenge but I say forget the art and just make yourself some regular pancakes, if you're going to bother to get up early in the morning to make them.

Ingredients

1 cup+ a few tablespoons regular flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 tsp salt
1 egg

Method

Whisk all the ingredients together until smooth.
Put batter in a squeeze-y bottle or a piping bag. I used a piping bag and it was very hard to control the flow of the batter, so if you have one, go with a squeeze-y bottle.
Oil pan with a paper towel soaked with oil.
Heat pan on medium heat, then pipe any decoration you want!

Decorate with fruits, and serve with some honey or maple syrup.

Honestly, I made four or five of these artsy pancakes, then gave up, dilute the remaining pancake mixture with some milk to make it more fluid and like a regular pancake batter, and made regular pancakes. I infinitely prefer the regular pancakes. So give it a go if you have some kids at home who'd think this is fun, but for us lazy, jaded adults that don't wonder at the world anymore, skip this challenge.

GBBO episode 3: Chocolate and Cinnamon Twist Bread

1 Comment »

As you may or may have noticed, we've skipped an episode in between 1 and 3. Now, how could that be, you must be wondering? Surely there was an episode 2 in between, that's just how the logic of numbers work. Theoretically, you're right. In reality, the aftermath of my attempt was so disastrous, I get PTSD just thinking about it. Please never mention my attempt at the Viennese Whirls from the technical challenge of Biscuit Week ever again.

Not that bread week was much better, but at least the end result, although lacking slightly in presentation, was actually edible. I was tempted to give the technical challenge another go, especially since the bread type they challenged was the ubiquitous German Dampfnudel (weeelll, ubiquitous at the Mensa anyhow). But then I remembered how much I hate Dampfnudel. So down the drain that went. So I went with one of the signature bakes again this week, Val's Chocolate and Cinnamon Twist Bread!

Yes, I know, it's more of a wreath than a twist really. And it looks a mess. And unlike Val's problem with the bottoms being under cooked, I may have slightly over baked it which is why it looks so chao tah (burnt). But all in all, the taste was pretty good (which is more important right???right???right?????) , so if you want to give this a go, you can follow my bread adventure below. There was no recipe on the BBC website for this, so I had to improvise on my own based on bits and pieces of information.

Ingredients

For the bread

1 3/4 cup Sonntagsbrötchen flour sifted with 1/2 cup dark Rye flour (or just use 2 1/2 cups of regular flour, I just needed to deplete my plentiful flour resources a bit)
1 tsp sugar
3/4 cup warm water
1 packet dry yeast
1/2 tsp fine table salt
30 g melted butter
1 egg yolk
100 g chopped dark chocolate
Cinnamon and nutmeg (to sprinkle)

For the Chocolate Spread

1/4 cup water
Sightly less than 1/2 cup caster sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar (or vanilla essence)
Pinch of salt
100 g dark chocolate, finely chopped
125 g softened butter, cubed
1 tbsp pure cocoa powder

Method

Prepare the chocolate spread first so you can let it chill overnight. Trust me, you'll be thanking yourself for taking this step after you see what happens. Do this by heating water, cocoa powder and sugar (regular and vanilla) on medium heat until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture starts to simmer.
Add the dark chocolate, salt and butter to the mixture and stir everything in until it forms a smooth mixture. Don't worry if it looks too watery, once it cools down it'll thicken into a gorgeous looking paste.
Pour into a container and leave to cool in fridge overnight, or until it's solidified.
Now to prep the bread. Place sugar, yeast and warm water into a mixing bowl. Make sure water isn't boiling because this will destroy the yeast, but if it's too cold the yeast won't activate. I'd recommend placing 1/2 cup of room temperature water and 1/4 cup of hot water if you're too impatient to wait for your water to cool to lukewarm. You'll know your yeast is activated if you wait a while and it forms this frothy mixture. You can also substitute the water with milk if you have some. This makes for a more tender crust, but I never drink milk so I always find it a waste since the milk goes bad from sitting too long in my fridge.
Sift flour and salt over wet mixture, add egg yolk and melted butter and mix until a smooth dough is formed.
Take the dough and knead it until enough gluten forms. To check if you've kneaded enough, do the 'window pane' test by taking a pinch of dough and stretching it out in the shape of a window pane to see if can stretch thin enough such that light passes through. To make things easier though, follow Val's instructions and knead about 500 times.
Oil another large bowl with some vegetable oil, shape the dough into a ball and place in the oiled bowl to proof (i.e. let the yeast puff the bread up) for 1 hour. You should do this by covering the bowl with either clingfilm or a clean tea towel and place somewhere warm and moist. I normally proof mine in the oven with the light option turned on. It should double up in size like below.
Once the bread is proofed, roll out to about the size of a chopping board (sorry, I'm a bit of a rogue baker like Selasi and I never pay attention to sizes).
Spread chocolate spread all over, then sprinkle chopped chocolate chunks (or chocolate chips if you'd prefer) and some cinnamon and nutmeg. Here's where I started thinking, uh oh, this could be a bit of a mess, because my chocolate spread hadn't cooled down enough and was as watery as hot sauce. But in the spirit of the bake off, I had to shoulder on because time was running very very short.
Roll it up like, and then cut in half length-wise, and then take the two halves and braid them by twisting them around each other, cut side up.
This was when the mixture started to look more and more like Private Ryan's guts. Chocolate spread was oozing everywhere, the chocolate chunks wouldn't stay in. Disaster. Chaos. Mayhem. Images of last week's failure started flashing in my head. I tried to salvage the look of it by pinching the ends to make a wreath. Great, now the bread started looking like that poop emoji on Whatsapp.
Proof again for about 35 minutes or until wreath doubles in size again. At this point, preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. (don't proof in the oven this time round, obviously)
I baked mine for 15 minutes, and then turned down to 180 degrees and baked for another 10 minutes. My bread turned out a little...more than mahogany coloured. I'd try reducing about 5 minutes bake time to see if it helps with the over-browning, although with the times I'd used the insides are nicely baked through.