Izzie asked this morning if she could have a treat from the local bakery after school. Gingerbread men and iced buns are what she normally goes for, so once I got home having dropped her off, I quickly flipped through mojewypieki.com and found exactly what I needed. A cross between sweet buns, a muffin, but made of yeasty dough, like for doughnuts.

I used 250 g of plain flour, 12 g of fresh yeast crumbled in, 50 g of sugar and vanilla sugar and a pinch of salt. 125 ml of warm milk, 2 large egg yolks, a zest of half a lemon. All this was working nicely in the kitchen aid, I then added 25 g of melted and slightly cooled butter and continued until the dough was smooth and lovely. Left to prove on the front window sill for about 2 hours and proceeded to pack my daily amount of boxes. 17 degrees today, scorching British summer, but not to worry, we have less than a month and there will be no more complaints about summer being rubbish!

Once the dough more than doubled in size I have flattened it and divided in 12 pieces, formed into balls, each with a spoonfull of good jam inside. Placed each in a muffin case and left to prove again.

Finally it was time to bake them, 180 degrees, less than 14 minutes. Sticky orange glaze completed the job. Floro and I destroyed a couple between us, the head judge will come home in a hour, we shall see. For me a definite keeper of a recipe.

When I asked Florek this morning what I should bake, he said -something lemony. So I flipped through mojewypieki.com, went to the garden to reduce the amount of rhubarb growing there and proceeded to make a cake. Such a good cake, in fact, that it deserves to be blogged and made again.

I creamed 120g of soft butter with 150 g of sugar and vanilla sugar, a zest of the whole lemon, 3 whole eggs, then slowly added 220 g of plain flour, 1,5 tsp of baking powder, 60 ml of lemon juice, combined it all quickly and got into a lined round tin. On top went about 250 g of fresh, chopped, unpeeled rhubarb and a handful of leftover blueberries. The cake baked in 170 degrees for about 45 minutes. Once baked and cooled I added a bit of lemon icing on top. Excellent with a good cup of tea. 🙂

I fancied something a bit more special yesterday, something maybe a bit more challenging. I saw these little beauties on mojewypieki.com and decided to have a go, although I knew that whatever I’d make would be ready to eat the next day.

I’ve made half a portion from that recipe – the idea of using 500g of butter made me put up 3kg just thinking about it! I ended up with about 11 pastries. So, yesterday I measured out 100ml of cold water, to which I added 7g of salt and dissolved it. 200 g of plain flour, 35 g of melted butter plus that salty water was made into a quick dough, while the remaining butter of 250g piece I had, softened and rolled out into a neat square, wrapped in cling film and chilled in the fridge for 2 hours alongside the dough. Then the dough came out, rolled out onto a square twice as big as the butter one, butter went on top and I folded the pastry on top of it to make it look like an envelope. Rolled it out away from me to make it into a rectangle, folded three ways and into the fridge it went for 1,5 hour. I repeated this process 4 times yesterday, this morning once more and I was ready to use my French pastry ( puff in England, French in Poland we call it).

Today I made a filling of finely chopped apple, some raisin and cranberries, cinnamon, vanilla sugar, lemon juice and a dusting of plain flour. Rolled out my pastry, cut into squares, filled with apples, a little brushing of egg white on the edges- and some of them still opened!-closed with a help of a fork, more egg white, 3 little slashes on top of each pastry so that steam could escape and into the oven for 20 minutes in 200-220 degrees.

Once out and still very warm I applied a bit of glaze and that was that.

What I’ve learned is that French pastry is not difficult to make, it’s time consuming, but it is definitely worth every single fold and chill it took. The pastry is flaky, buttery, light and flavoursome, filling not too sweet, and excellent little treat to go with a cup of tea. I had 2 and left the kitchen before snatching another one. Will wait at least until the afternoon. 🙂

This is not the most brilliant photo of the cake, I admit, but I’m lucky I managed to snap it before the remaining cake was eaten. I came across the recipe on youtube, of all places, copied it quickly and ended up with a surprisingly lovely, moist and lemony cake. I had some nice Italian lemons – amazing what you can sometimes find in Lidl, I thought it would be a good practise before having beautiful lemons much more easily available later this year!

So I started with 180 g of caster sugar, into which I rubbed 2 heaped tsps of lemon zest, then 110 g of soft butter, KA took over here. 2 tbsps of veg oil. 2 whole eggs, one by one. 30 ml of lemon juice. 187 g of plain flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1/2 tsp of salt, all dry ingredients gently folded in, then 120 ml of milk, combined, not overmixed.

Loaf tin was waiting ready lined with paper, the cake baked for about 45 minutes in 160 degrees, till the baking stick came out clean.

Once slightly cooled it was glazed, 50 g of icing sugar and 30 ml of lemon juice, plus a little grated zest on top. Delicious, the next day even more so.