Giggling, when I think about it. As a VERY SERIOUS ATTEMPT to cut down on carbs we’re getting friendly with Tom Kerridge ” lose weight” kinda theme, today at lunch and dinner, but in the meantime it was Paul Hollywood’s cholla. 🙂 Another excellent loaf! I made a start on it, when Izzie said she didn’t have brioche in a while, I think brioche from this very book might be next.

This loaf, when made again will either be cut into 2 loaves or the ingredients will be halved, after the second proving I had a monster on my hands! 500 g of strong bread flour, 20 g fresh yeast, 25 g of sugar, 10 g of salt, 30 g unsalted, soft butter. 2 eggs, beaten. 50 ml warm milk, less than 150 ml of water- I stopped adding when I was happy with what I was looking at in the bowl of the kitchen aid. I’ve made a starter with some of that flour, all the yeast, some sugar and milk and then whacked all the ingredients into the bowl and let KA do the work. Proved for over an hour, knocked down, plaited, glazed with some egg and left to prove again. This one took less than 30 minutes and it more than doubled. It baked for about 25 minutes in 200 degrees. Tastes phenomenal with butter and good blueberry jam. I am already looking forward to breakfast and it’s not even 9pm. Those extra 3 kg are going friggin’ nowhere. :-/

We’ve tried our new spiralizer too. Great way to treat courgettes, especially when we have them growing in the garden in a couple of months, but the whole dish today did not make us excited. It tasted …healthy, light, that was the idea, but the mushroom sauce was lacking in just about everything. Hence no photo. But, I’m thinking if those courgettini were sitting in a rich tomato sauce, arrabbiata maybe, chilis, basil sort of thing, this might be a different thing. This weekend, I reckon.

Izzie’s birthday cake. I saw a much more accomplished version on mojewypieki.com, decorated with flowers, berries, mini meringues, but went with my own, just copied the shape idea.

It is my usual simple sponge, cooled and cut into the shape of 6 and then halved and gently drizzled with yuzu juice. I’ve made use of some frozen raspberries by turning them into a coulis, added 1,5 soaked gelatine leaves and when it started to set I mixed it into some whipped cream. Some of it went inside, the rest on top. Finished off with fresh rasperries, strawberries and coulis. And raspberry macaroons. 6 year old Izzie approved, I got a hug, a kiss and I was told it was the best cake ever. That will do me. 🙂

Donna Hay’s. Super quick recipe, excellent use of overripe bananas, the smell in the kitchen made everyone smile and peek in the oven.

300 g of plain flour, 3 tsps of baking powder, 150 sugar( original recipe had 220 g, I think it’s a bit much maybe), 2 whole eggs, 60 ml of oil, 250 ml of buttermilk or kefir, vanilla paste, 130 g of chopped milk chocolate- I used Easter eggs. 2 mashed very soft bananas, 3 would be even better. Wet ingredients added to dry ingredients and quickly combined, put in the muffin cases and baked for 25 minutes in 170 degrees. Oh, I added a personal touch, a quarter of a strawberry in each muffin. Quick and yummy. 🙂

While taking a sliced, frozen loaf from the fridge last night, so that we had toast in the morning I thought I needed to flip through Paul Hollywood’s book again. I have lots of excellent flour, I have fresh yeast, we are in lockdown, there is no excuse not to try and bake some bread.

I did. Cause I can!!!!

Rocky start though. I smashed kitchen aid’s glass bowl. Half of the dough went to the bin, I was worried there might have been pieces of glass in it. I was really upset, as the bowl was a Christmas present 2 years ago, but thanks to The Best Husband on The Planet, a new bowl has been ordered straight away and this apparently has an improved design, that will not come off while the machine is working hard.

So initially I used 500g of strong bread flour, 20 g of fresh yeast, with which I made a quick starter using all the yeast and about 2 tbsps from 500 g of flour. 10 g of salt. 30g of soft, unsalted butter. About 300 ml of cold water. The machine did all the work for me, until it smashed. :-/

It was left to prove for over an hour to more than double in size. Then lightly knocked down and shaped into a ball. I was so excited that I forgot to dust with flour and slash it on top before baking! But that ball still had to prove till doubled up and only then it was baked in the 230 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Recipe says 30 minutes, but mine was quite small, didn’t want it too dark.

Once cooled, it was met with a very enthusiastic reception;

And it was eaten there and then, for lunch. With butter and ham.

I think I might go back to the kitchen and make another one for breakfast, I do have a metal bowl for kitchen aid after all.

Best feeling ever, when things turn out that good!!!!

Santa brought me Paul Hollywood’s book “How to bake”. The chap might not be my favourite man on the tv, but he certainly knows his baking and the book is packed with useful information. The first recipe I tried from it were scones. Kitchen aid sat this one out, as I actually did as I was told and used my fingers to mix the flour and butter and then the rest of the ingredients and made sure I’m not overworking the dough. I ended up with a plate of scones much lighter than the shop bought ones, a few too many though, maybe 500 g of flour will not be needed next time, unless there will be more than 2 people eager to eat them.

450g of strong white bread flour was used, rubbed with 80 g of unsalted, soft butter ( I might use salted next time), 80 g of caster sugar, 2 beaten eggs, 5 tsps of baking powder and a bit less than 250 ml of milk. The remaining 50 g of flour was to be used for dusting and adjusting the runny batter as required, but I ended up putting most of it back into the bag and not using all of the milk. As above, it is important not to overwork the dough, which I was careful not to do, when ready, I cut out the scones with round cookie cutter, placed on the baking parchment, gently washed the tops with beaten egg and baked for about 12 minutes in 220 degrees.

Served warm with French butter and blackcurrant conserve.

When browsing Amazon lately I came across some cherry curd, but also a passion fruit curd, promptly purchased both and I don’t regret it! Cherry macaroons were made yesterday, shells done the usual way with the colour nothing like I wanted it, the filling- half and half cherry curd and mascarpone, plus a bonus of a cherry in kirch in the middle. Just had one of them with a quick espresso on Saturday morning, love it. Next week I’ll make some mega yellow ones with passion fruit.

There was a bag of whole hazelnuts I bought in Biedronka, while visiting Mum a month ago. I toasted them this morning, removed the skins, blitzed them with icing sugar and made some really, really decent macaroons. I was planning on replacing some of that icing sugar with cocoa, but realized too late and only managed to add some cocoa, for the colour. Still, the shells made with hazelnuts and just a few grams of almonds taste great and smell fantastic. I filled them up with a combo of whipped cream and Philadelphia cheese ( who said it’s got to be mascarpone every time??), added vanilla paste and then a splash, or was it two? Of Baileys. I froze 20 shells ready for Christmas, but will also make some bright ones, red maybe or purple. Today’s efforts will be enjoyed while watching the heats of Masterchef the Professionals tonight. 🙂

Autumn has truly arrived now and we’ve had a very blustery, rainy day, with overturned pots in the garden and tons of leaves from apple tree falling. The only thing to do was to draw the curtains and get busy in the kitchen. So I’ve made something nice for everyone, pancakes, tuna steak, shrimps, but also a focaccia, a very nice one, only a quarter left of it now. I looked at Paul Hollywood’s recipe and at one from my Italian cookbook and ended up kind of mixing them both. I used a bit more that 260 g of strong bread flour, 14 g of fresh yeast, which I first prepared with some flour and warm water. A tsp of salt and a tbsp of olive oil. 200 ml of water. I also added 2 ground cloves of garlic to the dough, but I have to say I can’t taste any!

Kitchen aid did all the work of kneading. It proved for almost an hour till more than doubled in size. I knocked it back and placed in a well oiled tray, pushed it to the corners nicely and proved once again for about half an hour. When beautifully risen, I sprinkled some flaky salt on top, some black olives and pieces of tomatoes went on, a dusting of dry oregano, a drizzle of olive oil and into the oven heated to 200 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Very difficult to keep one’s claws off it, when on the table. Excellent with a glass of red.

I got out of the bed with wrong foot this morning, I hated everything and everyone, nothing was right and then I accidentally tipped the bin onto the floor and had to scrub all sorts of yuk off the floor. And then I decided to bake something good, I needed a lift from this morning. It’s been a while since doughnuts were made in this house, so I went with the same recipe from moje wypieki.com that worked, but not a third of the portion, half a portion this time and still ended up with 19 doughnuts. Deliberately, Keava got 5, as she now looks after Dusty when we go away and then Charlie got 4, Charlie, my fresh farm egg supplier. Young chap looked into the bag and said “woooooooow….tea!!!!!” 🙂

So, for this many fabulous, soft, fragrant and delicious doughnuts one needs 500 g of flour, 11 g of fresh yeast, 60 g of sugar, 250 ml of warm milk, 4 egg yolks, 50 g of melted butter, some vanilla paste, 20 ml of vodka,1/4 tsp of salt and a little lemon juice and zest too. Yeast got to work with some of that flour, sugar and milk, the all the other ingredients worked away in the kitchen aid, butter waiting towards the end to be slowly added. The dough proved for 1,5 hour, more than doubled. Got knocked down, rolled thickly and with a cookie cutter 19 doughnuts were formed. Again, 30 mins proving and then onto the veg oil heated up to 175 degrees. Once fried, plum conserve was injected in each, some icing and a few sprinkles of dried raspberry completed the picture. Premier League. Brawo ja! 🙂