Having watched GBBO final the night before, where custard slice was the first challenge the contestants faced, I felt like having another go at it, but I went with Paul Hollywood’s recipe this time- proper custard, none of the powdered nonsense. Also, I wanted to see how I liked the rough puff pastry, which meant making the entire thing from scratch, non buying French pastry from Polish deli for instance. The pastry worked, wasn’t too difficult and time consuming, I would maybe add just a touch of icing sugar to it next time, to make it less savoury.

225g of plain flour, 1/2 tsp of salt, 200g of cold, unsalted butter, less than 140 ml of water made it all possible, for the butter I used the coarse grater and did the folding method 3 times, like with puff pastry, only the butter all went in in one go. Once folded and rested 3 times for about 15 minutes, I then divided it into 2 and baked under extra trays to keep them flat for roughly 20-25 minutes in 200 degrees, all the time checking and making sure they don’t overbake.

In the meantime the custard got done. 500ml of full fat milk, 100g of caster sugar( some of it vanilla sugar), vanilla paste, 4 egg yolks, 40g of cornflour. Yolks beaten up with sugar, cornflour added towards the end, while the milk was getting heated up with the vanilla. The custard got finished with 40 g of unsalted butter, covered and chilled until needed.

The homemade rough puff seems to be easier to cut with a serrated knife than the shop bought one. The nicer looking sheet of pastry went on top, finished with a little icing- lemon juice and icing sugar and then some feathered pattern of chocolate. Nice cake, much better attempt than the last one. And the next day tastes even better. 🙂

I accidentally made a gluten free cake yesterday. I had some good quality cooking chocolate and decided to have a go at Paul Hollywood’s recipe and while I stirred the melting chocolate I found myself looking at the recipe and realizing there is no flour there. 🙂

Chocolate cakes in our house are produced mainly for Florek. Izzie and I prefer milk chocolate, so I’ve made a small one, half a portion to make it manageable and not to waste too much.

So, to start, 130 g of dark chocolate got melted and slightly cooled. 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg whipped into thick goodness with 105 g caster sugar. 2 egg whites whipped separately. 125 g of ground almonds. All of those gently combined baked in my smallest, round tin, lined with baking paper for about 30-35 minutes in 180 degrees.

Once cooled, some raspberry jam was smeared all over the cake before the ganache( 60 g of the same chocolate and 60 ml of double cream) was generously applied all over the cake.

It was tasted shortly after Florek’s favourite carbonara. The sounds he was making convinced me it was a good use of time and ingredients. As for me, I’m not blown away, might have a piece later while watching GBBO semifinals.

From Paul Hollywood’s book “How to bake”. A piece of posh, expensive French butter was purchased on Friday specifically for this recipe and I started yesterday after lunch.

Dough nr 1 was made out of 500g of strong bread flour, 10 g of salt, 80 g of caster sugar, 10 g instant yeast ( I even had some!!!!), 2 eggs, 90 ml of water and 125 ml of warm milk. Kitchen aid worked it for about 7 minutes, then it rested in the fridge for an hour.

Posh French butter will be handled more carefully next time- straight from the fridge, otherwise it gets warm too quickly and is messy to handle; also next time I’ll roll in out on the baking paper and save myself some swearing. 🙂

The rolling out and folding the butter stuff is all nicely illustrated in the book, it was fun to make and I enjoyed learning new stuff. Last night there was a lovely block of Danish pastry resting in the fridge, 4 times rolled and folded, loosely wrapped in cling film- loosely, as it did rise quite a lot!

This morning I took it out, rolled out, shaped 3 ways and left to prove once more, while the nicest creme pat ever was cooling in the fridge. Creme from the same book, particularly delicious and creamy. Will be using this method from now onwards. 2 egg yolks, 50 g caster sugar, 20 g cornflour nicely whipped together, while 250 ml of milk and vanilla paste were heating up. Hot milk slowly added to the eggs, then returned to the heat and when thick and beautiful, 20 g of butter added. Yum!!!!!

Pastries, when doubled in size were topped with creme pat and some bluberries, the other ones were rolled with cinnamon, sugar and sultanas and baked in 200 degrees for less than 14 minutes, they did brown quickly.

I waited the whole 2 minutes after taking them out, before stuffing one down my gob with a sigh of pleasure. Butter. Butter makes everything tastes good.

We gave Simon and Keava a plate of pastries, the other ones sit on the island and are pinched every now and then by whoever passes by.

10 out of 10, worth every minute and every effort.

Found a photo of these on mojewypieki.com and made them this morning, but for brunch. Not for breakfast. I’m coping Florek’s effective diet of eating nothing till midday and enjoying lunch then, it seems to be doing good to my waistline ( as I’m writing these words, I’m on my second g&t, munching on some particularly moreish chili and serrano crisps bought 2 weeks ago in Adnams, speaking of dieting!).

For about 8-9 rolls I used 2 tall glasses of strong bread flour, 0,5 tsp of salt, 1 tbsp of melted butter, a small egg, 1 tsp of sugar, 7 g of fresh yeast, 3/4 tall glass of tepid milk. Made the starter first- a bit of that flour,milk and all the yeast, then mixed it all in with the remaining ingredients, leaving butter till the end. The dough proved for about 1,5 hour, then, using a little rolling technique I picked up from Paul Hollywood I formed the rolls, placed them on the baking parchment, dusted with flour and left to double in size again.

I sprinkled them with some water and baked for about 15 minutes in 190 degrees. They were very much enjoyed with a lovely, creamy tomato soup, some pate and some mature cheddar. Recipe going into the book, to be used again!

While sitting through a vegetarian weekend in Suffolk recently I felt like doing a Sunday roast. Ewa’s was available, so was Mariusz, Tommy Banks’s recipe for roast pork belly was looking at me, there were no excuses.

I’ve done that roast today, pork was ok, but not mind blowing. There was quite a lot of leftovers, as Mariusz had to turn around before Oxford, there were issues with gear box. Luckily Ewa made it and she took some food for Sophie, who works on Sundays.

Dessert was a success. I made it yesterday and it went, all of it. Just the way I like it, the plates to the dishwasher, job done.

50g of pecans nuts, toasted, blitzed with 3 tbsps of icing sugar. 150 g of plain flour ( I added a bit more), 75 g of cold, unsalted butter. 1 whole egg. The dough chilled in the fridge for about an hour, then got rolled out and chilled again, then baked blind in 200 degrees for about 20 minutes and a few more without the beans.

For the filling I used a 250 g tub of mascarpone, 150 g of Greek yoghurt, coconut flavoured, unlike the recipe that called for plain, 6 tbsps of maple syrup and some vanilla paste. Really nice indeed. Fresh blueberries and raspberries on top. While the last piece of it was being eaten in the garden I remembered that I was going to drizzle it with extra maple syrup before serving. Next time maybe. And I think I’ll be doing my own shortcrust pastry, the very crumbly one, as those pecans didn’t really bring anything amazing to the dessert. Good, but could be better!