Great British Bake Along: Gâteau Vert

After an initial week that was falsely reassuring suddenly we were back in classic technical challenge territory. A recipe for a dish that no-one has ever heard of? Check. At least one obscure and difficult to source ingredient? Check (pistachio essence I'm looking at you). A messy, multistage recipe that takes hours and assumes ownership of at least three stand mixers (or a washing up minion)? Check. Costs more to make than would ever be reasonable to spend on a cake and makes you realise what a ridiculous budget the programme must have, not least for pistachio nuts alone? Check. A weird flavour combination that makes you doubt if you will even want to eat the end result? Spinach icing, you say? Check.

And so it was, I found myself preparing to make a Gâteau Vert. Apparently it was Claude Monet's favourite birthday cake, though that didn't make me any more enthused. My mum spoke to me on Wednesday, and summed up the general mood when she asked "you're not going to make that cake with the spinach are you?". I urgently acquired pistachio essence (huge kudos here to a website I have never used before called StefChef who shipped it quickly, were competitively priced and had lovely customer service, I recommend them completely for any sudden pistachio essence needs you may have). I armed myself with pistachios, edible flowers, a huge amount of spinach, a bottle of kirsch and a receipt for nearly £30 which The Husband has not been privy to.

Oh this cake, can you tell I wasn't a fan? Everything I owned was green, there was a persistent odour of pistachio and spinach, it took forever and the worst bit of all, I'm not really sure I even liked it. The Husband rejected it outright at the mere mention of spinach, my parents valiantly tried it and said what a lovely flavour it had, and T devoured it but he is not exactly a discerning audience when it comes to cake. I didn't mind it, the flavour was pleasant enough, and there wasn't actually any taste of spinach at all. While that felt like a success of sorts, it also begged the question of why I had bothered to use it at all. I know the point of it was to colour the whole cake naturally, but it did feel slightly excessive to wilt and blitz and puree and squeeze spinach, particularly as since Monet's time we have developed the technology to allow purchase of a wonderful range of purpose-made food colourings.

It wasn't overly difficult, it was just long-winded, and I found myself getting thoroughly disheartened when I kept realising I had to grind yet more pistachios, or start adding spinach water to yet another bowl. There was another episode, much like with the Wagon Wheels, of making syrup while whisking an egg and then rapidly adding one mixture to the other, but that was about as complicated as it got. The marzipan was the nicest part, and overall it looked quite appealing but I fear my genoise was where the fault lay. It seems that I have not learnt from the Mokatines of 2015, and although it appeared entirely successful from the outside, as I sliced through the genoise, much of the middle was quite dense, and again I could see the occasional pocket of flour. I think I remain too tentative when combining the mixture, and I guess the stodgy central layer of genoise is what dried out the gateau and made it less palatable than it might otherwise have been.

The overall effect is quite pleasing visually, assuming you like the colour green on a cake, and I have learnt that edible flowers can make most things look appealing. I also managed to disguise the fact that despite buying a ridiculous amount of pistachio nuts I still managed to miscalculate and somehow ended up with barely any at the end with which to decorate the edge. However, I think it says it all when I admit that, even in a house with a cake-loving toddler and a permanently hungry pregnant woman, after a few days languishing on the counter, some of the leftovers ended up in the bin. And in a move that would make Monet despair, T and I spent an happy afternoon last week making packet mix fairy cakes and sticking edible Peppa Pig decorations on the top, a process which was both more enjoyable and more successful (and didn't result in any leftovers!). If, after all of that you are still keen to try, the recipe is here, and meanwhile I will aim to be more positive for bread week! 

Great British Bake Along: Wagon Wheels

So it is that time again when I, many might say foolishly, attempt to join in with Great British Bake Off and try my hand at the technical challenges from the series. Will I last beyond the first week? Will I ever find a love for baking bread? Will I manage to source the increasingly bizarre ingredients as the challenges progress? All will be revealed in the months ahead, but for now, wagon wheels.

Saturday morning came around, after a week of long shifts, a poorly child, and a general air of chaos and disorder hanging over the house, I obviously decided the best way to spend T's naptime would be making biscuits, jam, marshmallow and attempting to construct wagon wheels. Not my best idea in retrospect, or the atmosphere most conducive to some relaxed baking, but it wasn't a complete disaster.

It was a less than promising start. The Husband commented that he didn't really like wagon wheels, and I was inclined to agree with him. I also forgot lesson number of one Bake Off challenges, which is to be vaguely prepared, have a relatively tidy kitchen and to read the recipe. I didn't realise when I used the egg yolk that I would use the white later in the recipe so wasted it needlessly. I also had a distinct lack of clear work surfaces which made the whole process trickier.

However, the recipe was actually quite manageable. The biscuits were simple and tasted really good, and I was reminded of the simple joy of making jam too. The marshmallow was the most tense aspect, involving whisking egg white while also boiling sugar and adding gelatine. Having used a stand mixer to help I found that the whisks didn't reach deeply enough into the bowl to actually whisk the single egg white so I ended up dashing between the mixer and the pan trying to keep an eye on both. Despite the multi-tasking required the marshmallow, somewhat to my surprise, actually came together well.

With all the components made, next came the assembly, and this is where things went somewhat downhill. Firstly, a coughing fit meant that T needed a snuggle to settle him down back to sleep. Whilst the cuddle was a welcome break I returned back to the kitchen to find the marshmallow had morphed from a soft, glossy, swirl to a springy, solid mass. I then needed to enlist The Husband's help to locate my piping nozzles, which were apparently stored in the exact place that I swore adamantly I had looked at least three times already.

My slightly, ahem, informal approach to cutting the biscuits now became problematic, as they were not consistently round, which made pairing them up to be sandwiched together somewhat akin to a game of Tetris to find the ones that were most closely matched. Then the firmness of the marshmallow made it tricky to pipe, and it was so well set that as I tried to sandwich the biscuits together a few biscuits snapped as the marshmallow put up rather an excessive amount of resistance.

By this stage T was awake, well over two hours had passed, and my focus was on getting finished and trying to rescue the kitchen rather than delicately coating my biscuits. As you can tell from the pictures this part was particularly slapdash, and for some reason the chocolate marbled as it set. But, it did set, and they did look vaguely recognisable, so all in all I'm counting it as a success.

So what was the verdict for technical challenge number one? Well, the recipe was surprisingly easy to follow, with great results for all of the components. They were really tasty, although the dark chocolate made them very rich, and The Husband was not a fan as a result. T, however, adored them, and they got rave reviews from everyone else who tried one. We have now, also, taken to calling them wheelie wagons, after we repeated the phrase from the programme, T has adopted it as his own, and it was far too lovable to even think of correcting him. I did keep thinking how easy it would be to go and buy a packet if I really wanted the option of eating a wagon wheel, but actually the end result seemed to reflect the effort that had gone into it, and it felt like a special treat. I won't be writing out the recipes this time around but if you ever have a hankering to rustle up a homemade wagon wheel, you won't go far wrong giving this recipe a try.

first things first

The first of September.

The first week of Bake Off - did you watch it? I spent some of today valiantly attempting the Wagon Wheel technical challenge (post to follow), and reminded myself of the many reasons why it is better, in this instance, to watch than take part. They were not a complete disaster though, and I even managed to restore the kitchen to a relatively acceptable state, which I think The Husband felt was a particularly noteworthy first.

The first night in recent days where I actually had to sing to T at bedtime. After a few days of illness, including the gut-wrenching call from nursery to say he was not himself and had a temperature, and a trip to the doctor yesterday when he suddenly went downhill, he happily seems to be improving today. The last few evenings he has been asleep almost immediately after his bath, and as he requested one song after another tonight and then lay chatting to himself in the dark, it was nice to feel like he was getting back to his usual self.

The first quiet weekend in a while. We were actually due to be at a friend's daughter's birthday party tomorrow, but thought we should probably not turn up with a poorly, germ-ridden toddler. And so it is, after busy birthday celebrations, and then an intense stretch of shifts at work, including the Bank Holiday weekend, it is nice to have some slower-paced days ahead.

September also brings with it the first days of my third trimester. Time appears to be flying by at an alarming rate, and so I find myself without that usual nostalgic new beginnings feeling (usually accompanied by new stationery) that I usually associate with this time of year. Instead I feel more on a slow countdown to December, enjoying life as we are, and anticipating instead the new beginnings that for now, are just around the corner.

We had a visit from a plasterer this week too, the first forays in to moving T to a "big boy" bedroom. While the co-ordinating of the different jobs, and the clearing out of the room do not fill me with immediate joy, especially as the latter has developed into a clear out of two or three other rooms as well, I am very excited for him to have his first proper childhood room. I can't wait to get on with picking colours, and fabrics, finding homes for his favourite things and creating a space for the lovely little boy he has grown into.

And so September is here, bringing with it the first days of Autumn, the promise of cooler days, cosy evenings, and my favourite part of the year.

Project 52: Week 4

I am a highly suggestible person, an advertiser's dream, I often find myself browsing an online shop, having seen it in a magazine, or as last night when my friend told me she had a chinese takeaway for tea, despite having just finished a curry, I suddenly had an urge for a spring roll! And so it was that, having watched Great British Bake Off this week for Sport Relief, I decided I would make Paris-Brest for after Sunday dinner this week. 

I had never made choux pastry before, and I enjoyed making it, but it didn't rise quite like I hoped. I'm not sure what I did wrong, it was very light and tasty but quite flat, which made slicing it in half a bit tricky. They went down very well with the family today though, and I'm desperately trying to work out where else I can use the hazelnut praline which I have left, so that I don't just keep returning to the tub for another spoonful.

It's a bit of a blurry picture, but they didn't last long enough for me to have another go. I seem to be alternating between Millie and food at the moment, so I wonder what next week will bring!

Great British Bake Along: Mokatines

I will confess to going a little off menu with just a few of the ingredients this week. Rather than getting white fondant and brown food colouring I ended up with chocolate flavoured fondant. It seemed to work just as well with the recipe, and you only use a small amount so the chocolate wasn't overpowering. This was my solution to an absence of brown food colouring in the supermarket, and I was pleased with my ingenuity (small things!). The only coffee essence I could find was that large bottle of Camp Coffee and Chicory essence. I'm not entirely sure it was the right thing to buy, the chicory gave it a smoked flavour, which was lovely, almost like treacle toffee, but it was a bit more complex than just a coffee essence. I'm looking forward to finding some other recipes for this, apparently its a Scottish product, so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to try them, it feels like the perfect winter ingredient.

Confession 2 - I failed this recipe on the first attempt. That beautifully bubbly genoise mix you can see above produced a thin rubbery sheet. Never one to waste cake I covered it in the coffee icing and decided to give up on the recipe for the evening. When I cut into it I found pockets of raw cake mix and lovely lumps of self-raising flour, which explained why it hadn't done quite what it should. I think I had been so scared of stirring it too much and losing the air I didn't mix it enough and it ended up in the bin. I think Millie could sense the impending disaster from the look on her face.

Confession 3 - It may be blasphemous to say so, but I disagree with Mary's recipe. The picture above is my first attempt at the coffee icing, and the second attempt looked fairly identical. I found a single recipe on the internet that also mentioned milk, which wasn't included in the recipe on either the BBC site or the GBBO official website. However, it seemed like a reasonable suggestion, and it turned out to be third time lucky, resulting in the much more appetising version below, although it was also slightly addictive. The first successful batch of this got poured over the cake that then got binned, but at least when I started again the next day I knew exactly what I was doing with this. I have included milk in my version of the recipe below.

Confession 4 - the sugar syrup did not go very well. This was my first ever attempt at a sugar syrup, and I did manage it much better by the time the mille feuille came around, but this ended up crystallising a little. Being a bit too lazy by this point to re-make yet another part of the recipe, I used it as it was but later regretted it, more on that later.

Confession 5 - Even my second sponge didn't rise brilliantly, despite the copious whipping and gentle folding. It was lacking in the rubber department, and there were no surprise bursts of uncooked flour, so I was happy enough to use it for the recipe. It did require some fairly delicate slicing, and there were one or two where I was grateful for the icing because it helpfully covered the bare patch of sponge on the top where I had cut it a bit fine.

Confession 6 - I think I went a bit overboard with the apricot jam, really daubing it on so that I could make sure they were properly covered in nuts. As a result, there was a strong apricot flavour which I thought took over from the coffee slightly, I wonder if a coffee icing (told you that stuff was addictive) might work better, or if it would look too messy where you could see it between the nuts.

Confession 7 - I ran out of the crème beurre. See my earlier confession about the sugar syrup. This meant that the finished mixture was full of lumps of crystallised sugar, and having put the mix straight into the piping bag, the nozzle kept getting blocked with these lumps. This meant that quite a lot of the mix ended up getting wasted as I had to keep cleaning out the nozzle, and so some of the finished cakes ended up looking like this one.

Confession 8 - Despite all of the above, I really enjoyed making these, and loved the finished result, they actually looked vaguely like they were supposed too, and tasted nice too. If you ignore the failed attempt, they didn't take all that long to make (by GBBO standards anyway!) and looked like time and effort had been put into them. 

Mary Berry's Mokatines

Recipe adapted from BBC Food

Makes 9 cakes. Prep time 1-2 hours. Cooking time 30 mins to 1 hour.

Recipe

For the genoise sponge

• 40g butter
• 3 large free-range eggs
• 75g caster sugar
• 65g self-raising flour
• 1 tbspn cornflour

For the coffee icing

• 50g butter
• 1 tbpsn instant coffee
• 225g icing sugar, sifted
• 3 tbspn milk

For the crème beurre au moka

• 40g caster sugar
• 1 large free-range eggs
• 75g softened butter
• 2tsp coffee essence

For decoration

• 4 tbspn apricot jam
• 100g chopped almonds, toasted

For the fondant icing

• 100g chocolate fondant OR 100g white fondant and brown food colouring

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan. Grease and line the sides and base of a shallow 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
• To make the genoise, gently melt the butter in a pan, then set aside to cool slightly. Put eggs and sugar in large bowl and whisk at high speed until the mixture is pale, thick and mousse-like, so that it leaves a trail when the whisk is lifted up. 
• Sift the flours together into a bowl, carefully fold in half of the flour into the egg mixture. Pour half of the butter around the edge of the mixture and fold it in. Repeat this process with the remaining flour and the remaining butter and then pour the mixture into the cake tin.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes until well risen and the cake springs back when lightly pressed. Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin, the turn onto a wire rack, remove the parchment and leave to cool.
• To make the coffee icing measure the butter into a small pan, and heat gently until melted. Remove from the heat and pour in the milk and add the coffee, stir until the coffee has dissolved. Add the icing sugar, mix until smooth and glossy and leave to thicken.
• To make the crème beurre measure the sugar and two tablespoons of water into a small, heavy-based pan. Heat very gently until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil steadily for 2-3 minutes, or until the liquid is clear and forms a slim thread when pulled apart between two teaspoons. (The syrup is very hot so handle with caution!)
• Put the egg yolks in a small bowl, and whisk lightly to break them up. Preferably using a stand mixer, add the syrup in a thin stream over the yolks, whisking the yolk continuously as you do so, until the syrup is incorporated and the mixture is thick and cold.
• In another bowl cream the butter until very soft and add the egg yolk mixture gradually. Stir in the coffee essence to flavour the mixture and use it to fill a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle.
• To assemble, slice the cold cake in half horizontally and sandwich the slices back together using the coffee icing. Trim the edges of the sponge and then cut the cake into 9 equal squares.
• Gently heat the apricot jam, then pass through a sieve into a bowl. Brush the sides of the cakes with a thin layer of jam and roll the sides in the toasted nuts until the sides are well coated.
• Pipe tiny rosettes of the crème beurre very close together around the top edges of each square. Keep the rosettes close together so they form a solid border, to allow the centres to be filled with fondant. Pipe another line of rosettes around the bottom edge of the cakes.
• Knead the fondant icing until it is soft, beat with a wooden spoon, or food processor, until smooth. Gradually beat in 4 tablespoons of water to make a thick liquid glaze, so that the consistency will pool in the middle of the cake. If using food colouring, add it to the mixture to make a coffee-coloured glaze. Spoon into the centre of the cakes and leave to set.

word of the week #42

As you can tell from this week's Project 365 post we have been doing rather a lot of baking this week. It wasn't intentional, but somehow we found ourselves doing more baking than we have done in months.

It started last week, when I used some of my unexpected time off work to finish the GBBO technical bakes. I found the recipes a gentle distraction, there was something comforting about spending a few hours following instructions, and, for the most part, getting something lovely at the end of the process. I think the sense of order and predictability was much needed, and of course cake always helps too.

Although they all got finished last week, this week I have been gradually catching up with the blog posts. The Tennis Cake and the Flaounas were made a while ago now, but the posts only went up this week and there are still a few more recipes to go online. Funnily enough, now that GBBO has finished, I've been baking more than ever, enjoying the freedom and simplicity of baking something quick and easy just using ingredients in the cupboard.

There have been three separate batches of biscuits (two by The Husband), naan breads, and a loaf of bread, and tonight there has been chicken, leek and bacon pie, with filo pastry from the freezer. It is nice to bake a fresh batch of biscuits, or try something new, like the naan bread, without needing to send off for specialist ingredients, or devote whole days to the process. I also liked that instead of nipping to the shop when I fancied I treat, I decided to see what I could rustle up at home instead. I hope you have all had a lovely week.

Great British Bake Along: Tennis Cake

So next up in the technical challenge was that well-known family favourite of tennis cake. This recipe is a mammoth one. I think, and this is no mean feat, that it may have won the award for most ingredients of any of the technical challenges, but at least all of them were readily available in a normal supermarket. No obscure only-available-online products this week. Having said that, I did need The Husband to do an emergency shopping trip part way through making the recipe. I ran out of gelatine and liquid glucose, having made two batches of fondant that went wrong. In what can only be described as a rookie error, I realised it was because I hadn't soaked the gelatine before using it. It resulted in bizarre plastic stringy bits scattered throughout the fondant, kind of like icing and dental floss in one, which while ingenious, is not necessarily a winning combination.

Third time lucky and I got lovely smooth fondant. The fruit cake was a beautiful recipe and definitely one I would make again. It was quite light rather than a typical dense fruit cake, and I loved the addition of pineapple to the mixture. It was a good job really, as this made a lot of cake. I ended up sending it into The Husband's work, as it wasn't really something we could have between us for dessert, it needed a crowd of people to even begin to make a dint into it.

Rather than buy a cake tin purely for the purposes of this recipe, I just used a deep square tin and then cut it to size. Having not quite thought it through, it meant that one side of the cake was not finished as nicely, being without the golden crust of the outer edge, but it did give me off cuts that I used to make mini cakes so pros and cons I suppose! The mini cakes also meant I could try the cake without cutting into the large one, so I didn't have to send a half deconstructed cake to The Husband's office.

Once I'd learnt how to use gelatine, the fondant and the almond paste went quite smoothly (no pun intended, but I couldn't resist pointing it out). The rest of the icing was less successful. I don't know what happened between the pink and the orange icings but as you will see from the pictures the pink held its shape fairly well, while the orange seeped and ran repeatedly. I kept putting it in the fridge and trying again, and every time I just ended up with another layer of collapsing rosettes pouring down the edge of the cake, so I gave up.

Even more frustrating was the white icing. The icing on top of the cake was fine, went on nicely, set hard, and looked fine. I did need an internet reminder to check what the lines of a tennis court should look like, but I think in the end I did a reasonable job (except for that awful orange stuff).

When it came to the nets, and the racquets, it was a completely different story. They piped well enough, and I even did spares, just in case (the horror of the Spanische Windtorte still haunts me). But they just would not set. They went in the fridge, they went in the freezer, I didn't quite go for Mat's approach of putting them in the oven but I was tempted. No matter what I did, or how long I left it (and I literally left it for hours, the cake was done, we went out, we came back), they were still mushy whenever I touched them.

I must have iced ten nets, without exaggeration. I thought it was the mix. As the icing on the cake had set beautifully, I tried to ice one just using that bag (it had a thicker nozzle on it), but that went the same way. I can only assume it was something to do with the paper I had iced it on, but goodness me if I know why. Every single net that I made, no matter how long I left them, or how much I froze them, invariably ended up like this.

So in the end we played net-free tennis. I iced a few racquets onto the top, so it looked slightly less like a randomly striped green cake. They weren't as neat as the original ones, but by this point I had rather had my fill of tennis. As far as Victorian cakes go, it seemed like rather a bizarre one to pick, and I have no clue what pineapple has to do with tennis, but none of this series seems to be about making well-known favourites!

The odd thing about this cake was the fact that there was nothing to bind the layers together. The almond paste, despite the name, was a dry marzipan that could be rolled out. So the cake had a layer of the almond paste, then a layer of the fondant, and they just sat on top of each other. The minute you tried to cut into it, or take a bite, the layers came apart. Having said all of that, it apparently disappeared quite quickly when The Husband took it into work so I don't think anyone minded too much! I was glad of the mini versions too, they were perfect for with a cup of tea as an afternoon treat.

Tennis Cake

Reproduced from BBC Food

Serves 12-16. Prep time 30 minutes to 1 hour. Cooking time over 2 hours.

Ingredients

For the cake

• 350g glacé cherries
• 1 x 225g tin of pineapple in natural juice
• 350g ready to eat dried apricots
• 100g blanched almonds
• 350g sultanas
• 2 lemons, zest only
• 250g unsalted butter
• 250g caster sugar
• 5 large free-range eggs
• 250g self-raising flour
• 75g ground almonds

For the almond paste

• 250g ground almonds
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g icing sugar
• 1 free-range egg
• 1 tsp almond essence

For the royal icing

• 3 egg whites
• 675g icing sugar
• pink gel food colouring
• orange gel food colouring

For the fondant

• 4 leaves gelatine
• 4 tbspn liquid glucose
• 1 1/2 tspn of glycerine
• 500g icing sugar
• green gel food colouring

Recipe

• Preheat the oven to 160C/140C Fan. Grease a 23x15cm cake tin and line with a double layer of parchment.
• Rinse the cherries in a sieve. Drain and chop the pineapple. Dry the cherries and pineapple well, using kitchen paper.
• Quarter the cherries and roughly chop the apricots and blanched almonds. Place the fruits and nuts into a bowl with the lemon zest and gently mix together.
• In a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. In a separate dish beat the eggs lightly. Add a beaten egg to the butter and sugar, followed by a spoonful of the flour, and repeat for all five eggs. 
• Fold in the remaining flour and ground almonds. Fold in the fruit and nuts and pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Level the surface. Bake for 2 hours, covering with foil after 1 hour, until a skewer inserted into the mixture comes out clean. 
• When the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven, cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then turn out, remove parchment and place on wire rack until cool.
• While the cake is cooking, make the almond paste by combining the ground almonds, caster sugar, and icing sugar in a bowl. Add the egg and almond essence and knead to form a stiff paste, but don't over-knead. Wrap in cling film and set aside.
• Make the royal icing by whisking the egg whites until they become frothy. Sift in the icing sugar one tablespoon at a time, whisking slowly as you do. Beat until the icing forms stiff peaks and cover with clingfilm.
• Make the fondant by placing the gelatine (already prepared as per the packet instructions!), 2 tablespoons of water, glucose and glycerine in a bowl. Place over a small pan of simmering water and heat gently until the gelatine has dissolved. Remove from the heat.
• Sieve half of the icing sugar into a large bowl, make a well in the centre and add the gelatine mixture. Use a wooden spoon to mix it together. Sieve the remaining sugar onto a work surface and tip the mixture onto it. Knead until it forms a smooth, pliable fondant. Reserve a small, thumb sized piece, and wrap with clingfilm. Gradually add the green colouring to the fondant, and knead until it is pale green and evenly coloured. Wrap with clingfilm.
• Roll out the almond paste into a rectangle and cut to 23x15cm to fit the top of the cake. Place on a silicon sheet that you have dusted with icing sugar. Roll out the fondant and cut to the same size and place on top of the almond paste.
• Divide the royal icing into three bowls. Colour one bowl using the orange gel colour, one using the pink gel colour and leave the remaining bowl white. Place most of the white icing into a pipping bag fitted with a number 3 (large) writing nozzle and pipe the outline of a tennis court onto the fondant, leaving a 2cm gap around the edge.
• On a silicone mat or greaseproof paper, pipe the outline of two tennis racquets, and an outline of a tennis net which is the same width as the tennis court you have piped onto the fondant. Place the remaining white icing into a bag fitted with a number two (small) writing nozzle and use it to pipe the strings onto the racquets and net. Leave to dry until they can be peeled off the paper.
• Place the pink icing into a bag fitted with a number 8 star nozzle and the orange icing into a bag fitted with a number 7 nozzle. Pipe a decorative border around the tennis court using the two colours of icing. 
• When the cake is cool, place the almond paste and fondant on top of the cake. Pipe white icing across the middle of the tennis court and place the net upright on the centre of the cake. Place the two racquets onto the cake, and use the reserved piece of white fondant to roll into a tennis ball and place along side one of the racquets.

Great British Bake Along: Flaounas

Another magical mystery Great British Bake Off recipe, peppered with bizarre ingredients. This time not one, but two, unusual little jars. Mahleb and mastic, to be precise. Do let me know if any of you use these in everyday cooking, particularly as I now have two jars to use up. I found these two ingredients on amazon, through a company called Steenbergs. This isn't a sponsored link, I was just impressed to find somewhere that stocked them, and that dispatched them so quickly that I ordered them after the programme on Wednesday and had them by Friday. Their website is a treasure trove of mystery ingredients!

This is the mastic, which came as crystals, but ground easily into a fine powder, and was a lovely excuse to use the long-idle pestle and mortar. I also really enjoyed making this recipe overall. The yeasted pastry was simple to make, and I found myself being quite impressed at how well it all came together.

Despite all of the attention that was given to the folding and shaping of the pastries in the programme, none of them looked liked the ones in the recipe online. The contestants seemed to have all gone for a square shaped pastry, whereas the recipe provided on the website advises a circular pastry folded into a triangular shape instead.

Once I got the hang of it they were really easy to make, and the shape looked quite effective. The sesame seeds were a little reluctant to stick at times, and I found the part of the recipe which asked you to layer all of the sesame seeds out onto a tea towel a bit messy, but it did work for constructing the pastries.

I made some with the sultanas in, but as neither The Husband or my mum like sultanas, I decided to do some without, to make them a bit more tempting! The cheese flavour wasn't that strong, particularly considering how much there was in the recipe, although I did use grana padano in place of the pecorino romano (purely because that was the closest I could find in the supermarket) so that may have been part of the issue.

Unforunately, as pleased as I was with these, I will not be baking them again, because I found the smell and flavour of the mastic really unpleasant, and quite overpowering. It is very aromatic, and as was mentioned on the programme, is quite like pine, but for me it was really off-putting. The Husband said he enjoyed them, and my mum said they smelled nice, so I think it is perhaps one of those flavours that is quite divisive, but after cheerily declaring how nice these were to make I was really disappointed not to enjoy eating them. I did try, both warm and cold, but they just weren't for me, and I'm not altogether sure what to do with the rest of the mahleb!

I would, though, use the yeasted pastry technique again, and I loved the appearance of the triangular shape with the filling. I think they could also work really well in a mini version for sweet or savoury canapes, perhaps with an onion and goat's cheese filling for example. They looked quite effective, and it was really simple to do, so it definitely wasn't a complete waste learning to make these.

Paul Hollywood's Flaounes

Reproduced from BBC Food

Makes 12 flaounes. Prep time 1-2 hours. Cooking time 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Ingredients

For the filling

• 500g pecorino romano cheese
• 250g halloumi cheese
• 75g plain flour
• 90g fine semolina
• 7g of instant yeast
• 2 tsp dried mint
• 100g sultanas
• 4 large free-range eggs
• 4 tbspn milk
• 1 tsp baking powder

For the pastry

• 750g strong plain flour
• 1 tsp mastic powder
• 2 tsp ground mahlepi (also known as mahleb)
• 1 tsp caster sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 7g instant yeast
• 60g unsalted butter, softened
• 450ml full-fat milk

For the glaze

• 200g sesame seeds
• Dash of white wine vinegar
• 3 free-range egg yolks, lightly beaten

Recipe

• To make the filling, grate the pecorino romano and the halloumi into a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the semolina, plain flour, instant yeast, dried mint and sultanas. In a jug, beat together the eggs and milk.
• Tip the flour mixture onto the cheeses and pour over the egg mixture. Mix with your hands, then cover and leave to stand while you make the pastry.
• For the pastry, put the flour, mastic powder and ground mahlepi into a bowl. On side of the bowl add the sugar and salt, and on the other side of the bowl add the yeast. Make a well in the centre and add the butter and 350ml of the milk. Combine to form a soft dough, adding the remaining milk as needed (you may not require it all).
• On a floured surface, knead the dough until smooth. Return it to the bowl, cover and leave for an hour.
• To make the glaze, place the sesame seeds and white wine vinegar in a small saucepan, with enough water to cover them, and bring to the boil. Drain the sesame seeds and lay them on a clean tea towel to dry.
• Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan and line three baking trays with non-stick baking parchment.
• Divide the pastry into large pieces, and roll out on a lightly floured work surface until around 3mm thick. Use a saucer as a template to cut out 15cm rounds, until you have 12 of them. Press one side of the rounds into the sesame seeds to coat.
• To finish the filling, add the baking powder to the mixture, and divide it equally between the centre of each pastry round. For each round, fold the sides into three edges and bring to the centre to make a rounded triangle, leaving the middle exposed so the filling can still be seen.
• Place the flaounas on the baking trays and brush with the egg yolk. Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/160C Fan and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and puffed up. Serve hot or cold

project 365: week 41

277. Home from Cambridge and after a late night and an early start I had a doze in the afternoon sunshine, followed by tea and snuggles with Millie.

278. More tea, as I spent the afternoon sitting in the lounge, catching up with blogs, watching films and snuggling Millie.

279. Morning cuddles with Millie for company.

280. We started art classes on Monday. Despite it being the last thing I felt like doing, the two hours were really enjoyable and flew by. As I killed time waiting for the scan on Wednesday morning I decided to do some of the homework, and found the ink drawing was a good distraction.

281. I spent Thursday night baking the mokatines from Great British Bake Off, and having now caught up with all of the technical challenges, I will be posting the recipes each day next week, better late than never.

282. Out for a family meal for Grandad's birthday, and this poached pear dessert came highly recommended by my stepdad, who had tried it before. It was an excellent choice.

283. Saturday night was my attempt at chocolate soufflé, and I used two types of cooking chocolate in the recipe.