Still Life, With Cats

And now we’ve reached the end of the GBBO catch-up: the finale. Our options were: carrot cake (signature), Belgian buns (technical) and a collection of tea party treats (showstopper). We did ponder the carrot cake, as that sounded tasty, but the Belgian buns won out.

And what, you might be asking along with contestants, is a Belgian bun? It’s a layered sweet roll (think cinnamon roll) topped with a glaze and a cherry. Also they had to put raisins in theirs which my sister and I both agree would make it completely inedible.

After all the much fussier recipes over the previous nine weeks, this one felt almost anticlimactic. I’ve made cinnamon rolls a bazillion times before, although I don’t think I’ve ever filled them with lemon curd before. You make the dough, then make the lemon curd while the dough is going through its first rise, then roll out the dough and slather it with the curd and roll it up into a log, then cut those into even slices, and put them on a cookie sheet for their second proofing. Once the filled rolls have puffed up a bit, they get popped into the oven until golden brown, and then you brush them with a glaze, and ta da, you have Belgian buns.

You’ll note that I did not bother with the cherry on the top because it didn’t seem worth having to go out and buy something I’d only be picking off to throw away anyway.

I got mine done just a couple minutes over the timeline, and only because I was using the proofing setting on my oven to help them rise.

Verdict – they’re super tasty, but if I was to do these again (which I probably will, in some form, since we have that overly prolific Meyer lemon shrub in the backyard), I would use the tangzhong method from King Arthur’s Cinnamon Roll recipe so that the dough would stay softer. Regardless, lemon curd is an excellent filling for these buns and if you also happen to have a lemon tree drowning you in fruit around this time of year I highly encourage you to give these a try.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.

Only two more weeks of catching up to go! Moving on to Episode 9, it’s time for Pâtisserie week. The challenges were: 8 patisserie layered slices (signature), a Sable Breton tart (technical). or a fancy schmancy (not its real name but close enough) entremet dessert (showstopper). By this time it was the week before Thanksgiving and all the kitchen energy was focused on that, but we decided we’d do the slices, at some point over Thanksgiving weekend, since those would be easiest to stash in the freezer for later eating.

I still had half a box of apples sitting on the counter needing to be used up, so after a bit of searching on the internets, I found a recipe for a Apple Caramel Entremet cake that sounded tasty, so decided to give that a try, by assembling it as a the full cake, but then turning it into the 8 required slices.

First you make the base, which is a basic sable breton (crumbly sort of shortbread/cake thing)

Next up is the caramel creme layer, which is basically just caramel flavored custard, but with some gelatin added to help it firm up. Here is where I point out that the recipe called for three separate batches of caramel to be made, and I ended up having to make five, because I burned two of them. Oops. That got popped into a plastic wrap lined pan to chill in the freezer until firmed up.

Step three was making the apple compote, which is just basically cooking the apples down in some butter and sugar until they’re the right consistency. Those were set aside to chill, before being pressed in an even layer into the creme caramel.

Step four was the caramel cream (this, by the way, was the second caramel I burned and had to remake). Basically you just make the caramel, add yet more gelatin, set it aside to cool, whip up a bunch of cream, then fold them all together.

The full cake is assembled by lining a cake tin with plastic wrap, then putting in a layer of the cream, then the custard and apple layer, then more cream, and finally topping it with the sable Breton base. That gets popped back into the freezer to chill for as long as possible while making the caramel mirror glaze, made from yet another batch of caramel, which I did *not*, for a change, burn and have to remake, and yet more gelatin, .

Here’s where I should have either just glazed the whole cake and then cut it later, or else doubled the mirror glaze amount, but I did not do either, so I ended up not having quite enough mirror glaze, which is actually a shame because my glaze turned out shiny and smooth and *perfect*.

Ah well. I did the best I could with the glaze I had, and ended up with my 8 slices.

They’re definitely not the prettiest things to look at, plus I also wasn’t really thinking about the fact that an 8×8 pan cut into 8 slices still ends up with 8 ginormous slices. But I got them done, just a couple minutes over the time limit, so yay!

Here’s the inside, so you can see all the layers.

For something with so much caramel involved, it is actually not too sweet. Using the granny smith apples was a wise choice since the cake definitely needs that hit of the tartness to keep it from being all one note. If I ever was to do this again I might try to incorporate a crunch layer – perhaps some nuts or honeycomb or something – to add a little texture, but otherwise, it was super tasty, and fun to make, so I’m calling that a win.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.

(Yes, I know these are out of order, but due to timing I didn’t get the chance to make the Episode 6 recipe until after I’d made the one for Episode 7.)

Episode 7 of the Great British Baking Show was Caramel week (yum!), and the choices were: a caramel tart, caramel biscuit bars (aka homemade Twix), or a caramel dessert topped with a sugar showpiece. We were tempted by the tart, but the lure of trying to make our own Twix was too strong, so we picked that one.

The challenge: make 10 Caramel Biscuit Bars in 90 minutes.

First, click that link to see how pretty they were *supposed* to look.

Okay, now moving on to what *actually* happened.

Let’s just say that things didn’t go quite to plan. First you make the biscuit base and cut that into the 10 require pieces. Then you make the caramel, which has to be thick enough to hold its shape, but soft enough to pipe. Oops. I ended up having to form the caramel for my cookies by hand. And finally, you melt chocolate and pour it all over the biscuits for a smooth, shiny topping.

I would just like to say, for the record, that not once, in all my years of baking, has this EVER worked for me, but yet every single time a recipe calls for it, I give it a go. I don’t know what it is I’m doing wrong. Maybe I have to spring for the fancy chocolate instead of just the stuff at the grocery store (it doesn’t matter if I use chocolate chips or slabs of baking chocolate – it’s always the same result), or maybe I’m not heating it long enough, or maybe I haven’t sacrificed enough confectionary to the pastry gods, but….well.

Here they are, ten lovely little cookies that unfortunately look a bit like what I might scoop out of the litter box. I didn’t even bother with the piped design on the top because I think we can all agree that there was no saving the appearance.

It was small comfort that my sister’s turned out equally poop-adjacent. Ah well. At least they ended up super tasty, and it was fun to give the recipe a try, although if I ever in the future get a craving for a Twix I think I’ll just save the effort and buy one at the checkout line.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.

It’s December 1st, which means welcome, once again, to all the folks finding me through Holidailies. This is the 22nd year of Holidailies, and I’ve done it (or at least attempted) every single year, with varying levels of success.

Anyway. I figured I’d kick off the month with a little bit of catch-up from our weekly bakealong for the Great British Baking Show, since while I’ve been doing them on a timely manner, I haven’t actually been *posting* them, so that’s what you’ll be getting for the first week of posts.

First up – Dessert Week. The choices were pavlova (signature challenge), sticky toffee pudding (technical challenge), and a fancy cake with an imprinted jaconde sponge outer layer (showstopper). We’ve made pavlova before and didn’t really want to redo that, and the fancy cake sounded fun but didn’t really fit into our work weeks. No matter – it turns out my sister had never even tasted sticky toffee pudding before (which I found absolutely shocking because it is one of the most delightful desserts you can put into your mouth and when we did our trip to Ireland back in 2006 I made a point of ordering it every where I could, until I was probably composed entirely of sticky toffee pudding by the end).

Sticky toffee pudding consists of a very light sponge that’s made with pureed dates, and baked with a caramel layer at the bottom, then served with extra caramel over the top. This being the technical bake, they added a sesame brittle, and a creme anglaise for the top, just to make things more complicated.

I’ve made sticky toffee pudding before, although it’s been a while, and never in tiny little pudding molds, although I scored a set of adorable little tins off a neighbor during an estate sale and have been having fun finding ways to use them ever since, so these fit the recipe perfectly. My caramel went a little weird, and despite what Google may tell you, there is no bringing caramel back once it starts to split.

Sesame brittle is possibly the most boring brittle in the world to eat so seriously, don’t bother if you decide to make this recipe, and neither of us made the creme anglaise because unlike the British, we’re not fans of pouring warm custard all over everything. But the puddings themselves came out perfectly, with a delicate sponge, and even if the caramel was a little on the thin side, it still tasted absolutely delicious.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.