Pain Au Chocolat - The Cheats Way...

I have been wanting to make chocolate croissants for a very long time but puff pastry is just far to much effort to make. I can't be bothered to do all that folding and turning and waiting! I have a life to live! So when I saw that Jus-Rol had done all the hard work for me, I just had to give it ago!

It looks like this.... You can pick this up in any local supermarket and in that little can to the right is the pastry! You twist to open it (very clever). This little DIY croissant pack comes with little chocolate sticks too!

Pre-heat the oven at 200oC/180oC fan assisted/gas mark 6. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

1. Pull the corner of the red label down to the left. (On the can)

2. The can itself will open.

3. Twist the can to remove the dough.

4. Unroll the dough and follow the perforations to seperate into pieces.

5. Place 2 chocolate sticks at the ends of each piece of dough.

6. Roll both ends in ad place seam side down on the baking tray. For a deeper golden colour, glaze with milk or a egg wash before baking.

7. Spread out the rolled dough so there is plenty of room to expand during cooking. Place on the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 12 mins(or until golden brown). Serve fresh from the oven!

And here are my finished chocolate croissants!

My boyfriend and I ate these straight away for breakfast! We had 3 each as they weren't particularly large. Totally worth doing and are the easiest things to make!!! I will make these again - however, they're not the healthiest breakfast...each croissant has 169kcal! 

These are the easiest DIY Pain Au Chocolat you will ever make!

Sarah's Tips

Don't roll the croissants to tight - I think I may have done this which is why they didn't expand so well.

12 minutes is about right on the timing, however, I did mine for 12 mins and they could have done with 1 or 2 mins longer. They felt soft on the top, not like the usual croissant crunch/flakeyness so next time I will give them a little poke and if they're soft I'll leave them in for 1 more min.

As you can see, I didn't use baking parchment to line my baking trays (I forgot) but it was fine, only 2 slightly stuck. Thankfully my trays are non-stick.

I also didn't use an egg wash or milk and they still came out golden however next time I will, just to see if there is a difference. 

Kentish Huffkins.

2015. A new year. New bakes.

I have made 2 baking resolutions for this year 1) bake bread 2) be more adventurous.
I only believe in making resolutions that you can really try to keep, so for me both these are resolutions are one and the same. The only time I have ever made bread (let alone yeast cookery) was in November 2014 with Breakfast Bagels. Absolutely delicious and they're a healthier recipe than most, so go go go! Bake them! But yes, for me baking bread is adventurous so BOOM! Both resolutions done! As my first bake of 2015 is........

Kentish Huffkins!!

To help me with my new years resolutions I am using Paul Hollywood's British Baking. My brother bought it for me for Christmas and the book is sub-sectioned into the various bakes from around Great Britain: The South West, The South and South East, The Midlands, The North, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Paul is the man to go for bread and this book is perfect to make me bake things I wouldn't normally bake. I've already got my eye on a few recipes but im struggling to choose!

I started with where I live, The South and South East. I really wanted to make bread, so ended up choosing to make Kentish Huffinks. Paul Says 'These large, flat bread rolls are made from fairly standard dough. I enjoy them with butter and cherry jam but they're also very good with filled ham or cheese'. My mum had made some vegetable soup for lunch so I thought these bread rolls would be the perfect accompaniment. We had them fresh out of the oven, slightly cooled. They smelt delicious! Tasted delicious too.

Ingredients

500g Strong White Bread Flour
1tsp Salt
2tsp Sugar
7g Sachet Instant Yeast
50g Unsalted Butter, Diced and Softened
150ml Milk
150ml Water

1) Put the flour in a large bowl. Add the salt and sugar on one side, the yeast on the other. Add the butter, milk and three-quarters of the water, then turn the mixture round with the fingers of one hand. Add the remaining water a little at a time, continuing to mix until all the flour is taken in and the dough is soft and slightly sticky; you may not need all the water.

2) Coat the work surface with a little oil to prevent the dough sticking. Turn out the dough and knead for 5 minutes, until it is smooth and no longer sticky. Lightly oil the bowl, return the dough to it and cover with cling film. Leave to rise for at least an hour, until doubled in size.

3) Line two baking trays with baking parchment. Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and fold it inwards repeatedly until all the air is knocked out and the dough is smooth. Divide into 8 pieces.

4) Roll each piece into a ball by placing it into a cage formed by your hand on the work surface and moving your hand in a circular motion, rotating the ball rapidly. Flatten the top by pressing with your hand.

5) Put the balls of dough on the prepared baking trays, spacing them slightly apart. Place each tray in a clean plastic bag and leave to prove for about 40 minutes, until the huffkins have doubled in size. Heat the oven to 220oC/Gas 7.

6) Just before baking, dust the huffkins with flour and make an indentation in the centre of each with your floured thumb. Bake for 15 mins, until golden brown. Immediately wrap the rolls in a clean tea towel, to achieve their characteristic soft crust.

Sarahs Tips:

Read this recipe numerous times before you start and have everything ready and organised!
To divide the dough, I used a very sharp knife.
I don't have proving bags so I just used lots of cling-film! Make sure you leave the cling-film very lose otherwise it will stop the dough from expanding and proving further.
If you have a fan oven, lower the temperature around 10 to 15oC.

Gingerbread Biscuits

My third and final bake over the Christmas period was my proper gingerbread biscuits. I was working Christmas morning on the early shift and agreed with my colleagues to bring in snacks etc. I LOVE a biscuit with my cup of tea so I thought I make these. 

Unsurprisingly, the recipe came from the Good Food website. My online baking bible.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/gingerbread_men_99096 

Ingredients

• 350g/12o plain floirz plain flour, plus extra for rolling out
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 125g/4½oz butter
• 175g/6oz light soft brown sugar
• 1 free-range egg
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• Icing to decorate

1. Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon and pour into the bowl of a food processor. Add the butter and blend until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
2. Lightly beat the egg and golden syrup together, add to the food processor and pulse until the mixture clumps together. Tip the dough out, knead briefly until smooth, wrap in clingfim and leave to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.
4. Roll the dough out to a 0.5cm/¼in thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using cutters, cut out the gingerbread men shapes and place on the baking tray, leaving a gap between them.
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden-brown. Leave on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a wire rack to finish cooling. When cooled decorate with the writing icing and cake decorations.

I had fun making these biscuits and found it quite therapeutic to decorate them. I kept my decorations really simple - mainly because it was late on Christmas eve and I wanted to go to bed. I used pre-made writing icing that you squeeze out of the tube to decorate (from Sainsburys). The biscuits are delicious with a cup of tea and have a real lovely ginger kick! 

Decorated Christmas Cake

My last post was about making mince pies, this post is about one of the other two other bakes I did over the Christmas period... Well this one isn't really baking but im going to tell you about it anyway! They were both made for Christmas day - a Christmas cake for my family and proper gingerbread biscuits for my colleagues (I was working on the early shift Christmas day).

I didn't actually make the Christmas cake (life is too short), I just decorated it. As I have said many times on this blog, I don't do creativeness. I can bake a cake but decorating it...not so good. However, I am currently in the process of making a cake for one of my work colleagues and I need to practice putting rolled icing onto cakes, so it was good timing.

Naturally, I started with a light jam layer all over the cake (slightly warmed in the microwave) as this helps the marzipan stick to the cake. The marzipan followed and then the icing. I'd bought the ready rolled marzipan but with the icing I rolled it out myself. I was a bit timid at first as I didn't want it to go wrong but don't be too afraid and gentle, my best advice would be 'just get on with it'. 

Use a rolling pin to help lay the mazipan onto the cake, then using your hands, press down the sides using a little force. Cut away the excess round the bottom of the cake, don't worry if it doesn't look particularly neat on the bottom, the icing will hide it. I used a cake smoother/polisher to quickly to go over the marzipan to make sure there are no lumps or bumps, if you don't have a cake smoother/polisher than just use your hands. This is then exactly repeated with the icing! Once again, if the bottom of the icing around the cake doesn't look that neat, just put a ribbon around it and pin it at the back (remember to take the pins out!). 

My friend made one snowman and I made the other, she's very arty farty so her snowman was better than mine....For the trees, I coloured white royal icing with edible green dye (and ended up looking like the Hulk in the process) and let it re-firm up in the fridge. While it was firming I used a cookie cutter in the shape of a Christmas tree as a stencil onto cardboard. I cut out the cardboard tree and painted edible glue onto one of the sides, I then used the cookie cutter to cut out the tree from the green icing and stuck it to the cardboard. Repeat on the other side. To keep the trees standing up I pushed in some cake wiring so they would have more stability and that meant the trees inserted into the cake. Using the edible glue I decorated each tree with various sugar crystals/balls. 

My mum cut out the stars, glittered them and then stuck them to the cake using the edible glue. Lastly, the family santa was placed on the tree. That santa is older than I am and has been on every Christmas cake my family has had. Keeping in with tradition!

Yes, it looks like a child made it but hey, at least it was decorated!

Yummy Mince Pies

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year! By now we are all stuffed to the brim so I've been put off baking for a while!

However, throughout the Christmas period I have been making mince pies, I had never made them before and thought I would give it ago. I'd also never made pastry before so it was a new bake on every level. I was quite worried that they were going to be quite difficult to make but it was the absolute opposite! These are unbelievably easy to make, definitely a great bake to make with the kids.

My dad, who isn't keen on mince pies, tried my first batch and loved them, particularly the pastry! He isn't a huge fan on pastry but was very impressed with these mince pies. My mum loved them and made me make a whole load for Christmas day and Boxing day. I also made a whole load when my friend from university visited....so many mince pies!! They are now a firm family favourite.

I trusted the good 'ol reliable Good Food magazine for the recipe. They sourced it from Paul Hollywood ,so you can't really go wrong with this recipe.

Ingredients 

260g Cold Unsalted Butter
375g Plain Flour
125g Caster Sugar
1 Jar of Mincemeat (approx 600g)
1 Egg
Icing Sugar to Dust

1) Place the flour and butter in a bowl and rub together to a crumb consistency. Add the sugar and the egg, and mix together. Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and fold until the pastry comes together, be careful to not over mix. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill for 10 mins.

2) Heat the oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Roll out the pastry to 3mm thick. Using round cutters (about 10cm), cut out 16 bases and place them into muffin trays. Put 1 1/2 tbsp mincemeat mixture into each. Brush the edge of each pie with a little beaten egg. Re-roll out the pastry to cut out 7cm lids, press them on top of each pie to seal. Glaze with the rest of the egg, sprinkle with caster sugar, then make a small cut in the tops.

3) Bake mince pies for 15-20 mins until golden brown. Leave to cool before releasing them from the muffin trays. Dust the mince pies with icing sugar and serve.

Sarah's Tips:

If your finding that the pastry is getting too warm, cut the pastry in half, leave 1 half in the fridge while you work on the other half. But don't over chill the pastry to the point its rock hard and cracks while you try to roll it out, if this does happen, just let the pastry warm up a little.
The type of pastry made is a sweet shortcrust pastry.
I found using patty trays were much easier to use than muffin trays, as it is much easier to release them from the tin.
Also don't go over board with the egg wash, it can cause the mince pie to stick to the trays.
For some mince pie lids I used a star cutter to give them some variety.
However, using star lids means you have to watch your mince pies! If you overcook them, the mincemeat can boil and leak out onto the mince pie. Not so pretty.
Don't over fill the mince pies. I preferred to do a teaspoon and half to 2 teaspoons for each pie as I found a tablespoon and a half meant the mincemeat leaked out.
I like to eat my mince pies warm, so to reheat them, I put them in the oven for 10 mins at 160C Fan.
Keep these mince pies in an air tight container so they can keep for a number of days, plus, they are freezable!

Happy Baking!