Basic

Vanilla Sprinkle Cookies

Today I’ll be showing you how to make a batch of my vanilla sprinkle cookies. They are quick and easy to make – what’s not to love?

This recipe is perfect if you’re in a rush and don’t have the time to be in the kitchen for over an hour or if you want to bake with your kids, this is the quickest (and tastiest option).

I have opted to flavour mine with vanilla, mostly because it’s a flavour enjoyed by most but it can be fully customised to suit you (or whoever else may be eating them) and the sprinkles were just standard rainbow sprinkles.

As with all my recipes, before you get started, you’ll want to do some prep work. Get your ingredients measured/weighed up, prepare your tin (if you want to, I didn’t but you know your tin) and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

150g Butter.

150g Granulated sugar.

150g Light brown sugar.

2 Eggs.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

350g Plain flour.

1 tsp Baking powder.

¼ tsp Salt.

50g Rainbow sprinkles (for in the cookies).

Additional rainbow sprinkles for the top of the cookies (added before baking).

Method:

Before you get into making the cookies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your baking trays (if you do this) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f. Get any equipment you need ready at this point also.

Into your mixing bowl of choice, add your butter, light brown sugar and granulated sugar and mix on a medium/high speed until they are well combined.

Once they are all combined, give the bowl a scrape down to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in.

You can then add in your eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. You can add in your vanilla extract at this stage as well, either in with the eggs or at the end, either way will work well.

Next, you’ll want to add in the plain flour, baking powder and salt. Make sure that you pass them through a sieve first, to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Add in the rainbow sprinkles, then mix on a low/slow speed just until a dough has formed, try your best not to over-mix at this stage.

Give the bowl a quick scrape down just to incorporate any bits that didn’t get fully incorporated in on the first mix.

Take your cookie scoop and scoop two balls of dough for each cookie. Dip the top of eat cookie dough ball into the rainbow sprinkles and place onto a baking tray, then squash down using your hand and round off using a large enough round cookie cutter to help them be more rounded and bake rounder.

Repeat the above step with the remainder of your cookie dough.

Bake the cookies off in your preheated oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are a golden brown colour. Be-aware that these cookies spread while baking.

Once out of the oven, allow to cool on the tray for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooking rack to cool fully.

Once cooled (or slightly warm), pour yourself a glass of milk and enjoy with the cookies.

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the meanwhile, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and Twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!

Strawberry and Cream Profiteroles

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

The weather has finally started to pick up, so why not enjoy a batch of homemade strawberry and cream profiteroles?

This recipe and flavour combination will hit the spot, strawberry and cream is a match made in heaven combination, that’s for sure.

The base is a choux bun, many people get put off by making it from scratch as it’s pretty easy to go wrong but if you use my recipe, you’ll get the perfect choux every time (I promise)!

The strawberry jam used as a filling is homemade (a video will be coming soon on how to make a couple types of jam and other sauces/preserves) and the whipped cream is sweetened to make it taste even better.

As with all my recipes, before you get started, you’ll want to do some prep work. Get your ingredients measured/weighed up, prepare your baking tray (if you want to, I didn’t line mine with greaseproof paper but feel free to do with yours)and get any equipment you may need ready. Taking these few extra steps can lower the chance of making a mistake.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Ingredients:

Choux Pastry:

300ml Water.

125g Butter.

150g Plain flour.

4 Eggs.

Pinch of salt

Filling & Topping:

500ml Double cream.

50g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

300g Strawberry jam (homemade or shop bought).

Large strawberries, halved (as many as you need).

Method:

Before you get into making the choux pastry, you’ll want to do some prep. Preheat your oven to 200˚c/390˚f, weigh/measure up your ingredients and prepare your baking trays (as well as any other equipment you’ll need) and get ready to start.

To make the choux pastry, place the water, butter and salt into a medium saucepan and place over a medium heat until its melted, stirring them together well.

Remove from the heat and add in the flour, mixing in the flour in until its full incorporated. Return to the heat and continuously stir it to cook the flour out. You’ll know once the flour is cooked out as the bottom of your pan will have a layer of the flour/pastry there, once you’ve achieved this, take it off the heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.

Mix the choux pastry on a high speed to cool it down. This takes a couple of minutes to achieve.

Once you can touch the bottom of you bowl, start to add your eggs. A little at a time until you reach a stage where the pastry takes between 3-5 seconds to fall from the beater – the amount of egg you need may depend, you may need more or less.

You will notice the pastry become looser as you add your eggs, this is normal, it should be a nice pipe-able consistency. Place the pastry into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain tip piping nozzle.

Place the pastry into a piping bag with a 1cm plain tip nozzle and pipe out small amounts on the prepared baking tray, you should be able to get about 15 onto a standard tray. Press down any peaks using your finger which has been dipped into some water, then egg wash each of the choux buns to get a perfect golden brown on top.

Place in the oven at 200˚c/390˚f and bake for 20 minutes, then open the oven door to remove the steam that’s built up, then place back in the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes then remove from the oven.

Allow the choux buns to cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring to a cooling rack to cool down completely.

Once your choux buns are cooled, you can fill them with your whipped cream and strawberry jam then pipe an amount of whipped cream onto the top of each profiterole and once you have done that, top each of them with a strawberry halve. If possible, add the whipped cream and strawberry finishing before serving (purely for freshness).

Cherry Bakewell Blondies

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

This weeks recipe is for cherry bakewell blondies. If you are unsure or don’t think you’ll like these, trust me. Add these to your list of things to do this weekend, they’ll go down a real treat.

This recipe has been one I’ve worked on for a while, who’d have thought that white chocolate would be so hard, huh? The one thing I did learn in college was about how temperamental white chocolate is. It isn’t really chocolate as it doesn’t contain cocoa solids but we are using it anyway.

The moral of the story, take extra care with white chocolate. It’s super temperamental.

Another thing to remember is, these aren’t brownies. The ratio of butter to sugar is completely different, so they will have different texture/mouthfeel. To be honest, these blondies are more on the cakey side, slightly dense but more cakey, for sure.

I’m using store bought cherry Bakewell’s as they are pretty readily available here in the UK but if you’re outside of the UK you may have a hard time getting these. Feel free to use the next best thing, something like individual frangipane tarts would work pretty well.

Let’s get started shall we?

Ingredients:

200g White chocolate (bars of chocolate if possible, not chocolate chips).

130g Butter.

160g Granulated sugar.

190g Plain flour.

½ tsp Salt.

3 Eggs.

2 tsp Vanilla extract.

60g Cherry jam.

Sliced almonds (as many or as few as you’d like).

Method:

Before you get into making the blondies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your 8 inch square tin and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.

Into a bowl, place your butter and white chocolate and melt them over a bain-marie, keep the heat at a medium and no higher (you can also use a microwave on 15 second burst, this isn’t the best method as it can get the chocolate too hot, which isn’t ideal), take extra effort not to get the mixture too hot.

Once the butter and chocolate are melted, add in your sugar straight away and whisk it in until fully incorporated.

Then you can add in your eggs, one at a time. Beating well in-between each addition, the mixture shouldn’t scramble (if this happens, start over).

Next you can add in the plain flour and salt, you’re best to incorporate them using a silicon spatula, this is what I find the best to work with. Once you can’t see a trace of the flour/salt, stop mixing, you don’t want to overmix the batter.

Finally, before you’re done, add in the vanilla and stir that in until fully incorporated.

Pour the blondie batter into your lined 8 inch square cake tin and level it out using your silicon spatula.

Get your cherry jam and add around 5 dollops and swirl it around the tin using a butter knife (you can add a few more dollops if you feel it needs it, I did).

Sprinkle over some sliced almonds, the amount depends on your preference, I went with a fair few but alter it to suit you.

Place into your preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, before removing from the oven to add in the cherry Bakewell’s (I used 5 which had been chopped into quarters), you may need to push them in towards the edge. Place it back in the oven and bake for a further 10-15 minutes or until a tester when inserted comes out clean.

Once baked and out of the oven, allow to cool fully before you try to cut them.

Now they are fully cooled, you can cut them into slices. From this I get 8 generous portions. From the one side, I cut it 4 equal times, then once down the centre, so I get 8 portions. You can cut them however you like, so you get more or less portions, it’s up to you.

Custard Filled Doughnuts

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

If you like filled doughnuts, this is the perfect recipe for you. Today I’m going to be showing you how to make custard filled doughnuts.

This recipe is one of my favourite thing’s I’ve made this year, by far. You get a soft and fluffy doughnut which is filled with a smooth and rich vanilla custard, what’s not to love about them seriously?

If custard isn’t your thing, I have a recipe for jam doughnuts.

These aren’t exactly hard to make, to be honest. They take a little time but they are totally worth it compared to the ones you can buy in the supermarkets or shops (I know of a local shop that sells a basic doughnut like this one for £4.50/$5.70… I think not). As with most bread goods, they require time because they must prove, this is where the gases can build up in the dough and make the bread lighter and taste better.

The custard filling can be made in advance, so if you want to make the custard the day/night before, that’s fine. If you haven’t made pastry cream before, don’t worry at all. The recipe I share for it is super simple to follow and it’s yet to fail me.

Anyway, let’s get on with the baking shall we?

Ingredients:

Doughnuts:

450g Strong white bread flour (not plain flour).

1 tsp Salt.

7g Dried yeast.

60g Butter.

1 Egg.

60g Granulated sugar.

150ml Milk, slightly warmed.

100ml Water, slightly warmed.

Custard filling:

500ml Whole milk.

1 tsp vanilla extract.

120g Egg yolks.

100g Granulated sugar.

60g Plain flour.

Methods:

Doughnuts:

Before you get into making your doughnuts or custard filling, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, get your deep fryer ready and get any equipment you intend on using ready.

To start on the doughnuts, you’ll want to get yourself a mixing bowl (I’m using my stand mixer, but you can use whatever you’d like to). Into the bowl, you’ll want to place the flour and salt, then give it all a good mix until its incorporated.

After that you can add the remailing ingredients, which are; dried yeast, butter, egg, granulated sugar, milk and water, then give it a good mix on a low speed. Once a dough starts to form, you’ll notice the dough is quite soft and may be a little sticky to the touch (this is okay, it’s an enriched dough).

Briefly knead the dough on a floured surface until its smooth and elasticated (this is a good sign that the gluten is working).

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, I used vegetable oil but you can use any flavourless oil you have. Cover the bowl with cling film and allow to sit for around an hour or until its doubled in size (this is the first proof, allowing the yeast to do its thing and for the gluten to relax).

Once the dough has doubled in size, remove it from the bowl and knock it back on a lightly floured surface. The process of knocking the dough back is where you remove the gases that have built up in the dough while it was proving the first time around.

Weigh your dough and divide that amount by 10, this was you get a more accurate measurement per doughnut. You can eyeball it, but I prefer to be more accurate, so use digital scales if possible.

Round off your balls of dough and set them on individual pieces of greaseproof paper (which can go in the fryer), it makes them easier to move around later on. Place the dough balls onto a baking tray and loosely cover with cling film, you can then leave these for 30 -45 minutes or until they have gotten a little bigger (this is the second proof).

Now would be the ideal time to make your custard filling and have a clean down.

While you wait for the doughnut to proof, preheat your oil to 180˚c/350˚f. I recommend using a thermometer to ensure that the oil temperature is correct.

Once the doughnuts have proved and are ready, take two doughnuts and place them into the oil and fry off for around 60 seconds each side or until they are golden brown and baked through. Once removed from the fryer, place on kitchen roll to absorb some of the excess oil.

Custard:

To make the custard filling, get yourself a saucepan and pour in the milk and vanilla extract. Give it all a good mix then place on the heat on a medium heat until it almost reaches a boil.

Into a separate bowl, add in the egg yolks and granulated sugar and whisk the two together until they are lighter in colour and consistency. Once that’s achieved, add in the flour (I didn’t do this in the video but it still worked out and didn’t have much of an effect on the consistency or mouthfeel).

Once the milk mixture comes to almost a boil, take off the heat and add around 1/3 of the milk mixture and pour it over the egg/sugar mix, then whisk until combined (this is to temper the mixture, so it doesn’t curdle when we add the rest of the milk mix.

Add the remaining milk, whisking well. Then pour back into the saucepan and place back on the heat and whisk continuously until the mixture is thicker. You should be able to notice a difference as you whisk the mixture, the amount of time this takes depends on the heat you have it on really.

Once the custard is thick and ready, pour it into a shallow sided baking tray or bowl and cover with cling film to prevent a skin forming on top of the custard (the more you can spread out the custard, the quicker it will cool down).

Finishing:

Now that you have your doughnuts fried off and fully cooled down and your custard is fully cooled down, you can finish the doughnuts off.

Take the custard and place into a small bowl and whisk it up to help loosen the mixture a little, then place it into a piping bag fitted with a small piping tip.

Take your doughnuts and make a hole in the side using some like a skewer or a cake decorating tool (like I did), this makes a hole in the middle and on the side, so you can get the most custard filling on the inside, because who doesn’t want more filling?

Into a medium sized bowl, pour a generous amount of granulated while sugar (I have a 500g container which is purely for sugar that I roll the doughnuts in), then roll the doughnuts in, giving them a good coating of the sugar. For extra flavour, you could use vanilla sugar on the outside but that is being pretty extra.

How To Make A Battenberg

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

This week’s recipe is a classic, if you’re from the UK, you’ll know it. I’ll be showing you how to make a Battenberg cake.

If you have never tried or heard of a Battenberg, I’ll give you a quick run down. A Battenberg is a vanilla sponge cake, which is coloured pastel pink and yellow. It’s held in place by apricot jam and finished with a layer of marzipan. You should have a check pattern on the inside as you alternate the layers of cake.

Making the cake isn’t at all difficult, you’ll be using the traditional creaming method (this is where you start by creaming the butter and sugar together, adding the eggs and vanilla, incorporating the dry ingredients and then colouring the cake batter.

The marzipan coating/finishing may not be for everybody, but it’s needed on this recipe. Traditionally you would use standard marzipan but I only had golden marzipan left in my cupboard (this was from Christmas and when I didn’t use it, I was going to make a Simnel cake at Easter but that didn’t happen so I needed to use it up and this was the perfect recipe for it).

Ingredients:

175g Butter.

175g Granulated sugar.

3 Eggs.

250g Plain flour.

2 tsp Baking powder.

½ tsp Vanilla extract.

Pink and yellow food gel/pastes.

60-80g Apricot jam.

350g Marzipan.

Method:

Before you get into making the cake, you’ll want to do some prep work. Start by weighing up all of your ingredients, line your tin (if you decide to) and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using.

To start on the cake, you’ll want to get yourself a mixing bowl and place the butter and granulated sugar into it. Then beat the two together until they are fully combined.

Once they are combined, you can add the eggs one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. Once all of the eggs have been added and are incorporated, you can add your vanilla in and mix to incorporate (if your mixture scrambled a little at this stage, don’t worry. We will correct it in the next stage).

Next you’ll want to add your dry ingredients, passing through a sieve first, this is just to remove any lumps that may be in the dry mix. Incorporate the dry ingredients over a low speed to start with, working your way up to a medium-high speed (you shouldn’t be able to see a single trace of any ingredient but try to not over-mix the cake batter at this stage).

Divide the cake batter in two and colour one pink and the other yellow. I recommend that you start by adding a little and working in more, it’s easier to add colouring rather then trying to take it away…

Put the cake batter into the tin and level it out as best you can, don’t overlap/combine the colours too much. You can make a little divide using some cardboard wrapped in tin/silver foil but I didn’t do this. Once they are levelled and sorted, place into your preheated oven and allow to bake for 30-35 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

Once your cakes are baked, allow to cool completely before you intend on using them. Once they are cool enough, you’ll want to level the top off using a cake leveller or a knife and then trim the sides as well, this is just to remove the caramelised edges. Cut each cake in half so you end with 2 strips of pink and yellow cake.

Place your apricot jam into either a small saucepan or microwaveable bowl and warm your jam until is much more spreadable. While that warms, you can roll out your marzipan on a surface which has been dusted with icing sugar.

Once your jam is warmed, brush each of your cake slices with the apricot jam and with the remaining, brush it over the marzipan. Place the sticks of cake together and then place onto the marzipan, around 1cm away from the edge and then wrap the marzipan around the cake, applying a little pressure to ensure it stays in place.

Trim away the ugly edges and enjoy!

Vanilla Cakesicles (Cake Popsicles/Cake Pops)

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I have the simplest recipe for these pretty trendy cakesicles or cake-pops, let’s get started, shall we?

Today’s recipe is for a large cake-pop, which is made in a popsicle mould rather than a cake-pop mould. Who doesn’t mind a bit more cake? Seriously.

The recipe I’ll be sharing is for a simple vanilla sponge cake and vanilla buttercream, which when combined make the perfect ‘dough’ for the cake-pops. I opted for white chocolate to finish them, but feel free to use either milk or dark chocolate if you’d prefer. As an optional finish, I drizzled a small amount of melted dark chocolate over, but again, this was optional. Use whatever you’d like to finish them off.

There is nothing difficult about this recipe as you cake make the cake with either a stand mixer, hand mixer or with a wooden spoon. The only thing I didn’t have before I made these cake-pops was the popsicle mould, I ordered one on eBay for £3.99. If you need one, I recommend you check out eBay beforehand.

Ingredients:

Cake:

250g Butter.

250g Granulated sugar.

250g Plain flour.

1 ½ tsp Baking powder.

½ tsp Salt.

4 Eggs.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Buttercream:

125g Butter.

250g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Finishing:

200g White chocolate, melted.

50g Dark chocolate, melted and in a piping bag.

Method:

Before you get into making the cake or buttercream, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, line your tin (if you need to), preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f and get any equipment you intend on using ready.

To start on the recipe, you’ll want to make the cake. Get yourself a mixing bowl and place the butter, granulated sugar, plain flour, baking powder, salt (passing the dry ingredients through a sieve, to remove any lumps that may be in the dry ingredients), eggs and vanilla.

You can then go ahead and beat this on a low speed to start with, building your way up to a medium-high speed for around 60-90 seconds, by this point the mixture will be very well incorporated and you shouldn’t be able to see a single trace of any ingredient. If the mixture is looking a little stiff add a around 1-2 tablespoons of milk (or more if needed) to help loosen the mixture.

Give the bowl a good scrape down, this is just to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully incorporated into the mixture. Then add the cake batter into your 8 inch square cake tin and spread it out as evenly as possible, bake in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.

While the cake is in the oven baking, it’s best to do the buttercream. To start on the buttercream, get your mixing bowl and add in your butter and beat on a medium-high speed for around 5-7 minutes or until lighter and fluffier in colour and consistency.

Once this has been achieved, you can give the bowl a good scraping down, then add in your first half of icing sugar and beat until its fully incorporated and repeat that stage with the second half of icing sugar. Once that’s all added and mixed in, you can add in your vanilla and mix until incorporated. Place the buttercream into a bowl and place in the fridge until its needed later.

Allow your cake to cool down fully before you intend on using it, otherwise when you add in the buttercream it will melt it and make a horrible sloppy mess… Which nobody wants. I allow my cake to cool down in the tin for around 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and allow to cool fully on a cooling rack before I intend on using it.

After about an hour, I take my cake and break it in half, crumbling it between my fingers until I have got it to the perfect consistency. You will know once you’ve achieved this as it will look like breadcrumbs or have a sandy texture to them – you can also use a food processor which will do the job equally as well.

Now you can add in your buttercream and work the two together either by hand or using your food processor/stand mixer, start with a smaller amount of buttercream and work in more if you need to (it’s easier to add buttercream than to take it away). The perfect consistency is pliable and holds its shape well, you’ll know when you’ve got the perfect consistency – trust me on that.

Take your silicon popsicle mould and place a good amount of your cake ‘dough’ and place it into the mould and press it into place, flattening using your fingers/palm and repeat this step for the remaining cake-pops. Place the mould into the fridge (or freezer if you’re in a rush). Repeat until you have used all your cake ‘dough’ up.

Once all your cake-pops are chilling/firming up, place your white chocolate on a double boiler and melt the chocolate. Once your chocolate is fully melted, you can start to dip each of your cake-pops, one at a time then once dipped, place onto a cake board or cooling rack (whichever you have or works best for you). Allow them to solidify fully before you finish them off.

To finish them off I add a drizzle of dark chocolate but feel free to use whichever chocolate suits you best.

Lemon Meringue Eclair’s

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I present you with a recipe I made to prevent food waste – it’s lemon meringue eclairs!

I’ve taken the simple choux pastry éclair and jazzed it up by using a fresh cream and homemade lemon curd filling and topped with a lightly torched meringue topping. It’s like having a lemon meringue pie but done differently… It works well, trust me on this one.

Lemon is the perfect flavour for the spring/summer period to be honest, it’s refreshing and tangy – what’s not to love? If you or someone you know likes éclair’s and a lemon meringue pie, I can promise this is the recipe for you.

I know some people can be put off by choux pastry as it can go wrong, but if you follow my recipe it will work out for you – I promise you. Making the pastry isn’t hard or too time consuming to make and you don’t need any specialist equipment to make these.

As with all my recipes, you’ll want to do some prep work. This is to prevent you from making mistakes as you go along. Take some time to weigh up your ingredients, making sure the scales you’re using are accurate (I really recommend using digital scales if possible), line your baking trays with greaseproof/parchment and preheat your oven to 200˚c/390˚f and get ready.

Ingredients:

Choux Pastry:

300ml Water.

125g Butter.

150g Plain flour.

4 Eggs, medium sized.

Pinch of salt.

Filling:

300ml Double cream.

100g Icing sugar.

1 tsp Vanilla extract.

Lemon curd (homemade or shop bought – I haven’t shared the recipe for the lemon curd as I have a video coming soon on how I make my jams, spreads and curds).

Meringue Topping:

I can’t give you the exact amount I used as the eggs I use are probably a different size to the ones you’ll be using, however, I’ll tell you how to calculate the meringue topping.

Get the weight of 2 egg whites and whatever that is, double it for the sugar you’ll need. Easy enough to remember, the ratio of egg to sugar is 1:2.

Method:

To start on the choux pastry, get yourself a small-medium saucepan and place the water, butter and salt into it, place that saucepan onto the hob over a medium heat and allow the ingredients to melt, give it a good stir to combine the ingredients once they start to melt. Once the mixture almost reaches a simmer, you’ll want to take it off the heat and add in the flour, whisking it in until its fully incorporate, then place back on the heat and whisk continuously until the flour has been cooked out. You’ll know once the flour has been cooked out as it will leave a coating on the bottom of the saucepan, once you start to see this, get ready to take it off the heat and place it into a mixing bowl and beat it on a medium-high speed until you’re able to touch the side/bottom of the bowl.

Once the pastry has cooled down enough for you to touch the bowl, you can add your eggs, one at a time, beating well in-between each addition. The amount of eggs I have recommended was the perfect amount for my pastry, you may find you need more or less egg (eggs are all different sizes, I used medium eggs). You will want the pastry to take 5 seconds to fall from the paddle attachment, that’s how you know you’ve got the perfect amount of egg.

Once all the egg has been added to the mixture, you can then place your choux pastry into a piping bag (either fitted with a wide plain tip nozzle or not, I opted not to use a nozzle this time around). Get your baking trays (which may or may not be lined with greaseproof/parchment paper). You can then start to pipe on your choux pastry, snip a large hole at the bottom of the piping bag and pipe 5 inch lines onto the greaseproof/parchment paper, once you’re done piping them, you’ll notice they have an ugly end to them, don’t worry about this too much as you’ll correct it before you bake them off.

Now that you’ve got your pastry piped out, you can finish it off before you bake them off. Get a small bowl of water and dampen your finger and just press/smooth down the rough looking edges, this will help correct the ugly looking end and once you’ve done that, you can then go ahead and get yourself a small bowl and beat an egg, then use this as egg wash on the pastry. Once they’ve all been dabbed with water and brushed with egg, you can then place into the oven and bake them off.

While they are baking in your preheated 200˚c/390˚f oven, you’ll want to bake them at that for 20 minutes, then open the door. This is to let the steam out of the oven, this is normal for this recipe, then close the door and bake for a further 10 minutes at the same temperature. Remove them from the oven once they are golden brown and they are firm to the touch. Allow to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes before transferring to cooling racks to fully cool down. You can now freeze the eclairs if you wanted to, they are perfect from frozen as well.

While you’re waiting you can make your sweetened whipped cream filling. Into a mixing bowl add all of the double cream, icing sugar and vanilla, then beat on a medium-high speed until everything is well incorporated and the cream holds it shape. Try not to over whip the cream, otherwise it will turn granular and not have a pleasant mouth feel, place into a piping bag fitted with a small star piping nozzle and set aside in the fridge until needed.

To fill the eclairs is super simple. You can either slice the eclairs open and fill them that way or using the small star tip, gently poke holes into the bottom of the éclair and pipe the cream and lemon curd in that way. I prefer the second method as its what works best for me but feel free to experiment and see what method you like or works best for you!

Now, for the final element of these eclairs, the meringue topping. Don’t be put off by meringue, it’s nowhere near as difficult as it may appear. Get yourself a clean mixing bowl and whisk, into the bowl place the egg whites and whisk on a high speed until egg whites are frothy, then you can start adding your sugar, a little at a time until it’s all added. Once all of the sugar has been added, you can then whisk on a high speed until the sugar is fully incorporated, to test whether it is or not, get a small amount and rub it between your index finger and thumb and if you feel any granules of sugar, continue whisking and if you don’t feel any granules, stop mixing and place the meringue mixture into a piping bag fitted with your nozzle of choice.

Take your eclairs and get ready to finish them. I piped a rope of the meringue on each éclair but feel free to pipe however you like. I just liked the effect a rope had, its completely up to you. Then to finish them off, get yourself a blow torch and start to torch the meringue mixture. I made it a little darker in some places than in other but again this is optional and you can make them all a nice golden brown colour if you’d like.

That’s all for this week guys, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this recipe with your family and friends and enjoy it. I’ll be back next week with another blog post and YouTube video, so join me then. In the mean while, don’t forget to check out my Instagram and twitter. The YouTube video will be linked down below!

Quiche Lorraine

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Quiche is the perfect addition to any spring/summer evening, its light but enough with salad to enjoy.

I know, you’re seeing a savoury recipe. These aren’t too common from me as you’ll often find me making sweet baked goods. I have been trying more savoury baking recently, so you may see more of them from me in the future.

As I mentioned above, quiche is perfect for the warmer weather, with a side of salad (if that’s your thing). It’s pretty quick and easy to make, which is even better!

There’s some prep to do now that will save you faffing about later on. Start by remembering to preheat your oven to 200˚/390˚f, weigh up all of your ingredients, cook off the bacon and prepare your equipment.

The pastry I have used is my normal recipe for shortcrust pastry minus the sugar, then it becomes unsweetened and perfect for savoury use – just what we need it for.

The pastry isn’t exactly hard to make, all you need to do is place the flour, salt and butter then combine them together by either rubbing the butter into the flour or pulsing them together in a food processor (I went with the food processor method on this occasion).

Once they are combined, add in the egg and work it into the flour/butter mixture. This will bind the dough together, work them together until almost fully combined then tip out onto a floured surface to knead the pastry together. You’re looking for a clear dough, with no traces of a single ingredient. Wrap in clingfilm/plastic wrap then chill in the fridge for around an hour, this is to allow the butter to firm up and the gluten to relax.

After about an hour in the fridge, the dough should be firm. Take it from the fridge and cut it in half (keep the other half chilled in the fridge), flour your surface well with some plain flour. At this point, preheat your oven to 200˚/390˚f. Place the dough onto the floured surface and roll it out until its slightly bigger than your 8 inch pie dish. Place the pastry over the tart tine and work it into the tin, fix any cracks with the remaining pastry and trim the excess from the edges. You can then dock the pastry with a fork, this is just to stop it from rising while it’s baking, place in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes, you can then add the greaseproof/parchment paper along with the baking beans and blind bake for around 20-25 minute, it should start to look baked.

While your pastry case is in the oven baking, you can make the filling for your quiche. Start by adding your eggs, salt, pepper, milk and double cream into a large mixing bowl and whisk it all together until fully combined. You can then add in the cheese, bacon and onion and using a spatula, mix them until they are fully combined. By this point your pastry case should be ready, so once its done blind being, remove from the oven and remove the baking beans and parchment/greaseproof, then add in the filling (I had a tiny amount left over but added it once it was in the oven). Bake the quiche off at 200˚/390˚f for a further 30 minutes, it should be golden brown and firm to the touch.

Allow the quiche to cool fully before enjoy a slice, surely you shouldn’t eat quiche warm… YUCK!

Ingredients:

Pastry:

1 Egg.

225g Butter.

375g Plain flour.

Pinch of salt

Quiche Filling:

4 Eggs.

1/2 tsp Salt.

1/2 tsp Black pepper, ground.

300ml Whole milk.

100ml Double cream.

200g Cheddar cheese (or your personal favourite).

6 rashers of bacon, cooked and roughly chopped.

1 Onion, medium-large, chopped,

Bake the pastry at 200˚/390˚f for 20-25 minutes, make and add the filling, then bake for a further 30 minutes at the same temperature.

That’s all for this week, I hope you enjoyed. If you did, don’t forget to share this with your friends and family and check out the other recipes I have up on my blog. Currently working on uploading older recipes from my YouTube channel, so keep your eyes out. Until next week guys, take care.

Zero Waste Raisin Oatmeal Cookies | The Clean Kilo

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Today I’ll be showing you how to make my favourite cookies of all time, raisin oatmeal! These are a chunky variation, perfect for dunking in milk.

Today’s post is a little different to my usual as I tried a zero waste supermarket. In the past few months I’ve seen a few documentaries about how our food and plastic waste are at ridiculous levels, so I decided to make a change and cut mine down to the very minimum I can. Since January 1st 2019, I’ve managed to get my waste down by 75% and all done by making changes which were easy to implement. While buying your ingredients in bulk from the supermarket or wholesale may work out more convenient or cheaper, how much of the packaging is recyclable? How many of you are going to put the ingredients into jars/container once you’re

I had seen these zero waste shops before but never really tried one before as it seemed confusing but its far from it. The nearest one for me is in Digbeth, Birmingham and it’s called The Clean Kilo. If you haven’t visited before, you’re missing out. I would recommend taking your own jars and/or containers but if don’t have any, don’t worry, they have some you can purchase in-store.

The Clean Kilo offers a wide range of products from baking ingredients, dried fruit and eggs through to oils and vinegar, locally grown vegetables and nuts & seeds, perfect for when you may need an exact amount – the prices are very competitive.

The aim of zero waste shopping is to lower the amount of packaging wastage as well as food waste. I don’t know about you but I’m guilty of buying a certain ingredient that I may not use every time I bake, then it gets stored (and sometimes forgotten abou) and I may not need it until it’s gone past the use by date and that’s not only annoying but also wasteful. If you’re like that, don’t forget FIFO (first in first out), that’s the one super useful thing I learnt at college.

The one thing I wasn’t sure about was how it all worked I regards to weighing and getting the final price, it’s actually really simple. The day I visited the women working behind the counter was called Dominika and she was really helpful and informative which was great, she couldn’t have been more helpful. When it comes to weighing and measuring your ingredients, you’ll want to start by getting your empty container and placing it onto the scales, then print out the sticker (this sticker is simply for the weight of the container, keep this one on the container if you intend on using it again in the future, you won’t have to print another one off that way), then you go and fill your container with the product you wish, go back to the scales then scan the bar code on the sticker you printed out earlier on and reweigh the container and print out your final sticker which is the price you’ll pay. Finally you can then go and pay and know you’ve saved some packaging waste from going into the bin.

I’d seen some videos and blog posts online where people had tried zero waste recipes and this would normally be fairly hard, unless you have a local shop. If you’d like to see more zero waste recipes from me, let me know by commenting on the blog post. This is something that’s helping to prevent both packaging and food waste.

Making these cookies doesn’t take too long, to make, so you don’t need an awful lot of time to make them.

Ingredients:

100g Butter.

100g Golden Caster Sugar.

100g Light Brown Sugar.

1 Egg.

225g Plain Flour.

1/2 tsp Baking Powder.

150g Oats.

100g Raisins.

Method:

Before you start on these cookies, you’ll want to do some prep work. Weigh up all your ingredients, line a baking tray with greaseproof/parchment paper and preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
Start your cookies by placing the butter, golden caster sugar and light brown sugar into a bowl and beat on a medium-high speed until they are well combined.
Once they are all combined give your bowl a good scrape down and add in your egg and mix on a medium speed until it’s fully incorporated.
Give your bowl a good scrape down, to incorporate any bits that haven’t been fully worked in.
Sift in your dry ingredients and mix them in on a low-medium speed until almost fully incorporated, then add in the oats and raisins and give a mix until the flour is fully incorporated and the oats and raisins are well distributed within the dough.
The dough doesn’t require being chilled before use, so you can use it straight away.
Take a cookie scoop and scoop up two balls of dough per cookie, roll them together into one and he flatten them slightly before placing onto your baking tray, these cookies don’t spread very much while baking.

Place the baking tray into your preheated oven and bake for 8-10 minutes or until slightly coloured around the edge.

Once out of the oven, an optional finish would be to add a few raisins on top.

Allow to cool on the baking tray until fully cooled, then enjoy them. I had mine with a glass of cold milk!

*These cookies can be frozen before being baked, just make sure that they are flattened before you freeze them or after they are baked, just keep them wrapped in clingfilm/plastic wrap.

Lemon Velvet Cake

by bakingwithelliott Leave a Comment

Whether you call her mom or mum, make sure you make her a special cake this mother’s day.

I now that Mother’s day is on a different date depending on where you are in the world, but in the UK its this coming Sunday. Make sure you’ve got all the ingredients in and show your mom how much you love her in cake form.

The cake isn’t just any cake, its a lemon velvet cake. It’s perfect for this recipe (and for spring in general). It’s packed with a lemon-y punch and finished with vanilla buttercream, it might not sound like it but these work really well.

You have 3 layers of lemon velvet cake, brushed with a lemon simple syrup and then finished with a ombre vanilla buttercream coloured in 3 shades of purple – the colours are customisable to suit you better!

To start, you’ll want to make the macarons. These are normally something that can be difficult to make but if you use the method I have provided, you will find them easier. Into a large bowl add in the egg whites and the colouring paste of choice, then give it all a good mix until well incorporated. Into a separate bowl sift together the ground almonds and icing sugar a few times, this is to remove any big lumps that may be in the ground almonds. Once you’ve sifted them together, you can then add the dry mix to the coloured egg whites and give it all a good mix until everything is combined, set aside until needed later on.

Into a small saucepan, place the water and sugar and place a medium-high heat, until it achieves 118c/. Into a clean mixing bowl (I opted to use my stand mixer bowl), place the egg whites and whisk them up until they are frothy, then add the sugar and whisk until its incorporated and has reached soft peaks. After that pour in the sugar/water mixture (make sure you turn your mixer speed down to the lowest setting, getting this mixture on your skin would result in a burn, so be extra careful. Pour the hot mixture down the side of your bowl, avoiding contact with the whisk). On wall of the hot mixture is in the egg whites, crank the speed up to high and whisk until the mixture is smooth and glossy and the bottom of the bowl will be cool enough to touch.

Now that you’ve got your meringue mixture and coloured almond mixture, you can combine the two. Simply spoon about 1/3 of the meringue mixture in and fold it in until it’s fully incorporated, then repeat with the remaining 2/3 of meringue. The mixture will change in colour and consistency, this is normal, it’s a sign that the ingredients are combined. Give the bowl a good scrape down, just to incorporate any bits that may not have been fully worked in from earlier on. The place the macaron batter into a piping bag.

Make sure all of your baking trays are lined with greaseproof/parchment, the. You can snip the end off of the piping bag and start to pipe out the macarons, i recommend you download a free template offline and print it off, unless you’re confident. Pipe out however many you can get on your tray, then tap the tray on the countertop, this will bring any air bubbles to the surface, then leave these for 30-60!minutes, or until a skin has formed on top of the, macarons (simply touch the top and if mixture sticks to your finger, it’s not ready). While you wait for them to dry, preheat your oven to 180˚c/350˚f.

Once the macarons are ready, you can place them in the oven and bake them off for around 12 minutes (give or take a few minutes, they shouldn’t colour very much). Once out of oven, you can take the parchment/greaseproof off the baking tray an allow them to cool fully before removing from the greaseproof/parchment.

Now that the macarons are made, it’s time to start on the cake. This isn’t your typical lemon cake, it’s a lemon velvet cake – if you like a strong lemon flavour, this is the cake for you.

Do some prep work before you start baking. Weigh up your ingredients, preheat your oven and prepare your cake tins if they need it.

To start on the cake, you’ll want to get yourself a large mixing bowl and place in the butter and sugar, then beat them together until they are well combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of your bowl, this is just to help incorporate any bits that may no have been fully worked in earlier on. The next stage is to add the eggs in, one at a time beating well in-between each addition, try not to add more than one at a time, otherwise you may scramble the mixture and this isn’t ideal (if you do happen to scramble the mixture, it’s not the end of the world. Simply add a tablespoon of the flour you’ve already weighed out).

Next you’ll want to add the colouring and flavourings, for me this is lemon yellow by Wilton and I’m flavouring my cakes with lemon zest, add these into the mixture and beat them until they are fully incorporated. Give your bowl another good scraping down.

Now you can start adding your dry and wet ingredients, don’t forget to start and finish with the dry ingredients, once they are all fully incorporated, give your bowl a final good scrape down. Then you can add in the bicarbonate of soda and then pour over the vinegar and allow to fizzle, then give it one last mix, just to work in the raising agent.

Take your cake batter and weigh it, the take this amount and divide by 3 and then weigh that exact amount into each cake tin. This is my preferred method of dividing the cake batter but feel free to eyeball it and guess how much is in each tin. Bake in your preheated oven for 25-27 minutes (or until a tester comes out clean).

While your cakes are in the oven baking, this is the ideal time to make your buttercream and simple syrup. To make the buttercream, place your butter into a mixing bowl and beat for a couple minutes until its softer and more spreadable, then scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add in your first half of icing sugar then give it a good mix for a few minutes, then scrape down the bowl again and repeat with the remaining icing sugar. Once the second half of icing sugar is added and fully incorporated, add in the vanilla extract and mix until fully mixed in, set aside until needed later on.

For the simple syrup place the water, lemon juice and sugar into a small-medium saucepan and place on a medium-high heat and allow to come to a boil, then leave to cool down fully before use.

Once the cakes are fully baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool down fully.

Once the cakes are fully cooled down, you can then level the top off each cake and give them all a generous brushing of the lemon simple syrup (using lemon will only enhance the lemon flavour, great if you like a strong lemon flavour). You can then layer the cakes together with a good amount of the vanilla buttercream, once layered/stacked you can then give the cake a crumb coat, this is just a thin layer of buttercream that will lock in the crumbs and not ruin your final layer of buttercream. Chill in the fridge for 30-45 minutes or until firm to the touch.

To finish the cake, colour your buttercream into 3 colours. I opted to go with 3 different shades of purple, I start with the lightest at the bottom and finish with the darkest on top, pipe equals amounts of each onto the cake, then smooth it all out as best I can with my cake scraper, you may need to scrape the excess buttercream onto some greaseproof paper and if there are any gaps/spaces, fill them in and smooth them off until you’re happy.

You can finish the cake however you like but i piped rosettes on top (and topped them with macarons) and a white chocolate drip, the drip is optional. For the chocolate drip, I place my double cream into a saucepan and place a low-medium heat just until it’s almost boiled. Pour the hot cream over your white chcolate, allow it to sit for 1 minute, then stir until its smooth, transfer into a piping bag and use from there.

Macarons:

150g Ground almonds.

150g Icing sugar.

55g Egg whites.

38g Water.

150g Granulated sugar.

55g Egg whites.

10g Granulated sugar.

Lemon Velvet Cake:

90g Butter.

225g Granulated sugar.

2 Eggs.

Zest of 3-4 lemons.

Yellow food paste.

180ml Buttermilk.

220g Plain flour.

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda.

2 tbsp White vinegar.

Simple Syrup:

200ml Lemon juice.

100ml Water.

300ml granulated sugar.

Buttercream:

500g Butter.

1kg Icing sugar.

Whiter Chocolate Drip:

25ml Double cream.

25g White chocolate.

Basic

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