Gingerbread Men

Bake #3: Gingerbread Men

Hi everyone! So it has finally been starting to feel very Christmassy outside... there is hoar frost on the trees and there is swirling snow. And just so, I have been having a craving to start some holiday baking... just in time for my usual blog entry! (More or less on time) :)

So this week's bake is a fun one! I decided I would switch from baked bread goodies and have a go at some Christmas cookies... Mary Berry's Gingerbread Men recipe from the Baking Bible pages 258-259. As usual, I won't be including the recipe, but will describe the process and any substitutions that I had to make. 

Starting off, oven first, always important! And I promise I am remembering to do that much more easily, Mary Berry! So on the oven goes... her recipe did call for 190 degree C, which converted to 375 degree F. This time, I did not use the fan in the oven - I just put it on at a normal bake. Which still ended up being very much on the hot side, and I ended up reducing my baking time... but I will talk about that later. :) 

I felt very at ease with this recipe, it was pretty straightforward for the most part. The smell of ginger was wonderful! I took my time just smelling the ingredients and creating the dough. The one substitution I made in this recipe was in exchange of muscovado sugar, I used light golden brown sugar. Sometimes I google! I had never heard of muscovado sugar, which was what was really called for in the recipe. So I looked up substitutions, and most people had said that a light brown sugar works just as well. I mixed the dry ingredients before adding the wet, in order to make the dough. The recipe calls for golden syrup, so I wanted to include a photo of the type of golden syrup I used. I believe it is British, it is called "Lyle's Golden Syrup." I found it in The Bulk Barn. I think you would be able to use corn syrup as a substitution. Golden Syrup has a milder flavour, but is still sweet, and blends in nicely into your baked goods. Afterwards, I was starting to wonder if I actually could have added maple syrup! Next time, perhaps?!

The dough took a little while to form, and was quite crumbly. I was actually starting to lose faith that it would come together. So if you try this recipe, stick at it! It will form into a ball. It just seemed to take a little while for the syrup to work in and become oily enough to form the cookie dough. Make sure to flour the counter, so the dough doesn't stick! I lost a few heads off my gingerbread men, and then had to rework and roll out the dough again. Mary called for 1/4" thickness, but I think they could have been a little thicker maybe? It wouldn't hurt anyways. I cut out approximately 22 gingerbread men, very close to what Mary called for. She said I should end up with 20 gingerbread men. 

I placed the gingerbread men on greased cookie sheets, and decorated them. You can do this however you'd like! Mary recommended currants to decorate the eyes, and buttons. They tasted nice with the gingerbread, but some of the currants fell out, leaving the poor things eyeless! Unless I hadn't pressed them in hard enough into the dough. I later found that mini chocolate chips worked great, they didn't melt too much, but melted just enough to stay on the cookies. I used sprinkles I found in The Bulk Barn. They have a great selection of snowflakes, gingerbread men sprinkles, and a variety of red and green ones too. You could even ice them after they have cooled if you would like, or lightly dust them with icing sugar. Completely up to you!

You can see with how the ones in the tin turned out! Some were almost burned, 10 - 12 minutes was too long for them. After a few tries, I found that at 375 degrees F,  8 minutes was a perfect time. Because they were so thin, the baking time didn't take very long at all. However, my slightly burned ones weren't lost, they were great dunked in our coffees! So don't throw them away! :) (That is if this happens to you!)

So all in all, another enjoyable bake. So far, all my bakes have been, which is boosting me on to keep going! I am loving this challenge, and learning a lot week by week. Still, my cleanup needs work! And I haven't been brave enough to post any photos from near the kitchen sink... so if you'll stick with me I will show you next week. Then hopefully I can improve on that too! :) This recipe was easy to follow, just make sure you keep an eye on your ovens... maybe could even bake them at 350 degrees F, with the fan on, with 10 - 12 minutes or slightly longer. Always a trial and error it seems. But, nice and gingery flavour, but not too strong. If I was making them again, I would definitely use the mini chocolate chips instead of currants. They just seemed to stick better, for me anyways. 

I hope you are all getting into Christmas baking too! I will have a look for another Christmassy recipe from Mary Berry for next time. Fun bake this time, Mary! Thank you.

See you all in 2 weeks or so, I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~*Next bake coming soon*~

p.s. After having another few goes at this recipe, I decided to try out some more cookie cutter shapes. I used baking M & M's this time around for the butterfly wings and flower centers.

Cheese and Celery Crown Loaf

Bake #2: Cheese and Celery Crown Loaf

Hi! Wow, the 2 weeks since my last bake have just flown by! I am, once again, a few days late with my scheduled baking challenge. But, it's early days, and I'm sure I will improve as I journey along... probably... hopefully.

I hope you all had a lovely and spooky Halloween! A good friend of mine gave me the cutest pumpkin and I simply had to share a picture with you! At the moment it is sitting next to one of my Christmas house ornaments. That is the feeling at home right now... the transition from Halloween to Christmas. I also roasted some pumpkin seeds as well... however I unfortunately ended up burning most of them! Perhaps I will have another go this week and scoop out the seeds from my tiny pumpkin. They are great tossed in some melted butter, seasoning salt and some pepper too 

for roasting.

So, for this week's challenge, I thought I would try making some bread buns to accompany my homemade vegetable soup. The weather has been beautiful, but the days are turning colder now that November has come to her senses and we are entering into the winter season. So I decided soup and bread buns were just what was needed for today. I was also tempted to try these, since Mary says "This recipe is quick to make..." She had me there! But she finishes with "because it has no yeast in it, so the bread does not have to rise before baking." There you have it, a great quick bake for lunch! :)

Shall we begin? This recipe is featured in Mary Berry's Baking Bible, page 288. So, first thing was first, I made sure I read the ingredient list to begin with. Last week, I forgot that rule and learned I needed to think on the spot for a substitution. So, I have to admit I felt I was off to a good start! :) Oh, and then I put the oven on next. Mary's conversion chart for this recipe called for a 375 degree Fahrenheit Canadian oven. I started mixing all ingredients in a bowl, dry first, then wet. I made sure I chopped the celery very fine for this recipe. She does say to finely chop the celery, but I wasn't sure just how fine as I wasn't sure how fine it needed to be to bake quickly in the loaf. So I sliced it quite thinly and in tiny pieces just to be sure. 

The recipe calls for some garlic, which added a wonderful, savoury smell to the dough mixture. The celery and cheese in the dough reminded me of cheese and onion scones that we used to have in the bakery I used to work at. It smelled so good and was making me hungry already...good thing they whip up fast! I kneaded the dough mix gently in the bowl, then separated and loosely rolled into 12 equal pieces to make a circle on my baking sheet. (You can also bake the loaf as it is, once kneaded into a round, and then cut into servings after it has baked.) I popped them into the oven for around 40 mins. The recipe calls for 45 mins, however they were starting to brown quite quickly on top. I also had the fan going in the oven, so perhaps next time I make these I would bake without the fan to lower the heat. I figured the fan would help in rising, however I am learning it becomes much too hot 

too quickly. 

While they were baking in the oven, I made some homemade ham and vegetable soup. I was enjoying being in the kitchen today with smelling all these vegetable and spice aromas! Ahhh... heavenly! :) So, as you can see, they do look very brown on top. They aren't burned, but they definitely didn't need any longer in the oven! 40 mins was enough time. I tapped the bottom, like Mary told me to, and they sounded hollow. I cut into one right away... there is nothing like fresh bread hot from the oven with real butter! I could hardly wait and almost forgot to take a photo!

They certainly had a nice crunch, Mary Berry! The top was indeed crumbly and crunchy, but the middle was very light and fluffy. I enjoyed them very much! I did dunk them in my soup occasionally. I can tell this recipe is best the day of for eating. I have some leftovers, so I will see what they are like tomorrow...but they are very good straight from the oven. If any of you have been to Red Lobster before and had their cheddar biscuits, these seemed to remind me of them. They are similar, but the celery is very unique, and also...refreshing? Yes, I think so...among the cheese it is so different and I think this is what makes it very much like a lunch loaf. Very tasty. I think my only critique is that in the future I would need to closely watch how high the heat is in the oven. They could have been a slight bit softer maybe, but it did have a pleasant, lumpy and crunchy texture on top. They were very savoury and slightly salty tasting with the garlic, so if you are pairing it with homemade soup like I did, you really don't need many herbs or seasonings in your soup.

It was a good day for these biscuits...bread buns...crown loaf! :) I will see you again in 2 weeks or so. I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~*Next Bake Coming Soon*~

Banana and Honey Teabread

Bake #1: Banana and Honey Teabread

Hi again! I'm glad to be back! So, I have finally finished my first attempted recipe in Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I am a little overdue on my two week deadline...which is leading me to realistically aim for a recipe post every three weeks. Although I have a sinking feeling that if I extend my deadline, I may end up not posting for four weeks! So I will stick to the two week deadline from this post for my next recipe and see how that goes for now. :) I am also late because I had bought some bananas and waited for them to ripen, and then they over-riped and went bad...so I bought some more and had to wait for them to ripen too. I didn't forget about them second time around though! They turned out to be just nicely speckled brown, and not black...so I had a promising start, or second go, at this recipe!

I'm so glad I chose this recipe for my first baking blog attempt, because a) I thought it would be a good starter recipe as it contained a small list of ingredients, and b) because I have been drooling over the photo in the book for a while! This recipe is featured on pages 304-305. It has been an enjoyable bake from start to finish and I highly recommend it for an afternoon weekend tea with family and friends. 

So, starting off on the right foot... or "mixing with the right hand," I won't be including the recipe in my post, but I will explain any substitutions I had to make, tips with oven temperature (since Canadian ovens seem to be rather different than English ovens), and of course the things I wish I had done differently. So, here we go... "Ready, Set...BAKE!"

Well, even at the beginning of this recipe, I realized I had already completely forgotten one of Mary Berry's baking tips from her book. And it was the very first one... I guess I was too excited and went ahead full steam! So, I will include her first tip: "Always read the recipe carefully, checking that you have enough time and all the ingredients to make the cake before you begin." Well, I was missing an ingredient and then I had to make a substitution. I'm sorry Mary! Tip is now remembered and will be put to better use next time! So, my substitution involved using cinnamon instead of nutmeg. I had also considered using a ground mixed spice, which includes: cinnamon, coriander, ginger, dill seed, and nutmeg. However, sometimes less is more, and because the recipe called for such a small amount of nutmeg, I was sure an identical small amount of cinnamon would be fine. Nutmeg is a wonderful, cozy, fall and winter spice, as is cinnamon...so they sort of go together like peanut butter and jelly, right? :) Mixing all of these ingredients together filled the kitchen with such a comforting smell. The batter smelled much like a Christmas cake batter, or a poppyseed loaf batter. The combination of bananas, honey, and lemon smelled wonderful. I mixed the ingredients quite thoroughly with a wooden spoon - me being old fashioned again! The batter wasn't lumpy, but not completely smooth either, so it had a little bit of texture to it. I think this was probably a result of not mashing the bananas completely smooth before adding them to the mixture. Measurements can be tricky... I'm lucky my Mum is from England and so she does have a weighing scale which she bought over there. If you can invest in one they do save a bit of headache. I'm sure they would be available for purchase online. Again, something I may look into at a later date and let you know. Spoon measurements, and fluid ounces are fine, it is just when you get into measuring ounces of sugar, flour, etc. For example, I found that 1 oz of sugar or flour = roughly 1/8 of a regular measuring cup. So, if you can, I highly recommend ordering a weighing scale from England. It definitely helps! You can see the white scale I was using in this photo... along with my mess! You'll notice how I avoid taking photos near the sink in the kitchen. I'll work on cleanup skills next week while I'm baking. :)

The recipe called for a 2 lb loaf pan, so I took my best guess with some of the baking pans I had. I ended up using a smaller pan which measured roughly 8.5" x 4.5" by 2.5" deep. I greased the pan, and then lined it with parchment paper. I always find this helps to keep it in place better. A friend of my Mum's sent over some loaf parchment cases from England, so I gave one of those a try and they worked wonderfully. I will keep an eye out for them in the stores over here. Perhaps they have them at Michaels, or the Bulk Barn, but I will remember to look out for them and I'll let you know if I find them! They do save some time with fidgeting and cutting the paper. Always try and level your batter as evenly as possible to help create an even rise. Somehow I did this and it still raised up! Which did turn out to be a nice loaf, although it still didn't look like the picture suggested!

My next predicament turned out to be the oven. Always make sure your oven is preheated and ready to go, before you start mixing anything. This goes for any recipe you undertake, and yes, Mary was wonderful at reminding me about that at the beginning of the recipe. Thank you Mary. It is definitely going to take me a bit to get back into the baking world. So, yes, the oven. Mary does also include a conversion chart for temperatures, she is so helpful! I'm so glad I'm baking with her! So this recipe called for 160 degree Celsius oven, which turned out to be a 325 degree Fahrenheit Canadian oven. I also made sure I had the oven working with the fan, to help distribute the heat evenly. However, with the first 20 mins or so, I noticed it was beginning to crack. So, according to another tip from Mary, "If cakes crack on top during baking, it means that the oven was too hot or the cake was placed too high on a shelf." I placed my loaf pan on the centre rack in the oven, so perhaps one lower down next time. Or, maybe the oven should be turned down to 300 degrees, as having the fan also creates more heat in the oven. The baking time called for 75 minutes, and my loaf completely baked nicely with a nicely browned top in 65 minutes. Always check yours with a needle to see if it comes out clean to see if it has baked  properly. I let it cool in the pan for nearly 15 minutes, it could have used longer I think. This helps give it some time to settle and shrink from the sides so that it comes out of the pan easily. I later decorated it on top with some honey and decorative sugar once it had time to cool.

So, something I still need to figure out is how to prevent cracking, but I've realized in this baking challenge it has to do with the amount of heat, and maybe perhaps the size of my loaf pan. Perhaps next time I should use a slightly larger, or deeper pan. Trial and error! :) However, I was really pleased with the taste and texture of this loaf. It was wonderfully soft, savoury and sweet! I think the lemon zest in the recipe overpowers the honey slightly, but just the right amount as it adds a nice tang to the tastebuds, and proves it to be a light and refreshing loaf. Great for tea time, and not only for the weekends! It keeps well in an air-tight tin for a couple days as well. I didn't have a chance to freeze it, we ate it too fast! But I'm sure it would keep in the freezer well too. Great first go, and I loved the fragrance it made in the kitchen. 

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! See you in a couple weeks. 

I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~*Next Bake Coming Soon*~

Whisking Up A Challenge

So begins my Canadian baking adventure with Mary Berry... well, with one of her recipe books that is!

Hi! So this is my very first blog, and my first blog entry. I am thrilled, excited, and still not quite sure what I am getting myself into, but I am loving the idea of forcing myself to get better at baking. I have always loved food, and my Grandma and my Mum have been great role models with introducing me to the wonderful world of baking and cooking. They've shared their recipes, tips, and love for baking with me. I have been lucky to have had the same experience that many of us have growing up... licking the spoons, helping roll out cookie dough, etc. But, somewhere along the way cooking and baking became harder for me. I'm not exactly sure what happened. Don't get me wrong! Not everything I make turns out to be a disaster! I do make wonderful homemade soup, if I do say so myself! But sometimes my other attempted baked creations do turn into a soupy, sloppy mess. College life also put the brakes on keeping up with making proper meals, and never mind having time to bake a cake, which at times I desperately wanted to do and just sit and eat the whole thing... :) College tends to do that to you...

So, putting that behind me, I've realized I have simply lost my confidence in the kitchen. "How do all those dishes pile up in the sink?" Is something else I've wondered. I find I panic and just keep grabbing new utensils as I'm cooking or baking, and then before I know it the whole kitchen is in disarray. So, this is also something that needs addressing, and I am also hoping to improve this as well as I go along. During my last year of college, my sister and I would occasionally watch The Great British Baking Show on Netflix. We instantly fell in love with the show... who wouldn't love baking in an open tent in the English countryside? It seemed so relaxing... something that baking has lost for me over the years. Is it something to do with growing older? Why can't I get back to that same childhood wonder when I was helping my Grandma whip the cream, or with my Mum putting jam into butterfly cupcakes? Well, I'm hoping I can find that again and become more at ease with recipes from start to finish. Before I had even discovered the show, a good friend of mine had sent me "Mary Berry's Baking Bible." After seeing the show, and watching the participants bake her recipes, I realized I would love to try them someday too. Now that I have more time, I'm excited to jump into her recipe book. I even bought a new apron for my challenge! It has maple syrup jugs on, so I think it truly embraces the Canadian title of my blog.

Feeling a little like I am in the middle of the movie Julie and Julia, I am a bit apprehensive as I greatly do not want to upset Mary Berry. I am merely doing this for fun, to improve my own skills, and to share my adventures with those who care to follow along my journey with me. I will not be including the recipes, but I will let readers know which page in the book the recipe came from, and some helpful tips with converting temperatures and measurements for use in Canadian kitchens. After deciding to take on this challenge, and researching blogs, I have seen there are already some Mary Berry blogs out there, but I am very much looking forward to my very own baking challenge! My family is from England, and I am Canadian, so this feels like I am baking in both of the countries that I hold in my heart. We will see how things go...the goal is one recipe from the book at least every two weeks. I will switch between cakes, breads, muffins, etc. Well, I can't eat cakes all month, can I? :)

So, I will end with "Ready, Set, BAKE!"

~* First Bake Coming Soon *~