Gingerbread

I'd never actually made this before I did the Gingerbread Village Cake...however I had used shortbread before to give a cake some height quickly, so it seemed sensible to crack some out, and use it.

The recipe I used produced waaaay too much. I did about 4 sheets of biscuits, so this recipe can be scaled to suit. I was particularly pleased with the snap of the biscuit, and with a bit more patience I would have chilled the cut shapes to reduce spread (there was a little, but not enough to stop me constructing with the icing to fill in gaps)

Gingerbread - Ingredients

• Pre-heat the oven to 170'C (Officially 180'C, however my oven runs hot) 
• Line baking sheets with baking parchment or silicone mats

 Ingredients

• 250g unsalted butter
• 100g dark muscavado sugar
• 100g light muscavado sugar
• 70g golden syrup
• 600g plain flour
• 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3tsp ground ginger
• ½tsp ground cinnamon
• ½tsp ground nutmeg
• ½tsp ground cloves

Notes - I used half-and-half with the sugar here, however if you want darker biscuits, use all dark muscavado sugar.
I added in a variety of "seasonal" spices...you could just do ginger

1) Place the butter,  and sugars in a large saucepan

2) Sieve the flour, bicarb, and spices into a large bowl

3) Place the saucepan over a low heat, stirring until the butter is melted, the sugar has dissolved, and everything is smooth

4) Pour the butter mixture into the bowl with the flour, and mix in. Once its cool enough, knead to a stiff, firm dough.

5) Roll the dough on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. It may crack slighty (and it's quite greasy), but push it back together, it's fairly resiliant.

6) Cut out teh required shapes, and using a palette knife transfer to the prepared baking trays.

7) At this point, if you want neat shapes chill the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes. If you're less precious, chunk it in now.

8) Bake for 8-10 minutes (the precise time will depend on the size of the shapes...large panels may take upto 12 minutes, small biscuits may catch on the edge at 6-7 minutes).

9) Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then transer to a wire rack to completely cool.

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Choux Pastry

Choux pastry by itself doesn't have that much in the way of flavour, but it's a very good container for soft, high-flavour fillings. Most people know it for chocolate eclairs, but there are also profiteroles, Paris-Brest and religeuse.

I find it very temperature sensitive, and with my oven I tend to do it at 180-190'C. Drying the pastry is vital, so once it's done baking leaving it in the oven with the door cracked for 5-10 minutes can really help get the crisp, crunchy texture you're looking for. Once out of the oven it cools really quickly, so it's worth spending a little extra time to get it right.

The mixture of flours (50% plain, 50% strong) gives the final mixture a bit more strength and crispness. You can do it with just plain flour, however it may not be quite as strong structurally.

This recipe quantity will make approximately 15 Eclairs or Paris-Brest buns.

Choux Pastry - Recipe

• Pre-heat oven to 180-190'C
• Line a large baking sheet with paking parchment or a silicone mat

Ingredients

• 100g full fat milk
• 100g water
• 100g butter
• 3g salt
• 8g caster sugar
• 60g plain flour
• 60g strong white flour
• 3 large eggs

1) Place the milk, water, butter, salt and sugar in a large saucepan. You're going to be adding other ingredients, and stirring a lot, so err on the side of a larger pan.





2) Heat the mixture gently, while stirring, until the butter has melted and all the sugar and salt have dissolved.

3) While continuing to stir, bring the heat up to medium until the mixture is just beginning to boil.

4) Remove from the heat

5) Pour in the flour and stir vigorously until you have a consistent, smooth mixture

6) Return the pan to a medium heat and stir vigorously for 3-4 minutes. The mixture should become more elastic and glossy, and begin to pull from the sides of the pan when you stir it.





7) Transfer the dough to a stand mixer with the paddle attachment and mix for 2-3 minutes. You'll get a lot of steam come off, and you're looking to cool the mixture down a bit before adding the eggs (you don't want them cooking)




8) Add the eggs in one at a time, while continuing to mix on a medium speed. You want each egg fully combined, and a smooth mixture, before adding the next.





9) Continue to mix for anther 2 minutes so you have a very smooth, soft pastry paste.






10) Transfer the mixutre to a piping bag. You ideally want to use a star nozzle when piping, as this gives whatever you are piping room to expand when baked. For Eclairs, pipe straight , ~15cm tubes as neatly as possible. For Profiteroles and Religieuse pipe tight buns. For Paris-Brest pipe discs about 5-6cm inches across

11) Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them, as the pastry can burn quite quickly towards the end, as it's so thin. You can improve the cripsness by sprinkling a very small amount of water on the baking sheet before placing them in the oven.

12) Once they are done, turn the oven off, crack the door open, and leave in there for another 5-10 minutes. This allows any excess moisture to leave the pastry, leaving a crisp finish. If you are filling the pastry (profiteroles, eclairs etc) you can quickly add holes where you are going to fill them before this cooling phase, and this will help the steam escape.

13) Remove from the oven and leave to cool fully on a wire rack before cutting/filling/decorating.

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Pizza Dough

It's easy to forget that pizza is a bread dough...and it's actually incredibly easy to make, though a bit of patience will give you the best results.

This is a recipe I worked on a couple of years ago (before I was writing everything up on here). I found a bag of the dough sitting in the freezer...sadly it was no longer viable, however it spurred me on to make up a new batch from my ancient hand-written notes. The base of the recipe was to try and replicate a Dominos pizza base, my personal favourite. I spent a few evenings reading up on the subject...Dominos are obviously fairly secretive about the exact composition, however I did find out;

1. You need very high protein flour
2. You want a slow prove
3. You can freeze the dough (and this is how most Dominos receive their dough)
4. Polenta = Cornmeal = maize flour
5. The hotter, the better
6. My oven has a pizza-specific setting

The core ingredients are pretty simple, and this recipe will make 2 x 14" thin crust pizzas. For the toppings, just go wild. I use a jar of pre-made pizza topping, and then throw various things on (the photos here are chorizo, mushroom, onion and cheese).

The base recipe is here...I have modified it, and also turned it into sensible numbers! There are a couple of bits of specific kit you need;
1) A proving tub that fits in your fridge. I use a Really Useful Box that just happens to be the right size for proving a 500g flour batch of dough (you've probably seen it in photos before). The other item is a pizza baking tray...these typically have holes over the bottom to allow the moisture to escape, and for the base to crisp up.

Pizza Dough  - Recipe

Ingredients

• 500g very strong white flour (I used a 15% protein flour)
• 320g warm water (~40'C max)
• 10g caster sugar
• 10g yeast
• 10g salt
• 25g olive oil

1) Mix the sugar and yeast into the warm water with a fork, and leave for 5-10 minutes until it begins to bubble

2) Place the flour, salt and olive oil into a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment

3) Begin to mix, and slowly pour the water/yeast mixture in to form a dough

4) Mix on a medium speed for 10 minutes, until you have a smooth, soft, stretchy and glossy dough

5) Oil a container, and place the dough in there

6) Place in the fridge to prove for 24 hours. This is important, as you want a really soft, stretchy dough. It should roughly triple in size.

Assembly

• Polenta / Cornmeal / Maize Flour (to roll in)
• Toppings to taste;

• Tomato sauce
• Meat
• Vegetables
• Cheese
• Anything really!

Note - the dough recipe makes 2 batches, each of about 425g. You can freeze the dough, so after you've knocked it back place one ball in a plastic bag, and freeze. To use this, get it out in the morning and let it defrost naturally (no microwaves!). It should soften, and begin to expand again...then you can knock it back and use it normally.

1) Pre-heat the oven to 250'C. My oven has a pizza setting, where the base of the oven is heated up to make the base crispy (and you then put the pizza right at the bottom)

2) On a lightly oiled surface, knock the dough back, and split in half

3) Using a rolling pin, start rolling out a circle to match the pizza baking tray. It should be springy, so you'll also need to hand stretch it

4) Once it's to size, scatter polenta across the work surface, and press the dough into it on both sides

5) Place the pizza on the baking tray

6) Top as you see fit (traditionally tomato sauce, toppings, then cheese)

7) Place in the oven for 8-10 minutes

8) Slice and eat

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Fast Rough Puff Pastry

This is my bullet-proof rough puff pastry. I can't even remember where I originally found the recipe, but it's my go-to whenever I need to do laminations. So long as you're a bit canny, you can get away without the repeated chillings you normally need, and from start to finish be ready to go in 20 minutes.

One down side is that it is messy...you're working with a soft, buttery half-formed dough to start with, and you need copious amounts of flour on your surface and rolling pin, until the dough forms. I tend to work on a silicone mat, and then all the mess is in one place, making it a bit simpler to tidy up afterwards. I've used this recipe for all sorts of things;
Pies
Palmiers
Mille-feuille
Apple Tart
In fact, I'd always recommend making too much, and you're bound to find something else to use it for. It doesn't take any longer to make, and if you can get 2 or 3 items out of one batch all the better. This recipe makes enough for 2 x 21cm plate pies (top and bottom), to give you an idea...

Rough-Puff Pastry - Recipe

Ingredients

• 200g plain flour (plus a copious supply for sprinkling)
• 200g strong white flour
• ½tsp salt
• 100g chilled butter
• 100g chilled lard
• 50-100ml chilled water

 1) Place the flours and salt in a large, cold bowl

2) Chop the butter and lard into 1cm cubes

3) Add the fats to the flour, and ensure each of the chunks are separated and coated in flour in the bowl

4) Start to add the water while carefully mixing the flour with your finger tips...you're looking to form a rough dough around the lumps of fat. It is a bit of a messy process, however try and add as little water as possible, just enough to incorporate the flour into the dough

5) Turn the dough out onto a heavily floured surface. Sprinkle some additional flour on top. for the next few steps you want to make sure the dough has no opportunity to stick to the work surface.

6) Roll the dough into a rectangle about 35cm wide and 20cm high...it should be about 1½cm thick

7) Brush any excess flour off the top, then fold it into thirds, leaving you a brick-shaped block of dough about 10-15cm x 20cm

8) Rotate the block 90', and repeat the rolling/folding 5-6 more times. Remember to keep the rolling pin and surface floured, and just brush the top off before you fold. As you do the folds and rolls, it should begin to form a more recognisable dough and become smoother. You should also be able to see the large, flattened discs of fat within the dough

9) Wrap the dough in clingfilm, and place it in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes (or 10 minutes in the freezer). If you roll it slightly thinner before wrapping it, it should chill faster.

10) To use, roll to about 3mm thickness, and bake at 190'C for about 30 minutes. 

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Genoise Sponge

This is my favourite sponge to make, though it's probably the fiddliest as well. At a basic level, it's a fatless sponge with melted butter folded into it...this makes the final cake much softer and moister. I'd say genoise and macarons are the biggest tests of folding technique, which is probably the single hardest thing I've had to learn. I chea slightly by using self-raising flour...a true purist would use plain flour, and the beating of the eggs would be the only air you capture.

I did this batch of genoise with 3 eggs, though it expands up pretty well, and tends to cook quite quickly, as it's so light. The batch size will make 12 muffin-size cupcakes, a swiss roll tin, or a 23cm sandwich tin (though I normally use 4 for a sandwich sponge, as a like a bit more depth to a large cake). I also added lemon zest...genoise works really well with fruit flavours (I finished the cupcakes off by simply dunking them in a lemon water-icing).

For a foam-based cake, don't use vanilla pod seeds...if you add them to the egg mixture the small seeds really retard the foaming (I assume they puncture the air bubbles as they form). I would definitely recommend using a stand mixer or hand whisk, working the egg mixture takes a good 5-8 minutes, even with the assistance given by the cream of tartar.

Genoise Sponge - Recipe

Pre-heat oven to 200'C

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 50g caster sugar
• ½tsp crean of tartar
• 75g self-raising flour
• 60g butter
• (optional) Zest from 2 lemons
• (optional)  1tsp vanilla essence

1) Place the butter in a small heat-proof, microwaveable bowl

2) Place the butterin the microwave for ~30 seconds, until it is about half melted...stire it until it is fully melted, then put it to one side.

3) Place the sugar and eggs in a stand mixer bowl with the whisk attachment

4) Start to whisk the eggs and sugar. Once it has begun to foam, add the cream of tartar

5) Continue to whisk the mixture until it reaches the ribbon stage. This is when, as you bring the whisk out, a trail of the mixture is pulled out, and when it falls it leaves an impression on the surface. If it's too slack, the air will come out when you fold in the dry ingredients...if it's too stiff, the final cake will be dry.

6) Once the ribbon stage is reached, sieve in the flour onto the surface of the mixture. If you are using the lemon zest, add this in now as well.

7) Very carefully fold the flour into the egg mixture, trying to remove as little air as possible. I think everyone has their own specific technique...I tend to do a big, slow scoop round the outside, lifting the mixture over the top, and then cut through with the sharp of a thin plastic spatula. Things you'll often hear advised are to use a metal spoon, however what you are looking for is a thin edge, so you cut the mixture, rather than breaking the air bubbles. You need to delicately hunt for dry pockets of flour in the mixture, foten hiding down near the bottom.

8) Once you have folded in the flour, take the melted, cooled butter (it should still be liquid), and pour it round the outside of the mixture.

9) Carefully fold this in as well. You'll need to hunt down towards the bottom, and again lift and fold it into the top of the mixture.


10) Once all this is done you should have a smooth, light and slightly glossy mixture. You can now pour or spoon it into your cake tins (be careful not to bang the tin, or crush the air out now...you've just spent ages keeping it all in). Lightly grease the tins with a little butter, spreading it with your fingers to get a thin layer, especially round the base of the tin.

11) Genoise bakes very quickly. For a swiss roll sheet, it will take about 6 minutes...maybe 6-7 for muffin tins. Large cakes will take slightly longer to cool the middle, so maybe drop the temperature down a little to make sure you do not burn the middle.

12) Once they are removed from the oven, take care with them until they are cool, as they are delicate cakes...far more delicate than a butter-based sponge. Cool them on a wire rack, and then decorate (whipped cream and fruit is a great match)

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Shortcrust Pastry

A while ago, I went over to using a food processor to make shortcrust pastry. Rubbing in by hand is OK, but time-consuming, and if you have hot hands (I do), you won't really get the best results. Making shortcrust in a food processor is much quicker, and you get far more consistent results.

The other option you have in making shortcrust is what type of liquid you add. I find beaten egg again gives more consistent and malleable results...this recipe was for a fairly large batch (enough to line a very deep 23cm tin, with a bit of overhang), and I also needed to add a small amount of cold water as well as a large egg, though a smaller batch may not need this.

My take on pastry is it's always better to make too much, rather than too little. The base ingredients are cheap, it keeps well in the fridge, and it's probably one of the most flexible ingredients...I often use any left-overs to line a smaller tart tin (I have some 12cm ones), and use that to experiment with ingredients and recipes, before committing to a full-size bake.

Shortcrust Pastry - Recipe

Ingredients

• 300g plain flour
• 130g butter, chilled
• 1 large egg, fridge cold
• Water, fridge cold
• 1 tsp salt

1) Put the flour and salt in a food processor with a blade attachment







2) Chop the butter up into chunks, and add to the food processor







3) Pulse the mixture until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

You can do stages 1-3 in a large mixing bowl, and "rubbing" the butter into the flour. If you do this by hand, you want to add as little heat into the mixture as possible, so use just your fingertips, and carefully hunt down chunks of butter and rub them into the dry flour. You're looking for a breadcrumb texture, and the finer you can make it, the shorter your pastry will be. I'll be honest, a food processor is quicker!

4) Beat the egg, and add it into the food processor, while continuing to whizz and pulse.






5) The dough should come together...if it remains crumbly, add water a few drops at a time until it just starts to clump together







6) Turn the dough out onto a surface (or, I use a large mixing bowl, as it's easier to clean). Knead the dough a few times to bring it together to a smooth dough. Stop kneading as soon as the dough forms (it really shouldn't need more than 3 or 4 kneads...less really is more).



7) Flatten the dough to a disc with your fingertips, and wrap in cling-film







8) Place in the fridge for 20 minutes to allow the dough to rest. This should reduce shrinkage when you roll the pastry

This dough recipe was used for a quiche in an extra-deep 23cm tart tin, rolled to about 3-4mm thickness.

Rolling Pastry and lining a tart tin

1) Unwrap the chilled dough and place it on a slightly floured surface






2) Roll away from you, occasionally rotating the dough 90', until you have a disc about 3-4mm thick . My preference is to use batons to get it down to 5mm thickness, then roll it gently to a slightly thinner disc. It's always worth checking the size you're rolled out to by placing your tin in the middle, and checking that there is enough around the edge to line the sides



3) To line the tin, I prefer to take the base out, and then fold the pastry into a square (by bringing the edges over) to sit on this, then placing it into the tin.






4) Carefully tuck the pastry into the corners...you don't want to stretch the pastry up to the edge, but rather push the pastry down into the corners. Use a lump of spare pastry to push the pastry into the corners, and to fit the sides of the tin. Again, you don't want to be stretching the pastry, as it will shrink back when baking (and possibly tear).

5) Prick the base of the pastry with a fork. This is to stop any air bubbles forming when you bake it.

6) Don't trim the edges yet...leave these until you have baked the pastry, as then if the pastry does shrink back, you don't lose any height, and can trim it neatly.

Blind Baking

There are 2 reasons to blind bake;
1) To make sure the base is cooked, stopping wet ingredients soaking in (the dreaded soggy bottom)
2) Often, fillings are baked at a lower temperature to pastry. A savoury shortcrust bakes at 200'C, while an egg mixture (such as quiche) will probably be down at 160'C.

When you blind bake, you need to add some weight to the pastry, to avoid it rising, and to get a nice flat pastry lining. Traditionally you use baking parchment weighted down with baking beans (small clay marbles). I prefer to use cling-film, and a mixture of baking beans and dry rice...it's a little controversial (most cling-film says it's not to go in the oven), however the combination of a thin liner, and smaller weights means you can get a much sharper shape to the pastry.

If you do use cling-film, you need to be careful when removing the baking beans and dried rice, as cling-film can split, dumping all the rice into your tart tin (had it happen, it's a nightmare!). I'd recommend scooping as much as the beans and rice out with a serving spoon before lifting and removing the cling-film.

My other recommendation is to glaze the pastry with an egg wash when you remove the cling-film and beans...this once again has 2 purposes;
1) During the second phase of the blind-bake, this will brown off, giving a pleasing colour to the inside of the pastry
2) It seals the pastry, closing any small cracks, and preventing any leaks of the filling

So, with this in mind, the process for blind-baking is;

1) Pre-heat the oven to 200'C

2) Line the tart tin with cling-film, filled with baking beans or dry rice, ensuring that the weight is pressed into the corners, and is also pushing against the sides

3) Place the tart tin on a baking tray (this makes it much easier to handle getting in and out of the oven)

4) Bake the pastry for 12 minutes

5) Remove from the oven

6) Scoop out the baking beans and rice using a dessert spoon (careful, it's hot!)

7) Carefully remove the cling-film and any remaining rice/baking beans.




8) Using lightly beaten egg, apply a light wash to the inside of the pastry case

9) Return to the oven for 7 minutes...the pastry should turn a golden brown.



10) Remove from the oven to a wire rack








11) Using a sharp knife, trim the edges of the case to a neat flat edge

You can now add fillings, and bake again if required, based on whatever recipe you are using.

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