Croissants: A Beginner's Guide

Croissants were always going to be my entry for this month's Breakfast Club challenge - hence the 'Continental' theme choice. I have always wanted to try and make them, but the lengthy process I have read about does nothing for the part of me that always wants instant gratification from my baking efforts. None-the-less, hosting the Breakfast Club this month gave me the kick I needed (albeit I cut it a little fine by waiting until this weekend) and I hereby present the efforts of my first ever attempt at making croissants... 

I researched several recipes before I set out on this challenge, and tweaked a few things to come up with this version. I actually found that the method for making croissants is relatively simple; knead dough, rest, roll and fold, rest, repeat, then shape and bake. It's the resting periods between each section that make it a time-consuming process. They are however needed to make sure that the pastry remains laminated (layered with butter) as if you work the dough to quickly or too much, the butter will melt into the pastry dough and you will lose the structural integrity of the croissant. Figuring out the timing was something of a pain, so I've tried to do the hard work for you (assuming you would like your croissants sometime around breakfast time!)

Ingredients (makes 8 large croissants)

300 grams strong bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon fast action yeast
35 grams golden caster sugar
100 ml water
250 grams salted butter, cold
1 egg

Method

Day One

5 hours before bedtime: Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar, yeast and salt. Stirring with a wooden spoon, add the water gradually until the mixture comes together as a dough. You may not need all of the water. Turn the dough out and knead for around 5 minutes until smooth and elastic. Return the kneaded dough to the bowl, cover with clingfilm, and place in the fridge for 1 hour.

4 hours before bedtime: Take the risen dough, and turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out into a rectangular shape, and set to one side. Take the cold butter from the fridge and remove the packaging. Place the butter block on a sheet of clingfilm, and fold the clingfilm over the top. Using a rolling pin, bash the butter to flatten it, then roll it to around a third of the size of the rolled dough. Unwrapped the flattened butter, and place it in the centre of the rolled dough.

Fold the two halves of the dough over the butter to create a parcel. Wrap the parcel in clingfilm and refrigerate for an hour.

3 hours before bedtime: Roll out the dough into a long rectangle shape. Fold one third into the centre, then the opposite third over the top. Wrap in clingfilm and return to the fridge to prove

2 hours before bedtime: Repeat roll out and fold. Wrap in clingfilm and return to fridge to prove

1 hour before bedtime: Repeat roll out and fold. Wrap in clingfilm and return to fridge to prove overnight (around 8 hours)

Day Two

Take the rested dough from the fridge, remove the clingfilm and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out the dough to around 3-4 mm thick, aiming for a squarish shape.

Cut the rolled dough into 4 even squares, then cut each square diagonally to make 8 triangles.

Taking each triangle, and stretch one point towards you. Roll from the short edge towards you, to create a fatter middle section.

Twist the ends of the rolled croissant in towards each other to create the classic crescent shape.

Place the rolled croissants on a baking tray, with plenty of space between as they will double in size. Cover with a clean tea towel, and set aside to prove for 90 minutes (1 1/2 hours).

Finally, your croissants are ready to bake. Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Beat the egg, and brush the tops of each croissant with the egg wash. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until golden brown, then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve warm, and enjoy the freshest, tastiest croissants you have ever experienced!

This is my entry for Breakfast Club, which I am hosting this month, but is run and maintained by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours.

I am also linking up to Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior.

How To Make The Perfect Buttercream Frosting

Buttercream is a perfect accessory to any cake or bake, due to it's versatility when it comes to colouring and flavouring it. There are several variations of buttercream, from a simple butter and sugar mix, to the more complex and delicate meringue based buttercreams, which use various methods of mixing beaten egg whites with sugar or sugar syrup, then beating in the butter. These are known as Italian, Swiss and French meringue buttercreams, and each has a slightly different preparation method to create a slightly different taste and texture. 

This post however is about the most commonly found buttercream recipe in English dishes. It is made up of butter and icing sugar, generally in a 1:2 parts ratio, and can be used to decorate cupcakes, fill and cover cakes, or form the integral layer between a cake and its fondant covering. The recipe is simple enough, but I believe there is a knack to the preparation of buttercream in order to turn it from sickly sweet butter, into a smooth, light, creamy cake topping. A smooth, well prepared buttercream will be easy to pipe, without leaving raggedy edges and air bubbles. 

Vanilla Cupcakes with a pure Vanilla Buttercream

The ingredients here make enough buttercream to top six large cupcakes, or fill and top an eight inch cake. The basic ratio is one part butter to two parts icing sugar, so you can multiply up these quantities as much as you need to for your bake. 

Ingredients

100 grams good quality unsalted butter

200 grams icing sugar

a little milk

Variations

Buttercream can be coloured and/ or flavoured to suit the overall look and taste of your cakes and cupcakes. 

A selection of cakes and cupcakes I have decorated with buttercream

Flavouring your buttercream should be done around halfway through the process. You can add a dash of an extract, such as vanilla, rose water, peppermint, or lavender. For a more citrus flavour, grate the zest of an orange, lemon or lime into the mixture, or for a chocolate buttercream, swap out some of the icing sugar for a high quality cocoa powder such as Green and Blacks. You can flavour buttercream even with liquids, such as champagne or coffee. The important thing to remember if you are adding a liquid is to increase the quantity of icing sugar by double the volume of the liquid, so as not to alter the final consistency, and to incorporate them gently so as not to curdle or split the buttercream. 

Equally you can colour buttercream in any shade you should wish. It will naturally be a slightly off-white colour, however if you prepare it well, it will be as good as white to the eye. When using food colouring, always try to use a gel based colour, as they will not alter the consistency of your buttercream. If you do use a liquid food colour, remember to add an extra tablespoon of icing sugar to balance out the additional liquid. 

Method

Sift the icing sugar well into a bowl and set aside. 

In a large mixing bowl, add the butter roughly chopped into several chunks. Use a good quality unsalted butter here, as you will get a far superior flavour to using a spread containing vegetable oils. I always cook with salted butter, however to keep the lightness use unsalted here, plus you don't get the salt taste interfering with any additional flavour you add. I always use Lurpak for my buttercream, as I trust the taste, and it's lighter colour allows you to get an almost white buttercream. 

Now, take a hand whisk, and beat the butter for a minute...

...and another minute - can you see it getting lighter in colour? ...

...and one more - it should now have the appearance of whipped double cream, and be almost white...

Now we start to add the icing sugar. Retrieve the bowl of sifted icing sugar you set aside earlier. Now add the icing sugar two tablespoons at a time. Any more than this, and you will be engulfed in a white cloud of sugar as soon as you turn your whisk on!

Keep going now, adding a couple of tablespoons of icing sugar, beating until combined, and then adding a little more. About halfway through the icing sugar, add your flavouring if you are using one, this makes sure it gets fully combined through the buttercream.

Continue with the icing sugar until it has all been used. As you add more and more sugar, the mixture will start to thicken and get stiffer. By the time you have added all the icing sugar, the mixture may have formed a texture similar in appearance to scrambled eggs...

... carefully add a teaspoon of milk, and beat well. This is usually enough to bring the mixture back to the perfect piping consistency. If needed, add a second teaspoon of milk, but be careful as too much and the mixture may start to curdle. Your buttercream should now look like this...

If you are adding a colour to the buttercream, do it at this stage. Any earlier, and you risk diluting the colour as you add more icing sugar. Adding the colour to the finished product allows you to get exactly the right shade for your cake or cupcakes. 

Now you are ready to ice your cake. If you are planning to pipe the buttercream, prepare your piping bag and tip. Open the top of the bag wide, and fold over a good third of the bag. Use a mug or jug as a holder for your bag so you still have the use of both hands. 

Spoon the buttercream into the bag one spoonful at a time, each time, push the buttercream down into the bag, and use the side to scrape the spoon clean. Try to keep pushing more buttercream down into the bag to avoid creating any pockets of air in the bag that will affect the flow when piping. 

And now you are ready to pipe! Enjoy!

Honey and Ginger Bundt Cake

I decided to make a cake for my Grandpa's birthday this weekend, as the family were all having a get together on Saturday to celebrate. I love the 'get togethers' that we have in our family - they remind me of such happy childhood times - my grandparents have a gorgeous farmstead between Derbyshire and Sheffield, and my childhood was filled with walks in the countryside, summer days 'helping' bring in the hay, and big meals surrounded by aunties and uncles, pets, and cousins. Sadly they don't happen as often now as they used to, and with my generation now all in our twenties and scattered across the country, it is rare that everyone is in the same place at the same time. 

'Honey to the Bee' Honey and Ginger Bundt

When I came to deciding what cake to make for this occasion, I decided I wanted to create something that represented my Grandpa, rather than going all out with fancy icing and decoration, which I knew he wouldn't appreciate. I knew that this cake therefore had to be about taste, rather than style. I must also add that my Grandpa was a baker, and a cook in the armed forces during the war, so knows a thing or two about a good bake. No pressure then. 

Now I do know that he is partial to a little ginger from time to time, and equally that he always takes his tea with honey, not sugar, so when I stumbled upon this gorgeous Honey and Ginger Bundt recipe on Dolly Bakes blog during a late night browsing session, I knew it was meant to be!

I have added the recipe below, and made no variations - full credit to Rachel at Dolly Bakes - the cake went down a treat, everyone loved it, including my youngest cousin who, at the age of 11, I thought might not appreciate the ginger taste. My Uncle was straight up for second helpings, closely followed by my Mum - which is unheard of! My Grandpa complimented the moistness of the cake contrasted with the slightly crisp edges, and said that there was 'just enough' sweetness with the glacé icing and honey drizzle. And of course, everyone loved the fondant bees! They make me smile whenever I look at them! 

To make the bees, colour a small amount of fondant or marzipan to a pale orange colour. Break of a grape sized amount, roll into a ball, and then squash to a more oblong shape. Melt a small amount of dark chocolate, and pipe over the bee bodies in lines. Press two even sized flaked almonds into the body to make the wings whilst the chocolate is still setting, to avoid it cracking. Finally, using a cocktail stick dipped in brown food colouring draw on the eyes and mouth.

Ingredients:

• 225g butter
• 450g golden caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 350g plain flour
• 4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 200ml thick honey flavoured yogurt 
• 50ml local honey
• 100g crystallised ginger cut into small chunks and tossed in flour

To make the cake, pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees. Grease the bundt tin, and sift a little flour in. This is to help easy release of the cake from the tin. (On an aside - I only have one bundt tin at the moment, which is a springform universal tin, much easier for removing the cake, but probably frowned upon by the bundt experts!)

Soften the butter, then cream in the sugar a stage at a time. Then beat in the eggs one at a time.

Combine the flour, mixed spice, ground ginger, salt and bicarb of soda into a large bowl.

Measure the yoghurt and honey into a jug, and mix. Then add a third of the dry mix to the butter and eggs, followed by half of the yoghurt and honey. Another third of the dry mix, the remainder of the liquid, and then the remaining dry ingredients, and fold gently. 

Finally add the ginger tossed in flour - coating the ginger pieces in flour helps to keep them dispersed throughout the cake, rather than all sinking to the bottom of the tin. 

Place in the oven and bake for an hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. 

This cake would be delicious served as it comes, however as mine was for a birthday cake I added a little decoration. I mixed some icing sugar with water to form a glace icing, and poured it over the cake allowing it to run down the sides in a natural way. I drizzled a little honey over the top of the icing, and then arranged my fondant bees and a few sugarpaste blossoms across the top. 

Microphone Cupcakes: A How To Guide

Microphone Cupcakes

Yesterday I uploaded a post about my cousin's birthday party, where I made her a One Direction cake, and a batch of these microphone design cupcakes. I mentioned that I had a few troubles along the way, and I wanted to share with you all a step by step how I made these, and a few things I would do differently next time. 

To make these sparkly little treats, you will need the following;

- A good quality sponge cake batter
- Ice cream cup cones (the ones with the flat bottoms)
- Edible silver spray - I used Dt Oetker's Shimmer Spray in silver, from Tesco
- Plenty of kitchen roll
- Buttercream frosting
- Coloured sugar crystals - I used silver and pink here, but would have preferred black (my local shop was out of stock)
- Liquorice and/or strawberry laces
- A skewer
- A small amount of royal icing in a piping bag

So, to start, we bake the cupcakes in the ice cream cones. I love this method for two reasons, one because you don't need to use a muffin or bun tin, because they stand up by themselves, and two, because the sponge bakes really even inside, without forming a crust on the edges, so it is really soft and light to eat. 

Based on a sponge recipe that calls for equal parts butter, sugar, egg and flour, I found that one egg (approx 54g) and equal of the rest of the ingredients filled 4 cones. For the party, I used 6 eggs, and 330g of the additional ingredients to fill 24 cones. 

Divide the mixture equally between the cones, place on a baking tray lined with a sheet of baking parchment, and bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are firm to touch. 

Remove from the oven, and set to cool on a cooling rack. At this point use a small pallet knife to remove any overspill or edges from the sponge, so that all the cones are even ready for the microphone top to be iced.

Once the cones are cool, the next step is to make them appear metallic. I used here a Shimmer Spray from Dr Oetker. I found this product easy to use, however you need to make sure that you have covered every available surface with kitchen roll, as the glitter gets everywhere. I used two cans of the spray to cover 24 cones, but to be honest, they would have looked better if they had a third coat as well - you can still see the cone colour through the silver. The cans are quite expensive (£3.99 each) so I would have hoped that they would have stretched further. I also found that once they are coated the silver comes off on your fingers so keep handling to a minimum.

Once the cones are dry to touch, then we ice the top of them. Pipe or spoon buttercream frosting onto the top of the sponge. We will be making a dome shape, but the buttercream can just be applied like the picture. 

Empty the sugar crystals into a bowl and dip the buttercream portion of the cone in. I have to apologise here, I had too many hands full and couldn't photograph the process. 

Anyway, rotate the cone so that the buttercream is completely covered in the sugar crystals. Remove, and use the palm of your hand to to gently cup the top, moulding the frosting and crystals into a dome shape as per the photo. 

I had some issues here getting hold of black sugar crystals. My local cake shop explained that they could order in for me, however I didn't have the luxury of time, so had to settle for silver. Again, I bought two pots, yet they didn't stretch anywhere near as far as I had hoped. I made 12 silver, and then had to make 12 in pink as I had some in my cupboard. 

I also added some black edible glitter to the tops of the domes to darken the colour slightly. 

Next step is to create the band around the base of the dome. I used black liquorice on the silver topped cones, and red strawberry laces on the pink topped cones. For the liquorice bands, as I was using quite a thick liquorice so cut shorter lengths, and fixed two bands around each of the cones. You need a small amount of royal icing to 'glue' the liquorice into place. Personally I didn't have time to make up a batch of proper royal icing, so used one on my emergency Dr Oetker Designer Writing Icing bags... ;-)

For the red strawberry laces, because they are a lot thinner, I was able to stick the start of the lace in place and then wind the lace around the cone several times to create a thicker band. 

The final step is to create a 'wire' from the base of the microphone leading to the amp. For this step, we need a skewer, the royal icing, and some short pieces of the liquorice and strawberry laces. 

Using the skewer, carefully make a small hole at the base of the cone. Try to hold the cupcake by the liquorice band here to stop too much of the silver spray rubbing off onto your hands. For the strawberry laces, a single hole from the skewer is perfect, with the thicker liquorice I had to insert the skewer twice to make a wider hole. 

Pipe a small amount of icing into the hole as a glue, and then insert the liquorice into the centre of the cone. This forms the amp wire from the bottom of the microphone. I chose to secure the liquorice up in a slight twist as per the picture with a little blob of icing, but you could equally leave it loose. 

And that's it! A batch of cute little microphone cupcakes, perfect for any music themed party!