Yes they are as cheeky as they sound. If you’re at slimming world then close your eyes, cos these bad boys are SINFUL.
Cookie + jaffa cakes + brownie + Terry’s chocolate orange = a lot of layers, a lot of fun.
Everybody loves a classique brownie, but honestly these are just on another level. If you still need more convincing, here’s some feedback from my scavenger housemates who polished off the entire tray within 24hours.
A bit greasy and a massive flake, but we always go back for more – the croissant is the F-boy of the pastry world.
Making croissants is definitely a labour of luv so if you’re looking for a quick sweet fix, this is not the one for you. If however, you have a spare couple of days and want to make some DELISH pastry morsels then keep reading…
I made these little lovelies as part of the BreadAhead online tutorial. It was so much fun, learned a lot and would highly recommend if you want something different to do in lockdown – they have a massive range of tutorials it’s not just croissants! (BreadAhead pls sponsor me)
Before we get into it, here’s this week’s KG:
Kitchen Goss
Another week, another new hobby. That’s right, I’m officially a yogi. Leeds Yoga society are running daily classes online so you can try out different types of yoga and embarrass yourself on zoom whilst doing it. Yin yoga is the top runner for me, it involves pillows and blankets – enough said really.
My current fave pose: Shavasana (corpse pose). You just lie still on the floor – bliss. I have not mastered any more advanced poses yet, but give me a few weeks and I’ll be one of those ripped, tanned girls doing yoga on the beach for my youtube channel. Like and subscribe xoxo
Back to biz
Ingredients
DAY 1
500g strong white flour (white bread flour)
12g salt
55g caster sugar
40g unsalted butter
15g dried yeast
140ml cold water
140ml whole milk
DAY 2
250g cold unsalted butter
1 egg
Method
DAY 1
Pop flour, salt, sugar and dried yeast in a bowl and combine
make a well in the centre
Add in the milk and water and mix together until a dough forms
TOP TIP: you can smush it a bit to incorporate all the dry ingredients in but do not knead it!!! This will overwork the dough and make the folding tomorrow very hard.
Cover the bowl with cling film and whack it in the fridge for 8-12 hours (or overnight)
DAY 2
Take your dough out the fridge
Using your knuckles smush it into a rough square shape
With a rolling pin roll out each of the corners, leaving a raised square centre and 4 thin flaps/corners
get your butter out of the fridge
Bash it out with a rolling pin until it is a similar size to the raised dough square
Place your butter sheet on top of the raised dough square
Pull the bottom flap of dough to completely cover the butter
Pull the top flap of dough 80% over
Pull the side flaps across to the middle
What we have basically done here is wrap up our butter in the dough like wrapping up a parcel
with the seam running in the middle (the line where the side flaps meet) use your rolling pin to push down and create ridges in the dough (this makes it easier to roll)
Then roll out until a long rectangular shape (about 1/2 a rolling pin wide and 1 1/2 rolling pins long)
Fold the top of the dough over 2/3rds
Fold the remaining flap of dough over that (so you have a square of dough that is 3 layers thick)
Seam on the LEFT
This is called a fold! For croissants we will do 3 folds in total
TOP TIP: after the first fold keep the seam on the LEFT, this keeps all your folds in the same direction to give you nice layers
With the seam on the left, roll out your dough into a long rectangle again
Fold as you did before (top over 2/3rds, remaining flap on top of that so you have a 3 layered square ish shape)
Cover in cling film and put in the fridge to chillax for 1 hour (or more)
Once suitably relaxed, get it out and you guessed it roll into a long rectangle (remember seam on the left!!)
Fold as you did before – this is the 3rd and final fold!!! Nearly there now
cover again and put in the fridge to chill out for 3 hours (or more)
take the dough out, this time with the seam running HORIZONTALLY roll out until it is about 5mm thick
Cut triangles out of the dough (use 4 finger widths to keep them equal)
Mind the tootsies oops x
Stretch each triangle out by holding it up and running your other hand gently down it
Cut a small slit at the base of the triangle
Roll up from the base of the triangle until it forms a little croissant shape
Beat your egg and brush on top to make a nice golden glaze
Leave the croissants to rise in a warm place for 2 hours
Preheat your oven to 190C and (finally) whack in your croissants for 15 mins until nice and crispy
Get them out and scoff them all – it will be worth all the hard work I promise!
You made it to the end of that VERY long recipe, give yourself a pat on the back.
Thanks again everyone for all your continued support, comment any recipes you want to see next!
Since nobody has been able to jet off to Benidorm or any other exotic location this year, it’s time to bring the sun to us with this tropical traybake.
This orange and passionfruit cake will provide the sunny vibes, but if you really want to recreate the ‘Brit on holiday’ experience, then you’ll also need to do the following:
wear a ridiculous tropical shirt (bonus points if it matches with the rest of your travel companions)
get up at the crack of dawn to ‘save the sunbeds’
burn to a crisp on the first day
say it’s boiling at least 17 times a day
learn how to say hello in the local language, then proceed to speak English
Before we get into the nitty gritty of the recipe, here is this week’s (very embarrassing) kitchen goss
Kitchen Goss
I can’t quite believe I’m exposing myself this much on KG, but this is too funny not to share.
So I recently rediscovered this voice memo I made in 2018 when I was revising for my chemistry A-level. I must’ve seen a pinterest thing on creative ways to revise or something, because something unholy possessed me to make a song about electrophilic addition.
Yes it’s to the tune of ‘These Words’ by Natasha Bedingfield
Yes it took me all day to write (and I couldn’t even make it rhyme)
Yes the full version of ‘Mechanisms Mix *flame*’ is available on soundcloud
I can’t bring myself to listen to the full thing, and safe to say I will never be doing that again.
Back to the bake…
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE
225g butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self raising flour
1 orange – zested n juiced
1tsp vanilla extract
FOR THE ICING
150g butter
300g icing sugar
3tbsp passionfruit curd (or adjust to your taste)
1tsp vanilla extract
gel food colourings
Method
whack your butter and shug in a bowl and beat until light and fluffy
add eggos one at a time
fold in flour, orange zest, vanilla and 3/4 of your orange juice (save the remaining quarter for icing time)
Whack this in whichever tray tickles your pickle, make sure to grease and line it
bake for 20-25 mins at 180C (or if your oven doesn’t have numbers on it like mine, then just take it out when it looks golden and a knife comes out clean when you poke it in)
Whilst that’s cooling you can crack on with the icing
whip up the butter and icing sugar
add the orange juice and passionfruit curd to your taste (it can be quite zingy)
if you want to decorate with painted buttercream flowers then split icing into bowls and add colourings of your choice (gel food colourings work best here)
once the cake is cool, remove from the tin and spread over a base layer of icing
Let this set up in the fridge – very important step otherwise going to be difficult to add more buttercream on top!
once harder to the touch, get the cake out and get creative
I ‘painted’ flowers onto mine, which is a technique I’ve been wanting to try out for ages, but go with whatever you feel looks fun n fresh
If you’re interested in how I decorated my traybake, then take a look at this very speedy vid below.
These truffles contain only 3 ingredients: live, laugh and love *monkey emoji*. Only messin it’s actually oreos, cream cheese and choccie, and they are soooo quick to make and even quicker scoff.
I decided to make mine into little pandas, not really sure why, I just got the urge, but you can decorate with whatever tickles your pickle.
Fun fact about pandas, they poo on average 40 times a day!!! Their pipes must be clean as a whistle, wish I could say the same, my iron tablets are clogging me up like no tomorrow. 😦
Before we get crackalackin, here’s this week’s KG:
Kitchen Goss
First of all, I hope you all approve of my new identity. It was a sad day changing from BTB but I think it was a strategic career move from me.
Secondly, it’s another lockdown which means more questionable online purchases. Last night’s deal was a posture corrector in a desperate attempt to solve my Quasimodo back. It’s like a full on back brace, but nothing I can’t pull off. Will keep you all updated with the results, if I’m not a model in a month I’m going to be FUMIN.
Ok recipe time…
Ingredients
24 oreos
160g full fat cream cheese
optional – 1 tbsp icing sugar
200g white choc, 100g dark choc
Method – makes 10 golf ball sized truffles, triple the recipe if you live with Vic Fletcher
Choose your weapon to crush the oreos e.g. blender, rolling pin
make sure they’re finely crushed, you don’t want bitty truffles
plop your cream cheese into the crushed biccies and stir
I like to sweeten mine a bit more with 1 tbsp icing sugar but if you’re not addicted to sugar like me then you can skip this bit
form into balls – size is up to you, I made mine golf ball sized
place on a tray lined with baking paper/tin foil
pop in the freezer for 15 mins
whilst they’re chillaxin, get melting your choccie
take the chilled ballz out and coat in the choccie, I use a fork to get them out so some of the choc can drip off
top tip – if you’re coating in the white choc I would melt your choccie in batches because it can get a bit dirty from the oreo balls, so just melt enough to coat 1 or 2 truffles at a time!
if you’re a bit random and also want to make them into pandas, I did the face with white and dark choc and just used a cocktail stick to draw it on, and carved the ears out of an oreo using a knife (or you can just nibble it into shape)
if you don’t pandas then let your creative juices flow and decorate any way you like!
We’re taking it back to my baking roots – the birthday cake. When I had first properly got into baking about age 12, the fondant bday cake was my stomping ground. Now, fondant isn’t what all the trendy kids want (youths these days grrr), so instead we move over to buttercream cakes – tastier, but harder to make look semi-decent.
This is one of my first buttercream cakes and went a bit off the rails with it. Feelin like one of those edgy art people and off to get a very short fringe cut to fit my new persona. Honestly, just call me Bob Ross x
Before we move on, here’s this week’s KG…
Kitchen Goss
I’m back in L town after TOO long. My cave is finally decorated (yes the nawti Mary Berry poster has made a return.) Despite all odds, my houseplants have survived their first week (hello Miss Greenfingers). I won’t do my washing until I have 1 sock and an age 12-13 T-shirt left. My housemates don’t hate me yet – give it another week girls 😉 and my diet has gone back to exclusively sour skittles and spag bol. IT’S. GOOD. TO. BE. BACK.
Ingredients
For the sponge:
340g butter
340g caster sugar
6 eggs
340g self-raising flour
zest of 3 lemons
For the lemon syrup:
85g caster sugar
juice from 1 1/2 lemons
For the buttercream:
3 tbsps lemon curd
swiss meringue buttercream or Italian meringue buttercream (basic recipe link here, you will need 2 or 3x this recipe:)
preheat oven to 180C and line 3 6inch round cake tins with baking paper
beat your butter and sugar
add in the eggos one at a time – don’t worry if it looks curdled at this point
fold in flour, vanilla extract and zesty stuff
plop even amounts into your cake tins
bake for 20-30 mins or until a skewer comes out clean
start making your syrup – mix together the sugar and lemon juice
poke a few holes all over the cakes with a skewer or whatever pointy item you can lay your hands on
drizzle the syrup all over the sponges – this will keep them super *MOIST*
let cool completely in the tin
make your buttercream and add in the lemon curd to flavour
level cakes using a knife or a cake leveller to be extra poncey
place one cake layer on turntable or plate
add a thin layer of lemon curd, followed by a blob of buttercream
sandwich with the next cake layer and repeat the lemon curd and buttercream blob
put the final cake layer on top
smooth a thin layer of buttercream all around the outside of the cake – this is called a crumb coat
pop in the fridge for an hour (or longer) to set
once set, smooth over a thicker layer of buttercream – use a palette knife and cake scraper (or anything with a straight edge) to work the buttercream into nice sharp lines
set in the fridge for at least one hour
mix small amounts of buttercream with food colouring of your choice
bring your chilled cake out of the fridge
get small amounts of coloured buttercream on a palette knife (or just a normal knife) and swipe onto the cake
keep going until you’re happy
mix up your splash mixture – stir together icing sugar and water until very drippy consistency
add whatever colour floats your boat at this point – I went for gold but sort of just looks brown 😦
dip in a paintbrush and shake it like mad at your cake
To finish off I added an isomalt splash – TUTORIAL COMING SOON – and put onto a basic silver cake board which I iced with fondant to make it look less rubbish
cut and enjoy x
And that’s the end of that very long recipe – sorry for blabbing on. Hope you all have a wonderful week. Lots of love, Han, BTB x
We all love a naughty bit of lemon driz, and this recipe from my queen – Mazza Bazza – is absolutely spectacular.
I was trying out my new loaf tin for this bad boi (yes it was another B&M purchase before you ask) and now I think I’ve spiralled into a slightly worrying tin obsession. What will be next?!? Classic bundt tin, or maybe a fun willy shaped one??? Who knows x
Before we get into the citrussy goodness, time for some juicy kitchen goss…
Kitchen Goss
6 years ago, the entire nation was busy filming themselves being drenched in iced water. Sometimes you’d stumble across a gem – ones where people’s tops fell down or they slipped – but most were just like mine: uncomfortable to watch.
Here I am, aged 14, sporting my Ed Sheeran T-shirt (my first concert which I attended with my dad.) Jeans cutting off circulation to my legs, alarmingly large eyebags. Is that a festival wristband you see? Oh no sir, that is a wristband from guide camp. The bun and full fringe, a strong and iconic look that I am SURE will make a come back very shortly. I was cool x
This vid may be cringe, but the ice bucket challenge did help to raise lots of monies for a great cause and is providing quality entertainment 6 years on, so we allow it x
Lotus Biscoff has had SUCH a glow up these past few years. It has gone from the classic ‘hairdresser biscuit’ to now even having its own spread (which is excellent if you’ve not tried it).
Thought it was about time I jumped on the hype and I’m super glad I did. These little morsels are prettyyyyy fineeeee.
Before we get to it, here’s what you came for…
Kitchen Goss
I decided I needed more than a ratty handmade quote to decorate my room at uni this year. There was only one place for the job. The holy ground: B&M Bargains.
Honestly that shop is a genuine spa day, I always come out feeling rejuvenated and ready crack on with my elaborate interior design ideas.
Here are 3 reasons why B&M is better than an actual spa retreat:
At B&M you THINK you’re spending your life savings on cr*p, but get to the checkout and are pleasantly surprised. Whereas at a spa day you blow £200 to get naked and listen to whale music.
At B&M nobody touches you with oily hands (except that one time…)
At B&M you come out with loads of useless clutter. Spa day you leave oily and empty handed 😦
Salty, twisted, and a bit soft – no I’m not talking about your ex. These soft pretzels are super fun to make, and can be made salty or sweet (or both) depending what tickles your fancy.
These were another delight from my BakedIn box, and they did not disappoint. I won’t harp on about BakedIn again but they are mint (pls sponsor me xoxo).
Before we get into the twisty business, here is this week’s KG.
We’re all familiar with the sheer trickery of a raisin pretending to be a ‘chocolate chip’. It can leave you feeling hurt and embarrassed, and then you’ve got to choke down the rest of the raisin fraudster.
Not to worry, there are absolutely no raisins in these bad boys – we’re safe.
I wouldn’t mind being called a ‘tart’ if they meant this spiral veggie tart. This pastry delight is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than me, and it tastes delish too!
The good thing about this is that you can fill it with whichever veggies tickle your fancy, butternut squash, courgette, carrot, turnips, some weird looking thing you found in Aldi, the options are endless.