Baked anything tasty lately?

Walnut-Maple Buns from "Dessert Person"

Made them for my son's birthday on his request. Utterly delicious with hints of orange and cardamom. Will definitely make them again.

Mrs G! made her first Battenberg cake at the weekend. Not a precision bake but delicious all the same. 😋

Sure, but it's not much of one. They're really, really simple.

You'll needs :

1 sheet of ready-made puff pastry

150 - 200g crunchy peanut butter (I used ca 4 tbsps, so I'm guessing the weight)

100g xylitol, powdered (if you don't need to worry about sugar, you could use icing sugar)

handful of chocolate chips

1 egg

Mix the xylitol with the peanut butter. I had to add a bit of water, too, you want a spreadable, thick paste.

Roll out the puff pastry. If you bought a rolled out sheet, roll it out a bit more to made it more of a square than a rectangle.

Spread the peanut butter mixture onto half of the pastry, then fold the other half over. Press down or give it another roll with the pin to flatten it all down a bit more. Then cut the pastry into 12 strips, from the fold down.

Next, slice each strip into two until just before the fold, but leave it together at the fold. Twist the strip and form it into a ring or know. Place on a baking tray or in a muffin tin and brush with some egg wash. Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes. Let them cool down and dust with a little more powdered xylitol or icing sugar.

@Tree the cookies look good too hmm

Blackcurrant pies

I saw a quick video on how to make this on instagram and figured why not? I substituted the sugar for xylitol, which worked really well. But my first attempt at the choux pastry failed at the last hurdle - it collapsed completely while cooling down. But I'm nothing if not stubborn, went out for more supplies and tried again - and that one turned out rather well.

The thing's called a Paris-Brest 😅

For the Choux pastry, it's :

100ml water

100ml milk

120g flour

4 eggs

pinch of sugar

Flaked almonds

For the filling :

500ml of milk

150g sugar or xylitol

2 eggs

60g of cornflour

Vanilla essence

Making the choux pastry: Bring the milk, water, sugar and butter to the boil then incorporate the flour and salt. Using a rubber spatula, work the paste over a medium heat until it is quite dry and coming away from the edges of the pan. Once the paste has cooled down, add the eggs one by one whilst continuously whisking. Scoop into a piping bag, and pipe two rings onto a sheet lined with baking paper, then pipe a third ring on top. Sprinkle with the flaked almonds.

Bake at 180 for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 160 and bake for another 25 minutes. Leave to cool completely.

To make the filling, mix all the ingredients in a pot, bring to the boil while stirring continuously. Once it thickens, take off the heat and let cool down a bit.

Slice the ring down the middle using a serrated knife. Pipe the filling onto the bottom, then carefully lift the top on again.

Been threatening for ages to get a rye starter on the go and attempt a sourdough as the family love it but its outrageously priced in the shops. Bit of time and patience required to build up the starter but the result was worth it. I followed the guide at riotrye.ie if anyone is curious.

Lol thanks! I don't bake as much as I used to - it's hard to justify baking a whole tray of brownies when you're working from home and don't have work colleagues to share them with 🙈 I've frozen a good few though to keep them fresh, so I'll be giving some to the parents and inlaws when I see them!

A sugar-free orange an coconut cake. Humble, but nice and tasty nonetheless 😄

I had to stare at it for a moment before I saw it - that's really artistic, I love it! Did it taste as beautiful as it looks?

Made a Victoria Sandwich for Mothers Day :-)

Made another batch of fudge this evening (as a gift for a friend - any excuse!). I decide to try coating some of them in chocolate this time. I made a real attempt at tempering the chocolate, but I don't think it worked 🙈 It snuck back above 30C at the final reheat phase. But sure fcuk it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh and I normally use golden caster sugar, but could NOT find it in the shops! I tried 2 Tescos (they normally have it), Lidl and SuperValu. After doing a lot of research online, I decided that golden granulated sugar sounded like the best substitute. I'm happy to report that it worked! It's the second substitute I've had to make to this recipe, but somehow it still keeps working for me...

No problem, this is the original recipe:

But I've had to make the following substitutions, so it's barely the original recipe anymore 🙈

- Honey instead of glucose liquid

- Golden granulated sugar instead of golden caster sugar (I was worried the bigger granules would effect the crystalisation, but I just made sure to give it plenty of time to dissolve fully before whacking up the heat)

- Vanilla extract instead of vanilla paste/pods

Thanks for that - will definitely make that over Easter.

I am baking a long time and I have never tapped the tins on the counter before going into oven. As for flat sponges what recipe and more importantly what size mix to tin size? An awful lot of 'flat' cakes are the result of not enough mix in the tin and expecting miraculous rises, cakes do not rise as much as you think they will! If the texture is ok then the cake is made correctly, if it's not tall enough make a bigger mix.

Edit: Ah I misread your complaint! It's not that they are flat as such, it's that you want them flatter rather than rounded. Baking strips are great for that or lower the oven temp, the slower they rise at lower temp the greater chance for the middle to rise before the sides set from contact with the hot metal. The baking strips work in similar way in protecting sides of tin from full force of heat which slows down the sides setting as once set they can't rise further so forces centre up. Recipe also plays a part, the higher the flour esp self raising content as you can't control the raising agent the more likely to dome.

Had some SR flour to use up. I am useless at cakes and all that. Made some 3 ingredient lemonade scones. Well I was so chuffed, they were gorgeous, and all were scoffed by the hungry horaces within the hour.

Recipe online, the Oz one. I had a drop of Madagascan vanilla extract so that was the only extra ingredient. I made the dough into a rectangle and cut "squares" instead of rounds. No waste whatsoever. Can recommend these for any other baking gobdaws out there like myself.

https://www.recipetineats.com/lemonade-scones/