Blowing away the cobwebs...

This blog has been gathering a substantial layer of dust over the last few months - mainly due to my laziness, actually entirely due to my laziness - however it doesn't mean that my kitchen has been gathering dust too. I have been baking even if its not as regularly as I would like. I've continued to try new things and I thought I would do a quick overview as to what's been coming out of the oven in the past few months.

English Muffins

When I tried to make bagels a few months back they ended up tasting more like English muffins, I figured that this was clearly where my natural strengths lie so I'd be stupid not to give them ago.

I really enjoyed this bake, they didn't quite have the rough texture inside that English muffins should, but they tasted great - toasted and slathered in butter. ( What doesn't taste good slathered in butter?!)

Banoffee Cupcakes

I'd been wanting to make banoffee cupcakes for a while, mainly just to see how they would taste and how adding mushed up banana would affect the cake.

Overall, these were a sort-of success; they didn't rise as much as I would have liked, I think I should have used more raising agent to offset the weight of the bananas, (this bake is when I also decided that my baking powder may have been passed its best) the toffee flavoured icing, however, was, divine.

I was feeling a bit adventurous, so I also made spun sugar decorations for the top; another new technique. I burnt the sugar on the first attempt (really not a good smell) but got it right for the second go - makes a nice little decoration.

(Yes, that is a new cake stand - Christmas present from the boyfriend! Gold star for noticing)

Lemon Curd Dimples

I can't remember what these biscuits were called in the original recipe but I've come up with this one and I'm going to run with it!. These biscuits came about because I had some lemon curd to use and I didn't fancy doing anything too taxing.

They are pretty much just a normal biscuit dough, shaped into balls and then pressed down with a thumb to form a dimple into which you put lemon curd. Simples.

Easy to make and they don't taste too bad either.

Bloomer Loaf

If you've ever read any of my other posts you will be well aware of my love/hate relationship with bread - I love making it, it hates working perfectly for me. The main problem I've always had is that my dough has been too dry meaning it's hard to shape and producing a dry end product. However I watched Paul Hollywood work his strangely sexy magic on a bloomer and he revealed the tip of needing the loaf in oil rather than flour, this allows the dough to be pretty wet and not get dried out by the flour or stick to your hands.

It definitely made for my best bread bake yet.

It also made for a pretty great bacon sandwich!