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Category Archives: Christmas

Organising a Great BLF Bake Off

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by melandjoycook in Christmas, Desserts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bake off, BLF, british lung foundation, chocolates, christmas, dessert, father christmas, festive, gingerbread, homemade, santa

Great BLF Bake Off

Great BLF Bake Off

As part of the British Lung Foundation’s (BLF) Christmas celebrations we organised the first ever Great BLF Bake Off. There were some fantastic submissions so I thought it would be nice to share some of the recipes. It a great way to get into the Christmas spirit and can also be a festive fundraising event.

The overall winner of the Bake Off was the fantastic cake ‘Santa’s Coming to Town’ by lovely and talented, Cat Holland. For a full recipe please click here.

Santa's Coming to Town!

Santa’s Coming to Town!

My Homemade Chocolates won Dr Penny Woods’ special prize of most impactful and outreaching. Click here for the full recipe.

Homemade chocolates

Homemade chocolates

Beautiful Homemade Chocolates

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by melandjoycook in Christmas, Desserts, Valentine's

≈ 2 Comments

Homemade chocolates

Homemade chocolates

Every Christmas I like to try and make something different for presents, last year it was chutney and jam, this year I thought I’d try making chocolates. They are fun and not too hard to make, though a little fiddly but are incredibly luxurious tasting presents.

Homemade chocolates

Homemade chocolates

I’ve been testing them on my colleagues at the British Lung Foundation (BLF) so I can make the perfect ones for Christmas. We had the first ever Great BLF Bake Off, the ideal opportunity to try and make some impressive chocolates.

There are two parts to making chocolates, you have the ganache and the melted chocolate.

Homemade chocolates

Homemade chocolates

What you need:

To make about 18 chocolates

250g of the best quality dark chocolate you can find (at least 70% cocoa content)

Ganache
80 ml double cream
100g good-quality 70% dark chocolate

Equipment
Silicon chocolate moulds
Heat resistant spatula
Saucepan
Heat resist and bowl

Making chocolate filling ganache
Ganache is a fantastic way to get different flavours into your chocolates – this is when you can let yourself be as creative as you want. I have made a few different flavours so far which include vanilla, rum, chilli, walnut and peanut butter.

Break up your chocolate in a bowl. Add your double cream to the saucepan and heat the cream – but you don’t want it to boil. Just before the cream comes to a boil add about half of it to the chocolate and stir – the cream’s role is to melt the chocolate. If the rest of your cream has cooled down reheat it and slowly add to the chocolate and continuously stir it to make sure it all melts.

If you want different flavours for your fillings separate the ganache into separate bowls and then add the different flavours. Add as little or as much as you like of each (though if you are adding a liquid be careful not to put too much or it will be too liquidy).

When you have added your flavours cover each bowl with cling film and put in the fridge – this will help it harden.

Your ganache will last for about 2 weeks in the fridge.

Making your chocolates

The trick to tempering your chocolate

Tempering chocolate

Tempering chocolate

The most important thing when making chocolates is tempering (melting) your chocolate properly. If the chocolate over-heats your chocolates won’t have a glistening colour and snappy texture, and with gradually develop a white film over them – which is very disappointing after all the effort that goes into making chocolates.

I’ve never been very good at tempering chocolate and think it is a little down to my lack of patience but after a disappointing batch of chocolates I am prepared to wait as long as I need to ensure my chocolates shine!

Melt your chocolate in a bain-marie (water bath), a technique used to slowly melt the chocolate at a low temperature. In the past my bowl has touched the boiling water but I have found it’s better to have your bowl sitting in the pan and not touching the water, so that only the steam is heating the bowl and chocolate.

Some people use thermometers to ensure their chocolate doesn’t go past a certain temperature but my little trick is to boil water in a kettle add it to the saucepan and add my bowl of chocolate and not turn on the heat. I leave the chocolate to slowly melt and stir. Once the water temperature stops melting the chocolate, remove the bowl, turn on the heat and re-boil the water, then turn the heat off and put the bowl over the water again – continuously stir your chocolate with a spatula. The chocolate should be smooth and silky and not gluppy or lumby.

Filling the sides of the moulds
Now that your chocolate is melted you want to fill the bottom and sides of your moulds – the shell of the chocolates. I use a small spoon for the bottom of the moulds and then a tooth pick or wooden skewer for the sides – dipping it in the chocolate and then covering the sides. You don’t need the chocolate to be too thick.

Fill bottom of mould

Fill bottom of mould

As you fill the bottom of your moulds, gently hit them on your kitchen surface. This will remove any trapped air in the chocolate.

Chocolate on the sides of the moulds

Chocolate on the sides of the moulds

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Leave your moulds at room temperature (my kitchen is usually the best and coolest room) to cool.

At no point do you want to put your chocolate in the fridge – this will make them whiten.

Filling your moulds with ganache

Add the ganache

Add the ganache

Once your chocolate has set – this can take around 30minutes to an hour – you can add your ganache. Use a spoon or pipe (I use a small spoon) and fill them about 3/4 of the way.

Completing your chocolates
Re-melt your chocolate – this shouldn’t take long and a boiled kettle should be enough.

Fill the moulds

Fill the moulds

Using a spoon or pipe fill your moulds and continually hit on your kitchen surface to remove trapped air.

Remove all the air

Remove all the air

Once filled leave your filled moulds at room temperature to harden. They should easily pop out of the moulds when done.

Making a Christmas present
Cut a small square/ rectangle of cardboard, cover with some Christmassy material, I use cello tape on the bottom. Place chocolates on the cardboard. Cover with transparent plastic paper – using a little cello tape again at the bottom to hold. Then tie a pretty bow around it to give that finishing touch.

Enjoy!
Mel

Santa’s Coming to Town!

14 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by melandjoycook in Christmas, Desserts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bake off, biscuit, british lung foundation, cake, christmas, colouring, father, figures, gingerbread, house, icing, layered, santa

Santa's Coming to Town!

Santa’s Coming to Town!

Special guest blogger, Cat Holland, explains how to make her fantastic ‘Santa’s Coming to Town’ cake.

Icing figures

Icing figures

Icing figures

The figures need time to dry and harden and so it’s best to make these a couple of days before you make the whole cake.

If you haven’t made icing figure before there are lots of YouTube clips out there so I recommend you watch a few to give you an idea of what to do and what you need.

To make these figures I used white ready to roll fondant icing and coloured them using icing colour paste. I made each of the body parts and constructed the figures using cocktail sticks, water and a paint brush. You can use edible glue but the icing becomes quite tacky when it’s being handled and so water is enough to hold the icing together.

Gingerbread House

Gingerbread house

Gingerbread house

I used my favourite gingerbread biscuit recipe for my house. There are lots of recipes out there and so I suggest using one with the right balance of flavours for you.
Using a ruler, pencil and baking paper I drew and cut out the shape of the house including windows. Have a think about the size and style of the house and roof you would like for your house before drawing.

When your ginger bread biscuit mixture is rolled out, (to approx. 5mm thick) place the baking paper cut outs on top and cut around then shapes using a pizza slicer for ease. Make sure you leave an extra 5mm around the roof triangles to makes sure they are big enough to fit together.

Lay the cut out ginger bread on to a baking tray cover with baking paper and put into the oven until they are golden brown, approx. 18 mins, depending on your recipe and the thickness of your ginger bread.

When it is baked, leave it to cool.

Check that the pieces will fit together and then get making the icing and butter cream.

To stick my house walls together I used icing sugar and water and piped it on to the edges. After a couple of hours I used a stiff, coloured butter cream, put into a piping bag with a star nozzle to stick the roof together and on to the house. The butter cream has a pretty finish, is strong and can cover up any gaps you may have between the biscuit.

Once it is dry and stable you are free to decorate the house as much as you would like. I decided to go for a simple house, but did add brown icing onto the roof to create a tilling affect.

The sponge cake

Layered cake

Layered cake

I wanted my cake to have Christmas flavours as well as a Christmas design and so I decided on the following; chocolate & cinnamon with dark chocolate chunks and a orange flavoured sponge.

For most of my recipes I use a basic mixture:

2oz unsalted butter
2oz caster sugar
2oz self-raising flour
1 egg

I then double/ triple this mixture depending on how much I need and then add the flavour I want.

For this cake I added:
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
2 tablespoons chocolate powder
100g of broken dark choc chunks
1-2 tablespoon of milk
The peel of one orange
½ the peel of a lemon
The juice of half an orange

To make the inside look Christmassy, I used my Christmas silicon pop cake mould to bake green mini trees. I then placed these in to the cake tin with the chocolate mixture before going into the oven so that the mixture would rise and bake around the already baked Christmas trees.

To make the orange flavoured sponge Christmassy I split the mixture between two smaller tins and added red bake safe colouring paste to one and green to the other.
Both cakes went into the oven for approx. 20- 40 minutes.

The icing

To cover the cakes before icing them with rolled fondant icing, I made a stiff butter cream flavoured with the juice of half an orange. Covering the cake with butter cream ensures that the rolled fondant icing has a smooth finish.

I wanted the outside of the cake to tell a story and to use blues and whites to represent winter and snow.

The bottom tear was wrapped with a blue plaited icing and covered with a flared white icing. The top tear was covered with plain white icing all over and trimmed neatly.
To create the plaited blue and white icing I added icing colours to two balls of icing to create different shades and left one ball white. Using an icing smoother, I rolled the balls into long sausage shapes. These three sausage shapes were then plaited together.

With a rolling pin I flattened and rolled out the plait to create a bonded patterned icing to wrap around the sides of the bottom tear.

Using plain white icing, I rolled it out and then cut a circle using the tin it was baked in and placed it on top of the bottom tear, scalloping the edges to give the wavy effect.
I then placed the top tear on top.

With a circle nozzle I piped blue butter cream around the edges of the cake to create a clean finish.

When the main cake complete you need to decide how you want your cake to look. I placed the ginger bread house on top, painted a pathway, and used green butter cream to ice on a Christmas tree, and grass.

And that’s how I made my “Santa’s Coming to Town” Christmas cake.

Enjoy!
Cat

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