Well, we're only on week 3 and already my schedule is getting messed up. I was expecting a little bit of disruption but not this much. I am currently drowning in work as I get settled in at my new job. Being a teacher is hard! And being a new teacher is harder! There is still so much that needs organising and I am currently struggling to stay on top of things. That being said, it should hopefully get a little easier (just a little) and I'll be able to establish a routine for myself that allows me time for work and rest.
Anyway, that is the cause of the delay for this Bake Along Challenge! I was desperate to get it up before the next episode though so Tuesday night was spent rapidly editing photos (which ended up being taken without natural light, boohoo!) and typing things up! So without further ado I present this (or last) week's:
As always I'll give my thoughts on the episode, which this week featured bread!
Admittedly, I don't have a lot to say this week. This is in part to having a bad first proper day of work (kids started back on the Wednesday) and was feeling tired and miserable and wasn't taking notes. So unfortunately there is little commentary. That should hopefully not be the case with the next one.
Anyway, I will say I was surprised at Norman. As I said last time, I was expecting him to do well this week but he's still being too simple. I get that that is what he likes but this is GBBO! You have to work outside the box.
Luis gets it! It's no surprise he won star baker this week. He created some spectacular things. Even his signature rolls looked ridiculously impressive with their two colours and the swirl. Very cool indeed. Of course, Kate also did amazing. It's just such a shame her showstopper did not cook properly and turned out raw because it looked stunning. Quite a few did actually. I really liked Richard's. I want to try making something like that some time, when I'm not so busy. Ham, cheese and spinach maybe? Yum yum! I also wouldn't mind attempting ciabatta, even though I'm not the biggest fan of it. It's all right but just a bit flour-y for me. I dislike overly floured bread.
And Jordan went out! There was a massive chorus of 'Noooooooooooo!' at the mother-in-law's house (since we all gather there to watch it) when they announced it. We all loved Jordan. We didn't think he was the best baker but he was fun and inventive! I still need to watch him on Extra Slice. We all thought Norman was going to go because he keeps being criticised for being too simple. He's really going to have to step it up because we're delving into the fancier categories now. It's desserts next after all! But we shall see I guess.
So I decided to keep with doing the signature challenge and hence I tried to make 12 rolls that used rye flour in 3.5 hours. I'm going to admit this right off the bat: I did not finish these in the time limit, though I do think it would be entirely possible to do it. I just happened to be distracted by building furniture and then the need to have tea. We do have a really nice new bed now though! But that's getting off track.
I really wasn't sure where to start. I knew I wanted to add some flavour to my rolls because you never do plain and simple of Bake Off. The question was, what do I add? I was at a loss and the internet was not being terribly helpful. I knew I didn't want to include cheese, since the Hubby doesn't like cheese, and I didn't want to do anything that the contestants had done. After much searching and consideration, I thought I would try cinnamon and raisin. But I wanted to go one step further than that because that still seemed a bit of an obvious choice. So I was hunting around for flavours that go with cinnamon and raisin. This was even less successful than the original search. The two were rarely combined with anything. It was pure chance that I stumbled onto a listing for tea which was 'Apple, Cinnamon and Raisin'. Now that sounded interesting; apple tea. Another search yielded that Twinnings sold an apple tea. It was too late to order it for the Friday shop but we would be going to town on the Saturday and I figured I would find it in the supermarket or the health shop.
Turns out neither had purely apple tea. There was apple and cinnamon but I wanted to add the spice separately. So I ended up opting for Apple and Pear Green Tea instead. I know pear can work with raisins and cinnamon too, so figured that would be fine.
The next job was finding a recipe which would allow the incorporation of tea. This was much easier though, since really I just needed to find a recipe that used water, which could be substituted with tea. Stork's website yielded such a recipe and I just made the necessary adjustments to incorporate the flavours I wanted in place of theirs.
The rye rolls turned out pretty well, if a little inconsistent in appearance (I gave up on weighing all the different bits of dough). The tea part is subtle but still noticeable. The most prominent flavours though are the cinnamon and raisins. They tasted good. The Hubby is enjoying them. He compares them to cinnamon and raisin bagels and says they are very good toasted.
Recipe -inspired by Stork
Makes 12 rolls
- 4 Twinnings Apple and Pear Green teabags
- 375ml/13.2fl.oz warm water
- 40g/1.5oz butter
- 340g/12oz rye flour
- 340g/12oz strong white flour
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 3.75 tsp fast action yeast
- 3 tsp caster sugar
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 155g/5.5oz raisins
- 1 egg
- Steep the teabags in the warm water for 2-5 minutes.
- Melt the butter.
- Put the flours, cinnamon, salt, yeast and sugar in a large bowl and mix together.
- Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the tea (without the teabags) and the melted butter.
- Mix together to form a dough.
- Knead the dough until it is nice and smooth (about 10-20 minutes).
- Coat the dough in the olive oil, place in a bowl, cover and leave to rise until doubled in size (about 1.5 hours).
- Stretch the dough out into a rectangle shape, place the raisins in the middle and then gather the dough up around them.
- Knead the dough for at least 5 minutes to evenly disperse the raisins throughout.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal sized pieces.
- Divide each piece of dough into 3 pieces. Roll each of these pieces into sausages about 25cm/10inches long.
- Plait the three pieces together then pinch the two ends together to form rings. Place the rings onto two trays coated with greaseproof paper.
- Cover the rolls and leave to rise for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 210°C/410°F/Gas Mark 7.
- Beat the egg and brush over the top of the rolls.
- Bake the rolls for 10-15 minutes until they are golden and sound hollow when tapped underneath.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack before serving.
Great blog, congratulations!! I love baking as well and I really enjoy blogging about it!
ReplyDeleteKeep it up! ;)