White Bread

I made bread! While this may seem glaringly obvious as I am posting about it but, never did I expect my first attempt to make bread actually turn out to be, well, bread. I’ve always heard that bread is really hard to make and assumed myself that it would be because it’s about technique rather than simply following a recipe but I did it! And I’m very proud of myself however crazy that may seem!

Someone I work with, Glen, told me that he made his own bread and so I asked him to give me a very simple, basic, potentially Kathryn-proof recipe for bread. And guess what? It worked! He said that the simplest bread to make was white bread and wholemeal is overall trickier because of the texture of it. My mum also said from experience that homemade wholemeal bread can turn out rather dense. Needless to say, I went with the white option but after a few more practices I think I’ll branch out a little more.

A key part about making bread is the kneading. I kneaded mine for about 10 minutes in total at two different stages in the process. The idea of kneading is to stretch out the dough (I’ve heard this activates the yeast but that would be a lie…). Somewhere along the line through watching various cooking programmes and reading recipe books I picked up a simple methodical kneading technique. Once you have the dough on a floured (very important!) surface I pull the dough towards me wit the knuckles of one hand and simultaneously push it away from me with the heel of my other hand. I then fold it in half give it a quarter turn and so it again and again and again until I’ve been doing it for 5minutes.

Whether this is the proper way to do it or not I have no idea but it seemed to work well for me as, I may have already mentioned this along the way but, I made bread!

Vanilla Iced Biscuits

Well the weather my still be absolutely appalling but! I am keeping in the summer spirit with my baking, presentation wise anyway! At the beginning of the week I spent the day with my friend Lindsay who surprised me with a whole host of new baking equipment including these lovely cutters which of course I used at the first opportunity! In the first series of the Great British Bake off Miranda made some vanilla cookies which she decorated amazingly. Taking inspiration from her, I used the recipe she contributed to the book from the series and then decorated them!

The recipe calls for a vanilla pod which I hadn’t used before, usually going for the cheaper and easier option of vanilla extract. I splashed out a little on this recipe and decided to buy some and they do add a depth of flavour not achieved by its bottled substitute but it isn’t something I’ll be doing every time! If you ever do use them, keep the outside of the pod as you can put it in a jar of sugar to make vanilla flavoured sugar which is what I’m doing with mine.

This recipe requires patience as it takes some time to chill the mixture at various stages throughout the process. As for the decorating well, it took me around 2 hours to achieve these results. I piped round the edges of all the biscuits in the sections of colours I wanted and then diluted the icing a little more and ‘flooded’ the enclosed area with icing, like colouring them in really!

I made 24 biscuits but my cutters were quite large sizes so if you use smaller ones, you will obviously be able to make more! The recipe advises that the mixture makes around 30.

Here is the recipe I used:

200g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

1 vanilla pod

1 medium egg, beaten

400g plain flour

Put the butter and the sugar into a mixing bowl. Split the vanilla pod in half along its length and scrape out the seeds into the bowl. Beat with an electric whisk/mixer until very light and creamy. Gradually add the egg, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour into the bowl and work in using a very slow speed

Use your hands to bring the mixture together and make a soft dough. Divide the dough in half and form each portion into a thick disc. Wrap in clingfilm and chill until firm - around 30 minutes

Roll out the dough, a portion at a time, on a floured work surface to a thickness of 5mm. Cut out shapes using cutters. Gather up the trimmings and knead gently then re-roll and cut out more biscuits. Arrange the biscuits slightly apart on a lined baking tray to allow for spreading then chill for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C

Bake the biscuits for 9-12 minutes, until just starting to turn golden brown around the edges and firm to touch. Remove from the oven and leave to firm up, then transfer the biscuits to a wire rack to cool completely. Then decorate as you wish!

Red, White & Blue Cupcakes

Happy Jubilee Weekend Everyone! I hope you enjoy your 4-day weekend, it’s a shame the weather didn’t get the memo. In the spirit of the jubilee, I’ve made some very simple red, white and blue cupcakes. There is something about cupcakes that is just so fun to make whatever the occasion and with the extra time off there is almost no excuse not to!

As usual, I used my basic vanilla cupcake recipe (200g and 4 eggs) to make up the cake batter. I then divided the mixture as evenly as I could between three bowls. For the white section I left the mixture untouched and added a bit of blue food colouring to one bowl and some red to the other and mixed thoroughly to combine. I used basic liquid food colouring for this (blue Dr Oetker and red Silverspoon) but if you don’t already have food colourings and are thinking of buying some I highly recommend buying gel colours. While they can be slightly more expensive they produce much more vibrant colours with a very small amount of product whereas I find the liquid ones don’t have a very good intensity.

Once my mixture was coloured I started to put the mixture in my cases. I did one teaspoon of each colour in the bottom of each case then went back and did another teaspoon of each on the opposite side to mix the colours up as much as possible. I then swirled a cocktail stick through the mixture in each case wiping it clean after each one to gently mix the colours together. I then baked them in the oven for 20minutes.

Once out of the oven and completely cooled I made up a batch of buttercream icing and swirled it onto the top of each cake and decorated with red, white and blue sugarballs. This very simple but effective recipe is perfect for any jubilee celebrations! You can also use different colours and layering to create different effects in your cupcakes or transfer the ideas over to larger cakes!