Freckled Kirsty

Hello friends, This week on the bake off it was bread week, and as such my other half told me I could definitely bake along for this one! The technical challenge was Paul Hollywood's baguettes which appear in his 'How to bake' book. I was given this for Christmas and have tried the baguettes before, and they aren't easy - they have to be proved twice, and if this isn't done properly you get quite flat dense bakes. Also very important in this bake is having steam in your oven, as this makes the crunchy crust which a good baguette needs. The book 'How to Bake' is definitely a good investment as Paul explains the different bread making techniques, has both sweet and savoury recipes and also strays into the cakes, tarts and puddings recipes as well which makes it quite a diverse baking book. Ingredients: 500g bread flour 10g salt 10g instant yeast 370ml water Oil for kneading Method: Oil a 2-3 litre plastic container. Paul sugges

Hello friends, A few weeks ago I got my hands on the new baking book 'Everything Sweet' by Alex Hoffler and Stacey  O'Gorman, who are otherwise known as the Meringue Girls. This is their second book and as soon as I heard they were writing it I was excited. The first book they released was everything meringue which converted me from cupcakes to anything which could be topped with the white fluffy pillows of goodness, but this second book strays away from meringue into sweet treats. And it does not disappoint. It covers cakes, puddings gifts and some twists on old classics and overall is a very fun book to read. Each recipe has a paragraph at the top explaining the treat you are about to attempt and the fun and honesty of the girls shines through these. On top of great recipe and fun sparks of personality, the photography of the book is stunning - each picture is drool worthy and I would be a very happy baker if any of my bakes looked as good as they do in the book.

Hello friends, It is biscuit week on the Great British Bake Off, therefore my bake of the day is biscotti. The name biscotti means twice baked, and they are ideal to have with a cup of tea or coffee, whether you are a dunker or not. I have chosen a classic pistachio and chocolate combination, but the nuts can be substituted for different flavours and you could throw in some dried fruit for a bit of a twist. Ingredients: 2 eggs 100g caster sugar  250g plain flour  1/2  teaspoon bicarb of soda 20g chopped pistachio 50g dark chopped chocolate Zest of 1 orange Method: Preheat your oven to 180C/ 160C fan assisted. Line a baking tray with non stick parchment. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until fluffy and bubbly. Sift over the flour and bicarb and add in the nuts chocolate and orange zest. Fold together until well combined. Roll out into a log shape, approximately 3 centimetres thick. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cut the log into 1

Hello friends, An absolute favourite sweet treat of mine is a Crunchie bar - for me a bit of honeycomb beats plain chocolate so today I have whipped up some home made honey comb and a chocolate sauce to dip the pieces in. Heaven in a bowl!! This is super simple to make, and you can change up the flavour of the honeycomb by adding nuts, citrus or dried fruit, or like me you can stick to the plain and pure honeycomb, dipped in chocolate. Ingredients: 100g caster sugar 2 1/2 tablespoons golden syrup 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda Method: Line a baking tin with baking paper, and grease well. In a high sided pan, mix the sugar and golden syrup and heat on a low flame. Make sure it doesn't bubble at this point. When the sugar has all dissolved turn up the heat and boil until the mixture is a copper colour. Take off of the heat and quickly beat in the bicarbonate of soda to create the reaction which makes the honeycomb structure. Immediately pour into your prepared tin

Hello friends, So this week marks the start of the Great British Bake Off, one of my favourite TV shows! As the show goes on I am going to try my hand at one of the three weekly bakes, and this week it is the classic Madeira cake. On the show one of the contestants decided on a Gin and Tonic inspired cake, so I decided to give it a shot. The cake on the show used gin in the icing, but having tried this before I know the flavour gets a little lost, so I have used chopped juniper berries in my sponge, giving a subtle gin hint. Ingredients: 175g butter 175g caster sugar 3 eggs 250g self raising flour A splash of milk Zest of 1 lemon 3 teaspoons of chopped juniper berries For the glaze: 120g icing sugar Juice of 1 lemon Juice of 1 orange Method: Preheat the oven to 180C and line and grease a 900g loaf tin. In a bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix then the chopped berries until well combin