Pies, Pastry and Puds

Last year, I blogged about a wonderful new programme to hit our TV screens, The Great British Bake Off. A year on and it's back! It started last week which was coincidentally just after I had started to feel an urge to bake. Since I've been home - I've not felt the need to bake - I've probably been too distracted with everything else that has been going on recently. It started when my mum mentioned that she was making some chocolate biscuit cake for some friends who were coming round. This inspired me to dig out the Hairy Bikers Family Cookbook - which I also blogged about - and try one of the mum's recipes for Millionaire's Shortbread.

I had tried another recipe for this from the back of the Carnation condensed milk tin and it wasn't good - far too sickly even for me and the only way I managed to finish it was by swamping it in ice cream. It physically made my teeth hurt when I was eating it but not wanting to waste it, I ploughed through it. This time however, I had more faith. A proper shortbread base and half the extra sugar in the caramel seemed like a good start. I wasn't disappointed. I had been a little concerned after tasting it before it had completely set and the enormous chunks I had cut were a little sickly. However, once it had been left to cool in the fridge overnight, the results were superb. Delicious shortbread and the perfect level of sweetness. You can still (at the time of writing) get the recipe here (PDF) - on page 7. It's really easy to make so if you've got some spare time, have a go!

My next culinary adventure sprung from two loaves of particularly nasty Kingsmill white bread. I've never complained about bread before but this was really bad. So I decided to make my own. My mum has a bread maker from a spur of the moment purchase many years ago and it spends most of its time hidden in a cupboard and unused. I found the recipe book that came with it and proceeded to make a small white loaf. When I got back later that day, expecting to find waiting for me a perfect small white loaf, I was very disappointed. The bake had not gone well. The top looked anaemic, it was a bizarre shape and very very salty. Needless to say, I was not impressed and so I went back to more traditional methods.

A quick scour of the BBC Food website returned so many bread recipes, I almost didn't know where to start. I narrowed it down a bit to sandwich loaves and came across one from Michel Roux. I had remembered watching the programme that the recipe was from earlier in the year and he had mentioned how spectacular this loaf was. Well, it couldn't be any worse than the lump I had in front of me, so I decided that the following day, I would give it a try.
It worked beautifully and after much needing, proving, knocking back, proving again and finally cooking, I had a lovely looking loaf that was easy to slice and delicious toasted, or on its own with some butter. David: 1, Breville: 0.

My next task came when some of my mum's friends were coming round for dinner. I was in charge of the dessert and had been wanting to try my hand at a lemon meringue pie. Meringue is possibly one of my most favourite things to make - there is something amazing about the transformation of the egg whites into magnificent glossy white peaks that captivates my imagination. My first port of call for the recipe was, once again, the Hairy Bikers Family Cookbook - my bible for all things delicious and probably very unhealthy. I was in luck, and I now had my recipe. It took almost three hours in total - mainly down to my poor kitchen organisation and timing skills but it came out exactly how I wanted it to. My first attempt at pastry went much better than I had been expecting, you hear all sorts of disaster stories about how it goes wrong but following the advice I had picked up from the many cookery shows I watch on the TV, mine came out without a hitch. I was also a little apprehensive about the lemon filling as my previous attempt at lemon curd tasted like lemony cornflour. No such problems here thankfully and everyone enjoyed it.

After this weeks episode of The Great British Bake Off, I am inspired to try my hand at a tarte aux citron - stay tuned to see how it tuns out!

I almost forgot my single of the week - although it is more a single of the last few months but still. I saw this man support Guillemots at the Leadmill in Sheffield as part of the Tramlines festival. The support bands for the last few gigs I've been to have been incredible and I've usually gone on and bought their singles and albums as a direct result. This was no exception. His name is Paul Thomas Saunders and his voice is simply beautiful and sounds as good live as it does on the record. His EP Lilica and Wisteria is available to download from Amazon at a very reasonable £2.09 for 5 very unique songs. The album is available to stream on We7 and some of them are available on his MySpace page - I really do recommend you check him out.

By far my favourite song on the album is Appointment in Samarra so, enjoy.