BBC Good Food Show

Last week, the BBC Good Food Show was at the NEC so of course I went along. Twice actually, I pretty much spent my whole weekend there I hadn't planned to but I couldn't say no to a second day of free testers, demonstrations and recipe inspiration.

On Saturday, I saw Glynn Purnell,  head chef at Purnell's in Birmingham- who I met last year when he judged a competition I was competing in- and Mark Sargeant, former head chef of Claridges, cooking Venison on the Saturday kitchen stage and picked up some really good tips for cooking meat.

On Sunday, I saw a demonstration from the Sorted Chefs at the Kenwood stand which gave me some good ideas. I was gutted that I missed Holly Bell, my favourite contestant from this years Great British Bake Off, cooking there but I managed to taste some of her cake and can definitely say it was yum. I also went over to the Saturday kitchen stage and once again saw Mark Sargeant, this time cooking lamb rump with Moroccan ratatouille which I cannot wait to cook.

Lamb's got to be one of my favourites meats at the moment. I had an amazing lamb shank when we went out for my Mum's Birthday last week and I'm cooking a lamb casserole at school next week but I'd never seen a rump of lamb before last week. It looks like a fillet steak and done as it was with spiced vegetables looked delicious, keep an eye out as I'm sure I'll be blogging my attempt in the not so distant future!

Oh and I can't forget my visit to the World Cheese Awards section... I have no idea what won but I have never ever seen so much cheese in my life. And one of the friends I was with hates cheese so she absolutely loved going in there.

Chocolate Mousse and Tuile Baskets

I had a late, well very late, Birthday party a few weeks ago- I will post my cake at some point, timings not my strong point as you can see- and I got The Great British Bake Off book from one of my friends so this week I  made my first recipe from it.

Chocolate mousse, not strictly baking but it was, at five o'clock on Sunday night, one of the only things I could find all the ingredients for. And I can, for a change say that I did follow the recipe. Not exactly of course, I couldn't resist making a few additions but I had the book open which is more than I can normally say. I added rum and orange juice to it which I thought worked really well, it gave the flavour more depth. 

To serve them I made tuile baskets but, I used a Masterchef at home recipe and probably should have stuck with Mary Berry as they didn't mould quite as well as I'd hoped.

Focaccia

First off, sorry for the lack of posts recently, me and technology haven't been getting on too well. But, we're friends again now (Touchwood) and there's been lots of cooking going on that can now go on here.

Being a big fan of The Great British Bake Off and of Italian food, I had to have a go at the focaccia technical bake.

I must admit, I didn't use all the water but I did use most of it and manage to make a lot of mess in out kitchen with the dough but I was really pleased with the result. I made two loaves, one was traditionally topped with sea salt and rosemary, the other with the addition of sliced cherry tomatoes. It had a good, crispy crust and the air holes look pretty irregular. Not quite star baker material maybe but  I don't think I would have come last in the technical bake!

Everyone enjoyed it, I've made it again since and I'm sure I'll be making it again soon!

Swiss Roll

Having started my GCSE's this year, I've been loving my cooking lessons. Our third practical of the year was swiss roll which I had never made before.

Of course, being me, I couldn't go down the standard jam route, I had to put cream in too. I got my cake out of the oven and rolled it without any problems (apart from dropping and breaking the electric whisk I was using for the cream-Sorry Miss!), I put greaseproof paper in the middle so I could unroll it and add the cream once it had cooled and wouldn't melt it. Then it went in the fridge to cool down.

I added my cream and jam, re-rolled it and it was all done. Once I got it home, it was gone the next day so that has to be a good sign right?

 

Bread

When I was on holiday last week, I watched the Great British Bake off. It got me thinking that the last time I made bread was about 5 years ago so, the first thing I made when I got home was bread. I found a book on bread, had a read and decides what it was I was going to make.

The first thing I made was a Stromboli style loaf. It had Mozzarella, Sun-dried Tomatoes, Spicy Salami and Basil. It had been demolished within 5 minutes of me taking it out of the oven- I think that’s a good sign-Of course I did I did get a picture first.

 The second thing I made was some ‘Panini All’Olio’. This is Italian bread that uses Extra Virgin Oil in the dough to give it a distinct flavour. They’re made in different shapes. The first (Shown back left and right in this picture), is tavalli, twisted spiral rolls, I think they look really good but I found it hard to get them to keep their shape. The second is the carciofi, this literally translates to artichokes, because they look like artichoke heads, This shape is created using scissors to snip cuts into them before baking. The final is filoncini (The central roll), named because of their shape’s likeness to fingers.

 

 

 The last thing I made (Or should I say attempted to make) was a basket. Again inspired by The Great British Bake Off, I had a go and making a basket. It didn’t go too badly considering it was my first attempt and I had nothing to go on except what I’d seen on TV the week before. It got a little stuck to the bowl and some of the joints weren’t great, but I’m pretty sure I know how to do it next time!