Love...the Rustic Baker

Half term madness has set in our house. Not helped by the rain. But it is a good day to get some baking started. So in celebration of not getting onto the Great Bristish Bake Off, I am going for the sourdough starter. A challenge in itself. Making croissants a la Paul Hollywood and finally summer fruit jam and if I have enough time lemon curd. Plenty more baking later in the week as it's Youngest Ones 2nd birthday. So cake and macarons for an afternoon tea plus other goodies.

Love...the Rustic Baker Winter Collection part 1

I love Winter. All those spices, mince pies, Christmas pudding, brandy butter and lots and lots of Baileys. Yum. It is the season to grab a blanket, chuck a large measure of baileys into a glass and eat fabulous food. This was also the time of year that I received my very first Bundt tin. Be still my beating heart. I had to find a great recipe for this delicious item and so I did. Jo Wheatleys Christmas Cake. Please try it. It is delicious, so light and a great alternative to your usual cake.

I love making mince pies too. I generally use an orange pastry but this year I experimented with adding in cinnamon. This proved to be a great addition to the pastry. Additionally, I also jazz up store bought mincemeat by adding winter pimms, orange zest, dried cranberries and sometimes chopped apple. These make delicious pies. To end my Christmas feast my lovely husband bought me another bundt tin and I was finally able to make my ultimate cake, the Tunnel of Fudge Cake. It has to be eaten to be believed.

So the bakes so far this winter - with a couple of months to go - have been Mince Pies, Christmas Cake, Kugelhopf, Tunnel of Fudge, Christmas Spice Macarons, Ginger & Choclate Cookies

Love.....the Rustic Baker Autumn Collection

So Autumn or Fall for my American readers brings out my love of spices, pumpkin purée and lots of cosy food. My celebration season really starts here. From Halloween, Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas, New Year, Valentines Day, my birthday and now Youngest Ones birthday. It is a glorious season for me and the family gets to eat my bakes. I simply love pumpkin purée. This love affair started a few years ago when I just used to make pumpkin loaf or pumpkin cupcakes but has taken me to pumpkin pies and macarons. Yum. I also sought out Southern Living magazine that my Mum sent over for me. I drooled at the gorgeous bakes and couldn't wait to experiment. Gotta love Autumn.

These are the best of the bakes this season: Croissants, Purple Meringue, Vanilla Cupcakes, Gingerbread House, Chocolate Macarons, Blackberry Apple Loaf, Millionaire Shortbread, Croissants mark 2, Apple Fantans, New York Cheesecake, Profiteroles with Vanilla Chantilly cream &  Ganache, Pumpkin Spice Macarons, Strawberry Macarons, Quorn Mince & Vegetable pie, Pumpkin Roulade, Apple pie, Halloween Cookies, Pumpkin Duffins, Townies, Chocolate Beetroot Cake, Marmalade Parkin, Pumpkin Pie. <br />

Love.....the Rustic Baker Summer Collection

I love being The Rustic Baker. I love trying new things out. I especially love and am slightly frightened by the fact that I am going to apply for the Great British Bake Off. Even if I get nowhere it's all good. So many people and I am sure that it is a tough job to find the right combination of skilled bakers. Still I have enjoyed my reseach and development phase! So by season, starting with Summer picking up from where I have left off, these are some of the best I have baked: Lemon Lime Loaf, Choc Peanut Butter Cookies, Marshmallow Fluff Flapjacks, Vegan Lemon Cake, Ginger Cake, Blackberry Pimms Summer Cupcakes, Coffee Walnut Traybake, Blackberry Apple Crumble Tart, Fruit Scones, Fudge Shortbread, Choc Cupcakes, Plaited Milk Loaf and Choc Macarons

Love... the rustic baker

The Death Star epic cake made earlier this week for Oldest One's birthday was a blast to make. However when the light saber-esq candles were lit and presented through a massive chorus of that old classic, i made the mistake of asking if he knew what it was, I was informed with that look "it's a chocolate cake"! Great. All that effort....

Anyway I decided to kick back and relax with some lemon and lime cake. An adaptation of The Hummingbird Bakery lemon cake. Only think I was disappointed with was the icing glaze that looked more like a weak splat of nothingness.

Love.....the rustic baker birthday style

To my gorgeous Oldest One a birthday cake supreme. We love Lego and Star Wars here so this year I decided to take the challenge of making a Death Star in cake form. My friend AtNumber29 sent me a link to a youtube guy who had made a similar cake. But as usual I wanted to go one better!

I used a recipe from Jo Wheatley's A Passion for Baking, yes I am a fan, but added a few twists like popping candy and using  ground almonds and more melted chocolate as I didn't have cocoa powder to hand. A lovely lady who sells cake decorating bits 'n' pieces gave me an excellent tip to make grey icing; use some ready made black icing and knead it into the ready made white icing. Genius. No black hands to explain to my child!

This cake had the works, allergy friendly butter cream courtesy of Betty Crocker, popping candy, chocolate, marzipan and finally icing. Must not forget Darth Vader!

Love........the rustic baker

I am following the 5:2 diet where for those who don't know, you fast for 2 non-consecutive days of the week and feast the the rest of the week.  Each fast day you consume 500 calories for a woman or 600 if you're a man. It's only the second week and the fasts do get easier.

The Rustic Baker has been doing other things or using pre-prepared packs for easy baking so I knew I had to do some proper baking and not just adding eggs and oil! And it had to be today. Something to break my fast. Nothing wrong with pre-prepared mixes. Some are excellent. Maybe I'll review in future. 

But I miss baking. So last night I left a message for Jo Wheatley via Facebook asking what she'd make to break a fast. She came up with apple cake. So as usual I looked at the recipes in her books, chose a yummy one and then as Fleetwood Mac say "go your own way". So in homage to Jo's recipe of Blackberry and Apple Loaf Cake I made mine with cinnamon added to the crumble crust and cake base and then upped the numbers for each of the ingredients. I haven't baked for a while and normally  take samples for the lovely mums at school. So lets hope they like this one.

I also decided to bake a loaf of white & brown, Paul Hollywood style. At 8.20 this morning I was still kneading and we have to leave at around 8.30...... Let me know what you think.

Love.......the rustic baker

Ok. This is becoming a bit of a habit. More baking and now it appears that Fridays have been designated as Quicheday, owing to a slight obsession with getting the best pastry and flavour. This week's offering was a spinach, feta, spring onion and pea quiche with a creme fraiche, egg, mustard and milk filling. Pastry as usual by Paul Hollywood and filling all my own. This time the pastry was bashed with a rolling pin after chilling, rolled out, pushed well into the sides of the tin and then chilled again before blind baking. I think my timings were off this week and once I took the beans out to bake the rest of the pastry it all puffed up again. I did the fork thing but case came out a little too early. Anyway the filling went in and baked. End result pretty good taste but even better the day after. I did also notice the green-ness of my quiches thus far so next week I'm going to bung in some colour. 

I cheekily made macaroons too.  Out of a pack from that well known supermarket Sainsburys. Total cheat but worth a go. I found the actual macaroon mixture easy to blend and I liked their instruction of bunging them in on the lowest oven setting. This still produced the sheen we all love to see. Maybe a trick worth knowing in the future. My piping is still crazy but these baked well. I have a fan oven that is really efficient so I do tend to fly by the seat of my pants where timings etc are involved. So their proposed 20 mins of baking time was approx 12 mins in my oven. I was disappointed in their buttercream mix. My softened butter didn't mix well so I used a store bough raspberry jam on one shell and a hint of the buttercream on the other. All in all a good product, probably a 8/10. Makes you feel like you can really do it. My macaroons came out with the elusive ruffle despite dodgy piping. Try one of the kits out. 

Love or Loathe......

This was a clear case of love quite frankly. I was watching the old reruns of The Great British Bake Off 2011 and had forgotten how brilliant all the bakers were but in particular Jo Wheatley. I bought her first book a while ago and loved her easy style and simple to follow recipes.  Then I was in a well known supermarket the other day and spied her second book. Cup of tea and a rustic baker treat and hooked again. So shameless though this is, well done Jo for another fabulous book