Week 29 Gingerbread house

Our last week before our assessment. Not a big menu but an interesting day nonetheless. We made Stollen, Panettone and gingerbread house. It is all about Christmas!

Stollen is a traditional German cake, usually eaten during Christmas. It contains dried fruits, marzipan in the centre and heavily dusted with icing sugar.  Our Stollen didn't really cover the marzipan as it was bursting in the oven. Need to wrap it nicer on assessment day. We will be making Stollen again next week. 

Stollen

Stollen 

Stollen

Panettone is a type of sweet bread loaf originally from Milan, Italy and also enjoyed during Christmas.  It had a cylindrical base and can be as tall as 15cm and may weigh about 1kg. With such a big size bread, it took a really long time in the oven. It was in there for more than an hour. 

Panettone

Panettone

I guess for me, the interesting part was making the gingerbread house. We prepared the gingerbread dough a week earlier and kept it in the fridge. Now it is time to cut the shapes and bake them and also assemble the house. Gingerbread house is famous during Christmas time but we got to make them in April. So instead of a Christmas themed house, I made a different house. I call mine the "Simply Happy" house. We shared the dough and managed to get one small house each. Well at least we got to make our own house and take it home. We were not given a lot of time with the decoration but it was still fun. 

Gingerbread shapes 

 With the limited time, this is how far I got with my little house. I manage the get the shapes glued on the board with royal icing. I have a little car, 3 birdies and 2 fences. But I wanted to make it prettier, so I took some of the remaining royal icing home and continued with my work.

Incomplete gingerbread house

 I spent another hour at home with the decoration. I coloured some of the icing with yellow and some with pink. I added more M&M to the sides of the house and the footpath. I put up the moon with a wire, coloured it yellow. Gave the birdies some character. Coloured my little car pink. Just a few finishing touches and I told myself to stop after one hour. Otherwise I think I will go on and on with it. Ha ha.... 

"Simply Happy" Gingerbread House

 Moonlight brightens the night

Birdie on the roof

My "Simply Happy" front door

Back of the house

Simply Happy

My little pink car

Side of house with Heart shape windows

Maybe next Christmas I might try making another gingerbread house. What a good way to finish the lesson for the term. Next week will be assessment and then I will welcome the 2 weeks break with a big smile. 

Life is short, so be happy :) 

Week 28 Hot Cross Buns

Easter weekend is just around the corner and our trainer said we can change the oat fruit loaf recipe into hot cross buns. I was happy with the decision. It made it more festive and since I have never made hot cross buns before, it would be fun. 

Hot cross buns is a sweet bun with currants or raisins in it and is marked with a cross on the top. Our hot cross buns is a little different, we have sultanas, apricots and walnuts in it but it is still shaped like a hot cross bun. It is traditionally eaten on Good Friday. It is nice toasted and eaten with a little butter. 

Hot cross buns

Naan with sesame seed and melted butter

We made some naan bread and a pita bread. I have eaten naan and pita before and I think I  have a lot to learn because I am not very happy with these that we made. Our puri had some interesting results. On a same tray, some puffed up nicely and some remained flat. I don't really understand why. 

Naan

Puri

What took the most time was the Turkish Delight. I think I was standing there for more than an hour stirring the pot of hot sticky starch. It is basically a mixture of cornflour, water and sugar. Turkish delight is a popular Greek traditional delicacy in the 19th century. It really requires a lot of patience with the stirring over low heat. Luckily my patience paid off. The turkish delight was a success. It set properly and I was able to cut it into cubes and coated it with lots of cornflour and icing sugar. 

Turkish Delight

We made friands again. It has a nice burnt butter flavour and the texture was nice because of the almond meal. But today I brought some frozen raspberries to add to the recipe to make it a little more appealing. It was really quite nice to eat. It disappeared not long after it got home. 

Raspberry Friands

Hmm.... I am feeling a little hungry for one friand now.

Raspberry Friand

Week 27 Challah

After an interesting week 26, this week the menu was really quite boring. We made muffins, savarin, walnut bread and challah. 

Muffin was an easy recipe and didn't seem interesting at all. The savarin, we have made them before during our first stage. So this was not an interesting day in the kitchen.

Challah with a plait on the top

braided challah

Braided challah with poppy seeds

Chocolate chip muffins

Challah is a festive Jewish braided bread eaten on Sabbath. It is a white bread and the interesting part was the braiding of the bread. 

Walnut bread

The walnut bread was a white bread with walnuts in it. So again, it was not very interesting. I think our walnut breads were a little under baked. It could have been in the oven for a  little longer to give it a better colour. 

Savarin with fresh fruits and whipped cream

Savarin, we made one ring and a few small ones in dariole moulds. The funny thing about the savarin was that I put ours in the middle of the oven and when I went back to check it after some time, it was still not ready. So i waited and kept checking after a few minutes. Then my partner came to check with me and she said "Chen! that is not ours!" Ours is on the left! Oh no!!! she was right, our names was on the one on the left! It was a little too brown by the time we took it out. Ha Ha.... someone pushed ours to the left and had theirs in the middle. But luckily the big ring one was fine, just the smaller ones were a little too cooked. Lesson of the day, make sure you look for your name and recognise your tray. 

Over baked Savarins

Week 26 Cheese & Bacon Buns

Oh wow! It has been more than a month since I posted anything on my blog. This is week 26 where we made some nice breads. We made cheese and bacon buns, ciabatta, wholemeal bread and lovely brioche.

The cheese and bacon bun was really quite nice to eat. Mainly because I brought in more cheese from home to add to the recipe. Ha ha... as you can see the topping is all cheese. 

It has so much cheese that you cannot really see the design of the bun. If you look close enough, you will see the big bun is actually in a shape of a twist. 

Cheese & Bacon Bun

We made 2 types of Ciabattas. One was coated with semolina and the other was coated with some olive oil. The semolina one came out quite nice. It puffed up and had big airy holes inside. The one with olive oil and herbs was rather flat. I think we might have had a little too much oil on it, it was more like frying the bread than baking it. 
I had the ciabatta the next day with some ham, cheese, lettuce and I toasted it. It  was a nice lunch. Don't ask me what I did with the oiled ciabatta.

Ciabatta with semolina 

Ciabatta with olive oil and herbs

We made a wholemeal bread. I think it was quite a success with this one. The bread had a good rise and a nice crust. It was nice to eat when toasted and with some butter. I wish they would teach us more on making healthier bread. Unfortunately, I think this is as healthy as they will go with breads. I want to learn about starters and sourdoughs but I don't think it will be here with this school. 

Wholemeal bread

Wholemeal bread

Brioche is an enriched bread with lots of butter and eggs. It originated from France and is a type of bread that has a rich and tender crumb. It is buttery and may seem to be a cross between a cake and a bread. It is light and puffy but very rich and soft. It can be shaped in a small fluted case with a small round top. It can be enjoyed with a cup of tea or coffee. 

Brioche

With the same brioche dough, we made 2 other types of brioche which had fillings. This is a plaited one where we filled with cream patisserie and chocolates. I had dark chocolate chunks in it. Then it was plaited and topped with streusel which is a crumbly butter, sugar and flour mixed together. I really enjoyed this brioche. Eating and also making it. 

Plaited brioche with chocolate and cream patisserie

Yum!

The other half of the dough, we baked it in a round tin with a bee sting topping. Bee sting topping is almond flakes in a mixture of melted honey, butter, sugar and glucose. The bee sting is poured on the top of the brioche and baked till golden brown. Then it is cooled completely and cut  in half, filled with cream patisserie. 

Brioche with bee sting topping

Brioche with bee sting topping and cream patisserie filling

Products of the day

I have to say I really enjoyed eating most of the day's products. The only one that I didn't like was the ciabatta with olive oil. I enjoyed making them as well. 

Week 25 Coffee Scroll

This was an interesting week. We had only 3 items to make for the day and they were Coffee Scrolls, Doughnuts and Finger Buns. So since it was a light day, we were given an option to make something additional to the day's menu. So my partner and I decided to make Pretzels. It was something that I have never made before, so I was happy to try.

The recipe seemed rather simple, where all ingredients were mixed together and proved till doubled in size. Then we shaped it and brushed with soda water and sprinkled some salt before they were baked. 

Pretzel shaped

I had fun shaping the pretzels. Mine were the 3 on the right of the top picture and the other side were my partner's. We should have dipped the whole pretzel into the soda water, rather than brushed it on. It would have given them a more even colour. The pretzels rose beautifully in the oven. I think we should have made them a little thinner because you can't really see the holes of the pretzels after they were baked. The taste was quite good. I might try this recipe again but rolled thinner the next time. 

Pretzels

 We made 2 types of doughnuts. Ring doughnuts were coated with sugar cinnamon and the  round one were filled with raspberry jam. I think our doughnuts were a little over fried in the fryer but luckily it was still very soft. 

Frying the doughnuts

Sugar Cinnamon Doughnuts

Raspberry Jam Doughnuts

Coffee Scroll was the interesting one to make. I brought some extra ingredients to make it yummier! Ha Ha.... so our coffee scrolls had dark chocolates and roasted almonds in it. Then we drizzled coffee fondant over it to make it prettier and even sweeter. With the same dough, we made a different scroll with chocolate and desiccated coconut as the filling. Unfortunately, this one didn't rise as much. 

Coffee Scrolls

Coconut & Chocolate Scrolls

Finger Buns are sweet buns with sweeten whipped cream as the filling. Then the topping had sugar syrup, fondant and hundreds and thousands. So, all I can think of was how sweet the bun was going to be. I can see kids will love this one, not really for me. 

Overall, a good day with a lot to learn. 

Buns

Fondant toppings on buns

Finger Buns