The Great British Bake Off

Anyone out there just as obsessed with baking as I am? Holla!

It's not just baking itself that I love but also all these great TV shows about cakes, cupcakes, cooking and last but not least... contests.
Last night I discovered The Great British Bake Off on BBC Two and it's really something.

Twelve contestants start the biggest baking adventure of their lives. They will be tested on every baking skill because they simply need to make everything; cookies, cakes, desert, bread and everything by following the recipes of famous bakers. Recipes we can keep for ourselves too ;)

Watch the show every Thursday night on BBC Two.

Love & Cupcakes,
Noes

How to: Eatible support

No, we are not the champions yet but we still make a chance since we (The Netherlands) already won both our matches!
Do you also want to support your country in the World Championships soccer but want a cute snack too? Here's the solution

How to: World Championship Cupcakes

What do you need?

For the batter:
- 110 grams of butter on room temperature
- 110 grams of fine cristal sugar
- 2 eggs
- 110 grams of self-rising flour
- 1 teaspoon of yeast
- 1 tablespoon of milk

For the buttercream topping:
- 200 grams of icing sugar
- 100 grams of butter on room temperature
- About a table sloon of milk
- food coloring if you want color, depending on the desired colors





A mixer
Several bowls
Plastic gloves (for the food coloring)
A cupcake pan
Cupcake baking cups (12 pieces)


What to do?

Batter
- Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees.
- Place the baking cups in the cupcake pan.
- Mix the buttor until it's soft.
- Add the sugar, eggs, flour, yeast and milk and mix well again.



TIP! Hold a spoon with batter above the bowl and give it a light swing, if the batter doesn't slide off easily, you should add a little more milk.

- Divide the batter evenly accross the cupcake pan by the use of two spoons.



- Put the cupcakes-to-be in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes. They are done when they rose well and look golden-brown.
- Get them out off the oven AND the cupcake pan as soon as they are done.

TIP! If you leave them to cool off inside the cupcake pan, the baking cups will let go. Not good.

- Let them cool off entirely before you start decorating with the butter-cream frosting. Otherwise it will melt.


Butter-cream frosting
- Mix the butter until it's soft.
- Add the icing sugar and the milk and mix well again.

TIP! Start on the lowest speed level with the icing sugar if you like to keep your kitchen clean.

- When the butter en icing sugar are well blended, you can add color.

TIP! I bought my food coloring at the nearest toko (a store that sells all kinds of herbs, indonesion and other foreign supplies for food).
You can think of food coloring as paint. Do you want an orange color? Then you should find the right combination of red and yellow.
Since I decided to make both orange cupcakes and cupcakes with the Dutch flag, I needed orange, red, white and blue frosting. Of course there is no white food coloring, the buttercream frosting in its original look is already white.

- If you also decide to use different colors, divide the frosting evenly among several bowls, put on your plastic gloves and add coloring to them.



TIP! Start with only a drop or two for each bowl to avoid your frosting to be ruined right away. You can always add more, you can't take it back.
If you don't wear plastic gloves you run the risk of bright colored hands for the rest of the week, I speak from experience.

- Mix the frosting and the coloring with a spoon or mixer.
- Use a decorating bag to nicely decorate your cupcakes with the frosting. If you have never used one you might need some practice, but it gives the best result. If you rather don't use a decorating bag you can also use a large knife or a spatula to smear.
- You might want to add some decorating at the end. I chose for little dutch flags.




Have fun supporting your country!

The base of this recipe is from the book 'Cupcakes' by Janet Smith.
If you are looking for baking cups, decorations or other baking supplies, the following Dutch websites are a good source for ordering:
http://www.deleukstetaartenshop.nl/
http://www.taartendecoratie.nl/

If you have any questions about this recipe, just ask me!
Have fun!

Love,
Noes

How to: Homemade chocolate chip cookies

I'm back!
My apologies for the lack of blogging, I was extremely busy writing my graduation research for school. At the moment I am waiting for the board to decide upon my faith which means I have some time for myself and ofcourse you again!

To celebrate this joyfull fact I am introducing a new type of blog, one that I am intending to use more often: 'How to'.
In my How to blogs I want to share my knowledge or experiences with you so not only me, but also you guys at home can give a shot in what I am doing. Whatever 'it' is depends on each different blogpost.

To start of right, I proudly present my first How to blog.
'How to: Homemade chocolate chip cookies'

What do you need?
225 grams of butter (room temperature)
350 grams of ligth brown castor sugar (basterdsuiker in Dutch)
2 eggs
400 grams of flower
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoon of yeast (gist in Dutch)
225 grams of chocolate, dark chocolate works best but all sorts are possible


A handmixer
Several bowls
At least two baking sheets (bakplaten in Dutch)
Baking paper

What to do?

- Preheat the oven at 180 degrees. (Remember to leave out the baking sheets)
- Put the butter and the sugar together in a bowl and mix well.



- If the substance of butter and sugar is well mixed, add the eggs one by one and mix together well.

TIP! Break the eggs in a seperate bowl one by one before adding to your butter en sugar. Why? If the egg is bad or some of the shell gets in there while breaking it, the rest isn't ruined.



- Add the flower, salt and yeast and keep mixing untill every ingredient is well dissolved in the dough. This dough is very heavy and thick so you will probably need a high level of speed on the mixer.
- Chop up all the chocolate in chuncks, don't grate it because then it will be too small, and add it to the dough.

TIP! If you have trouble chopping the chocolate, put the bars in a bowl and put them in the microwave for just a few seconds on the lowest heath level. But make sure they don't melt! The bars still need to be solid. Also use a knife that has 'teeth', this will give you more grip on the chocolate but watch your fingers.



- Again, mix together well so that the chocolate chips are divided evenly in the dough.
- Cover your baking sheets with baking paper, this to avoid your cookies to get stuck to the baking sheet, and make 6 little heaps of dough on each baking sheet. Keep them seperate from eachother so they still have space to 'grow'.

TIP! This dough is enough for 24 chocolate chip cookies, so you bake 4 baking sheets with each 6 chocolate chip cookies. If you have less baking sheets, like I do, you bake the cookies in several shifts.

- Put the cookies in the oven for about 10 minutes. The exact time depends on the exact heath of each seperate oven so watch the cookies from minute 9 until minute 12.
If the cookies look brown around the edges with small cracks, they can come out.
- Leave them on the baking sheet until they are cooled off entirely. If you don't, like I did sometimes, they will break easily.



- Present them in a cute cookiejar. I like my jar with cupcake design but one of glass looks very nice too.



Bon appetit!

This is a recipe from the Hummingbird bakingbook with some slight adjustments due to my own experiences.
Hummingbird Bakery is created by Tarek Malouf and is a huge success in London.
They are famous for their cupcakes, brownies, cakes, pies, bars and cookies.
You can find them on Portobelloroad in Notting Hill, Old Brompton Road in South Kensington and Wardour Street in Soho. If I ever visit London any time soon, you can find me there.
Visit the website here: http://hummingbirdbakery.com


I would also like to thank the readers that have left a message lately. To be honest I didn't think this blog was actually read by people so I appreciate the messages very much, thank you!
If you have any comments, tips, or requests for blog subjects I would very much like to hear them. So please comment! I'm so curious who you, my readers, are.

I am planning to make a recipe for World Championship (soccer) cupcakes.
If this recipe works out well, I will write a How to about it too.

If you have any questions about this recipe, feel free to ask them.
For now: Have fun baking, thank you for reading and I hope to hear from you!

Love,
Noes