Double Chocolate Swiss Roll (Gluten Free)

Where to even start.. last week,this week I have no idea but lets just say this wasn't the first bake I made for dessert week... it was the second. My baking shame of a mousse cake will never grace your screens, nor be spoken about here on after.

This Chocolate Swiss Roll however, yum!! This bad boy was on point! Gluten free too to boot! Now in all truthfulness, I didn't actually get a chance to catch up on Week 7 of the Great British Bake Off, but I know it was a good one from what I read online! I slowly made way through my kitchen and opted to make this cake in honour of last weeks bakes. I missed the linky over at Jenny's and the GBBObloggers bakealong but I didn't want to miss out on baking along entirely.

Hence my late post and my scattered meanderings. It's been a long week... and yes I know it's only Wednesday.

Chocolate Swiss Roll

6 eggs separated
110g caster sugar
170g dark chocolate (above 60%)
3 tbsp soft butter
60ml cold coffee
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla
250ml single cream
Chocolate Ganache

Preheat your oven to 180C/350 F or Gas Mark 4. Line and spray/grease a shallow baking tray, swiss roll tin with parchment. Spray the parchment. Leave to one side.

Separate the eggs, white in a mixing bowl, yolks in another.
Put the chocolate, butter and coffee into a microwaveable bowl and melt the contents on a low setting, until fully melted and smooth, being careful not to burn the chocolate (alternatively use the double boiler method on the hob). Add the yolks two at a time and mix well after each addition. Add the vanilla. Leave to one side to cool.
In the whites bowl, whisk to soft peaks and add the sugar in a steady stream. Whisk to stable, but not stiff peaks.
Add about 1/4 of the egg whites to the chocolate mix to loosen it up and transfer this back into the rest of the egg whites. Fold through until just combined.

Pour out into a prepared baking tray, smooth to the corners and cook in your preheated oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until the top of the cake springs back at you when lightly pressed.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Make the ganache.

Chocolate Ganache

200g semisweet dark chocolate 
200ml Double Cream

Put the chocolate into a heat resistant bowl.
Heat the cream in a saucepan over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the cream begins to simmer, quickly remove from the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Swirl the bowl to ensure all the chocolate is coated in the hot cream.
Cover the bowl to trap the heat and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Remove the lid and slowly whisk the mixture until you have a smooth glossy ganache.
Leave to cool before using as a filling cake.

Whip the 250ml of single cream from above, fold a couple of spoonfuls of ganache into the cream and leave to one side until you are read to use it!

Putting it all Together

When the cake comes out of the oven, leave it in the pan to cool for about 10 minutes. Using the parchment to help you, roll up the cake and remove it from the pan. In it's rolled up state, leave it to cool completely on the wire rack.

Once cold, unroll the cake and fill it with the ganache, followed by the cream and then roll it back up slowly and smoothly. Having cooled curled, you shouldn't get any cracks. Trim off the edges, place on your serving tray join side down and dust in icing sugar. 

This cake is best served on the day you make it, but it does hold when wrapped up in the fridge for about three days. I will hopefully be baking sooner, rather than later with my attempts at Tudor Week, I have no idea what to even expect here! Be sure to pop by Jenny's and the other GBBObloggers bakes to get your Bake Off  fill!

Toffee Apple Bakewell Tart

Does anyone else feel like this has been the longest September? And there's still another week left in it.. I mean come on! Let's be done with you already. Maybe it's because I am nursing this stupid cold for the last two weeks that's making me cranky.. but I just want October to get here so we can be in full autumn swing and start thinking about Halloween bakes!

Apple season however is here and my trees have been laden down with yummy apples. I decided to pick some, make a rough jam and use that as my filling for my technical bake with the GBBObloggers.

And it turned out so lovely.. well.. that I am told. Because I can't actually taste the friggin' thing. But it was given to discerning connoisseurs who's impeccable taste described it as "sweet, cinnamon right? Mmmm..." and "Appley, yeah appley but I like it".  I can taste texture though and I know the pastry over baked a little, the jam is chunky enough to soften it out, so that's a strong balance and the bakewell filling is light and spongy.

A good go, if you'll accept my biased opinion!

Toffee Apple Jam

500g cooking apples chopped up roughly
100g soft brown sugar
15g butter
2 tsps cinnamon or to taste

Put all the ingredienst nto a pot and over a low heat, simmer down to a complete mush. You'll know it's right when is breaks up easy with a fork, if not pulse it for a couple of seconds with a hand held blitzer.

Leave aside, off the heat to cool in the pot until ready to use.

Shortcrust Pastry

240g plain flour
50g icing sugar
150g diced cold butter (+ a little extra for greasing)
1 large egg

Put the flour, butter and icing sugar into a food processor and blitz until looks like breadcrumbs.
Crack in the egg and bring together until a soft ball forms.
Wrap in clingfilm, pat down and leave in fridge for 30 mins.

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F or Gas Mark 4.
Grease up a 8 inch round loose bottom pie tin with butter.
After 30 minutes in the fridge, take it out and roll it out thin, to fit your tin.

Blind bake your pastry case bottom, using pastry beads for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Make the almond filling, while you are blind baking your pastry.

Almond Filling

125g softened butter
125g caster sugar
125g ground almonds
50g self raising flour
2 large eggs
1 tsp mixed spice

Cream together the butter and the sugar.
Dry mix the almonds and the self raising flour and add to the mix.
Add the eggs and mix thoroughly until all of the ingredients have been combined.

Once the pastry has blind baked, tip the jam filling into the pastry case and smooth out. Follow with the almond filling and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until the top is golden and when touched lightly, springs back.

I decorated the top with some pecan, these are totally optional at this point but do add a nice nutty flavour to the top.

Allow the tart to cool completely in the tin before trying to remove it.

Super Mom Jenny, over at MummyMishaps is again hosting this fine crowd of bloggers, baking along with the Great British Bakeoff. It's bee super fun so far but next week, next week see's a new week, based on botanicals and nature and I have to say I am more than a little excited! I for sure, feel a showstopper coming on!!

Oreo Churros

"But are there any oreos left after you made the poo's Momma?" Poo references a plenty folks, because there was no escaping it. It is what it is. The first line pretty much sums up my entire Batter Week experience.

Spanish Churros was the Great British Bake Off showstopper challenge for week 4 and thinking I could pull it off with a little razzmatazz thrown in, is how I approached it.

Now I don't know if it was the raz or the matazz but something went wrong along the way. Like really wrong. The batter looked like poo, but tasted like oreos, which conflicted all of us. The oil I think, was too hot when I tried to fry them, so kept burning them. Then I tried to bake them and they held their shape and genuinely baked up nicely but they tasted like nothing, even with the oreo cream dip. Nothing. Nada.

No bueno.

Maybe we had convinced ourselves they'd be poo, because that's all we could think during and after the bake. I don't know. My Spanish delicacy frying skills are clearly left to be desired.

Maybe you will have better luck.

The fried version... 

Piped lines for baking...

Oreo Churros

60g butter

350ml water

150g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 large eggs

2 packets of Oreos

oil for frying

sugar and salt for coating

Separate the Oreos into two bowls by spliting each Oreo in half, scraping the creamy centre into one bowl and the pop chocolate biscuits into the other.

Put the biscuits in a food processor and blitz to a fine crumb.

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil and add the butter until melted. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and half the Oreo crumbs and beat quickly until all is combined. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until fully incorporated, then set aside to cool slightly.

Bring a large saucepan of oil to the boil. Or preheat the oven to at 180C/350F or gas Mark 4.

On a baking tray or in a shallow dish, mix together the rest of your biscuit crumbs with 1 tablespoon caster sugar & 1 teaspoon salt.

Transfer your dough to a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, pipe strips of the dough into the oil and fry until they are crisp and float to the top, remove with a strainer spoon and toss in the crumb/sugar mix. Alternatively pipe lines on to a baking tray and pop into the oven for 20 minutes. When out, allow to cool slightly, dip in some melted butter and then into the Oreo crumb mix.

Microwave your leftover Oreo filling for about 30 seconds until melted and dip in your coated churros.

The baked version...

I sincerely hope the other bakers joining in the Great Bloggers Bake Off, faired out better in their choices than I did! Be sure to check out what went down over at Jenny's blog MummyMishaps!

Have a great week folks!

Pecan, Chocolate and Orange Bread

Bread week is my nemesis.

I am no good at making bread.. actual yeasted bread that needs to prove and rise and do scientific things with reactions and what not. Bread week was the worst week for me in the tent, not helped by having had that major panic attack and all that, but the bread I have posted here, is a version of what I made in the tent. I haven't attempted or even looked at this recipe in over two years and still got the heebee-jeebies when I started it.

Stupid Bread Week.. grumble.. grumble..

Seeing as Bread Week's signature was chocolate themed, I changed the filling of my original bake (a cinnamon breakfast bread) to keep it more inline with Mary and Paul's requirements. This pecan, chocolate, and orange loaf turned out really lovely. I would have liked a little more of a rise on the proof but then it is super soft and super tasty so I won't complain too much!

By the time I was finished.. I was glad I had made it again. And I feel it's better than my attempt in the tent.. even though our Irish Paul gave the original the thumbs up. I am also glad bread week is over. No more nightmares! Haha!

Bring on the pastry.. I am super excited for next week already!

Bread Dough

400g strong bread flour

7g easy-blend yeast

30g caster sugar

1 tsp salt

25g melted butter

100ml milk

175-200ml of warm water

Zest of one large orange

Make the dough by putting the flour into a mixing bowl. Add in the yeast, sugar and salt and dry whisk the whole thing.

Pour in the melted butter and zest then add the milk and enough of the water to mix into a soft, slightly sticky dough.

Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead well for 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. 

Return to dough to your bowl, cover with some cling-film and leave it in a warm place to rise. This should take about one hour. If you are having trouble here… turn your oven on to really low (I go for about 30C) and pop the bowl in at the very bottom for the same amount of time.

Chocolate Paste and Pecan Filling

50g pecans blitzed to tiny pieces

60g dark chocolate

60g butter

25g icing sugar

15g coco powder

Make the Chocolate Paste by adding the chocolate and butter into a microwaveable bowl. Melt until combined and then stir in the sugar and coco powder until fully incorporated. Set to one side until you need it.

Prepare and two pound loaf pan with some parchment and leave to one side. 

When the dough has risen, punch the dough back a little and roll it out onto a floured surface. Cut off strips to make it rectangular.

Coat all pieces of the dough with the chocolate paste and sprinkle with the pecan bits. Roll each stripped piece into a rosette roll and leave to one side. Roll the large rectangular piece, starting on the short side, towards you.

Turn the dough vertical. Take a sharp knife, and starting about 2cm from the top, cut the dough in half. Spread the two dough sections apart and insert a rolled dough rose. Twist the dough sections in alternate directions, intersecting with the dough rose until you reach the end.  Tuck the join in under itself at the bottom.

As carefully as possible, pop the dough into a prepared 2 pound loaf pan and cover loosely with a tea towel.

Leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190C/170Cfan/375F or Gas Mark 5. 

Orange Syrup Glaze

60g Caster Sugar

80ml orange juice (the juice of one large orange)

Make the orange syrup glaze by adding the juice and caster sugar to a pot and bring it to a gentle simmer on the hob. Leave to one side to cool.

Bake the bread for 30 to 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown. The bread should sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Brush with the orange syrup while it is still hot and leave the whole thing in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing and eating. 

Look good right? It is very fluffy and soft and the chocolate, orange zest combo marry perfectly. The pecans add a lovely nutty crunch to each bite. Perfect to balance out the soft, doughy texture of the bread itself.

Be sure to fire yourself over to our lovely host Jenny from MummyMishaps, to see what the other GBBObloggers made. There was loads to choose from this week. You will be spoiled for choice!

For those of you asking after my shortlisted nomination, I didn't make the final cut! But that's ok, it was a huge honour to be shortlisted in the first place!! If you would like to see who did make it to the final list, you can hop over here and a take a little looksie. Best of luck to all the finalists... Well deserved!