Basic White Loaf - Jo Wheatley P. 163

I've decided to do a little side series working through different recipes for white bread and see which is our favourite. I've already made one from Mary Berry's book, blog here, so I decided that this week I'd try one from Jo Wheatley's Book. I try and make all of our bread now so this gives me plenty of opportunity to try out the differing recipes. 

This recipe makes a loaf using 500g of bread flour, which for me seems like a small loaf but I think that's probably a standard size. It has the usual convential ingredients.. flour, salt, sugar, yeast, butter and water. This recipe has an extra ingredient that I've never seen in bread before (except bread machine mixes).. milk. The recipe states to use whole milk but in this flat we only have semi skimmed so I used that instead. 

Like most recipes it involves mixing all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. 

Dry ingredients mixed together

I then had to add the milk and water together and heat them up. The butter was added to this and melted and then this mixture was added to the dry ingredients. Usually I don't measure out the water and just add as much as I think is needed, however, this recipe had the butter and milk included so I thought I'd better add them. It turn out to be exactly the right amount. The mixture was slightly dry but once it was turned out onto the side and kneaded this made it perfect and I didn't even need any extra flour on the surface during kneading. The dough was rolled into a ball and placed in a lightly oiled bowl for 1 hour.

Dough is rolled into a ball and ready to prove

Once the dough has doubled in size it's knocked back and kneaded for 1 minute. It is then placed in an oiled loaf tin and left to rise for 1 hour before baking. The recipe stated that it should be cooked for 30mins but I did it for 38mins like I usually do. As soon as the bread was cooked I got it out of the tin and left it to cool. 

Loaf out the tin and cooling

 Once cooled I sliced some for my lunch and gave it the taste test. I was impressed at the texture inside the loaf, perfect. 

Sliced bread, great texture inside

Verdict: I really enjoyed this bread and thought it had a lovely taste and texture to it. It tasted lighter than the Mary Berry loaf and is a more useful size. However, I'm aware that the loaf has milk in it and it looks likely that little M&M has a milk allergy/intolerance, therefore I won't be able to make this loaf once she is old enough to eat it. It may be worth investigating in future using alternative cows milk free milk, but that's for another time. 

Baked Omelette

I decided to try this recipe as it was the next one out of the hat and I had all the ingredients in the flat for once. Baked Omelette from page 30 of Jo Wheatley's Passion for Baking book. 

This is meant to be a breakfast recipe but I had it for my lunch and reduced the portion size significantly. I only used 3 eggs and 3 rashers of bacon and added in some tomatoes. I also used milk instead of double cream. 

The first step is to fry the bacon and the onion until they're nicely brown, I also added the tomato in order for this to be fried as well. Meanwhile whisk the egg and the milk together. Combine all the ingredients into a hot pan and place in the oven for 20 mins. 

This is a very easy recipe but I have the same problem with this as I had with the oven baked breakfast, is it really worthy of a page in a baking book? It is a very simple recipe and there's nothing new about it. It's just an omelette. 

My finished omelette. 

The verdict? It's nice but not amazing. I'm enjoying it for my lunch and being someone that's not keen on runny eggs, it's nice and solid. But like I said, it needed something special to be worthy of going in this book, it doesn't have it. 4/10.

Oven Baked Breakfast P.37

This weeks Passion of Baking Challenge was the Oven Baked Breakfast from page 37 of Jo Wheatley's book. This is basically a fry up but cooked in the oven rather than in a frying pan. I decided to have this as my dinner rather than a breakfast in order not to destroy my diet too much!! 

I made a few changes to the recipe this time, for simplicity but also for what I like. I didn't have any mushrooms (don't like them) and I didn't oil the tomato as I prefer it done without and it's easier. 

Basically the recipe consists of putting the sausages in the oven for around 10 mins, then adding the tomato and bacon for a further 10 mins. Once cooked take that lot out and put the eggs in the tray, as it's already hot it fries a little when added and then oven bake that for a few minutes. I found it hard to judge when the egg was cooked to my satisfaction so they were a little too hard for my liking, I like running yolks but the white has to be completely cooked. 

My Oven Baked Breakfast

I then made some toast and settled down to eat it. 

Verdict. Jo says "This is a lovely easy weekend brunch for when I'm not ready for a big breakfast but then too hungry to wait until lunchtime". For me this seems a strange comment because this is a big breakfast!! However, it was lovely and I enjoyed it. For me this recipe doesn't really work in a baking book, it seems out of place and also a bit basic. Everyone knows how to make a cooked breakfast so it seems a bit unnecessary to put it in here and then not really add anything extra. Yes it's novel cooking it in the oven but that's not really enough to inspire me. I was disappointed to pick this out of the bag and no less disappointed having made it even though it was a lovely meal. 

For the score, I'm not sure I want to give this meal a score because it's not unique and for that it's going to suffer, a mere 4/10. Next time Baked Omelette, let's see if this can be more original. 

Banana Muffins

It's been a little while since I've been able to do any baking so with my semi day off today I decided to make the next thing on my list from Jo Wheatley's book, Banana Muffins Page 148. 

The first obstacle I had to overcome was lack of buttermilk. There was none in the local shop, therefore I improvised and added lemon juice to milk, apparently this is pretty much the same thing any way. It worked ok I think. As usual I used flora instead of butter but apart from that I tried to stick to the recipe. 

Mashed bananas

The first step is to make a crumble topping for the cakes, it's just the simple flour, sugar, butter and little spice. As usual mine wasn't crumbly enough and turned into a moist paste, however, I tried to use it anyway. 

The next step was to add all the dry ingredients together, and all the wet, and the combine the two. It was very easy and didn't even need the electric whisk just fold it in. 

I decided to make cupcakes instead of muffins so the portions were smaller and I could make more. I had to fill the cases quite high to use up all the mixture so in the oven they did slightly rise out. Place the crumble mixture on top before placing them in the oven. 

I'm not exactly sure how long the cakes took to bake as I wasn't watching the clock but it did seem to take quite a while and even now I'm not sure as they seem too moist and stuck to the case. 

Cakes fresh out of the oven

The second tray... there might be one missing!!! 

I agree with Jo that these are lovely and simple to make, I don't have any children to try and make them with but I'm sure this is a recipe they would enjoy with the mashing and the stirring. The banana taste is subtle but tasty and the crumble mixture gives a lovely crunch to the top of the cakes. It's a shame it stuck to the case and I lost half of the cake through that. 

The finished and cooled down product

Overall it was a tasty cake but not perfect, I'm going to mark it 6/10, ok but certainly not amazing. My husband is at work at present and won't want to eat something so unhealthy so for today this mark will be out of 10. 

Blueberry Muffin Loaf

My next Jo Wheatley creation was the Blueberry Muffin Loaf from page 50. I picked this out the hat but it seemed like quite a nice thing to be making. 

Again it was very simple to create, as all the recipes have been so far, and didn't take me too long, it total it took around 1hr30. 

To start you make a crumble topping for the top of the loaf, just flour, sugar and butter rubbed together. 

Then you make, what basically seems like, a normal sponge recipe and add in the blueberries. Place the crumble on top and bake the whole thing for 1 hour. 

For once this actually cooked in the time stated and came out very moist and had a lovely crunchy exterior. 

Cake just out of the oven

Jo states in her book "The idea of this fruity loaf to share at brunch is that it will retain its moisture; a whole loaf of loveliness, sweet plump blueberries, crispy crunchy topping and light airy sponge. It's not just a sensation but all different flavours and textures, a party on your tongue."

and then out of the tin.. looks lovely from this view

My verdict is that it was slightly disappointing, I have to agree that the crunch on the top was really nice and I enjoyed the texture contrast. The blueberries all sunk to the bottom so I found this a bit annoying and really for me there were too many. It was a moist cake and an airy sponge so I would agree with the description, however, I wouldn't say it was a party on my tongue. Overall I give the cake 7/10, it's good but not great.

My husband has gone away this week and whilst he tasted this I didn't get a chance to get a full verdict. He gave it 7/10 also but also said whilst it was nice, it wasn't amazing. 

Our slices, shows the blueberry base.  

The cake has now made the trip up to London to my willing family to test it. Let's see what they think of it. 

Honey and Almond Tarts

 My latest Jo Wheatley challenge was the Honey and Almond Tarts from page 92. I wasn't overly keen on this idea as I don't like pastry but as it was pulled out of the hat, I gave it a shot. 

It was probably the most complicated of the recipes I've done to date but having said that it was very easy to create. 

The first step was to make some sweet pastry and leave this to chill. Once that was chilled I used a cutter to cut out circles and then placed these in a pre-sprayed muffin tin and left to chill for 15 more minutes. 

Pastry is chilling

Whilst that was on the go I heated up the butter, sugar and honey to boiling and then added some double cream and almonds. This mixture seemed to be mainly almonds with honey and not much else. I was expecting a spongy mixture. 

This was added to the pastries and then they were cooked for 20mins. 

Add the honey and almonds

Once cooled I made some lemon icing (icing sugar and lemon) and added this over the top. 

The finished product, not too neat and tidy this time!

The verdict: Jo's description states "I think it's really great when you create different textures and tastes in a bake, and these little tarts do just that, with soft, short, crumbly pastry, then sticky honey and crunchy almonds, all topped off with tangy lemon icing. What's more, it's really simple". 

I agree that there were several different textures in these tarts and that the lemon icing certainly helped the tarts, however, I didn't really enjoy it. For me it was way too sweet and moist, I found it slightly sickingly sweet and since I don't like pastry anyway this didn't help. To be honest, the pastry section was actually my favourite bit of this so that's not great. My score is only a 6/10 this time. 

My husband however, for once, gives a higher score than me being 8/10, He thought the lemon complimented the nuts and pastry really well and it tasted really nice.

Contrasting views today then but bring the Honey and Almond Tarts to a total score of 14/20. 

Peanut Butter Cookies p180

For today's challenge I made Peanut butter cookies from p180 in Jo's book. 

This was something that appealed to me when I picked it out the hat. I was interested to see how they would turn out as they looked very easy and we actually had most of the ingredients. 

The recipe was really easy to make, mix together butter, sugar and peanut butter. Add in egg and then flour and raising agents. It produced quite a moist mixture which I thought was quite unusual for a cookie mixture. I then stirred in some chocolate chips. 

The mixture ready for the chocolate chips

You then place spoonfuls of this on a baking sheet and place it in the oven. It is so quick, only took 10minutes total in the oven and out they came looking much larger and slightly browned. The fun part of cooking was after 5 minutes you hit the tray again a hard surface and they all deflate. Never done that before and worked well.

The first batch came out slightly brown but I don't think they were cooked enough.. also slightly large.

As the first batch enlarged so much, I made the second batch with slightly smaller spoonfuls and ended up making more than the 10 that the recipe states. That good, more food is always better!

So the verdict.. firstly something about the description. The book states its "A massive favourite in my house...a lovely crumbly cookie". 

The completed selection.. the darker ones are the second batch, much nicer. 

The first batch were slightly too large and I prefer drier crunchier cookies. The second batch are much better as I left them to cook for longer. The taste is nice, you can definitely taste the peanut butter and the chocolate works fairly well, however, I think I'd use peanuts next time. I would also prefer them to be slightly sweeter. My husband says there wasn't enough flavour for him and they were too soft. So next time I'd cook them for longer and make smaller cookies. Perhaps chocolate and peanuts next time? 

My score for them is 8/10 and my husbands 5/10 (my husband is harsh, he states that he's made other cookies that are substantially better than that!!) so that's a total of 13/20.