(S1E2) Biscuit Week

The Showstopper

As you can imagine, me being an American and all, biscuits mean something completely different to me than what they mean to someone who is from the UK. A biscuit to me is something bread-y or something a dog would eat, like a dog biscuit, and we don't want to be making dog biscuits, do we? No.

But, with a little bit of research, meaning I watch episode 2 of season 1, biscuits can be a lot of different things; such as cookies, scones, bread-y things, crackers, ect. So, I was partly correct.

In addition, what is awesome about this show is it is not just fun to watch, but they teach you a lot about baking as well; such as the narrator explains a few things that could change my biscuit drastically:

- "Adding more sugar creates a crispier biscuit.

- More fat or butter, you will end up with a crumbly, melt in the mouth shortbread.

- Using golden syrup or honey and the result should be a chewy cookie."

Now that I have a little more confidence, let's start baking.

Signature Bake: Linzer Cookies

Rule: "Your signature biscuit needs to be your personality in a biscuit. Grandmothers recipe or something you nicked from a tea room."

Rule: You get one batch and the whole batch has to be served to the judges.

Time Limit: 2 Hours

Mary Berry says it must be something "with a bit of history, something that they have perhaps invented themselves, something unique. Perfect even color, slightly darker on the edges, cooked perfectly in the middle." Paul: "It is about two minutes each way on how it is going to turn out. And we want it to be absolutely bang-on; so its got the consistency, its got the color, its got the flavor, and its got the bite; which is what you are looking for.

In addition, the narrator explains that all biscuits have the same three ingredients: sugar, flour, and fat.

This helps me move towards a biscuit that is butter-y because I love butter. And I am not just saying that. If you were to come over and look in my fridge, my fridge is backed with butter.

In addition, the bakers can add whatever they like to create their biscuits and I love lemon. So, I know what I am going to do.

Now, enough chatter, lets jump right in!

Ready. Set. Bake!

1 hour and 45 minutes left -

I forgot to take the butter out of the fridge earlier today, so my butter is SO cold!

I don't own a microwave, so I can't toss the butter into the microwave for a few seconds. I can only heat it up with my hands; which I actually prefer, but it takes some time, like 15 minutes of time to bring my butter to room temperature...

I know you probably asked, why not the stove? I don't want to melt the butter. Just bring it up to room temperature.

I don't know if you know this, but I really really love the taste of lemon.

I love how it can be so sour, but also sweet; so I decided to make the base of my cookie lemon.

Super Lemon-y

1 hour and 15 minutes left -

I love Linzer Cookies, I really do; but I don't know why I chose a biscuit that has to chill for an hour in the fridge when I only have 2 hours to bake.

By the way, if you have never used Bee's Wrap, I would really really recommend it. It is just like cling wrap; but it is reusable, lasts a year, and is biodegradable so it is good for the environment. I am not writing this blog to sell you things, I don't promote any other products, but I will always recommend something that is good for the environment. Anyway, back to the bake.

I don't think I am going to be able to keep my dough in the fridge for an hour because 1 tray takes 8 minutes to bake and I need to bake about 3 batches, so I know I need at least 24 minutes for just the bake.

Again, just 24 minutes for just the bake, this does not include the time it takes to roll out the cookies or cut them. It also does not include the time to fill and dust the cookies.

1 hour left -

The dough is not cold enough, fact.

I pull the dough out of the fridge and put it in the freezer to hopefully speed up the process and get my butter to harden slightly.

50 minutes left -

The dough is as cold as it is going to get, I have to get these cookies in the oven.

I grab a chunk of dough, my rolling pin, and lay out my spacers, and start rolling.

- Spacers: I actually have no idea what these are called, but my boyfriend's mother got them for me for Christmas and they are absolutely amazing.

Spacers

34 minutes left -

I am just now getting the first batch in the oven...

24 minutes left -

I have one batch of biscuits coming out of the oven and I have two more to do. If you remember what I had said before, each batch takes about 8 minutes to bake. So, 8 + 8 is 16 minutes to bake the rest of my cookies. This gives me 8 minutes to roll our the dough, cut the dough, cool the cookies, fill the cookies, and powder them.

Rethinking the process:

I figured I need to at least get one batch fully complete to present to my imaginary panel of judges.

I toss the batch I just took out of the oven onto a cooling rack and then toss the next batch in to the oven.

By the time I have placed the next batch in the oven, my biscuits have cooled enough to fill. I grab my jam and start spooning the jam onto the the bottom biscuit.

12 minutes left -

The oven timer goes off and I toss the second batch onto the cooling rack and roll out, cut, and throw the last batch into the oven.

You read that right! Last batch in!

I go back to the cookies that I have been filling and finish spooning jam onto them. I place the cookie with the hole on top of the cookie with jam.

I run (I have a separate baking cupboard in my living room cause I don't have enough room in my kitchen) and grab my sifter and toss some powdered sugar into it and start sprinkling.

1 minutes left -

The oven timer goes off for my last batch, so I grab them out of the oven and place them on the counter.

I place a few cookies onto a serving platter.

Time!

As I'm sure you know now, I didn't finish the challenge. I have 1 batch complete, 1 batch on the cooling rack, and 1 batch still on the cookie sheet.

I failed the challenge.

Louise says at the end of the challenge, "You do have to pick yourself up and you do have to dust yourself off...hey-oh, there is an afternoon and another day tomorrow, so we will see what that brings."

Louise is so right, I just have to pick myself up and continue on. I at least had a few that were completed and absolutely beautiful.

Just so you know, I actually have this recipe on my blog here! I would very much recommend you make these cookies (and then give some to me...).

Also, I want to reassure you, even though I did not finish this challenge, I went back and completed all the cookies, so nothing went to waste.

Tasting

Well, I may not have finished all the cookies, but they are absolutely delightful.

I probably would have preferred them a little crispier, but other than that, I believe Paul and Mary would have said the flavor was good.

Technical Challenge - Paul Hollywood's Scones

Discipline and not creativity.

Rule: Need the whole batch. Consistency across the entire batch, they all have to be flawless.

Rule: Given only Paul's list of ingredient and measurements. Everything else is up to them. Paul has not specified how to combine the ingredients.

Rule: Oven Temperature and baking time has not been specified.

Exception: I watched the technical challenge, so I know some things already, clearly. For example, I now know not to knead your scone batter too much because I could "chaff" the mixture and make it feel like rubber, and we don't want that.

Also, I know the egg wash should only be on the top.

Ingredients: Paul Hollywood's Scones

- 500 grams strong white flour, plus a little extra for rolling out

- 80 grams softened butter, plus a little extra to grease the baking tray

- 80 grams caster sugar

- 2 eggs

- 5 teaspoons baking powder

- 250 milliliter milk

- 1 egg - beaten with a little salt (for glaze)

Time Limit: 1 hour

Ready. Set. Bake!

So, I kind of cheated, but maybe not? I will let you decide.

I knew I was going to be baking scones, so I ended up making a batch of Blueberry Scones. Not Paul Hollywood's scones, just a random recipe for scones, so that I could figure out this weird sticky texture. However, it still didn't help all that much...

This bake started out great.

Based on the blueberry scone recipe I did, I knew I wanted to rub the butter and flour together until it looked like corn meal.

50 minutes left -

After my bread and butter had the right consistency, I added the rest of my ingredients and instead of using a mixer, I just used my hands to mix the ingredients until I created an extremely sticky dough.

Extra emphasis on the sticky.

35 minutes left -

I dumped the dough on the counter, created a smooth ball, and flattened it out until it is about 1.5 inches thick.

I don't really have a clue how thick it should be, but I figured, I like fat scones, might as well make them slightly thick.

25 minutes left -

I get all the scones cut and placed onto a baking sheet and only have 11.

That is weird.

Why do I only have 11?

Did I make them too thick?

Did I use a cutter that was too big?

No idea.

Oh well. I don't even remember hearing how many scones this batch should have made, I just know I need to use all the dough.

20 minutes left -

I carefully brush my egg wash onto the tops of my scones and toss them in the oven.

I unfortunately don't know what temperature I am supposed to bake the scones at, but I know bread is normally at a pretty high temperature, so I decide to bake them at 410 degrees F.

10 minutes left -

The scones are not done. They have a little color on top, but not enough and they seem to be pretty soft.

2 minutes left -

Something smells off...

I pop open the oven and see that the bottoms of my scones are starting to darken a little too much, but the tops look good, so I pull them out of the oven and hope they are baked through...

1 minute left -

I don't have time to let them cool down. I pop them off the baking sheet place them on a cooling rack and the timer goes off.

Done!

The color looks good, but the bottoms have been browned a little too much.

I'll still eat all of them! Perfect for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

Tasting

They smell SO good!

I split one open and the smell was so divine!

Added a little jam and perfection!

Paul would have probably mention the fact that my biscuits did split a little in the middle, so there must have been too much flour added.

In addition, I worry that my scones look more like biscuits than scones.

What do you think?

However, hopefully Paul would have enjoyed the smell and in reality, that would have made my day.

Showstopper: Raspberry Meringue, Blueberry Macarons, and Choux Pastry with Lemon Curd

Rule: Produce 3 different types of petit fours: Meringue, choux buns, and macarons.

Rule: Bring in your own Recipes

Time Limit: 4 1/2 hours

Ready. Set. Bake!

4 hours and 30 minutes left -

I knew I needed to get the meringue in the oven as quick as possible, so I I grabbed my eggs and my sugar and started the mixing process.

I knew I wanted to make them raspberry flavored, so that I could have this fresh petit fours trio with raspberry, blueberry, and lemon.

In addition, I figured, with the raspberry flavor, I should make these meringues pretty and delicate, so I added a little red coloring and pipped them to look like roses.

You are probably wondering, how am I going to pipe roses? Well, I am not, but I am going to use a piping tip to create a rose look.

However, I realized as I was piping my roses, the meringue does not look stiff enough, but I have already started and I can only hope for the best.

4 hours left -

As you can probably notice, I have little tiny ones on this cookie sheet and that is because I do not have enough room in my oven.

These meringue take 2 hours to bake and I don't have enough time to bake more than one batch. So, to bake all the meringue, I had to pipe miniature meringue cookies.

I am not sure if I am allowed to do that, but oh well, I did.

3 hours and 50 minutes -

The meringue has been placed in the oven and now they have 2 hours to bake. Meaning I am unable to use the oven for anything else until they are done; however, I have some fillings to finish for all three bakes.

First, the ganache.

I pour the heavy cream in a sauce pan and start chopping my chocolate.

Once the cream is heated on and the chocolate is chopped, I mix the two together and make my ganache.

Done!

Super easy.

I do have to say, I have become very skilled at making ganache. And yes, I did just toot my own horn.

3 hours and 30 minutes left -

Now, I need to get my lemon curd completed because this also has to set before it is filled into the choux pastry.

I love sour lemon curd, so I add two lemons worth of juice and the zest from one of them. Super sour!

And, again, I am going to toot my own horn, the lemon curd is sour, delicious, and magnificent. I am feeling really good.

3 hours left -

I am thrilled about my fillings, but my meringue is making me feel a little anxious because they take so long to bake.

I have an hour left until they are done baking and I have one last filling to finish, my blueberry filling for my macarons.

I decided that I was going to do a mascarpone frosting, but if you remember from my carrot cake in episode 1, it did not go well. I have high hopes for this one though.

I add my mascarpone cream and heavy whipping cream in a bowl and start mixing.

Crap.

I already screwed up. I needed to whip both my mascarpone and heavy whipping cream before combining the two...

I went ahead and tried to whip it to see if it would stiffen, but no luck.

2 hours and 45 minutes left -

I need to start the mascarpone cream over.

I grab two new bowls and start my cream again.

Bad news, the frosting is not thickening up. I don't know why. I don't know what I am doing wrong with it, but it is not working.

2 hours and 15 minutes left -

I need to start my macarons, I don't have time to do another mascarpone frosting yet, so I place it in the fridge and just hope it sets up while I make my macarons.

In addition, as you know, I only have 15 minutes left on my meringue, which is really great.

However, I go to check in on them and they are not stiff.

At all.

They are still really soft.

I have no idea what I am going to do.

I decided that I need to turn up my oven slightly, hope for the best, and get my macarons started.

2 hours and 10 minutes left.

I start sifting my almond flour and plain flour and get my egg white whipped.

Once everything is ready to be mixed, I slowly fold the dry and wet ingredients together.

Something feels a little wrong, almost like the batter is too dry, but I then wonder if I am thinking too much about it.

1 hour and 45 minutes left -

I checked my meringue and it is still extremely soft. I don't know what I am going to do about this, all I know is I just have to let it keep baking.

As I get my batter into the piping bag, I realize that both my cookie sheets are being used for the meringue that is currently in the oven.

I decide to grab a few cake pans, flipped them upside down and placed some parchment paper on top to create a make shift baking sheet.

1 hour and 30 minutes left -

I have to get my macarons in the oven, but I don't think my meringues are ready.

I decide to place the macarons on the shelf below the meringue.

1 hour and 25 minutes left -

I turn the macarons in the oven to help them bake evenly and pull out the meringue.

1 hour and 20 minutes left -

My macarons are not baking well at all. They have no legs, meaning they are not rising, and they are not baking.

In addition, I just checked how the meringue dried and they are sticky and I don't know why. I don't understand what is happening.

1 hour and 15 minutes left -

I have made stones...

Well, more like pebbles. Hard pebbles...

These macarons have been over baked, but the tops are not baked. Something went wrong and part of me feels like it is because I baked them under the meringue for a few minutes; however, I think it has something to do with the fact that my batter was really dry before I baked it too.

Damn.

I don't have time to make a second batch, I still need to get my choux pastry in the oven.

I just move on.

1 hour and 10 minutes left -

I get my milk, flour, salt, and sugar into my pot knowing the next 20 minutes is going to be moving really fast.

55 minutes left -

After mixing all my eggs in the batter, the choux pastry is ready to be pipped and baked.

However, as I start to pip the choux batter, I realize that it seems a little too thin, but again, I don't have the time to start over, so I just move forward with what I have.

I toss the pastry into the oven and hope for the best, again.

That really does seem to be the one thing I do a lot of the time, just hoping for the best.

Sometimes, that is all you have.

But, no time for that, I need to get my baked goods filled.

I lay out the meringue, even though it is very sticky and fill them with the ganache I made and add a raspberry for the middle for a nice fresh taste.

45 minutes left -

I checked the choux pastry and they are looking a little flat, which is not good at all. They still need to bake; so, I leave them be and move onto the macarons.

However, if you remember, my filling for the macarons was not very stiff.

Well, it still isn't, but I have no choice.

I lay out my macarons and start spooning my very thin filling onto them and it is not good. The macarons have a very browned bottom and the filling is just sliding off.

I place a fresh blueberry in the middle, but because the filling has no body to it, the blueberry is too big and the macaron tops won't sit right.

This is not looking good.

35 minutes left -

I need to pull out my choux buns now!

I grab an oven mitt pull the choux buns out start flipping the buns over and poking small holes in the bottom to let the moisture out and toss them back in the oven for a few more minutes.

31 minutes left -

I grab the choux buns, toss them on my serving dish.

I won't have time to fill them

30 minutes left -

Done!

You are probably wondering, why did I finish 30 minutes before my time was done.

Well, I am asking the same question.

I had no idea that I had 30 minutes that I did not use until I started writing this blog. I was so shocked. I am so disappointed in myself.

However, it was not just my fault.

You know how I said I could trust Wikipidia in my first blog post, The Intro? Well, I was wrong. I couldn't. Wikipidia said it was a 4 hour challenge, but as I was re-watching the episode, I heard Sue, the host, say "you have 4 and a half hours". What?!

Crap.

I really really needed that 30 minutes.

I was unable to fill my choux buns and I was unable to make a new mascarpone frosting due to the time crunch.

These are the moments that I wish I had a host calling out how much time I have left.

Maybe I can convince my boyfriend to do it. What do you think?

However, we have to move on.

The Tasting

The tasting did not go well.

All my worries in the baking were true in the tasting.

The meringue was so sticky. It did not dry enough and I don't know what went wrong. Any advice?

The good thing was, the flavor was still pretty great. The ganache was smooth, the raspberry was tart, and the meringue was sweet.

However, again, the meringue was too sticky...

The macarons. No good. And I am not kidding. Not even worth taking a bite, let alone, giving to a judge.

I took one bite and it was like trying to take a bite into a hockey puck. These macarons are the worst I have ever made; even worst than the first ones I had ever made.

I would have been completely embarrassed giving these to Paul or Mary.

I would have probably asked them not to eat them and I don't know if that has ever happened on the show.

The choux buns may have been a little flat, but thankfully they baked correctly.

Unfortunately, I did not get them filled due to my time mishap, but the flavor was pretty good and the buns were hollow.

This week was not my week. I was unable to finish challenges and my Showstopper went straight to the bins.

Well, the macarons did at least.

To the Bins

As a home baker, you don't always know the laws of baking and instead of learning them in classes, I end up learning them first-hand. I am not saying this is bad. I am saying that sometimes it just takes a little longer to figure out what has gone wrong.

However, I still learned a lot, especially, what not to do.

No matter what, it still stinks when things don't go as planned or you don't finish.

I just need to slow down, feel confident, but not too confident, and do my best.

Again, thankfully, I can't be asked to leave. But, if I were on the show, there would have been no question...

Let's hope next week, bread week, goes better.