#somuchbaking

So I haven't posted anything in a while. My excuse is that EVERYTHING ALWAYS HAPPENS AT ONCE.

Well anyway, I've been baking and eating and going to college. Actually I go to college to do these things, so that's pretty cool. Like, what do YOU do in college, 'cause I cook and bake and eat. I'm being smug.

I made hot cross buns for the first time. Here's a sneaky picture I took at the end of class (We have marble worktops. Yep.):

They may not be perfect, but then, one girl's 'quite satisfactory' is another human's 'adequate' soo.

Then today, I was like "I MUST BAKE!", so I did. I made cinnamon swirls...rolls...? Here they are: 

I think I put too much yeast in them and at one point after proving, I couldn't get the dough off my hands and it was all stringy and I was a bit scared but it turned out fine. I'm fine.

Ok, so I made my biscuits again, and I weighed out the ingredients :D I did five spice again, but more and with cocoa powder and a bit of lemon zest. I also made classic chocolate and hazelnut, cannot beat that combo.

 Oh ya, I had dough left over, managed to resist the temptation to just eat it (thank you, thank you), and made little cubes. Biscuit cubes. Cubes of biscuit. I'm onto something.

Last, and kind of least actually, I just made a really nice steak sandwich the other evening after college. It had fried potato, and cheese, and relish, and caramelised onion chutney (which I made myself) and red onions and mushrooms. It looks as good as it tasted:

Have you read this far, or did you just look at the pictures? You may have missed some mildly funny anecdotes. Or maybe you haven't.

I listened to A LOT of music, seeing as I was pretty much baking (and I cooked dinner) all day, so here's my Soundcloud. Trawl through the likes.

Recipes/Ingredients

Biccies: 75g rice flour, 75g mixed blend gluten free flour, 50g ground almonds, 25g soft brown sugar, 1 tbs granulated sugar, 75g butter, possibly a drop of milk/water. Five spice, good quality choc., lemon zest, cocoa powder, roasted chopped hazelnuts.

Make: Dry ingredients into a bowl, mix it all up. Put down the wooden spoon, we're making biscuits! Then, dice up your butter nice and small, and crumble it into the dry, until it's all combined. By now, the mixture should come together, with a bit of gathering up. If it's falling apart, wet your fingers with milk/water until it stays together. It shouldn't be wet, though. 

Half this, doesn't need to be accurate unless you want the same amount of biscuits in both flavours. Then you can pretty much just put whatever amount of the extras you want, tasting as you go obviously! Do experiment, too :)

 Fan oven, 180 degrees Celcius, 15 mins. Wire rack. Eat.

P.S. These are the flours I used.