Chelsea Buns and The World's Best Cakes Review

I've never made Chelsea Buns before but was not daunted by the sweet dough after making the Kugelhopf which turned out so well.  I'd also been watching the contestants on the 'Great British Bake Off' making sweet doughs the other week and it reminded me that I should make something like this again.

The opportunity came in the form of The World's Best Cakes by Roger Pizey, one of the finest pastry chef's in Britain, according to Marco Pierre White.

About the Author
Roger Pizey is a celebrated baker and patissier with over twenty five years experience at the cutting edge of cooking.  He trained for two years with Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in London before joining the charismatic Marco Pierre White as his Chef Patissier.

About the Book 
The World's Best Cakes is a collection of globally inspired classic bakes from national favourites such as American Boston Cream Pie and British Chelsea Buns to exquisite small treats including Russian Tea Cakes and French Madeleines.

The book is a Masterclass in baking, regular readers will know that I own many baking books and, over the past year, I have reviewed quite a few books on cakes and baking.  All I can say is GET THIS BOOK ON YOUR CHRISTMAS LIST.

Roger Pizey takes you through all the Basic Techniques you will need. shown in step by step pictures.  Every recipe is accompanied by stunning photographs, often two for each bake, the whole cake and a slice, or a variation e.g. Victoria Sponge and Fairy Cakes.

The recipes themselves are clearly laid out with the ingredients and each instruction in the process clearly numbered.  There is also a paragraph about the recipe and some recipes have variations too.

Another feature of the book is the pages on 'Where to Eat Cake' in various cities around the world. 

For me, the standout recipes in this book were the Raspberry Angel Cake, Willie Harcourt-Cooze's Cloud Forest Chocolate Cake,  Pastel de Chocolate Mexicano (A Chilli Chooclate cake), Espresso Marble Cake, Olive Oil Cake with Peaches, Richard Corrigan's More Stout Than Treacle Cake, Basbousa (a Semolina cake), Banana Cheesecake, Mustikkapiiraat (Finnish Blueberry Buns), Cinnamon Bear Claws and Christopher Farrugia's Maltese Prinjolata.

Are you getting the picture?  I could go on and on because every cake looks fantastic and fascinating and so, so delicious that I want to make them all.

Pros
Well written recipes, beautiful pictures, lots of cakes I've never even heard of, let alone made, before. The step by step basic techniques is easy to follow and there is also a section at the end of the book called 'Baking Basics' which includes recipes for Creme Anglaise, Creme Patissiere Royal Icing, Chocolate Ganache etc. 

Cons
Not really a book for a beginner baker, the recipes are clear enough but there are many which demand more technique, fine if you have a little experience of baking and want to expand your repertoire. 

The Verdict
I'm sure you have gathered that I like the book and I would certainly recommend it, plenty of inspiration for all those baking challenges. And it's not just me who is impresssed:

@FarmersgirlCook I bought the world's best cakes book as u said its gd. Wow. It is one of the best bks I have seen. Simply stunning.

— Deon van Schalkwyk (@dvans88) October 18, 2013

Chelsea Buns
Makes 12
For the yeast starter:
15g (1/2 oz) caster sugar
85g (3oz) strong flour
300ml (10floz) full-fat milk, slightly warmed
25g (1oz) fresh yeast

For the dough:
675g (1lb 8 3/4 oz) strong flour
a pinch of nutmeg
140g (5oz) butter, cubed
1 egg
85g (3oz) caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
finely grated zest of 1 lemon

For the decoration
50g (1 3/4 oz) butter, melted
50g (1 3/4 oz) caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
50g (1 3/4 oz) currants
65ml (2 1/2 fl oz) Stock Syrup

For the Stock Syrup
Makes 65ml (2 1/2 fl oz)
65ml (2 1/2 fl oz) water
65g  (2 1/4 oz) caster sugar 

1. To make the yeasty mix, stir the sugar and flour into the milk in a pan, then add the years.  Keep it warm until it froths up and then drops.
2. To make the dough, sift the four and nutmeg together in a bowl then rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Next make a well in the centre of this dry mixture.
3. Whisk the egg, sugar and lemon zest into the yeasty mixture then tip this into the well and mix until the dough is smooth, silky and slightly elastic.  Allow it to rest for 1 hour wrapped in clingfilm.
4. Grease and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
5. on a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to a square shape about 4 cm (1 1/2 in) thick, then brush with melted butter, Sprinkle sugar, cinnamon and currants over the surface.



Of course, I cheated!  I didn't have any fresh yeast, so used Fast Action Yeast, put all the dough ingredients and the starter ingredients, substituting the dried for fresh yeast, into the bread maker and put it onto the dough programme.  You could use your stand mixer with a dough hook, or just place it all in a bowl and mix by hand.   The dough still came out silky smooth and the buns were well risen and tasted great.

 The World's Best Cakes by Roger Pizey
Published by  Jacqui Small LLP
RRP £30
Available for £15-16 at online retailers


I'm entering these Chelsea Buns for Tea Time Treats, the blog challenge run by Karen at Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked.  The theme this month is Sweet Breads and Yeast Breads, so my Chelsea Buns fit perfectly and, believe me, they are a treat!

Labels: cakes, Chelsea Buns, Cinnamon, dough, Roger Pizey, sweet bread, Tea Time Treats, World's Best Cakes

posted by Janice @ 15:20 7 Comments

Bread Sticks and Bloggers- Bread in Fife Part One

It's quite extraordinary the lengths that bloggers will go to meet up and bake. Between the three of us we made a 450 mile round trip to Freuchie in Fife, to learn how to bake Mediterranean Breads with Colin Lindsay at Bread in Fife

So who, you might ask, are the three bloggers baking bread?

Louise, Janice, Jacqueline

Louise (Lou) from Please Do Not Feed the Animals, Me and Jacqueline (Jac) from Tinned Tomatoes.

Colin

After some refreshments and a little discussion about our various bread making experience, we got down to business. Colin is testing the heat of the water  with his fingers.



We started off making an olive oil dough, all the ingredients were weighed, even the liquid.  I was very interested by the importance of the temperature, not only of the liquid, but also of the flour.  The ideal temperature for fermenting dough is 27C.  Colin gave us a formula to get the right temperature for both flour and water, double 27 = 54  minus the temperature of the flour = temperature of the water.  We used flour from  Shipton Mill and fresh yeast, but you could use dried yeast.


Once we had  incorporated all the liquid we started to knead our dough.




Colin showed us a variety of ways of kneading, including air kneading,  all of which is pretty physical, but the air kneading is really hard work.

 Here is Jac, checking whether her dough is ready by stretching it out paper thin, and if you can do that without it breaking, then the gluten has stretched enough and you are ready to prove your dough.  We set aside the olive oil dough to prove, in a converted plant propagator/mini greenhouse in Colin's porch.  It had a little heater in the bottom to keep the temperature even, of course you only need this sort of thing if you are proving a lot of dough, a warm room or airing cupboard will do just as well.

This 'beast of yeast' is a plain flour, yeast, salt and water dough that Colin had made before we arrived, so we would be able to continue baking while the olive oil dough proved.

 Bread Sticks

The first  thing we made were bread sticks, not the very thin brittle type of Grissini, you get on the table at Italian restaurants, these were more substantial.
Here are the 'toppings' that we had to choose from: olives, Parmesan cheese, sesame seeds and poppy seeds.

Colin showed us how to incorporate sesame seeds into our dough by folding the dough over the seeds, turning and folding again.
When you start to knead them into the dough, they rise to the surface.
By rolling and pushing the dough firmly in a circular motion against the table, the seeds start to go under the layer of dough.  Reading that back, I'm sure it makes not sense to anyone who hasn't seen it - you had to be there!

 Then you roll the dough flat and divide into strips.  Take each strip and roll it into a long sausage.
Place your chosen topping on a sheet of baking parchment on your baking tray, damp the bread stick with a little water from a spray bottle and roll in the topping.  You can also sprinkle with some flakes of sea salt.

These are Lou's lovely evenly rolled bread sticks.

These are my rather gnarly and unevenly rolled bread sticks - I think bread sticks can say a lot about your personality!

And here they are after baking.We tucked into them with a cuppa and discovered that you had to go easy on the salt, as some were a little oversalted, especially where we had used olives and parmesan!  However, they tasted great and we all agreed we would make them again.

We used the rest of the plain dough to make Fougasse, a traditional hearth bread, but with slashes cut into the flat breads.

These would be good with a bowl of soup, but as they are so plain, you really need something to go along with them.

The recipe for the bread sticks and the olive oil dough is on the Bread in Fife website, the Fougasse uses the same recipe as the bread sticks.

In Part Two I will show you about how we made pannini and the Focaccia featured at the top of the post.

Labels: Bread, Bread in Fife, bread sticks, dough, Fougasse, olive oil, Please Do Not Feed the Animals, Tinned Tomatoes

posted by Janice @ 20:24 10 Comments