Week Three: Madeleines

When I saw that we were going to be making Madeleines, I instantly thought of the movie about the girls with straw hats who always walked in rows ;) That was the Madeleine I knew, not this French cake called Madeleine. 

So to begin with, both Jennifer and I knew that because we are students we would not buy the tin that you are supposed to get when making Madeleines. We decided to get creative, and make them in a muffin tin. Not really authentic, but anyways ...

The dough was pretty straight forward. To begin with Jennifer mixed the sugar with the eggs, oil and later the vanilla bean paste (which has stronger taste than vanilla extract) until it was pale brown. It was quite hard for us to tell when it was ready, because I don't think it really changed in colour. Luckily Martha had also put in the cookbook to keep mixing until the dough from the mixer dissolved back into the mixture in 3 seconds. That was a handy piece of knowledge right there ;) 

Jennifer mixing the mixture in her innovative saucepan/mixing bowl ;) 

After folding in the dry ingredients we placed the mixture into the fridge to set, and in 15 mins (Martha said it should take around 30 mins, but anyways) we brought it out and scooped it into cupcake cups. 

Our awesome Madeleine cupcake ready for a growth-spurt in the oven

While the Madeleines were in the oven I got onto the glaze mixture. I added icing sugar, milk and vanilla bean paste to a bowl, and whisked all the bubbles out ferociously. 

When the madeleines came out of their growth spurt in the oven, we dipped them all completely (fully-immersed baptism) in the glaze. 

The final product!!

They were amazing, tasted just like Yum Yums. 

We had to request to drop some off at the LRC (Learning Resource Centre aka. Library) to a friend who was doing her dissertation, which felt like we had a proper job, and so we dropped them off on the way to the shops. She said they were amazing, so big praise!! 

Please give these ones a go!! Very easy, and they have an awesome kicker of a taste :D 

Next week we are making Neapolitan Madeleines (Monday) and Raspberry and Pistachio Friands :D Super excited!! If you have baked any of these, and have any tips, please let us know in the comments below!!! We really want to hear from you guys :D So don't be shy ...

Till next time,

The Baking Students xx

Week Two: Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes

This is an awesome description by Jennifer of her baking the Toasted Marshmallow Cakes from last week:

I went home for reading week to take a break from Uni. But not from baking :) There was already quite a bit of cake in my house but there is no such thing as too much cake!! 

For the baking challenge I made toasted marshmallow cupcakes (or fairy cakes as I would call them). They are suitable for vegetarians as there is no gelatin in the recipe for the marshmallow topping :) 

The ingredients

Getting some elbow grease on!!

               

Selfie time 

                                           

The butter/sugar/biscuit/egg mixture

Sieving flour - still not quite ready

Ready to go in the oven

Another selfie :)

                                       

Waiting patiently ...

Now waiting for the cakes to cool

                           

First time making marshmallow topping

And first time making ganache!

Finally get to assemble the cakes

The finished product!! Worth the wait. I am so proud of these!

It was the first time I had ever made ganache which was exciting. If I ever make these again I would double the mixture for the ganache and topping. The cakes turned out well, especially once I grilled the tops of the marshmallow, but as usual I made quite a bit of mess. So much mess that my family went out for tea because they did not want to cook tea in our messy kitchen ha ha.

Till next time,

The Baking Students xx

Week Three: Chocolate Cupcakes

There is definitely such a thing as too much chocolate!! The problem is it tastes almost uncontrollably good, and it doesn't matter how many times you have told yourself to be strong when it comes to chocolate. Oh well, I keep telling myself I haven't been eating chocolate in a while ... Since last week. 

So we planned to make the chocolate cupcakes yesterday afternoon, because there was an event down at the accommodation lounge to celebrate the final episode of The Great British Bake Off (no matter who the winner was ;) ) by having our own little baking competition. 

For those of you who dont know what The Great British Bake Off is, it is a baking competition television show that has 12 contestants (who are put through terrific audition processes to finally get accepted) who have to bake three recipes each week over 10 themed-weeks to finally get a cake-stand trophy. I think it is more the thrill of baking for top bakers than the prize ;) haha

I had a mix-up with my timetable, so it meant that I was running late to get back to uni to bake with Jennifer. I missed the first train I was supposed to be getting from Edinburgh, went shopping for ingredients we needed for the cupcakes while waiting for the train, sped through the store thinking that I was going to miss the next train, and ended up getting the train (most definitely) on time :D I think I need to relax now, I am getting stressed just writing all this down!

I got back to my flat, and there was a girl sitting outside Sophie's door who said she was waiting to surprise her BOY friend (in an all girls flat). I assumed she knew that she was in the right place, but after 30 minutes she was told whose flat she was in, and she suddenly realised she was waiting in the wrong flat ;) She was very content just sitting on the floor in the wrong flat!! :D

So, back to the baking, we quickly whipped up the batter for the cupcakes. Jennifer I worked well as a team: I did the wet and she did the dry. 

Then the fun ( ;) ) began when I measured out the butter, chocolate and golden syrup for the ganache. Mmm, this is where I started eating too much chocolate ;) haha. 

All the ganache ingredients in a heat-proof (well, we assumed it was) bowl over a saucepan with boiling water in it 

The ganache coming together

After chilling for a while, we whipped the ganache up

Jennifer and I were not expecting the ganache to thicken just from whipping!! We were going to skip the whipping, but I am super glad we stuck to the recipe and whipped it!!

Jennifer piping the ganache onto the cupcakes in a "rose-like" pattern 

We were all crowding around Jennifer to get a close look 

Ganache!! After piping my half I piped the rest of it back into the bowl for Sophie to eat 

I gave Sophie the electric whisks with the ganache smothered on them ...

And I think she loved it ;)

The iced cupcakes!!

Me dusting the cupcakes with icing sugar like my grandmother does :)  

Our Chocolate cupcakes on the tasting table at the competition 

 And we were just in time to watch the final episode of The Great British Bake Off 2016!! 

I have never heard such a silence ;)

The last challenge for the final three contestants was to bake a full picnic in 5 hours!! I am kinda glad I was watching them baking that, not actually doing the baking ;) haha. Maybe in the future I would like to challenge myself, but I am pretty happy right now baking two bakes a week with my flat mates!!!

The Baking Students xx

Week Two: Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes

This was, by far, the longest time that I have ever spent making 12 cupcakes in my life!! I feel that it was a tad rushed, as I wasn't there to take the cupcakes out of the oven, and I could definitely improve for next time. But, saying that, I love the use of coffee in the icing, and how the caramel cuts through the heaviness of the coffee taste. It is perfect loveliness!!

So, to begin with, I had a quick meeting in the city in the morning, so I got to writing up my timetable the night before so that I could make the most of my time. 

I woke up, had breakfast, and speedily whisked up the cupcake batter. Hence, why I don't have any pictures of that process. The thing that I noticed about this batter was that you reverse the conventional cupcake recipe by mixing the dry ingredients with the butter before adding the wet ingredients. Usually, it is the other way around. There is something about rubbing butter into flour and sugar that is so very soothing... 

So after I plonked the cupcakes into the oven, I looked at the clock ... And my alarm did not go off to tell me to go get the train for the meeting!! I had three minutes to go, so I (insensibly) quickly ran to my room, put my shoes on, told my flatmate to get the cupcakes out of the oven in 12 minutes (please;)), and sprinted to the train. Which I, of course, missed. 

After catching my breath, and thinking about this things sensibly, I waited on the bus and told the person I was meeting I would be late.

Then followed a series of images and conversing back and forth between me and my flat mate, debating whether the cupcakes were ready to be taken out of the oven yet or not.

Not yet ready

To me, this looked ready, but perhaps it need a minute longer? Anyways ...

My awesome flat mate, called Caroline (who will be helping with future bakes), put this cute mini tent over the cupcakes :D

After the meeting, and the 40 minutes bus ride back to uni, I got on to whisking up the icing. And then I remembered I was supposed to put coffee in the cupcake batter ... Oh well.

I had left out the butter out of the fridge that I needed for the icing in a small mixing bowl when I left that morning, so it was now lovely and soft. Perfect to mix into the icing sugar!! 

And, I did not forget to put the coffee into the mixture this time!! haha. 

Mixing up the coffee icing

Coring the cupcakes for the caramel filling

Next I got started on the caramel for the filling and decoration on top. 

Basically, all you boil up in a saucepan is water and castor sugar. I felt like I was doing a science experiment ;) 

This is what the caramel mixture looked like after around a minute

I was looking for a caramel colour, and since I have never seen this done, or done it myself, I was very dubious whether I had done it right, because it was taking a LONG time. 

And finally ...

The colour I was looking for!! 

Next I took it off the stove, added in some salted butter, and stirred that in while it was hissing and coming together. After it came together, I added some double cream (do not ask me the difference between the MANY different creams they have here in the UK!! Because I have no clue), and stirred that in with more salt. 

Awesome caramel!! 

And then it said in the recipe to let it cool before adding it to the inside of the cupcake. So, I placed it in the fridge and went to go do some work. 

A disastrous move!! When I came back it was all hard and unusable!!!! 

Hard caramel

I quickly texted Jennifer to see if she would know what to do, and whilst I was doing that I placed the saucepan back on the heat. While that worked, it meant the caramel was hot again!! 

I decided to stir some more cream into the caramel, because I thought maybe that would stop the caramel from getting hard?!?

And after leaving it in the fridge for less time this time, it was still hard!!! 

AHH

So I heated it up again, tried to cool it down in front of the window by stirring it furiously and drizzling it into the pot, and quickly placed some of it inside the cupcakes. I then placed it, not in the fridge, but by the window to cool more while I iced the cupcakes.

Now the fun part!! I had bought a palette knife from Lidl, as Martha noted how useful they are when icing cakes, which definitely helped me make the icing all smooth!! A great investment on my part ;) 

And before I knew it, they were all iced.

I then took a breath, in ... out, and started piping the caramel on top of the cakes using a funnelled baking paper. Which did not work. So, losing precious time, and promptly hardening the caramel, I drizzled the caramel using a spoon onto the cupcakes. 

The final product!! My awesomely, unique Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes!! 

While it did not look much like Martha's cupcakes, which were lovingly piped with Macchiato-like caramel toppings, I think there is something about drizzled caramel that is just so irresistible :D

If any of you guys know why my caramel did not turn out as a liquid after freezing it, please do tell me!! I definitely want to improve upon my caramel-making skills for the future bakes!!

Till next week,

The Baking Students xx

Week 2 - Revolutionary news

Jennifer recently informed me that brown sugar is not better for you than white sugar!! This has totally blown my mind!! Apparently, it is coated with some minerals (from molasses), but not enough to say that it is better for you than white sugar. And all this time I thought I was being so much more healthy ... 

Anyways, on a lighter note, this week we are baking more cupcakes!! 

Jennifer is on a study break, so she will be baking Toasted Marshmallow Cupcakes at her home, which she will be hopefully telling us all about soon. Her mum is a great baker, so it is her genes to excel at baking ;) No pressure Jennifer!!

I will be baking this week Caramel Macchiato Cupcakes (sounds so fancy!!) at the flat at university (because I still have classes), as my course does not have study breaks. We only have one examination, whereas Jennifer will have a bit more than one, so there is more of a need to have a study break. 

Yesterday I bought a piping bag from TK Max, and I am super excited to start using it!! Would you guys have any tips for beginners at icing cakes through piping bags? 

I would also like to ask you guys whether you have made either of these cupcakes before, and if you would have any tips. 

It is so awesome to see so many of you reading about our baking adventures!! Thank you guys so much, it is really encouraging us in this challenge!! Especially as exams are coming up ;)

The Baking Students xx

Week One: Vanilla and Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes

After coming home from a full day out at work babysitting (It was SO strenuous!!), I find the amazing Jennifer dutifully icing the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes that I was supposed to help her make (but didn't have time to). 

We had planned to do it together, but when you are a student plans are always changing, so you learn to accommodate and adapt. (I sound like a military personnel: Accomodate and adapt)

I met Jennifer last year at a Christian Union bible study, and ever since then we have been great friends. Since Jennifer lives in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, and I live in Helsinki, Finland, we had to sent letters back and forth continents throughout the summer holidays. Subsequently, we now have a compilation of pages for a to-be journal.

And so, as you can probably tell, it was awesome to discover that Jennifer, surprise surprise, was in my flat this year at university!! (It wasn't much of a surprise, since we requested to be placed together) ;) 

Jennifer and I both share a love of baking, and so when we went to a talk at a local church with the youngest "British Bake Off" contestant, Martha Collison, we were inspired to start baking. At this event I got a copy of Martha's new cookbook called "Twist", and the idea for this blog emerged!! I had the idea to bake all the recipes in Martha's cookbook in a whole year (120 recipes - 52 weeks baking 2-3 recipes), and in the process fundraise for the Tearfund charity (Christians passionate about ending poverty). When Jennifer told me that she was all for this idea, we began buying all the equipment and ingredients we would need to get started!! 

This first week we decided to make the first two cupcakes in Martha's book: My Favourite Vanilla Cupcakes, and Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes.

Jennifer icing the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes 

I have to admit, I had to taste the icing, cause it looked SO GOOD!! It was such an amazing combination of cheesecakey goodness, as it had double cream, cream cheese and icing sugar in it :) 

Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes

After icing all the Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes, and realising that we had heaps of extra icing, we decided to ice the Vanilla Cupcakes. I mean, why would you waste such amazingly, delicious icing? 

Jennifer icing the Vanilla Cupcakes with the Lemon Cheesecake icing, turning them into gorgeous Butterfly Cupcakes

Butterfly Cupcakes are where the top layer of the cupcake is sliced off, the icing is placed on, the layer of cupcake is cut in half and is then placed on the cupcake with the cut part in the icing. Walaa, it looks like a butterfly :)

Once Jennifer had finished icing the cake, we gave the role of cleaning the bowl to Sophie. She says that that is her contribution to baking :)

Sophie laughing at the awesomeness of her job in the kitchen.

I can kind hear an evil laugh in my mind now, mwahahaha. 

Sophie is a newly made friend who was placed in the same flat as me. She is awesome, and sweet, and great at pulling jokes that I don't understand. Literally. Sophie is from Kilmarnock (I had to google it to find how to spell it), which is near Glasgow city.  And anyone who has ever heard Glaswegian accents would know that Scotts from near Glasgow have practically incomprehensible accents. ... And I thought the Irish accent was hard in my flat last year ... 

Sophie and Jennifer can happily have an incomprehensible discussion about local television shows (at least I think that is what they talk about) at any given time. This is what makes Sophie such an awesome member of the Baking Students challenge.

The team!!

Meet the team. From right: me, Jennifer, Sophie and Pamela. My role is to blog, bake and eat; Jennifer's role is to bake and eat; Sophie's role is to "clean" and eat; and Pamela's role is to bake, observe and eat.

In this picture Pamela made her first vegan brownies!! They tasted quite good, a tad bit oily, but quite amazing for vegan baking. At least she now knows how to improve next time :)

And the final member of the Baking Students challenge is Pamela. 

Pamela is an awesome and fun friend who I found out was in the same flat as me at university. She has such a fun-loving, go-getter attitude, that she occasionally plans on going for trips that she cannot currently afford. Like she is now: a trip to Thailand in May. Nevertheless, she is on it: fundraising, getting a job and recruiting more students who can decide to go to Thailand with her. 

Pamela is almost vegan, almost gluten-free, and almost dairy free. This makes it difficult to cook for her, so we will try to make the baking that we do in the future more accommodating for her ;) 

Pamela is an invaluable member of the Baking Students challenge, if not just for her amazing talent for singing high notes and concentrating on studying while bopping Beyonce music is playing loudly, she is willing to learn more baking skills. I secretly think that anyone can bake, they just need to have confidence in themselves and follow the recipe (adding the allotted sugar is a must) ;) 

The final product!! I present to you Jennifer's wonderfully made Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes!!

While waiting for the cupcakes we did a little shuffle dance along the kitchen floor to some songs. Wednesdays on university campus is the party evening of the week, so we were having our own little baking party in our flat. I am now shuffle dancing with my head ;) (I feel like an Indian; bopping my head about like this;))

We are all looking forward to the bake next week, and especially (as we are all students here) eating the cupcakes!!

Till next week, 

The Baking Students xx