Baking Bread with Italian Flair

So, after our delicious meal at a A Room in the West End (see last week’s post) , Jac (Tinned Tomatoes) and I headed over to the Bellini Cookery School in the Pleasance area of Edinburgh.

We were lucky enough to be able to attend a bread making course for lovemycourse – a website which offers over 60, 000 courses in the UK. The courses they offer vary from photography, languages, arts and crafts, to name but a few. You can even set up your own courses and add them on the site. We opted for cooking and chose a bread making class at the Bellini Cookery School.

The Bellini Cookery School is actually in Gino’s Italian Kitchen on the Dalkeith Road in Edinburgh. This is a small Italian café run by Chef Angelo Cimini and manager Gina Giubarelli. We turned up and were greeted by Gina, the manager and were offered tea, coffee etc. upon arrival.

We waited until the rest of our class arrived and then we were given some ‘housekeeping’ rules. We scrubbed up and Gina gave us a bit of background to Chef Angelo before introducing him. Initially Chef Angelo seemed a bit reserved, but when he began talking about Italian cooking and baking, you could see the love he has for his trade.

Chef Angelo demonstrates

 From Italy himself, Chef Angelo has cooked for many diginitaries and celebrities over the years, so you knew what he was going to cook up would be good. He gets up early everyday to bake and cook for the café and you can see it is a true labour of love for him.

Chef Angelo demonstrated the bread making process and then we got a chance to get our hands ‘doughy’.

Jac ready to get her hands floury

 I chose to make white bread and began by rubbing in the butter and olive oil into the 00 grade flour. I decide to make a focaccia sprinkled with rosemary and salt. I also went for something sweet and made cute little cinnamon bread rolls.

My focaccia

I placed the individual rolls close together so when they proved, they touched. Jac told me this was called a Baker’s Kiss, something I had never heard before.

Jac chose to make brown bread filled with nuts and fruit (see pic at the top), which did look delicious.

Whilst we were waiting on our bread baking we were treated to delicious bruschetta, made by Chef Angelo and tasted so fresh, it was amazing.

The class lasted for around 3 hours and I was surprised by how fast it went. I thoroughly enjoyed my time and felt I had learned from a true master.

If you fancy attending a class at the Bellini Cookery School, or indeed want to look at other cooking courses available in the Edinburgh area,  check out lovemycourse . Of the 66,000 something courses available,  they have plenty to help you improve your cooking skills. Pop over to their website to find out what is on offer. I highly recommend them!

Disclosure Statement: This is a sponsored post. The course was arranged for and paid by lovemycourse. I was not committed to writing a positive review. Any opinions expressed are my own.

Dundee Marmalade and Panettone Pudding

*Sadly - this dessert is not a 'looker'!*

Coming from the north east of Scotland, I am very proud of the fact that this year I have worked with the fantastic Mackays – who are renowned for their fantastic jams and preserves and of course Dundee Marmalade.

On our tour of the factory earlier in the year, I learned that all the berries used in the jams and preserves are grown in Scotland. Our climate makes the berries juicier and tastier, perfect for using in their sweet spreads. And the oranges used in their marmalades are all from Seville.

Mackays contacted me a few weeks back asking if I would like to take part in Christmas baking with Mackays, a blogger challenge to use their range in Christmas themed dishes. Of course I said yes and I decided to use their Vintage Dundee Marmalade. I made Dundee Marmalade sticky buns earlier in the year, which were amazing. And I thought that the darker Vintage Marmalade (which has some treacle in it) would be perfect for a Nigel Slater inspired recipe, with added Christmas sparkle. (I know this is a tad early for Christmas but Mackays wanted the recipes in for mid-November, but at least this gives you a head start on preparing it!!)

This is essentially a bread and butter pudding, but uses panettone bread, which, as you may know, is a sweet Italian bread traditionally served at Christmas. This is studded with lots of sweet fruit and I thought the bitterness of the marmalade would work well. Even though this is a pudding, I think it would make a very decadent Christmas morning breakfast – in place of marmalade on toast!

Ingredients:

400 grams Panettone bread, sliced

10 tablespoons Vintage Dundee Marmalade

4 large eggs

500 ml Gold Top milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Adapted from Nigel Slater

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180c and grease a 10”x8” glass dish.

Beat together the eggs, milk and vanilla.

In a saucepan, melt the marmalade over a low heat.

Place half of the bread in the bottom of the dish, squishing it so it covers the bottom. Spoon half of the marmalade over the bread and spread to even out. Pour half the egg/milk mix over the top and repeat the process adding the other half of the bread on top, marmalade and last of the egg/milk mix. Press the bread down with the back of a wooden spoon so it soaks up all of the liquid.

Place into the oven for 40 minutes until it has puffed and has caramelised on top. 

To serve, spoon into bowls and enjoy on it’s own or with a splash of cream, after you’ve opened all of your presents of course. Enjoy...

Disclosure Statement: I received the marmalade free to bake with. Any opinions expressed are my own.

I am entering this dessert into this month's Alphabakes (hosted by Caroline at Caroline Makes this month, and Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker). The letter is O, so I thought Orange Marmalade fitted the bill perfectly.

And I am also entering this recipe (as it's a Nigel Slater one) into Dish of The Month, hosted by Janice at Farmersgirl Kitchen and Sue at A Little Bit of heaven on a Plate.

Cartoon Time - Piece of Cake!

Cakeyboi has been a little quiet lately...

Filled Cookie Cups with Mo's Cookie Dough

A couple of weeks back, when I was at the BBC Good Food Show in Glasgow, I stumbled upon the stand of Mo’s Cookie Dough.

Last year when there I purchased some of Mo’s dough to try out, which I did and I also used it to make some delicious Salted Caramel Cookie Bars. I loved the convenience of Mo’s Cookie Dough, simply take it from the fridge (or freezer) slice it up, pop in the oven and in no time at all you have delicious warm fresh cookies.

Well, this year Morag (Pavich, the owner of the company) kindly gave me a couple of batches of her dough to use again in another recipe. There was the chocolate chip flavour which I tried last year, and the oatmeal raisin, which I hadn’t tried.

Truth be told, I just baked the oatmeal raisin to see how delicious it was. And it was – with it’s gentle cinnamon spice and the juicy raisins. Being a fan of unbaked cookie dough I snacked on some raw, without fear of any salmonella as the eggs used in Mo’s cookie dough are all pasteurised.

With the chocolate chip cookie dough I had, I knew exactly what I was going to do with that. If you love your cookies, but also frosting then this could be right up your street as I decided to make little cups out of the cookie dough and fill with some of my marshmallow frosting. I also added some Autumnal goodies I picked up recently in London – Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses and Harvest sprinkles.

To make the cups, take the ‘log’ of cookie dough and roll it out to about ½cm thick. Take a cupcake tray and turn it over so the bottom's are all sticking up. Cover each cupcake bottom with foil.

Preheat the oven to 180c. Next, using a circular cutter about 1cm wider than the cupcake well, cut out circles and place each one gently on top of the foil, pushing down gently to create the cup edges. Place the prepared tray back into the fridge for 30 minutes. Chilling again helps the cookies keep their shape better when baking.

Place the chilled dough into the oven for 6 to 8 minutes, the cookies will look darker and have puffed slightly. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before carefully removing each cookie cup and prising the foil out of each one.

I used my marshmallow fluff frosting to fill the cookie cups, but you could use anything you like – whipped cream, buttercream, jam, caramel and any sweets you fancy. How about peanut butter or Rolos?!

If you fancy trying these, with Mo’s Cookie Dough, it can be purchased in various outlets across Scotland and the North of England, including Whole Foods Glasgow. A percentage of the profits goes to local projects helping disadvantaged youngsters. Pop over to Mo’s website for further information. Oh yes…enjoy!

Disclosure Statement: I received the cookie dough free to bake with. Any opinions expressed are my own.

A Room In The West End for lunch

Recently my friend Jac (you know, author of Tinned Tomatoes) and I visited Edinburgh. Jac asked me along to a bread-making course with her and before that have a bite of lunch.

The venue for our lunch was at a bar in the west end of the city called Tcheuchters. The bar looked nice enough, a traditional Edinburgh pub. But our port of call was underneath the pub.

Downstairs was the restaurant, one of two bistros in the city, this one being A Room in the West End (the other A Room in Leith).

courtesy of www.aroomin.co.uk

The restaurant had a cosy atmosphere being downstairs, with subdued lighting (hence my pictures looking quite poor.)

For our starter, Jac and I both chose the pan-fried halloumi, which came on a bed of rocket, with artichoke tapenade and balsamic. This was delicious, particularly so with the artichoke tapenade, which I began spreading on the warm bread which was also provided.

For my main course I chose pan-seared calves liver on a bed of skirlie mash, with roasted tomatoes and drambuie and thyme jus. I love liver, and this did not disappoint. I also love skirlie and having this mixed through mash was amazing. Now I can’t wait for my usual fix of the stuff at Christmas.

Jac chose the sweet potato, scallion and pecan cous cous cake. Being vegetarian this was her only choice, but it did look very appetising.

For dessert I chose the coffee, frangelico and peanut tart with a raspberry coulis. This was okay, I wouldn’t say I loved it, but I did clean my plate. Jac went for the dark chocolate tart which looked very decadent.

Meals at A Room in the West End are priced at 2 courses for £13.95 or 3 for £16.95. Starters on their own are £4.95 and mains are £9.95. All meals come with freshly baked bread and mains come with potatoes and veggies.

A Room in the West End was a lovely place to eat and judging by how busy it got whilst we were there, is a very popular destination. The staff were friendly and the restaurant had a great atmosphere.

A Room in the West End and Tcheuchters Bar, 26 William Street, Edinburgh EH3 7NH. Check out the menu which is changed regularly.

I enjoyed our (very filling) lunch which was the entrée to our bread-making course over at the Bellini Cookery School, which you can read about next Saturday.

Disclosure Statement: We were provided our meal free to sample and were not committed to writing a favourable review. Any views expressed are my own.

Pumpkin Blueberry Scones

A lot of people associate pumpkins with just Halloween, but I always think of them as an Autumnal ingredient. Just because October has gone and November is here, doesn’t mean that we can’t use the wonderfully orange gourds anymore! In fact in America they are used traditionally at Thanksgiving for Pumpkin pie.

After seeing a recipe online for Spiced Pumpkin Scones, I knew I wanted to make them, but I also wanted to add another ingredient into the mix – blueberries. I love Starbucks Very Berry scones so thought that the two flavours might work well together.

I wasn’t wrong and the result were spiced moist scones with bursts of berry throughout. Delicious! I also cut them into triangles, a la Starbucks, instead of the more traditional UK method of round scones.

Pureed Pumpkin is available in a lot of places these days in the UK, but if you struggle to get hold of it, it's available online or you could even make your own. Smitten Kitchen gives you tips here.

Yield: 16 scones

Ingredients:

260 grams plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon ground ginger

¾ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon nutmeg

113 grams unsalted butter, cold, cubed

70 grams light brown sugar

113 grams pumpkin puree

1 tablespoon golden syrup

3 tablespoons soya milk

1 egg

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

100 grams fresh blueberries

Sugar for sprinkling

Adapted from Inspired Taste

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a couple of cookie sheets with greaseproof paper and set aside.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt and spices. Add the butter and rub through until you get a breadcrumb like consistency.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar, pumpkin, syrup, soya milk, egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to this wet mix and combine together with your hands until a dough forms.

Place onto a floured work surface and knead for a minute. Flatten the dough out to about 10”x 8” rectangle. Sprinkle the blueberries on top and then fold the dough over in half and then reshape to 10”x8” again, so the blueberries are now inside the scones mix.

As I said, I don’t use cutters for these. I take a pizza cutter and cut in half length and breadth wise then cut into eighths. Tricky to describe, but take a look at the pic to get the idea (or use cutters, your call).

Place each scone onto the baking sheet and sprinkle with sugar so they get a nice crunchy top. I used sugar crystals, but granulated would work just as well.

Pop into the oven for 10 to 12 minutes and when they have browned slightly (and the toothpick comes out clean) they are done. Allow to cool slightly on a rack before cutting open and spreading some butter on them.

The blueberry does work well with all the spices and I know you will love these. Enjoy…

I am also entering these scones into this month's Treat Petite challenge  hosted by Kat over at the Baking Explorer. The theme this month is America - and pumpkins and blueberries scream USA to me!

Back from hols and a Big Treat Petite Apology!

Well, we are back from another little trip to London. It was fun, but I did take poorly whilst there! My insides were like a washing machine on full cycle most of the time - but it didn't stop me from shopping and seeing a couple of shows. I picked up more great ingredients and ideas to share.

But whilst I was away my foodie friend Lisa over at United Cakedom asked if her submission for last month's Treat Petite was too late as I hadn't included it...EEK!  I completely overlooked it and I feel so, so bad. I have now updated the post but I wanted to share with you her delicious pumpkin and ginger cupcakes here too.

Perfect for Halloween, but I think'd they would taste just as good anytime!

Kat at the Baking Explorer is hosting Treat Petite this month and the theme is America - any US inspired recipe, ingredients or anything made for Thanksgiving is the order of the day. Why not take part - at least Kat won't forget any entries....

I'll be back with more recipes soon!