Sun-dried Tomato and Parmesan Biscuits

Now that the Great British Bake Off has finished Mary Berry & Paul Hollywood have released three episodes of "masterclasses" - where they show us how they'd have done the bakes.

The first episode featured these sun-dried tomato and parmesan biscuits and I have to say the minute I heard "sun-dried tomato" I was sold. Although I'm not a fan of regular tomatoes I find their dried, acidic and intensely flavoured sun-dried cousins irresistible.

I was pleased to find I could pick up the rather obscure sun-dried tomato paste in Waitrose. It's not my usual supermarket but they have such a fantastic range of ingredients that I have to pop by occasionally when I'm looking for a little something extra to add to my baking. I was disappointed to discover that if you're a MyWaitrose card holder you can get 50% off some of their baking range - great if you have a card...not so great if you don't and temporary cards aren't issued instore any more.

Ingredients: 
187g/6.5oz plain flour
2 eggs
0.5 tsp salt
62.5g/2.25oz unsalted butter, softened
40ml cold water
40g/1.5oz grated parmesan
1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato paste

Method:
1. Beat the flour, one egg, salt, butter and water together in a mixer for around 5 minutes, until a soft dough is formed.

2. Add in the parmesan and sun-dried tomato paste and mix until combined.

3. Put dough on a lightly floured surface, roll out until 3mm thick and then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Pre heat oven to 200c.

4. Cut out using a cutter and place on a lightly floured baking tray. Beat the remaining egg and gently apply an egg wash. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until golden.

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Genoise Layer Cake - Attempt 1: FAIL!

I've been meaning for a while to bake my way through all the types of sponge cake, meringue and pastry. I thought this would be a perfect way to test all the skills I've gained baking over the last decade or so. So today I finally got round to my first bake.

The first type of cake I've decided to make is a Genoise. It's a very delicate sponge which is made my whisking the entire egg, this is different to something like an angel cake where only the egg white is used.

I've read lots of recipes and some say to beat the eggs and sugar over a saucepan and some just say to whisk and whisk and whisk. However, knowing that warmer eggs produce more volume when whisked I decided to go down the less-faff route of simply popping the eggs into a bowl of quite warm water for 5 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 6 medium eggs, warmed for 5 minutes in a bowl of warm water
• 130g caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 75g butter, melted
• 130g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Line, grease and lightly flour two cake tins.
2. Break the eggs into the bowl of your Kitchenaid, add the sugar and vanilla. Beat on high speed for 10 minutes until trebled in volume. If using a hand mixer this may take 15 minutes.
   
   
   

   

   Note the trail across the top this is called a 'ribbon'.

   
   
3. Whilst the eggs are being whisked melt the butter in a microwave and set aside to cool.
4. Mix together the plain flour and salt in a small bowl. 
5. Once eggs are beaten pour into a larger bowl. Sift a third of the flour mixture into the bowl and fold in with a spatula being careful not to knock all of the air out. Add another third, fold in, then repeat with the last third.
   
6. Take a small amount of mixture and mix it in with the melted butter. Pour the butter mixture back into the large bowl and fold in carefully again. 
   
7. Split the mixture between the two cake tins and bake in the over for around 20 minutes.

I removed the cakes from the oven and notices they hadn't risen much. I gave the five minutes to begin to cool down before removing them from their tins. When removing them I noticed they felt quite heavy - much to my horror. Oh well, I thought, I can probably salvage it somehow. Sadly not - they were like hard, rubbery discs!

I've turned to the internet for a bit of help and it would appear that it could have been a couple of things. 1 - I may have not mixed enough of the mixture into the butter before returning it to the bowl or 2 - I simply just didn't mix through the ingredients enough. Of course I'm not going to give up there, I'm determined to nail this recipe. I just thought it would make a refreshing change to talk about a baking disaster rather than a success for once!

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