Gibby Bakes

Christmas Day is probably the only day of the year that the whole family sits down together for a full meal (unless we go out for tea of course!), making it a really special meal. Usually at Christmas we just have soup as a starter, however this year we decided that we'd switch it up a bit, and naturally I offered to whip us up a tasty first course! After trawling through my recipe books for some inspiration, I came across this Wild Mushroom and Gorgonzola Tart! Admittedly I'd never tried gorgonzola before, but I knew instantly that this was the tart for us!  The tart in all its glory! Disclaimer, not everyone at ours is a fan of mushrooms, so I did make a Butternut Squash and Goat's Cheese Tart, which happened to be gluten-free too, as a second option. Making two starters, a dessert, and biscuits to give as part of Christmas presents meant I was in the kitchen for a very long time on Christmas Eve, but I simply watched a couple of Christmas films, and old Gavin and Stacey ...

As I've probably said before, no one in our house really likes traditional Christmas pudding, so when I offered to make a dessert as well as a starter this Christmas I needed to come up with something that the whole family would like. Following on from the relative success of my attempt at an Orange Blossom Honey Entremet (see my previous posts for details!), I decided that another layer cake would be the perfect way to blend textures and flavours to ensure everyone was happy, whilst also creating a visually striking Christmas Day dessert! The cake didn't last very long! The jewel in the crown of my 8-hour Christmas Eve baking marathon, this Triple Chocolate Orange Mousse Cake is probably my most showstopping creation to date! Consisting of five layers, this cake comprises a chocolate orange joconde sponge base, a milk chocolate mousse, a white chocolate mousse, a chocolate mirror glaze, and encased within all this is a layer of orange jelly! This is another of those posts wher...

Now, I know I've already touched on these biscuits in my Mince Pies post, but as I said the history behind them is so fascinating that I had to give them their own little post. So this will be a little break from tradition for this blog, as I'll be focusing a lot more on the history than I will be on the method! Even though these biscuits look quite thick, I've still rolled the  dough out too thinly! That being said, I'll start with a short piece about the method. These biscuits are made by combining butter, sugar, flour, ground almonds, and cinnamon in a bowl until a stiff dough forms. Some recipes call for the use of milk too, though it wasn't necessary in this case. The resulting texture is very short and delicate, which is where the name polvorone comes from. Polvo in Spanish means powder or dust, and they really do crumble into a powder in your mouth. This doesn't sound pleasant, but the texture is rather heavenly!  Polvorones are a variety of mantecados, ...

Confession time, I'm not really a mince pie lover. If the option is there for a mince pie alternative, I'll usually take it. Whenever I've made them in the past it's usually because I've felt like you have to give them a go at Christmas, and it's certainly been for other people, not for me. Recently though I've been seeing people online use different toppings in place of a pastry lid, and I saw the perfect opportunity to try something new! The Mince Pies with the crushed  shortbread topping! For me, the making of the mince pies is probably more enjoyable than the actual eating, and the method is so easy. By rubbing together plain flour and butter, then stirring in sugar and an egg, you produce a sweet pastry that is wonderfully short and melts in the mouth. Shaping the mince pies is also so easy, as you simply roll out the pastry and use it to line a muffin tin! In the past I've struggled with making the mince pies look attractive, but I'm sure you...

The latest recipe on the Jane's Patisserie website, these Hot Chocolate Cupcakes, much like the Mulled Wine Cupcakes I wrote about earlier, are up there with the coziest bakes ever! After seeing Jane debut these cupcakes on her Instagram page, I just had to have a go at them for myself! At this point, Jane says jump and I ask how high! A close up of one of the  cupcakes! The sponge for these cakes is wonderfully light, and the flavour of the hot chocolate powder comes through perfectly without providing any excessive sweetness. Extra sweetness isn't usually an issue for me as I have a very sweet tooth, but given the kind of frosting this recipe calls for even I was slightly apprehensive about the flavour.  What really drew me to these cupcakes was the "marshmallow fluff" frosting! I'll admit to not being a massive marshmallow lover, least of all of those tubs of marshmallow fluff you can buy. I'd make an exception for smores around a bonfire, but generally the...

What do you do when you've promised to bake a little something for an engagement party at the beginning of winter, but have absolutely zero inspiration? You make Mulled Wine Cupcakes, of course! Simple, but effective! It's that time of year again where mulled wine returns to show its face in pubs and restaurants, and my place of work is no exception. I can be a bit fussy with mulled wine, but I really liked the taste of the one we serve. It tasted quite strongly of orange alongside the spice mix, which gave me the idea to prepare a batch of cupcakes flavoured with mulled wine! The perfect winter warmer, these cakes were arguably one of the best ways to enter into the festive period (or to step into Christmas, if you will)! Before starting on the cake batter, I began by making my own mulled wine to use for the sponge. This mulled wine was very easy to make. I just had to combine red wine with orange zest and juice, cinnamon, and cloves, and leave it to infuse for about half an h...

After the stresses of my forays into French patisserie, and with one of my best friends' birthdays coming up, I wanted to bake something a little unique... enter these Aperol Spritz Cupcakes!  The cupcakes all boxed up! My friend loves an Aperol Spritz, and after making a batch of Passionfruit Martini Cupcakes to celebrate another friend's engagement last year, I had the idea to try and incorporate the flavours of an Aperol Spritz, these being Aperol, Prosecco, and orange, into a fun batch of cupcakes! An Aperol Spritz typically contains soda water, but I wasn't too fussed for using soda water in these cakes as I didn't think it would bring anything to the table, and I have to say I'm very happy with the results! My Passionfruit Martini Cupcakes  for reference, recipe from Jane's  Patisserie!  It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that there is a lot of booze in these cupcakes. To start with, the sponge itself contains Aperol, alongside butter, sugar, eggs, ...

Seeing as my first adventure into French patisserie was quite the success, I decided to step it up a notch and attempt something even more challenging, and nothing screamed challenge like this Orange Blossom Honey Entremet! Comprising an orange and lemon joconde sponge, a lemon set curd, an orange blossom honey set custard, and a blackberry gelee, this entremet was the perfect opportunity for me to get some much needed practice preparing unfamiliar sponges and custards. Strap in we've got a lot to get through in this post! A slice of the entremet in all its glory! Every time an entremet pops up on Bake Off I'm always itching to have a go at one myself. The trouble always is I never trust my abilities enough to pull off a project such as this. However, after making Paris-Brest, it didn't take much scrolling before I came across this recipe, Sophie's Ode To The Honey Bee Entremet, from series 8 of Bake Off, and decided to continue my adventures in patisserie for just a li...

You might call it vanity, but I am not ashamed to say how insanely proud of these Paris-Brest I am! My first attempt at a patisserie style bake, and I'm very happy with the finished results! The final Paris-Brest with a  creme mousseline filling! It's not often I get to talking about the history behind what I'm baking, but with Paris-Brest there's an interesting origin story. Paris-Brest became a staple in French patisseries from 1910, when pâtissier Louis Durand created the pastry, shaped like a wheel, to commemorate the Paris-Brest-Paris bike race that first occurred in 1891. There's your fun fact for the day! Now, on to my method. I actually had three attempts at these so I could practice different pastry creams to use as fillings. There are a few components to this bake, but on all three attempts I used the same recipe and method for the choux pastry rings, so we'll start there.  Before making these Paris-Brest I hadn't had a go at choux pastry for many ...