Gibby Bakes

The perfect little activity for a chilled out Easter Sunday, these vegan friendly cinnamon rolls were actually my second attempt at baking cinnamon rolls! Pretty symmetrical! Compared to my previous attempt at cinnamon rolls, these are a triumph! The method is so simple. Bread flour, salt, sugar and yeast are combined in a bowl, then a warm mixture of melted butter and soya milk is added to the dry ingredients. The mixture is then kneaded for about 5-7 minutes until it passes the window test when held up to the light! An individual roll! For the filling, softened vegan butter, light soft brown sugar and ground cinnamon are creamed together. When the dough had risen, I rolled it out into a large rectangle, before spreading the cinnamon filling over the dough. The dough is then rolled up from one of the longer edges and cut into 12 rolls to form the not-too-tight tight spiral. The rolls are then left to proof for a second time on a baking tray before baking. I was slightly worried about ...

When I say I think I've outdone myself with this one, I truly think I've outdone myself with this one! The ultimate indulgence, these cupcakes consist of chocolate fudge cake inspired sponge, a chocolate ganache filling, a chocolate whipped cream buttercream icing, and the whole thing is topped with a salted caramel brownie! As I was going along I forgot to take pictures of the individual stages, sorry in advance about that! I mean come on, just look at them! I've always shied away from making chocolate fudge cake, for no apparent reason. I guess I just always assumed it'd be quite hard. When I settled on my plan for these cupcakes though I just knew it had to be a chocolate fudge cake base.  Making the sponge was surprisingly easy though! To achieve that classic chocolate fudge cake texture, melted butter, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, caster sugar, and soft brown sugar are beaten together in a stand mixer for about five minutes. At the same time, cocoa powder ...

I'm back at it again with the original recipes! Strawberry, White Chocolate and Pistachio Cupcakes! These cupcakes comprise a strawberry cake sponge with added white chocolate chips and chopped pistachios, are filled with a homemade strawberry jam for an extra strawberry hit, and are topped with a white chocolate and pistachio buttercream! To finish, I topped the cupcakes with half a strawberry coated in white chocolate and sprinkled with chopped pistachios! Strawberry cake is a completely new concept to me, and is a little different to the sponge recipes I'm used to following. When I first heard about it on Instagram I didn't pay full attention to the recipe, as I assumed it would just be a plain sponge with strawberry puree mixed in... spoiler alert, it's not. I began with the concentrated strawberry puree, which I would add to the sponge batter when it was cool. The puree was very simple. All you have to do is core the strawberries, blitz them into a puree, and reduc...

At the minute I seem to be firing out bakes faster than I can write about them! After a pretty hectic weekend visiting the theatre and then a rage room, I'm taking some time to just sit, relax, and write about my recent masterpieces. One bake I'm particularly proud of is this gluten free Carrot Cake! My first time trying the semi-naked technique. Carrot Cake is up there with my absolute favourite cakes ever. I know it's a bit of a controversial one, but the flavours and textures of this cake are absolutely to die for!  And the best part, it's so easy! For the sponge, vegetable oil, soft brown sugar, and eggs are beaten lightly in a bowl until combined. Grated carrots, orange zest, and dried fruit (I used dried cranberries for a little sour kick) are then folded through, before gluten free self raising flour, mixed spiced, ground ginger, and ground cinnamon are sifted into the mixture along with the bicarbonate of soda! When the dried ingredients are fully incorporated, ...

I made it through my first week at my new job! I'll tell you one thing, I'm bloody exhausted. Sitting at a desk all day Monday to Friday is definitely going to take some getting used to, and I didn't expect it to be so tiring! You'd think then that with feeling so tired I'd have taken the weekend to chill out a bit and get myself ready for the next week, and believe me there's nothing I would have liked more... As if I didn't noitce my mum's water bottle in the background! Of course, that didn't quite work out. Instead, I ended up baking this White Chocolate and Lemon Cake... I just couldn't help myself! There's quite a long and sad story behind this cake, which I won't go into here, but the main purpose of this cake was to make a bit of a fuss over a group of very special people who've been having a really tough time lately (plus the insta needed a splash of colour seeing as my other beige bakes began to take over!). You can't ev...

Tell you what, I've wanted to have a go at a batch of Viennese Whirls for so long now, and lately if the chance to bake something vegan and/or gluten free comes up I seem to be embracing the challenge! The lemon curd just peeping out! These Viennese Whirls are flavoured with lemon zest, and are filled with a vegan vanilla-flavoured American buttercream and a homemade vegan lemon curd. I'm sure this isn't the first time I've made vegan lemon curd, but for the life of me I can't remember which bake I used it for... I know I've made vegan passionfruit curd to go in my vegan Strawberries and Coconut Cream Meringue Cake, so maybe that's what I'm thinking of? Preparing the dough for the whirls is very easy. To start with, all you have to do is cream together vegan butter and icing sugar, before adding gluten free flour, xanthan gum, corn flour, and lemon zest. This method is so easy it almost feels criminal! The resulting dough, which is very similar to shortb...

Who's ready for an original recipe?! Fair warning, this post is quite long! These past few days have been some of the most anxiety-ridden ever for me. I'm starting a new job (stressful), the interview for which involved a ten-minute presentation (stressful), leaving behind an industry I've worked in for seven years in favour of one I have zero experience in (stressful), and I've finally gone out and got myself a car (extra stressful, considering how much I hate driving!). I've been feeling constantly nervous and anxious for well over a week, and I've been feeling so run down and exhausted as a result... I needed to do something to take my mind off the changes happening around me. I haven't been able to sit still long enough to focus on a book, and feeling ill once again has made running a challenge. So I decided to do a little bit of baking, and coming up with an original recipe felt like the perfect way to distract myself! And it worked! The eagled eyed out...

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...

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...

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 ...

This might just be my most triumphant bake to date, owed in part to the fact that it's an entirely vegan creation! This a Vegan Chocolate and Salted Caramel Cake! The cake is comprised of four layers of chocolate sponge, is filled and decorated with chocolate and salted caramel buttercream, and is topped with homemade double chocolate cookies and homemade vegan fudge! The drip (which did so much emotional damage to me!) is a salted caramel sauce.  I had to combine elements from a few different recipes to pull this cake together, the majority of which come from Freya Cox's vegan baking book. This book is proving to be something of a vegan baking bible! To start with, I made the sponges following the method for her Black Forest Gateaux recipe, which uses espresso powder to enhance the chocolate flavour! The cookies are a take on Freya's Triple Chocolate Cookies, except I couldn't find any vegan friendly white chocolate in shops near me, and had to leave it out. For the bu...