Gibby Bakes

Recently I've been obsessing over the recipes on the Bunch vegan blog, so when I came across this recipe for a Vegan Miso Mushroom Quiche I knew I had to give it a try! In the spirit of total honesty though, this quiche just isn't for me. I have a very love/hate relationship with miso (I absolutely love the flavour of it in Bunch's recipe for Miso Mushroom Pasta, but for this quiche it was a miss for me). If you're a miso lover though then I guarantee this quiche is for you! The first step was to make the pastry. The recipe calls for the use of shop bought filo pastry, but I really wanted to have a go at making my own vegan shortcrust pastry! This was so easy! By simply rubbing vegan butter into flour and salt, adding water, and then rolling the pastry out to line a tart tin, you end up with the perfect vegan shortcrust pastry case for this recipe! With this recipe being vegan friendly, I was intrigued as to how you would make a quiche filling with no eggs, cream or mil...

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 ...

A reworking of my Chocolate Fudge Cake Cupcakes from my last post, these Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes consist of chocolate fudge cake sponge, a chocolate ganache filling, and a chocolate whipped cream buttercream icing. The cupcakes are, of course, topped with Ferrero Rocher and toasted hazelnuts! The perfect present for my parent's wedding anniversary!  I've been playing with my new piping nozzles, and I settled on this design! Seeing as I've only recently written about the method for chocolate fudge cake batter, whipped ganache and whipped cream buttercream, I won't go into it again. I don't often repeat bakes so quickly unless they weren't very successful, but they felt like the perfect indulgent treat for a wedding anniversary! Roughly frosted cupcakes sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts! I recently saw a technique on TikTok where you pipe a ring of buttercream using a plain nozzle around the base of a domed cupcake, press the cake into toasted hazelnuts, and then p...

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...

Vegan and gluten free cake is taken to a whole new level courtesy of these recipes from Freya Cox's Simply Vegan recipe book! I don't think I've ever used a recipe book quite as often as I have this one, and I honestly cannot recommend this book enough! Without further ado, say hello to my first show-stopping bake of the year, this vegan and gluten free Winter Spice Pumpkin Cake! Confession time, I actually baked this cake nearly three weeks ago, but I've just been so busy with job interviews, buying a car, and more baking (of course!) that I've been struggling to keep up with writing about my bigger bakes. A few smaller posts helped to ease me back into the flow of blogging, and writing about my Aperol Spritz Mini-Cakes eased me back into longer posts, just like this one is about to be!  Anyone who has been keeping somewhat up to date with my blog posts will know that I adore pumpkin spice, and wintery vibes in general. As the nights are getting lighter and spring ...

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...

Last weekend I found myself with a rare couple of hours without absolutely nothing to do. The run I had planned had been rained off and I was feeling too restless to sit and read the afternoon away. What better way to pass the time then than by going back to basics with these Scones! Filled with homemade blueberry jam  and clotted cream! My dad mentioned the other day that the supermarket seemed to have stopped selling the scones he likes. After making a show of fake coughing and clearing my throat a few times (from which he didn't get the hint), I asked him if he would like me to bake some scones for him. A man of many words, his reply was simply "hmmm you can do if you like". You know I never miss an opportunity to squeeze a bit of baking into the day, and I quickly set about deciding on the fillings I would use! Clotted cream was a given, however I couldn't decide between a jam of some kind or a lemon curd. I opted for blueberry jam, as it was something I'd nev...

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...