Gibby Bakes

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...

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...

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 ...