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 ...

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...

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...

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, ...

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 ...