Chocolate Orange Eclairs + a Giveaway

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // October 3, 2014 // 42 Comments

These Chocolate Orange Eclairs are for pastry week of my GBBO challenge. I went with eclairs because because they were a challenge for me. I don’t know why but I always get into fights with choux pastry, I can make perfect danish pastry but choux pastry is a challenge for me… I’ve always been a bit backwards!

I did manage to defeat these eclairs though! What defeated me though was a roll of parchment paper, I dropped it onto of the eclairs when I taking photos, which is why some of the chocolate glaze looks the way it does… I have nothing to say about my clumsiness other than oops!

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Fig Jam

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // October 1, 2014 // 5 Comments

September is my favourite month (yes I know it’s October now, but shh). It’s the start of autumn, the weather is cool but sunny, there are warm spices wherever you turn. And figs come into season! I love figs a lot. It’s hard to get them fresh where I live though so I pounce on them whenever I get the chance. And when I was walking past the fruit market stalls in town last week and saw they had fresh figs – I went a bit crazy. I came home with over 1kg of fresh figs!

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Public Service Announcement!

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 27, 2014 // 3 Comments

Hi guys!

Please forgive me for this recipe and photo free post, but it is important

October is Lupus Awareness Month in the UK and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that raising awareness for Lupus is something that is close to my heart.

With that in mind, I would like to use this blog to help raise awareness and funds for Lupus UK. I’ll be doing this by doing a small giveaway during the month of October.

I’m making this post for two reasons. One is to ask you what kind of things you might like to see in this giveaway. I would like to include something I have made that will ship well worldwide and a few purchased items that I like to use in my baking. This giveaway is for my readers so your opinions are welcomed and encouraged!

The other reason is to open up the opportunity for any of you to donate something to the giveaway! No donation is too small and as long as it’s family friendly and is shippable (I would pay shipping) anything you’d like to donate is acceptable and would be so greatly appreciated! If you think you would like to donate something, please drop me an email at michelle@atipsygiraffe.com so we can discuss it further.

Ideally the giveaway will start on Friday October 3rd and run until the end of the month when the winner is announced. But this is not yet finalised.

Thanks so much for reading 🙂

– Michelle

Copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Syrup (plus the ultimate hot chocolate)

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 27, 2014 // 19 Comments

That’s right guys, you get two recipes for the price of one in this post! Plus you’ll be able to make your Pumpkin Spice Latte’s at home for a fraction of the price with this copycat Starbucks pumpkin spice syrup, what more could you want on a Saturday afternoon?

I don’t like coffee, at all. In fact, I hate it. I don’t even feel bad about admitting that! But I was always jealous of everybody who got to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes at this time of year, because while I hate coffee pumpkin spice is one of my absolute favourite thing (I mean, I did make pumpkin pie into an ice cream after all). So I went into Starbucks earlier this week and asked for a pumpkin spice hot chocolate. And let me tell you, I got some funny looks from both baristas and lots of “You want pumpkin spice hot chocolate?!” But it was worth the judgemental looks because it was delicious! After my first sip, I knew I was doomed! I was going to become a slave to Starbucks. I’m already a slave to Costa (they make amazing cinnamon hot chocolates, I went there so often when I was living in Birmingham that they got me a Christmas card one year!) so I knew I couldn’t afford to be addicted to Starbucks too, even if just for one season! So, last night I set to make my own pumpkin spice syrup, and boy am I glad I did!

This syrup is amazing, it has all that yummy warm autumn spices plus that subtle pumpkin taste. I only mad a relatively small amount for my first attempt, but it can easily be doubled or tripled to give you lots more! I can’t tell you how long it will keep since I only made it last night and I’m too eager to share it with you all to test it’s longevity, but it’s a simple syrup so I’m sure it’ll last at least a few months in the fridge. It probably won’t get a chance to last that long in my house though! The syrup is easy to make, the hardest part is straining it as it does take a while – but I’m an impatient person so it’ll be smooth sailing for most people! It also contains real pumpkin* (*or butternut squash technically) so it’s practically healthy (let me have that one okay)! Not a fan of pumpkin? No problem! Switch out the pumpkin puree for some apple puree and you’ve got a beautiful spiced apple syrup!

You can of course use this syrup in your lattes, it will also be great on pancakes, ice cream – you name it! But I of course used mine in hot chocolate, which is why I’m also going to share with you my ultimate hot chocolate recipe. I got this mixture recipe from Jamie Oliver a long time ago now and I’ve never turned back to ready made hot chocolate mixes since. Trust me, you won’t either. It’s easy to put together as much as you like, stick in a jar and crack into it whenever you need a yummy hot chocolate treat.

I urge you to give this syrup a go and I’m willing to bet you that your local Starbucks will be starting to miss your presence!

I’m going to be bringing this along to Fiesta Friday today, as a late treat for our wonderful host and co-hosts – Angie, Prudy and Naina. Hopefully this little pick me up will keep them and you partiers going through the weekend! If you’ve not partied at Fiesta Friday before, grab a mug and come join us!

Pumpkin Spice Syrup

2014-09-27 12:29:37

Copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Syrup - make your own PSL at home!

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Ingredients

370ml water
130g light brown sugar
200g caster sugar
100g pumpkin puree
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Heat the water and sugars in a medium saucepan over a medium heat until the sugars have dissolved
Stir in the spices and pumpkin puree and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Do not boil. Stir occasionally.
Remove from the heat.
Place a wire mesh sieve over a large bowl, and line the sieve with cheese cloth, a muslin or very thin tea towel.
Strain the mixture through this. You will end up with a very thin syrup in the bowl and a thick paste will be left behind. I saved this, I'm not sure what I'll use it for yet though!
Leave the syrup to cool and then stir in the vanilla
Pour into a jar and seal, store in the fridge

Notes

Use 2-3 tbsp of syrup in your coffee or hot chocolate.
See link below for what to do you if you can't buy canned pumpkin puree in your country

By Michelle @ Giraffes Can Bake

A Tipsy Giraffe https://www.atipsygiraffe.com/

If you can’t get canned pumpkin puree in your country like me, see this post on what I use instead. It’s pretty much the same stuff you’ll find in canned pumpkin puree 🙂

Ultimate Hot Chocolate

2014-09-27 12:36:03

A delicious homemade hot chocolate mix, just add hot milk!

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Ingredients

4 tbsp malt milk drink mix (e.g. horlicks)
4 tbsp cornflour
8 tbsp cocoa
6 tbsp icing sugar
200g good quality dark chocolate, finely grated
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
Hot milk
Whipped cream (optional)

Instructions

Mix all the ingredients together
Heat your milk in a pan on medium heat until it's just about to boil
Add your hot chocolate mix and whisk in
Leave to cook on a low heat for a couple of minutes
Pour into your favourite mug, top with whipped cream if using and sprinkle on some pumpkin spice mix

Notes

Use 5 generous tablespoons of mixture per 500ml/1pint of milk
Double this recipe to make as much as you like!
Store in a sealed container

By Michelle @ Giraffes Can Bake

Adapted from Jamie Oliver

A Tipsy Giraffe https://www.atipsygiraffe.com/

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Scraptastic Saturday

Fig and Orange Kugelhopf

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 26, 2014 // 52 Comments

It’s time for European Cakes week of my GBBO challenge! Yay! And I made this fig and orange kugelhopf! A kugelhopf, or gugelhupf, is a yeast leavened cake usually filled with soaked dried fruit such as raisins or dates. I think it is Austrian, but also native to Germany and Hungary and it’s what inspired the American favourite – the bundt cake! I know what you’re probably thinking – but Michelle, why is the Great British Bake Off doing a European Cakes week? Isn’t that a bit redundant considering Britain is in Europe? Well, maybe. But one thing you should probably know about us Brits is we don’t really consider ourselves real Europe (I think some Brits like to think of us as our own continent sometimes!). Taking a day trip to France? You’re not just going to a neighbouring country, you’re going to “the continent” – it’s like we’re a little village on the outside of a big city! So when you hear Brits talking about “Europe” we most likely mean any European country that isn’t part of our Islands!

This cake was a bit of a challenge for me! This is my first time using yeast to leaven a cake and let me tell you, it’s made me appreciate baking powder a lot more! But this is the way they used to make cakes rise before such wonderful things like baking powder were invented, and Europe sure does love it’s traditions! My first attempt was a big failure, my dough just didn’t rise at all – I baked it anyway though to test the flavours and I ended up with a very dense, malt loaf kind of texture. The flavours were great though so at least I knew I had that part sussed. My mum, however, loved it and she ate almost the whole thing! Which was a little weird, but at least it didn’t go to waste! For my second attempt I tackled it from a different, more cake like way as the first time I treated it like a bread dough and mixed the ingredients as such. And it came out great!

As you might imagine, this cake has more of a fruit bread texture than a cake texture, but it is very light. It’s great eaten warm, fresh from the oven and would be yummy with afternoon tea. It’s also wonderful toasted and eaten for breakfast, it would be amazing with my cinnamon honey butter generously spread on it. This kugelhopf is stuffed full of orange zest and dried figs, the dried figs were soaked in orange juice and spiced rum overnight. I then saved the liquid from that to make a honeyed syrup that I cooked fresh figs and orange segments in to decorate the top, and poured the syrup over the warm cake. There were so many warm, yummy flavours coming from this cake – it’s a definite winner. It’s a bit of long winded process to make this cake but I think it’s worth it, you can however speed up the process a little and I’ll explain how in the notes after the recipe.

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