Glazed Donuts

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 24, 2014 // 4 Comments

Today is Great British Bake Off day! Yay! And tonight’s theme is advanced dough and they are making donuts, so I figured today is the best day to post these yummy treats! This isn’t my entry for advanced dough week, I have something else planned for that. These are just to celebrate it being Wednesday aka GBBO day! If you watch tonight’s episode, I’d love to hear your thoughts on who baked well and the choices of star baker and who got sent home!

I love donuts. Who doesn’t love donuts? Are there people in the world that don’t like happiness? Anything is possible I guess! I have made baked donuts before, which were yummy but let’s be honest with ourselves, nothing beats the real fried dough! I’d never made real donuts because frankly I was terrified of all that hot oil, I’m the kind of person that falls UP the stairs so I thought if I was in charge of that much hot oil I’d end up burning my face off somehow. But then Stephanie at The Cozy Cook posted her glazed donuts and everything changed! I was drooling over her photos and just couldn’t resist her literal mountain of donuts and decided to throw caution to the wind and give them a go, after some advice from her!

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Parsnip and Raspberry Cupcakes with Raspberry Swirl Cream Cheese Frosting

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 22, 2014 // 26 Comments

Last week (September 15th-21st) was National Cupcake Week in the UK and I only found out on Saturday, this happens to me every year! So yesterday I decided to celebrate the last day by developing a new cupcake flavour – and so parsnip and raspberry cupcakes with raspberry swirl cream cheese frosting were born!

I love putting vegetables in cake, they give the cake a moistness you can’t really get any other way. The parsnip in these cupcakes also give them a depth of sweetness you just can’t get with sugar, they lend themselves really well to cupcakes and I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to bake with parsnips! It’s weird though, when I told people I was putting parsnip in cake they were confused – the same thing happened when I made sweet potato cupcakes – yet nobody bats an eyelid at the idea of carrot cake! I made my mum taste these cupcakes before I would tell her what was in them so her opinion wasn’t swayed by the unusual ingredient – she loved them. She said she could taste something but couldn’t put her finger on what it was, when I told her it was parsnip she was surprised but definitely a convert!

I didn’t want to use just parsnip and raspberries really compliment the parsnip and spices in this cake, it’s definitely a winning combination. The raspberry flavour comes from a homemade raspberry sauce and raspberry cider. I’ve been baking a lot with raspberries at the moment, I want to use them as much as possible while they’re still in season, and Tesco’s raspberries have been really good lately! I’ve bought a bunch that I’ve frozen to use in smoothies later!

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Tarte au Citron Vert – GBBO Challenge Week 5 (Pies & Tarts Week)

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 19, 2014 // 31 Comments

Everybody knows the classic tarte au citron, the beautiful French tart – a buttery pastry, filled with a zesty lemon custard. It’s a classic and some may say it’s perfect as it is and shouldn’t be changed. To them I say “pah!”. I’m a huge lover of lime and filling this tart with a smooth lime custard just sounded so much more appealing to my palate. Besides, I’m not one to stick to tradition!

This sweet and tart dessert is perfect for a sunny picnic, a celebratory barbecue or even a fancy dinner party. It’s versatile and gorgeous, a perfect choice for pies and tarts week of my Great British Bake Off challenge. I really enjoyed baking this and it was a lot simpler that I thought it would be, I normally associate French with tricky! The trickiest part was baking it just the right amount, you want to bake it until it is just set. You don’t want it to be under baked and runny, but you don’t want to dry it out either. So you have to keep a close eye on it.

I had a fancy French week this week, baking fancy French patisserie classics and eating fancy French food. I fulfilled a bucket list item of mine on Tuesday (well, I don’t have a bucket list but if I did this would have been on it). I ate at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay! I’m a big, big fan of Gordon – I love his recipes, the way he cooks and I think he is just a great person all round. I think if you don’t watch his shows often you’d get the wrong idea about him, because yes he can be very hot tempered and brash but if he can see you are putting effort in and taking care in what you do, he is extremely encouraging and actually very nice. It’s when you’re half-assing something or being intentionally stupid that he loses his temper! I was also super excited to eat at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay because the head chef there is a woman called Clare Smyth and she is the first British woman to receive and keep 3 Michelin stars – and if there’s one thing I love it’s successful ladies! The food was absolutely amazing, we had three courses but they also brought out appetisers and extra desserts. I’ve honestly never tasted anything that good before, there’s definitely a good reason it’s so pricey! If you want to see photos of the gorgeous food I ate, check out my instagram, I posted photos on it on Tuesday and Wednesday.

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Viennese Whirls

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 18, 2014 // 6 Comments

When the lovely Jhuls over at The Not So Creative Cook (don’t let the name fool you, she has lots of amazing, creative recipes) said she needed some guest posts for her blog while she was away, I jumped at the chance. Jhuls is one of the sweetest bloggers I’ve had the pleasure of “meeting” and her blog is great, frankly I’m honoured to be featured on there

I knew I had to bring my baking A-game for her, so I decided to make one of my favourite ever treats. Viennese Whirls are great because they’re actually really easy to make but they’re delicate and tasty enough to be featured in a fancy French bakery, or just really impress your friends and family. Out of all the many things I have baked, these are my mum’s favourites. When I told her I would be making these again she was very distraught as she’s on a diet and has been doing really well! She couldn’t resist though and had one (or two!), I almost feel guilty haha!

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Family Baking

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // September 15, 2014 // 10 Comments

I am the baker in my family (shocking, I know!) but I got the flair from somewhere and I plan to pass it on too!

I don’t have kids and I’m not sure I want to have them any time in the future, so I will be passing on my baking knowledge to my nephews and niece where I can. But first, I want to talk about where I get my love of baking from. I have to admit I always thought it was from my grandmother on my dad’s side, she baked a lot as is pretty normal for that generation but she wouldn’t ever call herself a baker I don’t think. And then she told me about her father, my great grandfather. He died when my grandmother was very young so I never met him but she recently told me that he was the head pastry chef at Cumberland Hotel in London. Which was extremely exciting for me to find out! And not only that, he once constructed an 80lb scale sugar model of Westminster Abbey! She sent me photocopies of the article and photos and I will share them with you now

The article reads: “This scale model of Westminster Abbey, made entirely from sugar, was awarded first prize and gold medal in the Pastry Village Section of the Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Exhibition, at Olympia, last month. Pastry-chef Charles Cloet, of the Cumberland Hotel (on left with M. Bregeon, Head Chef), made the model. It weighed 80lb. and took more than 250 hours- over a period of four months – to construct.”

The model

My great grandfather – Charles Cloet

Apologies for the slightly warped photos, I don’t have scanner!

As you can imagine, it was a really amazing thing for me to discover, as I knew nothing about him before I found out about this. I did contact the hotel to see if I could get more information on him but unfortunately with so much time having passed and management changing multiple times they weren’t able to find anything. It’s great to have these photos though. My grandmother also told me about the “cake” he made her for her 2nd birthday – it was actually a shoe made entirely from chocolate and intricately decorating – she told me about how much she loved it and had tried to wear it!

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