It’s happened, its all over for another year, the winner has been crowned and massive amounts of cake baked and eaten. This week was the final of the Great British Bake Off, which for us means lots of excitement and dreams of yummy showstoppers. (if you have been living under a rock since 8pm on Wednesday then please note, spoiler alert!)
We have been big fans of Tamal from early on, but it wasn’t until after the semi finals we became pretty passionate about wanting him to be crowned champion (also fuelled by a dislike of Ian and Nadiya… sorry guys). However, Tamal didn’t win. Even with that fantastic abandoned Chinese fishing village cake. But congratulations to Nadiya, we make not have liked your bakes but we did love those eyebrows.
We think we are going to do some posts over the next few weeks of bakes from the show that we didn’t get to do, but for this week’s bake off inspired bake we decided on iced buns. We went down a slightly tropical route this week and made a passionfruit and lime curd to fill our buns along with a creme patisserie. We chose to do the crem pat instead of using whipped cream because we feel it works better with the curd.
- 4 limes, juiced (zest of 1 or 2)
- 3 eggs
- 100g butter
- 75g caster sugar
- pulp or 2 passionfruits
- Start by sterilising your jar(s), easy way is using a dish washer and popping in the oven for 5-10mins.
- Sieve the passionfruit pulp to remove the seeds and keep 1 tablespoon of them for later.
- Combine the pulp, lime juice & zest, eggs and sugar in a bowl. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the fruit and egg mix, stirring continuously till it starts to thicken.
- Bring to a boil, whisking as you go for about 1 minute.
- Remove from the heat for a few minutes to cool slightly, add the tablespoon of seeds and pour into your jar.
- 4 egg yolks
- 65g caster sugar
- 15g plain flour
- 15g cornflour
- 350ml milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until they turn a pale and fluffy. Stir in the flour & cornflour.
- In a saucepan bring the milk & vanilla to a simmer, remove from the heat and allow to cool for just under a minute.
- Slowly pour half of the milk onto the egg mixture, whisking as you do so until combined (this will stop the eggs turning to scramble).
- Tip the mixture into the saucepan with the rest of the milk, bring to the boil for about a minute, keep stirring till you get a smooth creamy mixture.
- Place into a bowl, and cover – you can use a disk of greaseproof paper or some cling film, push it down till it just touches the surface, this will prevent a skin forming.
- You want to cool the creme pat as quick as possible so you can plunge the bowl into some ice water or put in the fridge.
- Leave to cool completely!
- If once you’ve finished and you find you have a few lumps in your creme pat – this’ll be any cooked egg, you can prevent this by pouring your milk in very slowly at a thin stream and mixing it in quickly. However, it isn’t a problem you push your creme pat through a sieve till you’re left with a nice smooth mixture.
- If you want a lighter creme patisserie, whip some double cream and fold into the creme pat just before it’s fully set (this is idea for profiteroles or eclairs)
- 500g strong white flour
- 50g caster sugar
- 40g butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 x 7g sachets instant yeast
- 2 tsp salt
- 150ml warm milk
- 140ml water
- 200g icing sugar
- 5 tsp cold water
- 200g lime and passionfruit curd
- 200g creme patisserie
- Put all the ingredients into a large bowl, apart from about a quarter of the water.
- Stir the mixture with your hands or in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment, then slowly add the remaining water to form a dough and knead in the bowl for 4 minutes.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 more minutes.
- Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for one hour.
- Divide the dough into 12 pieces and shape into fingers.
- Put the dough fingers on a baking tray, spaced so that touch each other when they’ve risen.
- Bake in the oven at 220°C for 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl mix together the icing sugar and water to form a thick paste.
- Cut each of the buns in half horizontally, keeping them attached down one long side.
- Spread the icing on top of each bun so it has a good think coating.
- Fill with the curd and creme patisserie.
You want the icing on the top to be really thick so you can spread it onto your buns without it dripping down the sides.
