Oh, Pooh!

Disney bakes are back! Yay!! I had said I'd keep my Disney and Pixar baking collections up-to-date with each new release, so here we are with Winnie the Pooh. :-) Ok, ok, I know that this isn't exactly a new release - but when it was released I didn't realise it was in the Classics collection so I missed it *hangs head in shame*

At any-rate, I would like to get up-to-date with the Disney and Pixar movies, so Wreck it Ralph will follow shortly, followed by Monster's University (which is out next week!) and Frozen later in the year.  Exciting!

As with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, this bake could only ever be based on one thing: hunny (honey!) I baked a big honey cake for The Many Adventures, so this time I wanted to do something a little different: honey buns! The basis for this recipe was Paul Hollywood's Chelsea Buns, but I dechelseafied them and then honeyfied them to make them more suitable for our silly old bear. These buns are super sweet, sticky, and delicious!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

300ml milk

40g butter

1 tbsp runny honey

500g plain white flour

1 tsp salt

7g dried yeast

1 medium egg

For the filling:

3 tbsp honey

1tbsp cinnamon

For the topping:
100g icing sugar
2-3 tsps water

Prep time: 30 minutes (plus an hour and a half proving time)

Cook time: 25 minutes

Makes 9 buns

1. Pop the milk, butter and honey in a jug and microwave in 10 second bursts until the butter has melted. Leave to one side to cool down to a lukewarm temperature.
2.  Mix the flour and salt together in a large mixing bowl, then make a well in the centre and tip in the yeast. (This stops the salt from killing the yeast, don’t you know!)
3. Pour the lukewarm honey milk into the well created in the flour. Add the egg and then stir with a fork until the mixture comes together to form a dough.
4. Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. You’re done when the dough is “smooth and elastic” (according to Mr Hollywood ;-) ) Pop the dough back into the mixing bowl, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place to rise for one hour.
5.  After the hours proving, the dough should have doubled in size. Tip it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out into an A4 sized rectangle.
6. Prepare the “filling” by mixing the honey and cinnamon together. Brush 2/3rds of this over your dough, leaving plenty of space around the edges as the honey is probably going to ooze out at the next step!
7. Carefully roll your dough up, swiss roll style, trying not to lose too much of that yummy cinnamon honey! Cut the roll into 9 slices.
8. Grease a baking tray and place the buns, cut side up into the tray, leaving no more than 2cm gap between each (Paul says we want them to bake together so that we get a lovely soft edge!) Leave these to rise for another 30 minutes whilst you preheat the oven to gas mark 5/190.
9. Once risen and rested, pop them in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and smelling lovely. If after 15 minutes the buns start to look a little too brown, just pop a bit of foil over them and let them continue to bake.
10. Remove the buns from the oven, and brush with the remaining cinnamon honey. Mix the icing sugar and water together to make a slightlyrunny icing, and drizzle this over the buns.
11. Allow them to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack, or a serving plate, if you can’t resist. These babies are best eaten warm!

Happy Thoughts

x

What Makes a Monster and What Makes a Man

Disney Classic # 34 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame

You're probably all thinking "what the fudge is an Elephant's Foot and why would I want to eat it?" Also, "are there even any elephants in Hunchback??" Well, no. But there's this chain of bakeries in Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire called Birds, and they sell these cakes/pastries called Elephant's Feet. The pastries are some sort of choux buns, filled with fresh cream and topped with chocolate sauce, a bit like a giant profiterole, but much firmer, and the shape of them is bulky and blobby, (hence the name Elephant's Foot)

How does this relate to Hunchback? Well, I figured the moral of the story is not to be deceived by appearances, and that it's what on the inside that counts. I figured Elephants Feet fit here as they don't look amazing, but they are really tasty. Plus choux pastry is French... so it works for me!

Nom!

I couldn't find a recipe for "Elephant's Foot cake" so I took a logical guess and searched for a choux pastry recipe. Well, the cakes ended up not quite being Elephant's Feet- the pastry was far too soft, but they were still really really tasty. It's like I invented a new cake... and I name them Quasi's. Anyways, my Quasi's were based on recipes found here and here.

A real-life Elephant's Foot from Birds

Prep time: 15mins      Cook time: 25-30 mins     Serves: 6

Ingredients:

75ml water
75ml milk
50g unsalted butter
65g strong white (or bread) flour
2 medium eggs
350ml double cream
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g milk chocolate
100g icing sugar
1tsp coca powder

1. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to gas mark 6.
2. Place the milk, water and butter into a large saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted. Bring to the boil until the mixture is bubbling vigorously, then remove from heat.
3. Tip all of the flour into the pan and quickly beat into the mixture, until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball. Leave to cool slightly.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs. Beat the eggs into the pastry mixture a little at a time until the pastry is smooth and glossy.
5. Put the pastry mixture into a piping bag fitted with a round nozzle. Pipe circles onto the prepared baking tray, leaving space between each for the mixture to spread/rise. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 mins, until golden brown and crisp on the outside.
6. Remove from the oven and cut a slit in the side of each bun. Leave to cool on a wire wrack.
7. Once the pastries have cooled, prepare the cream filling. Whip 300ml of the double cream with 1tbsp of caster sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. Once the cream is firm, place it into a piping bag. Place the nozzle of the piping bag into the slit you made in the choux bun and pipe cream into the middle.
8. Heat the remaining 50ml of cream in the microwave for 30 seconds, then break the chocolate into it. Stir until all of the chocolate has melted, then add the icing sugar and cocoa powder and beat until smooth. Spread around a tablespoon of the chocolate sauce onto each bun, then place in the fridge to set for 5 minutes.
9. Serve straight from the fridge and enjoy ^_^

Next time it's Hercules, another favourite of mine (and one of the greatest to sing along to, too!) I'm going to cook up some lovely baklava!
Happy Thoughts
x