Some photos of the Bake Off

Hard at work creating the pastry 

Instruction in whisking techniques

The most vital job of the day being done valiantly

There's always one...

Somebody wanted to join in

The tongue of concentration

Observing the master at work

Industrious kitchen

Is it nearly ready yet?

Sampling the fruits of our labours!

Hazelnut tarte

The recipe is for a tin of 20cm of diameter.

The pie-pastry:

• 100g of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 50g of butter
• 0,4-0,5 dl of water

The filling:

• 1 1/2 cup of hazelnuts
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1 small cup of milk
• 1 egg

The icing:

• 150g of icing sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1-2 tablespoons of hot water
• (if wanted, add some rum or kirsch)

Methode:
- Mix the ingredients for the pastry in a bowl and knit until  the pastry is homogeneous. Then flat it on a circle to fit the tin and transfer it to the tin, using baking parchment if necessary.
- Mix the ingredients for the filling in a bowl and fill the tin with it by adding the filling on top of the pastry.
-Cook for about 20-30 min. at 180°  in a preheated oven.
-When cooked, add the icing, which has been mix in a bowl, and spread it over the pie and let the pie cool down.

ENJOY!

Oat and cherry biscuits

I used sour cherries for this recipe, but you can used glacé cherries to make a sweeter biscuit (there's plenty of sugar in any case, so the sour cherries were very tasty).  Here they're in the tin with Elena's delicious biscotti:

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup sour cherries or glacé cherries

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 C. Line (at least) two baking sheets with baking parchment (we ended up using four!).
• In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and nutmeg, then set aside. Place butter, sugar, and honey in another bowl and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy (a few minutes). Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat together. Gently and gradually add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Stir in the oats and cherries.
• Drop one tablespoon of dough at a time onto the baking sheets (making sure there are at least two inches, ideally slightly more, between each biscuit).  Push them down slightly if necessary to get a better shape.  Bake until lightly golden brown (10 to 12 minutes).  Allow to cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

  Here they are on their way to the oven...

Banana and walnut cake

You can use a different type of nut (e.g. hazelnuts) for this banana cake, but it works really well with walnuts.

Ingredients

• 175g/6oz softened butter
• 175g/6oz sugar (half muscovado, half golden caster)
• 75g/2½oz walnuts
• 2 eggs
• 175g/6oz self-raising flour
• 2 VERY ripe bananas (the browner the better!)
• 1 drop vanilla extract
• A sprinkle of demerera sugar for the top

Method

• Preheat the oven to 170C/Gas Mk 3. Line the base and sides of a loaf tin with baking parchment.
• Beat the butter and sugars together until light.
• Slowly add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture, then mix in the walnuts and self-raising flour.
• Peel the bananas and chop them into small pieces. Gently fold the vanilla extract and the bananas into the cake mixture, turning gently and taking care not to overmix.
• Scoop the cake batter into the prepared loaf tin. Dust with a little demerara sugar. Bake for between 1 hour and 1 hour 10 minutes, covering the cake with foil if the top starts to darken too quickly.

Stuffed plaited bread

Ingredients:

250ml milk
25g fresh yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 egg + another one to brush
550g bread flour
50g olive oil
10g salt


Ingredients for the stuffing. I did one with bacon and parmesan and the other with speck and provolone cheese


Melt the fresh yeast in warm milk and then add all the other ingredients and mix them together till the dough will be homogeneous.
Let prove for one hour.
In the mean time prepare the stuffing cutting the ingredients in very small pieces.
When the dough is ready, roll it with the rolling pin until it will be 0,5 cm thick.
Divide it into 3 stripes (or 6 if the dough is enough), every stripe needs to be large as your palm.
Put the stuff in the middle of every stripe and seal it brushing the edges with the beaten egg.
When the braid's rope are ready close them at one end and begin to weave, close also the other end, brush with the egg and let it leave to prove for 30 mins 
on the plate of the oven.

Turn on the oven 180° and cook for 1 hour.
Taste warm and enjoy it!

(please forgive my english errors... Elena, correct if you can!)

Salmon and chard pie

This is a personal take on classic Italian (genoese)  dish: torta pasqualina, but very much personalised as it uses a pizza dough instead of puff pastry (thanks for the tip, Hairy Dieters!) and adds salmon while the original version in vegetarian.

Makes 8 portions

For the pastry 

200g strong white flour
100g wholemeal strong flour
200ml water
3/4 tsp dried yeast
3/4 tsp salt
1tsp caster sugar

For the filling

1k chard (you can use spinach)
800g salmon, skin off
200g ricotta (I used buffalo ricotta)
2 medium eggs
50gr finely grated pecorino cheese
1/2 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1tbsp olive oil
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of ground nutmeg
salt an pepper to taste

Preparation

• For the dough: combine all ingredients and make a dough. Knead it for 10' and then put in a bowl to rest fo one hour (I used a bread machine as I.m not good a kneading)
• While the dough is resting, wash and blanch the chard for a couple fo minutes. You may need to do it in batches.
• Put the chard to drain ans squeeze it a lot
• on a frying pan, cook chopped onion and garlic and fry for 5 minute. Add the drained chard and fry for 5/10 minutes until very dry.

• Add cayenne pepper, nutmeg and seasoning to taste, and fry for a further minute then set aside.
• Slice the skinless salmon in 1/2 cm thick slices.
• Once the chard has cooled, chop it finely with a food processor, then transfer in a bowl. Add to the mixture the ricotta, pecorino cheese and the eggs. Mix until well combined. Taste again ad adjust seasoning if required.
• Preheat the oven at 200C. You will need 25cm round, high tin.
• When the dough has proven, take out 1/4 of it for the lid, then flat the rest of the dough on a circle larger than the tin. Transfer the dough into the tin with the border overflowing the sides of the tin.
• Spoon half of the mixture in the tin lined with pastry, then lie the slices of salmon, then spoon in the rest of the mixture on top until you almost fill the pie tin.
• Flat the dough you have left aside in a disc roughly of the diameter fo the tin and lie it on top of the mixture.
• Firm the borders with your finger or roll them up in order to completely seal the pie
• With a pair of scissors, snip a hole in the middle to allow the steam to go out.
• Bake for 20', then cover with foil and bake for further 20' until the pie has slightly separated form the sides of the tin and the dough is dry and "bready"
• Leave it to cool 10' before eating

The list of bakes

And here is what we decided to bake:

• Bea: Polenta cake with lemon drizzle
• Alexandra: Hazelnut tarte
• William: Banana cake
• Charlotte: Oat and black cherry biscuits
• Miguel: Dried herbs flat bread
• Tiffany: Figs and cheese scones
• Elena: Salmon and chard pie

Remotely:

• Eleonora: Multilayered birthday sponge
• Marjorie: Cream Scones

Pre bake off bakes:

• Elena: Hazelnuts and figs biscotti (or cantucci!)
• Elena: Pumpkin and rosemary muffin