I’ve had a crack at making almond croissants. I strongly suspect these would have turned out better if I’d parked the almond element for my first attempt, but no. I had to go full croissant.
The end result appears quite nice, but to be fair, a sprinkle of icing sugar and a kindly Instagram filter, and I’d probably look like hot stuff too.
This might be the best pudding I’ve ever made. And it still came second to my friend Charlie’s cinder toffee version in our GBBO challenge!
I used this BBC recipe, but I’ve got fancy pants vanilla essence which contains vanilla seeds, which I used in place of the vanilla pod because I’m not made of money, it gives a lovely flavour and you still get the flecks of vanilla. I also used this almond puff pastry sticks recipe to serve with them, but I found them a bit too dry.
I, along with several of my friends, am watching this year’s Great British Bake Off very carefully. Don’t get me wrong, I always watch it, but this year is different.
I put a call out on Facebook to see which of my friends would be interested in a GBBO challenge – baking our version of the contestant’s weekly contest in a mini competition of our own. I did exclude my lovely friend, Lenka, who is insanely talented on the baking front (check out her Facebook page), so she’s judging (albeit remotely), and showing us how it’s done. She’s basically a young, Slovakian, Mary Berry.
I do most of my grocery shopping online (the “big” shop), so I don’t even remember how I found them, but JUS-ROL have started making pain au chocolat in a can*. They give you the pastry and the mini chocolate sticks and you take all the glory of hot pastries, straight from the oven.