Jessica's Bake Off Challenge

This is just a public service announcement to remind all my subscribers that tomorrow (March 14) is Pi Day! Please remember to eat some pie and do some fun math! Jessica

At my Dad's request, I made cream horns- the signature bake from Series 6, Episode 8. The challenge is to make 12 each of two different flavors of cream horns- 24 cream horns total. I chose to make tiramisu flavored cream horns and peach, blood orange, and basil cream horns. So what are cream horns? Cream horns are sort of like puff pastry cornucopias. The puff pastry is swirled around a conical mold before baking. After they are baked, the mold is removed and the pastries are completely filled with a cream filling. The traditional cream horn is merely filled with whipped cream, but the filling can be made with different consistencies and fillings.  The cream is quite simple to make; the more difficult part of this challenge is the pastry. Anytime there is a pastry challenge on GBBO, there is always the moaning and groaning about which pastry to use- rough puff or full puff. Rough puff pastry merely requires the incorporation of small chunks of butter into a flour dough b

The signature challenge for Series 6, Episode 2 of The Great British Bake Off  is to make two dozen biscotti. Biscotti are traditionally an Italian cookie distinct for its twice-baked hard exterior. Fillings are somewhat variable. An eastern European Jewish variation of biscotti is called mandelbrodt. Mandelbrodt literally translates to English as "almond bread". Except for when I make mandelbrodt for my aunt, who is allergic to all nuts, I always include almonds and some almond extract. These biscuits are very hardy and are a good, easy crowd-pleaser. The recipe which I use calls for oil rather than butter, making them pareve (neither dairy nor meat). They are good to serve as a dessert for a crowd, or are good to bring as a snack on road trips. Due to the fact that they are rather hard, they do not easily go stale, and will stay fresh for a while. For once, I will not disclose the recipe which I used. The recipe is, I believe, my great-great-grandmother's; it

Sorry for the long delay, everyone. I've been busy, and have not been focusing much on baking lately. To make up for it, I am posting three times over three days. I hope you enjoy! A couple of weeks ago, I bought some bread flour and remade the bagels from series 3, episode 2. I still need to tweak the goat cheese, sage, and browned butter bagels- the amount of goat cheese I tried in the last batch was not good for the bagels' structure- but the mint chocolate bagels turned out beautifully. Besides substituting bread flour in lieu of all purpose flour, I made a few further adjustments. I added chocolate chips into the bagels to add more chocolate flavor and a little more sweetness. I also made sure to add the  fillings after the first prove, rather than before. Furthermore, I kneaded the dough for longer, and was more focused on getting it to the proper elasticity. The bagels certainly kept their shape and structure better with the changes. The only drawback is that the