Jubilee baking - a bus crash and vandalism.

I have headed my post this way as the first set of results looked like the bus had run into the phone box, read on for a laugh.

Have been looking to make a few Jubilee themed products,and I decided I would try something a bit different. I bought a set of cake cases the other day which had small cake adornments two of which were a telephone box and a red London bus on cocktails sticks, and this inspired my fun today.  I also decided instead of spending money on buying cutter for my biscuits I would attempt to make them by myself.

So first off I made some biscuit dough, using the basic biscuit recipe from BBC Good Food site in the traditional red. white and blue theme in keeping with the celebration in hand.

Ingredients

• 250g butter , softened ( Iactually used trex as it is white not yellow and takes the colours better)
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 egg yolk *
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g plain flour * 

* see notes at bottom

 Method

• Mix 250g softened butter and 140g caster sugar in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, 
• then add 1 egg yolk and 2 tsp vanilla extract and briefly beat to combine. 
• Sift over 300g plain flour and stir until the mixture is well combined - you might need to get your hands in at the end to give everything a really good mix and press the dough together.

This mix is easier to handle if you put in the fridges for an hour before using.

I coloured the dough by using gel colours which I  mixed in with the egg yolk when making the dough.

Next up I pulled off some templates off the net for a very simple bus and phone box and printed them out, cut them out and got started.



I used the red dough to start my masterpiece.



First off the bus

using the template

on the baking tray

filled in windows

cutting round the template

cooked

and then the telephone box

The windows are filled in with crushed clear mints. Mental note to self next time don't bash the mints to pieces at 7am when the rest of the household is sleeping.

a crashed bus

Once they were cooked I left them to cool for a few minutes and then removed the bis from the tray, as it was still warm it look like it had run into a phone box. Not the best photo going but I went out earlier to do a favour for OH and he ate it before I got back despite being told I needed to photograph it.

the broken phone box

So I left the phone box on the tray until it had cooled, but by then it had well and truly stuck, and it now looks like its been vandalised

So I got my thinking cap on and OH suggested making them in greaseproof paper, so version two were done it the same method, but made and cooked on the paper to make it easier to peel them off once cooled.

This time we had more success and they came out whole. Were difficult to photograph but here are the finished results. The crushed mints make great windows.

yeeeeehhh  it worked

and the phone box as well

Next with the red white and blue I rolled them out and layered then up with dried fruit soaked in red wine in between the layers, just make sure you press them down before you flip it over when building up the layers or you end up with a pile of dried fruit all over your work top rather than in between the layers. Once all the layers were in place I rolled them up swiss roll style, sliced and cooked them.

the swiss roll biscuits

I kept some of the layered biscuit mix and used a biscuit cutter to cut them out, and cooked them up as normal.  Cooked three of these for photographing, rest are raw in the freezer, and time I came back OH had eaten the other two of these as well.

the layered biscuit

This post is being entered into the Homemade by Fleur, Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition, sponsored by Appliances Online.

Whilst I was baking and had the oven on anyway and daughter No2 was coming for tea and had seen the posting on the bread earlier in the week I made more bread.

oops it split as it swelled

I rolled out the 3 colours of bread and layered them up as I did with the biscuits and rolled them up into a swill roll as well, and set them to have the second raising.The only difference between this and my earlier lot was I had no bacon so I grated half a smoked pork sausage in between the layers and squashed it in a bit. Now for all I had set this for its second rising, I appear not to have been thinking, cos as it rose it split... Cooked it as a swill roll and cooked it afterwards.

but it cooked up looking yummy

risen and stuck together

cooked

Some of the other I blobbed into a load tin as you would a swirl cake and left it for its second rising as well.








  * This recipe works equally as well with Gluten free flour, just add 1 teaspoon of glycerine, also works using egg replacer instead of egg

If you want to give them a try and want an easier option there are sets available, I found one set here  but I am sure you could find other stockists.