Getting my Bake On with Bacofoil

It's the grand final of the Great British Bake Off next week and we are all extremely excited to find out who will take this year's crown. I'm hoping that Tamal will take first place. Watching the series always inspires me to get baking, although the show stoppers and technical challenges are a bit out of my league!

I love baking some good, home made goodies for the family. Whether I'm making Oreo brownies or Red Velvet cupcakes or a vegan chocolate orange cake, home baking always go down well with everyone.

Bacofoil have sent me some of their Easy Bake Non-Stick Paper and their 2 in 1 Parchment and Foil to try out when I bake. I am already a convert to the Bacofoil Non-Stick Kitchen Foil so I was very interested in trying out their other baking products. I now have a drawer full of Bacofoil products in my kitchen!

The Bacofoil Easy Bake Non-Stick Paper is non-stick on both sides so there is no need to grease tins or baking trays, simply line with the paper. It means nothing you bake is going to stick and washing-up is a breeze. It's time saving and gives you confidence in the end results. The paper is also great to use as a non-stick surface for rolling out pastry or dough and it can even be used to make a piping bag.

The 2 in 1 Parchment and Foil can be used in a host of creative ways. The non-stick parchment is lined with foil to insure an even bake. It also acts as an insulator to keep heat in if cooking something in a wrapped parcel. It also allows you to scrunch or shape the paper to create any shape needed for a recipe. The 2 in 1 parchment and foil is freezer and oven safe and the non-stick lining stops food sticking. It's a very useful product to have in the kitchen.

Even Mary Berry would be impressed I'm sure!

The Non-Stick Paper is £2.50 for a 10m roll and it is available in Morrisons stores. Find out more at www.bacofoil.co.uk.

Keep an eye out for a Cranberry and Sunflower Seed Cookie recipe, baked using the Non-Stick Paper, coming soon to the blog!

Bake in Black - Music inspired baking for rock music fans!

If you love home baking and hard rock music, this new recipe book Bake in Black is for you. Featuring 58 recipes for cakes, biscuits, doughnuts, brownies and pies, each creation is a tribute to an iconic rock or metal band. Inspired by the sounds of bands such as Slayer, The Sex Pistols, ACDC, Aerosmith, Black Sabbath and Nirvana, each sweet treat is a unique bake designed to capture the essence of the music, with interesting flavour combinations and imaginative presentation. Every bake has been named after a track or album title, using some brilliant cake-related puns. How about Rainbow's "Since You've Been Scone" or Guns and Roses "Sweet Tooth O'Mine" or Meatloaf's "Battenburg Out Of Hell" to get you started? It's genius!!

Thankfully, not only is this book visually stunning, filled with humour, awesome rock band references and the coolest cake designs, it is also a great recipe book in its own right. The recipes are clear and concise, using easy to obtain ingredients and equipment. So you can reproduce these bakes and desserts at home. You can put your own spin on them and create your own versions of these amazing cakes and bakes.

I had a go at making one of the cakes, and although I needed to tweak it a little to adapt it to the pans I have at home, the essence is pure punk rock! I made the brilliantly titled "God Save the Cream", a homage to the Sex Pistols.  The minted whipped cream worked wonderfully with the fresh strawberries and blueberries, covering the light sponge.

I am so inspired by this book that I am now trying to create an entire rock music themed dinner party for Ian's 47th birthday next week, complete with musical puns and awesome presentation. Maybe start with some Alice Soup-er served with Bread Zeppelin rolls followed by some Mexican food using Red Hot Chilli Peppers  and with a "Megadeth by Chocolate" birthday cake for dessert. It's still a work in progress!

Bake in Black is available from musicroom.com for £14.99. It would make an excellent gift for anyone with a passion for rock music and home baking, especially when paired with the Electric Guitar Baking Spatula (which is £6.99). It's a brilliant addition to any bookshelf and has brought buns with puns into my repetoire. Whoever said baking wasn't rock 'n' roll!

Musicroom is the largest online retailer of sheet music, tutor methods, instructional DVDs, music software, instruments, accessories and gifts. It sells everything for the musician or music lover. We received the book to review.

Oreo Brownie Traybake Recipe

I absolutely love the Great British Bake Off.  I adore Mary Berry with her old lady jeans and silver fox Paul Hollywood with his smouldering, blue eyes.  Throw a whole load of cakes and bakes into the mix and you get must-see TV.

As I've been dieting I have resisited the urge to join in with Jenny and Helen's GBBO linky. Home baking is just too tempting and my shrinking waistline would not forgive me if I suddenly ate an entire trifle or fruit pie.  But this week, with almost 2 stone lost overall, I think I can afford a little indulgence, so I've joined in with the Great Bloggers Bake Off  for Traybake week.  I've come up with a recipe that combines the kids' favourite biscuits with a decadent, but easy to make brownie.  I also added some milk chocolate (from an advent calendar I bought last year for 10p in the sales -use by November 2013.  I bought about 20 of them for just this sort of thing!!) 

I've also linked up with A Mummy Too's Recipe of the week linky.

Oreo Brownie Traybake

Ingredients

7 oz dark chocolate

7 oz butter

11 oz golden caster sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 oz plain flour

3 oz milk chocolate 

8 Oreo biscuits chopped roughly

Method

Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Meanwhile whisk together the sugar, eggs and vanilla extract until thick and creamy.

Stir in melted chocolate mixture.

Fold in flour.

Stir in chocolate and chopped biscuits.

Pour into a foil tray or prepared tin. (approx 8" x 13")

Cook in a pre-heated oven at GM4 for 25 minutes.

Cut into even pieces and sprinkle with icing sugar when cold.

(or grab a slab of it and eat it while it's warm!)

They are rich, moist and have the extra bite and flavour of Oreo biscuits.