Christmas bake off!

Today I went on a "prepare for Christmas" baking class! I can't bake at all really - not something I've ever taken a huge interest in.  I tend to stick to savory recipes.

I was a little worried about finding the place as it was in the middle of nowhere so I woke up really early!!  I found it no problem but didn't really like the narrow windy lanes I had to drive down!

Fleur and Adam were the bakers - both quite young but very experienced bakers.  The "bakery" was quite small - I expected we'd all have our own full work space - but it was quite small, although to be fair - quite adequate.  The other women - yes very stereo typical - all women...we nice enough - one women really irritated me, I'm not sure why but I just wanted to tell her to shut up and that she was completely boring - and she spoke with an, erm...."I'm very interesting" tone! and yes - I did notice you fall asleep at lunch time....Bitchiness out of the way.....

We started with puff pastry -  I was unaware of complexities of making puff pasty!  She had already made the pastry for us all - but she went through how it was made and that was quite simple.  We had to roll it out to make a rectangle - and then get a whole pack of butter rolled into a square - half the size of the pastry.  The butter went on top of the pastry and the pastry was folded over the butter - you then had to roll it out to make it quite long and thin.  I was then folded it again - and it went back in the fridge for half an hour - you kept doing this until you had done it 4 times - so this took nearly all day - with us doing other things in between.  I did try to hide the fact that I had rolled in a long hair of mine into the pastry...think I got it out without drawing any attention....

We made blini's, which I've never been too impressed with before and she made a horse radish sauce (which I've always hated) and we used a piece of beetroot and a tiny spring of Dill (which I don't think I've used before).  So considering I didn't rate blini's and don't like horse radish I couldn't believe how nice it was!! I really want to make this again!

Most of the teaching was by Fleur - but Adam, using the puff pastry showed us how to do a veggie wellington - which was so awesome I have to try and make it.  We had it for lunch!

Adam showing us how to make the veggie Wellington....

He also made a veggie stuffing with pumpkin, sage, thyme - other stuff I can't remember because we didn't make it - and I forgot my recipe sheet - hopefully I'll get it on email.

(below) The lunch - with the Wellington - and the veggie stuffing....I was the only person that couldn't eat it all - I was stuffed!!  As usual I ate at twice the speed of everybody else so I am glad I couldn't finish it as it would have been very obvious with an empty plate!

We then made xmas cake.  When we first arrived we got a coffee with a piece of xmas cake - same recipe and its got to be the best xmas cake I've ever tried - so hopefully mine will be as good!

We made mincemeat for mince pies - again - probably the best I've ever tasted - so much better than the stuff you buy!! and we made pickled beetroot.

Near the end of the day we finished our puff pastry and I used half of it to make mince pies, but I didn't cook them because it's only me at home atm, so I froze them to cook another time.  I made some cheese sticks with the left overs (from that half of the pastry), and I froze the other half of the pastry to try and make the veggie wellington.  SOOOO much effort for the pastry though, if I don't get high praise from whoever tries it, I'll be most disappointed! lol.  

  

I really want to try and make everything again so I know I am able to recreate it all!!

When I left it was pitch black - back down all those scary country lanes....hated that!  Got home completely knackered...got in PJ's and got fire on as soon as humanly possible!!

Got to be up early again as I have to be in the gym at 9am to run through the program a personal trainer has done for me....