CVL Bakes Caters and Volunteers for the Elf Trail

Hello again all!

Apologies for the lack of contact, but what a busy few days it has been.

Lets recap a little. I know, I hear you all mumbling to yourselves, 'Oh, here she goes again, on another rant/ waffle'. Well, that is indeed what I am doing, so deal (in the politest way possible)

My last post was on the 18th November, since then I've had three orders. Two on the 21st November - a chocolate birthday cake and ten chocolate birthday cupcakes.

Boxed and refrigerated 

Then 50 Ginger nut Biscuits.

Then another on the 25th November. CVL Bakes catered for a tea party- what a fun experience that was!

35 sandwiches- 18 of which were Ham and 17 Cucumber, 35 Plain Scones and 35 Mini Lemon Meringue Tarts! So many baked goods, or so I thought.

Photo Credit: Lovely customer who ordered these, sent me this photo

Some of the scones

Some of the tarts with the curd, before the meringue

Off to New York I popped with my mother to visit family and look around the wonderful place that is New York. It was wonderful seeing family, but waiting for me at home was some fun to be had.

Bouncing up the calendar was the Elf Trail- Stroke Association, this is a yearly event. It is a great Charity!

I catered for this event and it was honestly the most fun I have had in a while! Baking 250 Chocolate Rice Krispy Buns, 250 Shortbread and 150 Mince Pies, whilst listening to some good, old classical, Christmas songs is magical to say the least!

I'd been baking since Friday 4th December 2015, in preparation for the event on Sunday 6th December 2015. What I did was,

Friday 4th December 2015:

- Change into cooking wear- hairnet and cap, chef's coat, chef's trousers, and steel toe capped shoes and apron.
- Clean the kitchen- steam cleaned the floors, sanitise the counter top and oven and sink.
- Sanitise the switches, door handles and fridge door.
- Check temperatures for storages.
- Get out ingredients once needed and not before.

- Pre- heat oven and prepare muffin trays.
- Make Mince Pies and Bake.
- Chill and package them in boxes and seal to keep safe and secure.
- Repeat until there are 150 Mince Pies made!

- Once they are all baked and cool, package them all and transfer into chilled, dry and shaded storage.

- Clean the kitchen.
- Do dishes.

- Get out ingredients when needed for the shortbread.
- Pre-heat the oven and prepare the baking trays.
- Weigh out ingredients and make the dough.
- Roll out dough, shape and bake.
- Cool and package.
- Repeat until there are 250 shortbread.

Box all the 150 Mince Pies up and the 250 Shortbread up, safe in their boxes and sealed tight. Put into cool, dry storage.

- Sanitise and clean the kitchen, ready for the Rice Krispy baking on Saturday.

Saturday 5th December 2015:

Make the 250 Rice Krispy Buns!

- Check the temperatures for the fridge, oven, dry storage and freezer.
- Get out ingredients when needed.
- Get out the utensils and crockery.
- Put the bun cases into the muffin trays.
- Melt the chocolate over a pot of boiling water.
- Pour onto rice krispies and mix until combined.
- Portion out and leave to set.
- Put into storage and seal to keep safe and clean.

- Repeat until there are 250 Rice Krispy Buns.

So, it was a busy few weeks, but especially this week. So very enjoyable!

To make the Mince Pies:

- The first thing you want to do is preheat your oven to 180 C and grease and flour a 12 hole muffin tray.

You can go two ways on this, use shop-bought pastry and mincemeat or make them both from scratch. Now there is no shame or anything wrong with buying them in, as long as you know you can make them.

I can make them both and they are incredibly fun to make too- but for 150 Mince Pies it would take a lot longer. But that isn't why I didn't make it, it is because this was a charity event and it wouldn't have been cost effective to make it.

Sometimes in catering, to make a profit or break-even, save as much money and make it as cost effective as you can basically, you just have to be resourceful. I needed to find a way to make this as cost effective as possible, but not compromise on the taste and quality.

I sourced a high quality shortcrust and mincemeat, you can add ingredients to the mincemeat if you want, like orange zest or some nutmeg or something- it is all about personalising it to your tastes.

To grease the muffin tray, melt some butter and use a pastry brush to coat the tray. Sift some flour onto the tray and tap it on a counter to get off the excess flour that isn't needed.

Roll out the pastry and cut discs that are slightly bigger in circumference to the muffin tray holes and gently press into the mold to make a shell for the mincemeat. Then put as much mincemeat as you want into the shell- this depends on your individual specification.

Once you have them filled, you could leave them as is, or what I did, instead of putting a disc of pastry over the pie, completely covering all mincemeat, I cut out little snowflake shapes and placed them on top. This way, you had pastry and mincemeat showing. Beautiful!

Bake these for around 15-20 minutes or until risen, puffed up and golden brown. Not only that, but the mincemeat will be dancing around the surface in a piping hot fashion. I know I say this a lot, but is there anything better than the gentle laughter of a bubbling mince pie. All risen and golden brown, smiling up at you!

You could serve these with a dusting of icing sugar and Jamie Oliver does this wonderful thing with zero fat yogurt I think. It is yogurt (plain) with some vanilla sugar (sugar with a vanilla pod in it, split open) and then to top it off, I think it is brandy or something, but he flambes it, pours it into the vanilla, yogurt mix and whisks it. Yum! Doesn't that sound magical?

To make the Shortbread:

You'll need:

- 250g Butter, really, really soft
- 50g Icing Sugar
- 250g Plain Flour
- 50g Cornflour
- Dash of Vanilla

Pre-heat the oven to 170 C in a fan assisted oven and line some baking sheets

- Plop the butter into a mixer and whisk until soft and fluffy. Add in the icing sugar, plain flour, cornflour and vanilla and whisk slowly at first and then quickly to whisk as much air into the dough as possible.

- Portion the dough out into 21g balls and roll into a ball shape. Then set on a baking tray, lined with grease proof paper. I could get 8 onto one baking sheet at a time and then with a damp fork, I pressed the balls down to make small disc- shaped biscuits.

To stop the fork from sticking to the dough, get a bowl filled with a little cold water and dip the fork into the water, give it a shake and press into the dough balls. You don't want the fork to stick, but at the same time you don't want to make the dough too soggy.

Once they are all shaped, bake these for 12 minutes or until they are flattened slightly, golden brown round the edges and have gone a light golden colour.

I served these as they were, again to satisfy the cost effectiveness aspect of the job, but if I was making these just for family or a special occasion or an order, that wanted them a little fancier or special. You could drizzle a little dark chocolate onto them and that gives them a shiny, deliciously elegant look.

You could even sandwich them together with a little jam or cream or ganache. Again anything you like to make it special to you!

To make the Rice Krispy Buns:

These are incredibly fun and easy to make. All you need to do is:

Get a 12 hole muffin tray, put in 12 bun cases and then you are nearly done!

Melt some chocolate in a glass bowl, over a pot of simmering water. Once the chocolate is melted, pour it over some rice krispies and mix until they are all coated.

Use two dessert spoons to scoop the rice krispies into each case and set aside to firm up and allow them to set.

To make them a little different- although, I don't think it is needed- these are perfect the way they are- but if you aren't content, you could add some marshmallows, nuts or fruit.

And that was everything!

I had so much fun making all of these and hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Post again soon!

Thanks

Ciara