11 of my recipes so far, captioned with their name and an opinon...

Cheese and onion tear and share- deliciously simple and a favourite with the family!

'Simply Good' Apple Pie- uses puff pastry but can be made with shortcrust, difficult to get even colour on top

3 layer baked raspberry cheesecake- meringue top with biscuit base, surprisingly easy but not a fan of baked cheesecake

Chocolate mousse- simple and a definite favourite!

Double Chocolate Swirl Cake- Moist but burns quickly

Elderflower and Honeycombe Tartlets
Disgusting and generally a disaster... Do not recommend!

Apple and Mapple Cake- lovely, moist cake- liked by many!

Flourless lemon cream roll? Or bomb? Tastes lovely as the lemon curd and cream creates a mousse filling but crumbles quickly when rolled. Strange how there was no picture in the book...

Focaccia- I've tried to make it before but was unsuccessful but this recipe was just right and well recieved on a Sunday evening

Lemon Ice Cream Meringue Pie- I love the layers and the subtle flavours, perfect for a Sunday pudding



The Mint Chocolate Macraoons which started well...

But ended interestingly as the filling didn't work and they didn't fit together great!

As well as working at Hartwell, I've also been set the challenge of baking my way through the Great British Bake Off Cookbook in a year! Yes, that's 132 recipes in 366 days (leap year!) from the 1st of January 2012 to the 1st of January 2013!

Day 5
An adventure into the starter kitchen today as the chef in pastry didn't know what he was doing! I spent the morning helping to prepare components for the dishes, like peeling baby turnips (very tedious!) and making little quail egg scotch eggs. There wasn't many in for lunch so the service wasn't busy today and with no head chef in, everyone was quite relaxed and talking to me about becoming a chef.
The afternoon I spent being welcomed to asparagus season and doing another one of those jobs which nobody wants to do but needs to be done as I prepared a crate of asparagus. We were done by 2 and so had to help bail out the pastry section as he wasn't ready for service and I quickly had to make a batch of scones and finish the eclairs before 2.30! Luckily I knew what I was doing but the topping for the eclairs had gone funny so the job was left partially incomplete as I went home.

My controlled assessment tasks have just been launched and I think I'm going to go for products for a coffee shop. Any ideas?

Day 4
So it's the Easter Holidays and I'm back at Hartwell! There was not too much for me to do today as Phil wasn't in until 11 and the other chef was not too sure of what I should do. I started off by making mini loaves of bread for the cheese selection pudding. Each bit of dough was weighed out to exactly 75g and any spare that would not come to this amount was through away- it had to be perfect!
Afterwards I just did little jobs, like weighing out ingredients, cleaning the tables and chopping biscuits. When Phil arrived I began to do more and I spent the afternoon making banana parfait and strawberry mousse whilst talking about my controlled assessments. The banana parfait was made with eggs, cream, banana, sugar and water. The sugar and water is made into a syrup which cooks the wisked egg yolks to form a light parfait that is then frozen.

Banana Parfait Example

I can't take pictures while I'm in the kitchen so these photos are either from the resteraunt website or ones I think match by blog- I hope their okay :)

Day 3

I decided to go on a saturay today but have now realised this isn't actually the best day to go as there is more volunteers in and the resteruant is very busy meaning not much time for learning or space! I'm beginning to find my feet in pastry again as I work with another volunteer to make the macaroon, choux buns and also on my own lemon curd. I love the lemony taste and the balance of sweet and bitter that balances out to make this simple condiment. Here, they use it as an ingredient for other dishes and I believe it was going into a filling of tartlets which I went onto make. I still haven't figured out the recipe for the filling but I know it is labelled as lemon curd in their big walk in fridges yet lookes slightly like moose and was not the same lemon curd I had made. The little pastry tartlets are brushed with white chocolate, to prevent the pastry from going soggy with the filling (a brilliant little tip) and then filled with lemon curd, swipped to remove any excess, sprinkled with icing sugar and finally caramelised with a blow torch and finished with a single raspberry. A simple yet delicious pastry for the tea tray

Traditional Afternoon Tea Display

Day 2
This time, I didn't make the mistake of getting up quite so early but still arrived on time and ready to work. I also managed to do the buttons up on my whites slightly quicker and learn the name of the pastry chef, Phil, who I spent the day working with. I worked on similar things this time but instead of just helping with them, I was allowed to do them by myself. Not too much to say this time but another good day :)

After a pretty boring morning, I soon began loving working there and helped prepare little cakes and pastries for afternoon tea-including open macaroons with lemon curd, choux buns with lavender icing and violet cream and scones with clotted cream and jam. I also helped with the sandwhiches and in order to have perfectly clean bread, they cling film the surfaces to prepare them and cut each filling very finely to create a smooth sandwhich.
I finished at 2.30, tired and with a very dirty apron but looking forward to my next day...

Day 1
So I got the nice and early bus ready so I would be there on time (so early that I ended waiting about half an hour for the second 5 minute bus journey!) and I met Amanda, the chef in charge when Daniel the Head Chef isn't in, and she found me some uniform. I never realised how complicated the buttons were until then as I was there for about 10 minutes getting ready- she probably thought I died and gone to heaven by the time I was in the kitchen to pick up my apron and trusty cloth (which I was told never to get wet or else it wont actually act as a guard through hot objects)! I was assigned to my first station and person who I forgot the name of immediately and couldn't understand due to his accent so kept having to say pardon to him, a great start really! I thought I would just spend the day watching them and preparing a few things here and there, which I was right with to start with as they gave me a very large crate of spinach to prepare in freezing cold water! It's one of those jobs no one really wants to do but someone has to, so I got on and did it relatively quickly with red raw cold hands at the end. Pleased that I had saved him a job that he didn't want to do, I followed my chef to his 'mains' area and chopped a few onions and things but as service was getting under the way, he didn't really have much for me to do so, (thankfully!) passed me on to the pastry section where I was amazed to see them create all these beautiful dishes ready to be served that were all immaculately presented and showed such care and attention. Immediately I knew, this is were I wanted to be.



Hartwell House

So I've decided to start this blog after my family kept nagging at me to make a record of my volunteering at Hartwell House and my sister suggested this be the best way. I am a keen cook with an ambition to be a pastry chef and so after entering a cooking competition was offered a chance to volunteer. I don't yet have my own uniform so my plan is to borrow theirs until I get my own, though I do have these 'beautiful' catering shoes which are must to work in the kitchen...