Category: Baking

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Hello everybody!

I was asked to write a recipe or four by the Jamie Oliver gang, on the subject of a healthier type of baking…lower in sugar, no animal products and tasty as you like.

I adapted a recipe from my forthcoming book Bee’s Brilliant Biscuits for this - it uses oats and applesauce as its base ingredients and is totally vegan with no added sugar.

Here’s a snippet from the recipe, full instructions are here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/oaty-cookies-one-dough-four-ways/

Photography by James Lyndsay, styling by Elspeth Meston…nice work guys!

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Yes, I’m a baker, so it stands to reason that I don’t have too much of a problem cooking with sugar, butter and gluten most of the time. However, if I can bake something delicious and full of energy that just so happens to NOT contain these things, I consider it a win all round!

We bake lots of different recipes at Bee’s Bakery, including gluten-free, vegan or more health-conscious bakes. These oaty cookies are just the sort of baking I like to do when I’m making something for health-conscious friends, or with kids, or even when it’s just me at home. It’s important for me to have a reasonably healthy diet at home, to make up for all the broken biscuits I eat at work!

The recipe is adapted from my first recipe book, Bee’s Brilliant Biscuits, which is out early in 2016 and contains plenty of other vegan and health-conscious recipes, too.
Read more at http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/oaty-cookies-one-dough-four-ways/#t31DX3jYXtwUi3aX.99

 

 

 

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Hey everyone!

We have TONS of really fun Christmas projects coming up, and we’ll need a couple of Christmas elves to help with them…

We’re looking for enthusiastic young people, with some experience of working in a catering kitchen / baking, for an immediate start - we’re based in NW10.

If you fancy baking some of the below, learning a few new tricks, working in a fun, friendly small bakery business, then drop me a line - beeberrie@gmail.com.

BeesBakery09140230 copy BeesBakery09140198 copy BeesBakery09140188 copy BeesBakery09140219 copy CHRISMAS CAKE 2 photo 1 Jamie Jammies Grazia BOOK layouts

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Its nearly International Friends Day and Grazia magazine included our colourful cookies in their gift-list…

This picture is super cool! And you can order online at Etsy!

Grazia

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A few months ago, I was asked by the team at Jamie Oliver to come up with a recipe for a dairy AND gluten free cookie recipe - no mean feat!

I don’t follow a particular diet eliminating any type of food, but I do steer clear of dairy some of the time, and what i love about this recipe most of all is that first of all, its delicious, but it also has certain health benefits, a winning combo in my eyes!

 

I discovered that avocado can be a fantastic alternative to butter in this context…so here’s the recipe that was published on Jamie Oliver.com

image: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/09/feature-header22.jpg

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Ingredients:

  • 1 ripe avocado (when it’s skinned and de-seeded we need around 100g)
  • 1 large free-range egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp xanthan gum (optional – without this, your cookie will be crumblier)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 150g light brown soft sugar (or caster sugar)
  • 50g cocoa powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 50g gluten-free flour (any combination of the following flours will work – standard gluten-free flour, rice flour, gram flour, quinoa flour)
  • 100g roughly-chopped dark chocolate (over 70% cocoa solids should always be dairy free, but check the packet)

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/gas 4 and line a baking tray/sheet with parchment paper. Scoop your avocado into a large bowl and mash thoroughly until it’s a smooth green goo. Once smooth, add the rest of the ingredients into the bowl and beat using good old muscle power with a wooden spoon, until a nice shiny consistent wet mix forms. It’ll look like a very sticky and dark coloured cake mix rather than a firm cookie dough. If you taste a little of the mixture at this point, you’ll be amazed at how “green” it tastes – it’s literally like eating raw cabbage, but after baking, all of the vegetable taste is gone – thank goodness!

Add most of your chocolate chunks, saving some of the larger pieces to press into the top of each cookie before baking. Using two metal spoons, dollop evenly sized round-shaped cookies onto your baking tray – larger is always better with these ones, and they don’t spread much when baking. If you prefer a thicker, fudgier cookie, pile the mix high and bake for the full time, and if you like a thinner chewier cookie then spread them out more and bake for less. Press a couple of chocolate chunks into the top, then bake for around 12-15 minutes – they will still be slightly soft to the touch, but do firm up once allowed to cool


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Here are some pics of my most recent wedding and party cakes! I bake everything to commission, and my designs are totally customisable. I still have a few spots available for wedding cakes for this summer, so get in touch if you’d like one! bee@bees.jessepearson.net

Bee.xx

This is a dinky little pretty thing of a birthday cake - tiers measure 6inches and 4 inches, to serve around 20 people. LOVE the yellow.

 

Bees bakery, yellow petal cake

 

 

And this pretty little rose gold inspired number was commissioned by Etsy UK - for their first ever wedding fair! Its made with edible gold sequins, and lots of beautiful paper flowers…which i particularly love…

ETSY

 

This cake is the cousin of the yellow cake, but this time for a wedding in hampstead. Made with edible flower petals, the amazing thing about this cake is that its possible to choose the shape and style of the petals. So if big and pink is your thing then great, but if tiny and blue is more your bag, then that works too - totally customisable.

pink 2

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If not, just DO it!

I post lots of cool pictures, often of our cookies and cakes in progress so you’ll get lots of inside info on how the bakery works…

www.instagram.com/beesbakery

Here’s what you’re missing…

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Hello all!

I’ve blown it and given away too much…. my 7 tips for baking superfly biscuits are on Jamie Oliver’s website, so now my trade secrets are OUT!

Here are the first three tips, for the rest, you’ll have to visit: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/7-tips-for-brilliant-homemade-biscuits/#CUv70Ig9x1DGuM73.97

 

biscuits

I may be slightly biased, having built a business around biscuits, but lets face it: cookies and biscuits are everything that trendy cupcakes are not.

Anyone worth their baking salt can knock out a cutesy frosted cupcake these days, and that’s cool with me. Cupcakes have their place. To stand out from the crowd, however, you need to splash out for fancy kit and ingredients, pile them high with sugary decorations and, even after all this, they let you down with their short shelf life.

None of this can be said about biscuits and cookies – these babies are quicker, easier, and more versatile than their cakey cousins. Biscuits have short bake times, last for a comparatively long time, and any leftovers – whether baked or still in dough-form – can be frozen and cooked later. In other words, biscuits are total winners.

Baking your own basic biscuits and cookies is easy-peasy, but take on board some of my top tips and you’ll be fast-tracked to biscuit baking brilliance.

1. Use your hands

Get some baking biceps! Don’t cheat with a mixer – engage your abs and arm muscles. You’re going to have a few extra calories to burn off, after all!

2. Know when to stop

Don’t overwork yourself, or your dough. Too much kneading and re-rolling of your dough will result in cracked and misshapen cookies. To avoid this, always cut as many cookies from the first and second rollout of dough as possible, and consider freezing your third rollout before baking.

3. Roll evenly

Turn your dough as you roll, or roll in different directions, to ensure that you’re accounting for any different pressure points and achieve a nice even dough height.

Read more: at http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/7-tips-for-brilliant-homemade-biscuits/#uBTTjAEhuy0RXYrW.99

 

 

 

 

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I’ve written an article for Jamie Oliver with some top tips for getting the best out of baking your own hot cross buns!

hot cross buns

Below are some snippets from the article, the full one is available at: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/homemade-hot-cross-buns/#dVDwEUpgQPQFt8T1.97

According to ancient superstition, baking your own hot cross buns on Good Friday will help you win friends, influence people, protect against kitchen fires, and guarantee that all bread baked in your kitchen turns out perfectly.

It’s not as though we should need to be persuaded to tackle a bake like the hot cross bun (the home bakers’ “challenging-but-achievable” holy grail), but if I did then the list above would swing it for me every time.

There are tonnes of stories, superstitions, fables, bits of folklore and even a well-known song about hot cross buns, but my favourite part of their history is a certain decree passed by Queen Elizabeth in the 1500’s. Lizzie said that bakers could only sell hot cross buns on Good Friday and Christmas, which led to good home-bakers (and those who had enough money to buy in the spices and rich ingredients needed) to covertly bake them at home, and risk full-batch confiscation if busted by the hot cross bun cops…

Tips for perfect hot cross buns

  • Use your baking muscles when making hot cross buns – no cheating with a dough hook on a mixer! Use your hands when mixing ingredients and engage your tummy muscles when kneading – I guarantee you’ll end up with a warm glow, a bit of a sweaty brow and you’ll absolutely deserve the treat of a hot bun fresh out of the oven.
  • When your dough is rising, sit the baking tray on top of a big bowl of hot water, so the steam and heat will transfer to the dough and it’ll rise a bit quicker
  • Try splitting your dough into two and using currants in one and cranberries in the other, or even dried cherries for a bit of a change
  • To avoid dry buns, soak your dried fruit for about half an hour in hot water – this’ll make them swell and keep your buns satisfyingly plump for longer
  • Try a few different recipes for the cross on top – some people use a standard water and flour bun wash, but you can also try a line of thinly rolled marzipan, or a little dotted line of candied peel, raisins or even poppy or chia seeds for a bit of a change
  • Play around with different spices, such as cardamom or saffron, if you have some in the back of your cupboard
  • Freeze any spare baked buns you have leftover – they’ll make a brilliant last minute treat if defrosted and toasted later in the year
  • Finally, if you forget about your buns and they go a bit stale, consider baking a brilliant hot cross bun-stylee bread and butter pudding

Read more at http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/homemade-hot-cross-buns/#m5z9ezZ8RI93oSz5.99

 

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So…this is Pavilion publishers! They publish books, especially brilliant recipe books. And they’re going to publish mine too.

Its going to be about biscuits and cookies (if you hadn’t guessed!) and its going to be superfly-FANTASTIC!

I’m making it with a brilliant prop stylist called Charlie Phillips, and some super cool photographers called the Haarala Hamiltons…links to both below.

Pavilion books

 

Pavilion: http://www.pavilionbooks.com

Charlie Phillips: http://seephillips.com/art-dept/

Liz and Max Haarala-Hamilton: http://haaralahamilton.com