Doughnut with fruit and meringue - Medicine Bakery Birmingham New St [@NLi10]

 My partner picked me up a treat from town while I was working from the New Street branch of the Medicine Bakery - a huge doughnut with the fresh meringue and fruit on top - a proper treat!

Look at that - it's so chunky!

It's not for cats - but you may have a look

Everything was so fresh that it demanded to be eaten right away - even though I think this would work best sliced in two and shared over coffee.

An absolute hit with the best versions of all the flavours involved - no wonder these sensations from Codsall have found success in town too!

Dylan's Handmade Welsh Crumpets - Luxury Baking! [@NLi10]

 Fresh bread is great, and easy to get - so why not fresh crumpets!

Wales has you covered with Dylan's baking these on Anglesey

It's all good healthy ingredients - and needs to be opened then eaten - which was a shame, we had to feed the last one to the gulls because it went off.

Super luxury - almost to thick for the toaster in the caravan.  Spot the Welsh Tea hiding there too.

It's a squeeze!

Worth it though - like eating fresh in a café - probably after a long walk in the rain.

I'd have these again, but plan ahead and bring jam, a big toaster, and an appetite to eat all 4 between us in one lunchtime sitting.

 

M&S Super Awesome Crumpesaurus [@NLi10]

Stomp! Stomp! stomp!

What’s that coming down the supermarket aisles as part two of my dinosaur reviews?

It’s a pack of super awesome crumpe-Saurus!

M&S are trying hard to get kids into their food, and with the Ocado man delivering for them it seems to be working out fine.  These are regular crumpets with a reshape and a drawn on happy dinosaur

They go great with the plant only butter substitute I reviewed a few weeks ago and taste like very high quality store bought crumpets.

3-4 mins in the toaster for best results and let the ‘butter’ melt into the holes 

Fabulous use of the design, and fun for a Sunday evening snack.

Rarr!

 

Wright’s Cheddar and Tomato Bread Mix (@wrightsflour Ocado) By @Cinabar

I bake a lot of Focaccia bread from scratch, I bake it so often that I actually stopped putting the pictures on Instagram (at Foodstuff_Finds) as I was worried it might be being a bit repetitive. Each loaf looks the same. I already had fresh rosemary in the fridge (for the Focaccia) but remembered I had a ordered this Wright’s Cheddar and Tomato Bread Mix kit as a quick and easy alternative. I decided to give it a go, and why not on a bank holiday.

I added the entire packet of the mix to a bowl, and measured the appropriate amount of warm water and tipped it straight in. Initially I mixed it together with a wooden spoon but it soon came together and I used my hands to form a ball. Then I had to let it rest for five minute, knead it for a couple more and rest it for another five. Actually quite simple.

Then I popped the dough straight into the tin to rise, I put it near our heater just for a bit of extra warmth. The dough rose really well after 30 minutes.

Then all you do is bake it the oven, this Wright’s Cheddar and Tomato Bread Mix really was a simple kit. I added the rosemary for decoration before it went into the oven. The loaf smelled lovely while it was cooking.

It came out looking super and the bread was lovely and fluffy. We had slices when they were still warm with butter melting in. There was a mild flavour from the cheese and tomato, but enough to give the bread a lovely edge while not taking away from the fabulous flavour of freshly baked bread. This was such a simple bread mix to make and results were brilliant, definitely something I’ll buy again.

Bacon Milkshake - Vegan style! @alpro @deliciou (by @NLi10)

 

I bought some magical bacon flavour dust - if you've not read about it then catch up in part 1!

This started out fairly logically - if bacon flavour dust works on bagels - does Nesquik strawberry dust work on bagels too?

Plain

And lightly dusted!

And - it's like a really cheap version of jam.  Has the flavour of strawberry but none of the good bits of texture.  It did get me thinking though - it's probably quite easy to do the reverse.

What would bacon milkshake taste like?!  We used to make all kinds of milkshakes as kids.  Fizzy drinks were incredibly rare in my family growing up - it was all high juice and similar healthy squash.  Ribena milkshake is awesome if you get the amounts right (it's basically a liquid pudding) - and you can even make an orange juice based shake, but that wasn't always as successful.

It's slowly becoming easier to get hold of the best Alpro (the no sugar, no roasted one is the absolute best) so I'm happy to use some up here.  

And I can spare some maple-bacon magic Deliciou dust for this experiment.  I guess this is about half a teaspoon?

It went a bit orange, and the smell wasn't as overpowering as with the powder on dryer things. Maybe I'm getting the hand of it.  The orange looks unnatural too.

And the taste? 

It's drinkable but it's not a pleasurable experience.  It's essentially a garlic and onion milkshake - the bacon smell is very much present but the flavour isn't as strong as with the bagels.  This is probably for the best.  There are lots of little bits floating in the milkshake too which is a little offputting.

Not one for the recipe book then, but one to mark as 'done'.

Other suggestions from people so far have been -

• with scrambled eggs (great idea)
• with hot chocolate (even worse idea than the milkshake)
• in curry (another good plan)
• and of course - with pancakes as I originally planned when I ordered this!

I may save the write up of the last one for pancake day, but if people want to see if the others work then do let me know via twitter or comments.

Greggs Festive Fabulous Bakes (Iceland) By @Cinabar

What says Christmas dinner better than a Greggs bake filled with roast dinner flavours? I actually bought these Greggs Festive Fabulous Bakes in Iceland not Greggs but had them in the freezer for a quick lunch. They oven baked easily and the pastry browned off nicely in the oven.

 

The first thing I noticed about these Greggs Festive Fabulous Bakes is that the meat inside the bake is chicken not turkey, I like chicken but if you are going to go for festive theming I fell this was a missed opportunity. Everyone knows it is turkey at Christmas. The bake itself though was still lovely and tasty. The pasty was soft and crispy with a a nice buttery edge. The flavours inside were good, the chicken was moist, the bacon was a nice touch and I loved the herbs giving a stuffing like flavour. I’d happily have these Greggs Festive Fabulous Bakes again and keep some in the freezer for quick lunches, there isn’t really any need for the ‘festive’ label it is just a nice chicken roast dinner flavour in a bake.

Greggs Sausage and Beans Melts (Iceland) By @cinabar

Watching the Great British Bake Off last week I spotted that a few people were making breakfast quiches and the subject of baked beans came up, apparently many people don’t like them. I found this quite shocking for me they are on the essentials of a full English breakfast, along with bacon, sausage and egg. I also like them on toast, and from KFC, beans are good people. They were described as tasteless and boring on the Bake Off, sad times.

Anyway as I like baked beans I couldn’t resist trying out these frozen Greggs Sausage and Beans Melts, to get the Greggs experience at home you just pop them in the oven and bake them. Plus there were three in the box instead of two as they were on special at Iceland, bonus. They went quite golden, and the beans had started to drip at one side but it is ok because I’m not actually on the Bake Off. The flavour was lovely though. The pastry was crispy and buttery the filling had loads of tomato flavour from the beans, and the sausage was good and meaty. It was a nice mix so finding a piece of the meat broke it up and made it interesting to eat. I thoroughly enjoyed these bakes and their baked bean goodness, worth keeping a box in the freezer for a quick lunch or dinner.

Mrs Brown’s Kitchen - Chicken Fajita Crowns (Iceland) By @Cinabar

I did my first online Iceland shop order which was quite exciting and as ever with a new shop I have a good browse to see if there is anything that I needed to try because it is a bit different and that is when I stumbled across this, Mrs Brown’s Kitchen - Chicken Fajita Crowns. I found this quite a confusing concept, firstly curry flavours with cheese, odd; in pastry, odder; it is marketed with Mrs Brown’s image, oddness overload.
Mrs Brown’s Boys is a silly, rude, sweary TV show but it does make me laugh, it shouldn’t but it turns out I’m not very high brow. The bakes are popped onto the oven and they smelt lovely. The curry flavour was rich with lots of paprika and gentle kick of heat. The chicken was moist, and there was plenty of veg. The cheese worked, it probably shouldn’t have but it did. The pasty was tasty too and the whole thing was very enjoyable, it was a weird medley of flavours and ideas but I have to admit I liked these Mrs Brown’s Kitchen Chicken Fajita Crowns a lot. If you are not a fan of the Mrs Brown’s Boys show do put it aside as these pastry bakes are surprisingly good, even after you have binned the box.

Finally Making Those Matcha Green Scones (@NLi10)

What is this, powder upon more powder?  What kind of snack food is this?!

Well the green is easy to explain - that's my Matcha powder that I got send to review ages ago.

It's great stuff and while I drank most of it I reserved the last half a pack for baking.  And while it's taken 2 years for my health and procrastination to do that baking - here it is!

This green sausage is a half dozen of Delia's scones.  With a table spoon of matcha.

They don't look that green now

They bake up nicely

And they compare well to the normal batch I did for comparison

Tea scones with more tea is maybe a little much, but they worked really well (as expected) and the flavours still came through.  I definitely used less sugar than the recipe needed (or the wrong grade) but generally it worked as expected.  I needed the clotted cream and jam in stock before I did this!

So all in all the baking grade matcha was a success - now to do a chocolate cake - but with matcha instead of chocolate - the possibilities are endless!!

Mr Kipling Selection Box - A Very British Lockdown Indeed! (@NLi10) #ExceedinglyGood

There are some parts of being a child in the Eighties in Britain that I remember fondly.  Toys in cereal boxes, Garbage Pail Kids, and all manor of cakes and chocolates from the Great-Grandparents cupboards!

One brand always stands out to me - purely because they were the most disappointing thing you could be offered - and that is the products of Mr Kipling.  Now maybe this is just because the other options were M&S or TeaCakes or Home-Baked scones, but it seems odd that one of the most prevalent UK pudding brands isn't something I've ever loved.

A firm family favourite over the years, producing tiny cakes to entice and yet disappoint my tiny self.  French Fancies were ace - no questions - and the Jam Tarts were good (mainly the pastry) but the little pies always had an aftertaste that lingered for me and I just didn't like it.

But - now we are on lockdown (and thirty years older!) how do they hold up?

Well - they are probably very similar to the olden days.  Probably less bad fats and probably less sugar, but still very similar in appearance and marketing.  It was only when skimming the box here (and chuckling about the 'melt in the mouth' pastry that we both thought was far too crumbly - 'fall in the cleavage pastry' was mentioned) that I even spotted that these are supposed to be heated!  Shame I've eaten all mine now.

Very presentable - no damage.  Icons on top so you can tell which are the apple, which are the apple and something and which are the no flavour ones.

First up - apple!

Looks like apple - tastes like Kippling apple.  It's perfectly edible and quite nice.  Minimal aftertaste.

Then Blackcurrant & Apple.  Easily the best.  minimal aftertaste.

Last we have the Cherry.  I didn't take a pic of the inside.  Nicely red - good flavour - then AFTERTASTE!  I'm not sure if this is an odd genetic thing, or the fact we've never baked them meaning something has gone wrong, but I'm transported to my youth and gulping down tea to cleanse the taste-buds. 

 Overall though - a success.  I enjoyed them much more than I thought I would, and may even buy the Jam Tarts for old times sake.  I'd still rather have my grandparents baking though.

Jus-Rol Croissants - freshly baked in minutes! (@NLi10)

Thanks to a special deal we got to try some of the Jus-Rol basically pre made but fresh bake products.  Last time we had fun making cinamon rolls - now we have croissants!

Usually we get the frozen ones from Waitrose, and these aren't that much cheaper AND you have to eat six at the same time - but how do they look?

The tube is as odd as before

But this time it opened with no effort - guess the glue was just a little out of place on the last one.

And it even comes pre dotted so you don't end up with the wrong size (or maybe so you don't make lots of tiny ones?

A quick whizz with the pizza cutter later and we have some rolls.

They look like prawns or dog chews - maybe I should have looked online to see how tight they want to be wrapped!

They baked OK though and seem less like the flakey pastry of the frozen ones and more like an 'English' croissant (if that makes sense) having a more shortcrust style in places.

Add a bit of black-currant jam and all is forgiven.  Not quite Paris, but a lovely way to get the family involved in making breakfast and a lot easier than doing all the pastry bits yourself.  I think the frozen ones are a better eating experience, but these are more satisfying to do.

I think we'd have these again, but we still have to buy and try the Pan Au Chocolat at some point too.