As we kick off the 7th series of The Great British Bake Off, we're turning our hands and hearts to the kitchen! Here's how Sarah from Modern Bric a Brac got on with an indulgent peanut brittle, peanut butter and raspberry jam French Toast from Olive magazine...
The photo made it look sensational and, just like some other recipes I'd found in Olive magazine, completely unknown to me. Cue my blundering attempt to re-create a super-sized French Toast with peanut butter and raspberry jam filling.
The recipe called for combining mascarpone with peanut butter and in another section double cream with two eggs and sugar. This had indulgence written all over it. In my excitement at finding this brunch-time recipe I had pulled out the page to keep for later and filed it somewhere amongst a pile of other such pull-outs that disappear around my home.
Luckily, Olive magazine also make their recipes readily available online and so I was still able to follow along using the information from their website instead. As a little aside, this is a great resource as they have a handy feature that lets you flip back and forwards from the ingredients with one click. Really useful tool. With the kitchen nice and quiet, morning light streaming in and ingredients piled up ready for action, I started to follow the recipe.
My first task was to make a peanut brittle. Not something I'd tried before and it turned out to be hugely satisfying. With easy to follow instructions I was soon using the pulse setting on my food processor for the first time and feeling rather pleased with myself.
Next, I was to make the jam. The ingredients for this stage were minimal - raspberries, lemon juice and icing sugar. I loved this part; the colour of the deep, rich red sauce I made, once I'd sieved out the pips looked and smelt amazing.
Unfortunately this was where my skills started to unravel. The jam didn't jam, I'd made a thin, runny sauce. I then fell foul of the toasting process and burnt my carefully constructed sandwiches. Oh dear.
Never one to let left-overs go to waste, the sauce was used to make an unbelievably delicious smoothie and the brittle is destined to top my morning breakfast of soaked oats with coconut yogurt and fruit, so all is not lost.
The PB & J French Toast recipe may not have been a keeper but Olive magazine certainly is. Apart from the unusual recipes that I'm discovering they also have a section on making the most of seasonal produce; for September that means recipes for apples, blackberries, sweetcorn, tomatoes, figs and mussels. Plus my absolute favourite; a section on top-secret foodie destinations and gastro-getaways. That's two of my very favourite things in one go.
Whether you're baking crazy or looking for more indulgent breakfast recipes, you'll find delectable, delicious dishes in every issue of Olive magazine.
This is a guest post via the magazine.co.uk blogger network.
