Iced Fingers

Somehow I managed to buy the latest Great British Bake Off book before I’d even watched a single episode! Obviously I was soon caught up and was eager to try out some of the recipes. I love trying things I’ve not done before, though I’ve learnt not to attempt something new when there’s a time pressure (yes, I’m looking at you Chocolate Roulade on Christmas Eve…).

Lately, I’ve been getting more into yeasted recipes – lots of breads, doughnuts, waffles etc. I really liked the look of these Iced Fingers when I saw them make it on GBBO so thought it would be worth a try!

Iced Fingers

(Recipe from Great British Bake Off book, Paul Hollywood)

You will need:

For the dough

• 500g/1lb 2oz strong white flour
• 50g/1¾oz caster sugar
• 40g/1½oz unsalted butter, softened
• 2 free-range eggs
• 2 x 7g/¼oz sachets instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 150ml/5fl oz warm milk
• 140ml/4½fl oz water

For the icing

• 200g/7oz icing sugar
• 5 tsp cold water

For the filling

• 200ml/7fl oz whipping cream
• 100g/4oz strawberry jam
• icing sugar, for dusting

Makes 12

1. Start with the dough by putting all of the ingredients, except from a quarter of the water, into a bowl and stirring together. Gradually bring the dough together with the extra water and knead for a few minutes. This is a very soft dough but shouldn’t be too sticky and is quite easy to knead.

2. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, before returning to the bowl, covering with a damp tea towel and leaving to rise for an hour or so.

3. Divide the dough into twelve pieces, weighing around 70g each. Roll each piece into fingers, about 13cm long. Place them on your greased baking tray with enough space to allow them to double in size, which should take about 40 mins. Preheat the oven to 220°C towards the end of the rise.

At this point I froze about a third of the dough as I didn’t think it was best to try and eat so may iced fingers in one sitting! To use the dough at a later date, take it out of the freezer and defrost at room temperature until no longer frozen. Roll the fingers out and let rise in a warm place.

4. Bake the risen fingers in the preheated oven for 10 mins until they look like this:

5. Before you start the icing, slice the fingers where you want to put the cream in later. When the fingers are cool, make up the icing by sifting the icing sugar into a bowl and mixing the water in until you have a thick paste. You want it to be easy enough to apply, but not so thin that it runs straight off. If you look at my next picture you can see the first two I did were with too runny icing and have a much thinner coating of icing. Thicker is better! You can apply the icing any way you fancy, I dipped them into the bowl of icing and tried to get as much on as possible 😀

6. When the icing has set, lightly whip the cream ready to put into the fingers. Now, you can put the cream and the jam in separate piping bags to pipe into the fingers, but if you’re lazy like me you can spread in some jam and spoon in the cream! Doesn’t look quite as nice but still tastes fantastic!

7. Eat!