Technical Difficulties

I think I should start by saying thank you to all you lovely people who left me such fabulous moral boosting comments on my last post. It does feel a little pathetic that I can so easily doubt myself when times are unsettled but there you go... the creative urge is a strange thing at times and I'm not always as confident as I seem to appear. It's all a bluff!

But I do what I always do when there are deadlines and life seems a challenge, I retreat to the kitchen and bake... and set myself more deadlines and challenges! This year I thought it would be fun, because obviously I have nothing elsle to do, to make the signature bakes as well as the technical bakes for this year's GBBO.

You have already seen my mini rolls which was the technical bake from week one but I also made a signature fresh fruit cake too... an trusted Dorset Apple Cake recipe full of lovely fresh apple. I also made a blueberry cake that week and wondered why some of the contestants found it so difficult to add fresh fruit to a cake.

Week 2 was biscuit week and the technical bake was fortune cookies. The first batch ended up in the bin (the oven temparature in the recipe is too low)... the second lot weren't much better and all I could think was why on earth would anyone want to make these. They burn your fingers when you make them and they don't even taste nice.

Definitely not worth the effort nor the calories! I think my fortune should have read "You will never make fortune cookies again".

The signature bake was to make sandwich biscuits so I made these carrot cake inspired biscuits from a recipe on the Great British Chefs website, which also happened to part of a bake along competittion on Twitter.

Not only did they taste great, they also won me a prize in the competition... this fabulous Emma Bridgewater biscuit barrel which is waiting to be filled with homemade biscuits!

Bread week saw a technical bake of a cottage loaf.

My shaping was a little bit out as I think I made my dough a little too wet but it tasted great and had a good crumb. I used butter instead of lard and I did just about do it in the alloted time but the figures didn't add up in the recipe... 10 minutes kneading, two one hour proving sessions and 35-40 mins in the oven... all to be done in two and a half hours! I managed it by cutting the proving times down to 45 minutes.

The signature bake in bread week was teacakes, something I had never made before. I made an apricot and date version flavoured with orange and cinnamon, mostly because that was what I had in the cupboard.

They were a big hit and I may have eaten a few too many, delicious toasted with lots of butter. If I get the time I may even share my recipe, although I may have to test them again first!

This week saw the bakers in the GBBO tent  having to deal with caramel and attempt a technical bake of Stroopwafel... a thin Dutch waffle with caramel filling. And so ends my journey of baking every technical bake this year because I am certainly not going to invest in a cone waffle maker that I will use once and then consign to a cupboard for the next ten years! I will probably try the signature bake of millionaire's shortbread though.

In other news, I've heard from Joe who had a brilliant four days in Vancouver and is now enjoying Cuba, the painters have finished and have done a great job, and Hector has has a little outing...

He loves going out in the car... but I'm not sure he was so thrilled whan he came home!

It may calm him down a little, it may not (the operation not the cone) as opinion seems to be divided but the vet seemed to think it might stop him running off even if it doesn't dampen his adolescent enthusiasm, only time will tell!

And as you can see I've not stopped blogging... at least not for the moment so thank you for continuing to read and being such a lovely supportive community of people. See you again soon.

So did you spot me?

As I predicted my very short interview with Jo Brand on Thursday night's Extra Slice (10pm Chanel 4) never made the final edit but there were several audience shots where you could spot me.

And my "Noel" cake got a brief airing at the "Show us your bakes" part of the show, even if he didn't get selected for tasting... but I had a good time and it was lots of fun.

I could tell you all about the warm up guy and the risque jokes and the fact that Roisin Conaty actually had to spit out the broccoli cake... but in fact Rob has written such a brilliant account of the whole experience on his blog HERE, that you might as well read what he has to say and I can get on and bake some more cakes! If you read Rob's account you will know that in the holding room before the start of the show, we all had to taste our own cakes, supposedly to prove we weren't trying to poison anyone. I had to perform cranial surgery on my poor Noel cake, lifting a flap of liquorice hair so I could scoop out some of the cake underneath before replacing the hair, disguising the hole in his head!!

I had hoped that I might be able to add another "60 x 60" to my list if they had actually tasted my bake as one of the things I would like to do is bake a cake for someone famous, but alas it wasn't to be. Although there was always the risk someone famous might spit out my cake! So if any of you lovely readers know someone famous who would like me to bake them a cake... you know where to find me! Twenty two more things to do and only ten months left!

An Extra Slice

Okay... so what was the point of my last post? I did what I hate other people doing i.e. refering to something and then not actually telling you about it, like I was being all mysterious! Not really a mystery at all except I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice and was asked to bring a cake. Having been to the final show of the last series it was quite exciting to go to the first one this time. The theme was illusion cakes so I chose to make a cake that looked like one of the new presenters, Noel Fielding... well, sort of!

It was a liquorice and chocolate cake with a blackcurrant filling which I thought would be unusual, dark and mysterious... a bit like the man himself. The show organisers seem to like it and I was chosen to be one of the audience who got interviewed. I say interviewed... Jo Brand spoke to me and asked me one question before moving on. I think I might have blown my five minutes of fame as I was neither funny nor scintillating and there were others far more entertaining than me so I doubt I'll make the final edit. But do watch Chanel 4 tomorrow evening (Thursday) and you might catch a glimpse of me and my cake. My money is on the brocolli baking vicar being featured but we'll have to wait and see. And do look out for my very new best friend Mr. Baker and his phenomenal life size 'mixer' cake.

So did you watch the actual Bake Off last night? The reception on social media seems to be mixed but I really enjoyed it and although the adverts are annoying at least it is a chance to pour another cup of tea (or in our case champagne... but I'm going to be mysterious again and tell you you'll have to wait to hear about that)... or pop out for a quick wee break!

Just like last year I thought I might join in with the technical challenge each week and so have spent rather a large part of today making chocolate mini rolls. As you might guess, I didn't stick to the time that the bakers were allotted, just two hours... but in my defence I have made a cheesecake as well!

Let's just say they are not easy and I have huge respect for the twelve bakers on the show who turned out a dozen of these, in a tent under the scrutiny of cameras and in a limited time. Making the sponge and buttercream was relatively straightforward and even rolling them up wasn't too bad, but covering them in chocolate quite another matter. Mine are far from perfect, with squidges and smudges, lumps and bumps... and I daren't describe the chocolate carnage in my kitchen when I finished. My face was almost as bad... Mrs. chocolate chops, that's me!

There was barely enough chocolate to cover them and it thickened as I worked making it very difficult. There was much scraping up of chocolate that had dripped onto the parchment and reheating it so it was liquid enough to pour. But I did manage to turn out twelve mishapen mini rolls. My swiss roll tins are different sizes so my mini rolls vary quite a bit in size too, but I doubt anyone around here is going to complain.

I followed this recipe pretty much to the letter, but opted not to put peppermint in my buttercream for fear of the toothpaste effect. Instead I added a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of milk to make sure that it was nice and soft and spreadable. I think I got a half decent swirl too.

And although they look 'rustic' they taste pretty good, and have a lovely light texture, if a little too sweet for my taste. It made me realise that I have never actually tasted a commercial mini roll so I can't even tell you if they are "as good as shop" as my ex-mother in law used to say!

Looking forward to next week... biscuits and I'm guessing fortune cookies! Who knows, I might even attempt them in the time limit.