Another episode of Bake Off, another opportunity to make a recipe I've never heard of and have absolutely no clue how to pronounce... Pastry week saw the bakers tackle Paul Hollywood's Flaounes - Cypriot cheese-filled pastries flavoured with a mix of decidedly difficult to find Greek spices.
This week really confirmed for me that I'm going to have to become creative with these Technical Challenges in order to actually make the best version of them I possibly can. The previous episode called for Gluten Free-Pitta, but even after searching in multiple health-food shops and enormous supermarkets several crucial ingredients either eluded me (Nigella seeds were a mystery despite now being readily available in both my local Tesco and Waitrose) or were way too expensive (Psyllium powder in Holland & Barrett cost around £15 and I only needed to use a tenth of the pouch). As a result I decided not to make them, instead going for normal pitta. A work trip meant that I didn't have time to blog my results last Thursday but needless to say they were a success. However, they weren't exactly within the specific remits of the challenge.
Thus from now on I've decided to definitely alter the recipes so that I can feasibly complete them and simultaneously not use up all my savings in the process. This will mean finding alternative ingredients when others are too expensive/impossible to locate and essentially making do. Hopefully this will work out well!