Technical Thursday: Mary's Hot Chocolate Soufflé

Well last night was a little exciting, wasn't it?! I've been routing for Nadiya for weeks so was predictably thrilled with the results (although not overwhelmed with excitement about having to attempt pesky raspberry millefeuille at the weekend...).

In a stark contrast to the up-coming Technical, last week's chocolate challenge was largely stress-free, fuss-free and unobtainable-fancy-ingredients-free. Aside from a slight faff finding the right dish, Mary's Hot Chocolate Soufflé was a definite success. In true semi-final style it was a recipe none of the bakers had attempted before - me included - but after carefully reading the instructions and working through them slowly and methodically it all came together pretty smoothly indeed. There was no panicking, no swearing in vain at my KitchenAid, and no frantic restarts of the whole process from the beginning. It all sort of slotted into place, and while the end result isn't half as neat as I would have liked, I'm pretty proud of my first ever soufflé!

Technical Thursday: Mary's Mokatines

These were awful: so truly awful that I will happily never make a Mokatine ever again.

I hate to blame the recipe, but there were more holes in it than a sieve. The official recipe from the BBC Food website - where I download them every week - had dodgy quantities, vague instructions and the method was so full of grammatical errors that it seemed apparent that no-one had thought to proof read it before publishing. I think it's meant to be a variation of the Mokatines in Mary Berry's Baking Bible, but I couldn't make much sense of either one. It could just be me, but it was a nightmare!

I suppose it didn't help that I was on a time limit this weekend so really could have done with it going a lot smoother than it did. For the first time it felt almost like a real Technical Challenge and I hated it! Obviously I had a lot longer on the clock than the bakers to account for photographing/tidying up etc. but it was still ridiculously stressful!

Technical Thursday: Mary's Tennis Cake

It seemed rather fitting this week to be making Mary Berry's Tennis Cake while Andy Murray stormed into the final of the Davis Cup at the weekend. The amount of time I spent waiting for the sponge to cool allowed for plenty of time to watch the tennis, and it really helped to calm my annoyance at how stupidly long this cake took to make.

I felt it was a bizarre bake given how largely uncomplicated and boring it was at this stage of the competition, but at least it fell at a topical time! Plus, it looks pretty and tastes divine, so I can't really complain...

Technical Thursday: Mary's Spanische Windtorte

I've made meringue a couple of times before, and each time I've ended up with a brown, dry mess that I've had to jazz up with sprinkles or crush into a pudding to disguise the fact that it's a total disaster. Therefore, when this Technical Challenge was revealed it's probably understandable that I panicked slightly! It had the potential to go extremely wrong, but luckily for me it did the exact opposite! (If it's not already obvious, I am beyond thrilled about this!)

I'm not sure if it's my new oven or if I've finally mastered meringue, but either way this ended up being one of the prettiest challenges to date, and one that's really surprised me. Mary's delicate layers of French and Swiss meringue filled with a strawberry/raspberry/cream centre were basically heaven on a cake stand. *insert heart-eyed emoji here*

Technical Thursday: Mary's Frosted Walnut Cake

Guess what's back...

Technical Thursday, woop woop!

Admittedly, it's not half as original this time around as everybody in Britain seems to be doing exactly the same thing and baking along with the new series of The Great British Bake Off too... I don't mind though: I think it's fantastic that baking has become so popular!

I love the Technical Challenges, and I'm hoping this series has just as many bizarre, fiendishly difficult and beautiful concoctions as the last. I'm definitely a better baker because of my previous attempt at these, so fingers crossed the coming months provide even more of an education into all things bread, pastry, biscuits, cake and everything in between.

So, without further ado: here's my version of the very first Technical Challenge of the series, Mary Berry's Frosted Walnut Cake.

Wimbledon Cake

To mark the return of Wimbledon today I figured a spot of baking was in order, and there's nothing more on theme than a Mary Berry Wimbledon Cake. I've wanted to try making it for ages but refused to let myself even assemble the ingredients before the championships began!

This orange-infused semolina sponge is sandwiched together with whipped cream, sliced strawberries and passion fruit, and is the perfect accompaniment to the tennis over the next fortnight.

Technical Thursday: Religieuse

This week's Technical Challenge required the bakers to make 8 Religieuse - French pastries that consist of two choux buns filled with pastry cream, topped with chocolate ganache and decorated with a whipped cream "collar".

Given the fact that I've never made choux pastry before I was pretty excited to try these out, and they actually worked quite well!

Unfortunately these were victims of The Great SD Card Disaster of December 9th 2014 so I have no pictures of the baking process. Luckily there were 4 left when the nightmare began so they are photographed below as evidence that I did actually do the challenge - and make all 8 - so I'm not just pretending!

Technical Thursday: Mary's Tuiles

This has to be one of the annoying Technical Challenges to date.

It's not particularly difficult and for once didn't lead to elevated levels of stress in any way. The problem is that the challenge required the bakers to make 9 tuiles and 9 cigars, but the recipe provided makes around 50. This is fine if you have all the time in the world and an industrial-sized oven, but working in a small kitchen with limited baking trays (and patience as the afternoon wore on) the whole process took literally hours longer than it needed to.

If I'd have known this I would have halved the quantities from the beginning, but once you're elbows deep in tuile paste and in the middle of a production line with a template, it doesn't make sense to stop, or throw away the rest of the mixture. I made the decision to carry on past the requirements of the challenge and use up all the mixture, but ended up losing over 3 hours in the process. Eugh.

Plus, I spent the evening nursing burnt and stinging fingertips from shaping piping hot tuiles, which is less than ideal to say the least!

Technical Thursday: Floating Islands

I think everyone remembers Dessert Week of The Great British Bake Off Series 4, as it's the one that highlighted how a quaint little show about cake wasn't immune to scandal.

When making their signature bakes - trifles - at the beginning of the episode Deborah accidentally used Howard's custard instead of her own, and not only did it ruffle feathers in the tent and cause a bit of a commotion, but it ushered in an entirely new era on the show. Custard-gate overtook the weather as the main topic of conversation in Britain that week, and I like to believe that it's heart-racing and deliciously tense episodes like this that elevated GBBO to BBC1 for the following series.

In amongst all the custard excitement at the start of the episode it's ridiculously easy to forget what on earth happened in the rest of it. The Technical Challenge was Mary Berry's Floating Islands, a "classy, dreamy dessert" that features quenelles of poached meringue floating on top of custard and decorated with a ball of spun sugar. Don't worry, I hadn't heard of them before the episode either.

Easy peasy? Not. At. All.

Technical Thursday: Back to Basics & GBBO Giveaway

I can't believe this series of the Great British Bake Off is over.

It seems like just yesterday we were watching the contestants discover for the first time that crying over cake isn't that weird in the GBBO tent, and a Mel & Sue sandwich really can heal all pain. It's been an educational series: we've learnt that using shop bought fondant is an unforgivable sin; Baked Alaska should have stayed in the 1970s; and icing sugar can cover a multitude of sins (or the entire bake à la Norman).

Although I'm not thrilled with the result - I was routing for Richard for weeks! - I loved the final. From the Signature Bakes of two types of Viennoiserie to the stunning Showstoppers in the form of intricate and beautiful pièce montées the bakers were really put through their paces.

Theoretically, the Technical Challenge was the easiest yet in a return to the absolute basics with 12 mini Victoria Sponges, 12 mini tartes au citron and 12 scones. However, the 2 hours in which the bakers were allocated made the whole thing a fiendishly difficult task.

Technical Thursday: Mary's Cherry Cake

This is the Technical Challenge that got away.

I only decided to start attempting each week's challenge on The Great British Bake Off in the second week - with Mary's Florentines - so I missed making the first one to face the bakers. 

As I've been in London today and unable to make the three part epic multi-tasking challenge from last night's final, I'm instead posting the recipe for Mary Berry's Cherry Cake from Week 1. Next week I'll post my attempt at the final Technical Thursday challenge and reveal details of I have planned next...

Technical Thursday: Mary's Prinsesstårta

When I first read the recipe for this week's Technical Challenge I really, really hoped it was a joke.

The prospect of making custard, jam, sponge and marzipan from scratch all for a cake I'd never heard of - let alone had any idea how to pronounce properly - seemed all too daunting of a task and completely impossible. It turns out the cake itself certainly isn't impossible, but doing it within the time the contestants were allocated on The Great British Bake Off is ludicrous! Just waiting for the various elements to cool enough to use takes forever, and the constant washing up of bowls and saucepans is a massive faff!

It's no exaggeration: this cake dominated the entire day.

However despite the decades to took to make, this Prisesstårta was an enormous success and looks rather pretty so I don't mind blogging it below!

Technical Thursday: Mary's Tiramisu Cake

Well, to say Britain sort of fell apart and almost broke out in riots following Wednesday night's episode of The Great British Bake Off would be a bit of an understatement.

This week was almost certainly GBBO's Red Wedding, leaving the audience a little bit numb.

It's really a bit ridiculous how seriously we - as a nation - take a television series about cake.

Technical Thursday: Mary's Florentines

By this stage I think it's pretty obvious that I love to bake, and as far as television goes there's nothing quite like The Great British Bake Off.

As it's one of my favourite shows I'm beyond excited that it's back on our screens, and on BBC1 nonetheless! For those that have been living under a rock, GBBO pits twelve homebakers against each other in a 'bake off' every week in a quest to become the weekly Star Baker and ultimately be crowned Britain's Best Amateur Baker. It all sounds very twee, and the pastel KitchenAids, Cath Kidston paraphernalia and union flag bunting adoring the bake off tent don't help dispel the image, but it's more stressful than you think. Each week is a nail-biting hour filled with potential soggy bottoms, 3D biscuits with questionable structural integrity and bizarre flavour combinations you just know will earn a disapproving Mary Berry stare. The bakers often berate themselves for crying over cake but it's easy to understand why: for some insane reason GBBO has moments that seem as tense as the likes of Breaking Bad, Homeland and House of Cards. This is serious stuff, lingering shots of squirrels with enormous nuts aside…

Treacle Tart

I love The Great British Bake Off. Really, I do. It’s not only really good Tuesday evening television – a welcome twist on the regular (and crap) X Factor-style reality shows, but it’s made baking cool again. It’s no longer a hobby confined to just cute old grandparents or the women of the WI. I for, one, am all for this development as my numerous blog posts indicate!

Practise makes perfect, and what better way to improve my baking skills than if I attempted some of the recipes from the show? This week was Tart Week, and for the technical challenge the contestants had to produce a treacle tart, using Mary Berry’s very own recipe. The BBC website had a link to the recipe, I had 2 homemade white loaves almost ready to throw out, it’s Harry Potter’s favourite dessert and quite frankly it would have been rude for me to not give it a go!