Great British Bake Off 2016 Week 2 - Biscuit Week

So who ever wants an over 30cm high gingerbread representation of anything at an event? Nobody I can think of so I won't be making anything huge in gingerbread this week.  Who likes gingerbread enough to want to eat it anyway, particularly about 2kg of the stuff?
So it's biscuit week and I've made some iced beach huts in honour of my lovely friend Melinda who is leaving me after 11 years 10 months and a day.  We'll still be friends but now we'll only be friends without the backup of being colleagues.

Melinda is a bit of a rock for me, she made me feel welcome when I joined St Dunstan's (a bit of a shock to the system joining a 90 year old charity that still had records of people born in 18xx), she was there to eat some of my shiny cake when I was encouraged by Adrian to 'get rid of all of it'.  She is my favourite shopping companion because I can share my cellulite and excess central blubber with her without hating myself.  Melinda is a great day hotel companion - when on business and everyone else is being a bit serious and managerial we can giggle like naughty boarding school girls yet still get the job done.  Away on holiday we enjoy the same things, paintings, opera, handbag buying and taking refreshment.
Melinda is also a bit bonkers - this picture was taken at 17.14 yesterday.  That was 14 minutes after her contract of employment ended and she's still working while I stand behind her tapping my watch and wanting to start the weekend.   I hope your new employer appreciates your dedication, exuberance and doesn't mind your colourful vocabulary.  Good luck, I look forward to Bucharest (or is that Budapest or Dubrovnik?)
I did make the full complement of 24 iced biscuits even though only 15 made it into the photo - I can't claim to have completed them in 150 minutes.  Surely the time constraints on GBBO are not real?  My huts were made in instalments fitted around work, book club and discussing the pantry with a carpenter and cooking and eating dinner but added together my minutes would have exceeded 150 by far I'm sure and I can see they are a little rustic and rough around the edges.  How Andrew produced those perfect bee biscuits in less than 2 and a half hours is beyond me.
I love the Bake Off including the Extra Slice but my problem is I want to try every bake and I can't keep up with the eating, although this is encouraging my attempts to get running again (at least my weight remains neutral this way).

Great British Bake Off 2016 Week 1 - Cake Week

I have to disagree with Mary Berry when she says Jaffa Cakes are nowhere near as tricky to make at home as you may think.  That's not my experience.

It looked quite easy and I have a rounded bottom bun pan so how hard could this be?  My first batch were a disaster because the sponge all stuck to the pan and I couldn't get them out in one piece.  Not one to give up too easily I went to every cookshop in Horsham (admittedly that is only 5 different places, but still) to try to buy a better quality non sick pan - no luck.  Then I tried the same 5 places for lecithin spray - no luck there either, but I did manage to buy coconut oil spray - still not slide out sponge but removable with the application of a plastic spoon and each was more or less in one piece.  

So I persevered with the stuck to the pan cakes and my first batch of jelly worked okay.  I didn't have a packet jelly so I improvised with some St Clements sauce and leaf gelatine.  That actually worked really well, tasted good and kept its shape.  Colour was a bit umber but hiding under chocolate who’d notice?  

The chocolate was not so easy to temper as you might think as my thermometer decided to behave the way my Renault 9’s engine did when I blew the head gasket – up and down like a maniac so quite difficult to follow.  Applying it was a challenge too, I opted for a silicone pastry brush in the end but it looked more like I’d used a trowel.  Who knew Jaffa Cakes had a criss-cross pattern?  I learned after a number of failed attempts that this is achieved by pressing the fork lightly into the soft chocolate, lifting and repeating at 90˚.

I've now been through a lot of eggs and caster sugar and created a lot of washing up.  I’ve eaten quite a lot of very ugly Jaffa Cakes and inflicted some of them on my lovely and polite colleagues who ate them without laughing but didn’t ask for another.

Not one to give up too easily I then found a very expensive non stick pan in a shop I hadn't tried on my first attempt and started the whole rigmarole again.  Still a bit sticky but not quite so bad.  I’ve decided to turn them over (I know this didn’t work for Andrew in the tent but mine are a bit more like double sided mini flying saucers so you can’t really tell they are upside down) and let the smooth tops be the bottom and the rough bottoms be covered in chocolate.  Taste is okay but I’m not sure how you're supposed to release fatless sponge from the pan when you can’t line it with greaseproof paper.

I got the thermometer under control this time but then the jelly wouldn’t set.  It pretended to be set when it came out of the fridge but instantly melted when it reached room temperature which was really inconvenient as it slipped out from under the chocolate on the first three before I noticed it had melted.

I’m not giving up but I have run out of eggs now.

I don’t even like the combination of orange and chocolate and I’m supposed to be trying to lose weight.  

Maybe I should try the drizzle cake – Might have more success with that.  Fatless sponge doesn't seem to be my friend but then Andrew pulled a great shiny cake out of the bag and his Jaffa Cakes came last in the technical challenge.
... A few days later. Finally cracked the jaffa cake.  Cakes released, jelly set, chocolate spread without going all round the bottom.  Not sure I'll bother with them again and still disagree with Mary about how easy they are to make.

On the other hand the shiny cake looks much more impressive but I found it easier to make.  Slight mishap when I forgot to add the melted butter until just before opening the oven door so had to divide it and mix into the pans but I think I got away with that.  My my sponges were a bit short making it a challenging to create 4 layers but overall much more successful and only one attempt to complete the whole cake.  Might do this one again, the caramel cream is lovely even though I forgot to keep some aside to pipe on the top.  Major problem is now I have this cake and need someone to come and help me to eat it.

And so to biscuit week