It clear from this weeks episode that I was going to be in for an adventure with this challenge! With a dough thats needs to be stretched so thinly so that you can see the pattern of a tablecloth underneath and spreading a thick paste on it without making any holes you are asking for trouble. My other main concern was that it was baked long enough so as not to have a raw mess like Martha had. It with all these anxieties that I embarked on what could be a very interesting bake!

Easy start
The dough calls for the use of the dough hook on the mixer to mix together the main bread ingredients. I expect you can use your hands for the kneading if you wanted to but seeing as this is going to be pretty labour intensive in the later stages of this bake I was grateful for an easy start.

Once the dough had kneaded for 8 minutes in the mixer a silky smooth and elastic dough had been formed and was transferred to greased bowl for the first prove.

While the dough was proving, I moved onto the filling. Once again this was made easy by the use of the electric food processor. Firstly the walnuts, cocoa, vanilla seeds and sugar needed to be blended until it resembled a sandy powder. Next the milk was warmed through with the butter, until the butter had melted. The milk mixture was poured into the food processor, while it as blended, along with the egg yolk, until a smooth paste was formed. This was then left until it was needed later.

Now for the tricky bit.
Once the dough had risen to at least double its height it was tipped onto the pre-floured surface, which had to be on a cloth, apparently for the ease of rolling. Once the dough was removed from the bowl the next step was to roll it out into a 50x30cm rectangle. Straight edges with a circular dough is never an easy thing but I gave it my best shot. When it looked like a rectangle the pastry needed to be brushed with melted butter, which I assume helps to make the dough more pliable and less prone to breakages.

Easy does it
The next stage was the stretching! I had to ensure that my hands were floured and go from underneath the pre-rolled dough, stretching the dough ever so gently until you could see the pattern on the tablecloth through it. As with the difficulty of rolling a circular shaped dough into a rectangle, stretching a dough by hand and still keeping its shape is just as tricky. I got to the point where the dough could not be stretched any more without holes appearing, which it inevitably did, and then started to think about the how on earth was going to spread the filling on top.

Patience spread thinly
The only way go to about the is next step was through the simple process of trial and error, with little frustrated screams throughout. I tried the spreading by hand but this only created more holes and sticky fingers. The next step was to try the clingfilm method. In theory this may have worked better if I had another large work surface, but as this was taken up with the stretched dough the only other option was to do it in the floor!

Then, it was how to spread the paste on without it breaking the clingfilm layers both on top and below. The idea of rolling it out between the layers caused more issues because it kept bursting through! By the end of about 20minutes I was ready to throw the rolling pin at Paul Hollywood! I decided I had rolled it as far I could considering the difficulties and transferred it to the pastry. The next problem was that the filling did not cover the whole of the pastry, another scream was released! Trying to spread it a little further with my fingers didn’t help much either so I decided to call it quits an do the best with what I had.