A new series of the BBC’s The Great British Bake Off begun this week, and I have made a pledge to myself: I will make all of the technical bakes the weekend following the broadcast. This may sound easy, but I have set myself a few ground rules
1. Use the recipe published on the BBC website which accompanies the series
2. Buy all of the necessary equipment needed for the task, do not cheat
3. Work alone, no assistance or advice can be given by outside parties
4. NO CHEATING!
Hunting down the pan
The first challenge of the series is Angel Cake with a Lemon & Passion Curd, and after the broadcast on Tuesaday, I was straight on the internet trying to track down the infamous angel cake tin. There were a few boundaries I should point out, the first being the timescale. To be able to make the cake over the weekend I would need to have ordered the cake tin before the show for it to be delivered by Friday/Saturday! The second, location. I’m happy to travel to collect a tin depending on where that is. Last and not least the price, and location comes into play with this too. If I’m going to see these challenges through I will have to have some sort of limit on my spending, whether that is looking out for reduced ingredients in the supermarkets, doing price comparison on the ingredients or simply finding the best deal on a cake tin.
After a day of surfing the web I was left with two options, hire the tin from a Dentons catering firm in Clapham, or buy it from Divertimenti in Marylebone. Either way including travel, they worked out both the same, but logistics meant that it was a sunny lunchtime stroll to Marylebone rather than an early start to get to Clapham. Working in central London you would think that there would be plenty of stores that would stock obscure kitchen utensils, but other than John Lewis and possibly Marks&Spencer you’d be lucky to find somewhere that wouldn’t make your eyes pop out of your head when you see the price! Divertimenti is a great store and I would love to be able to stock my kitchen with the plethora of items on display, but until I have a big kitchen, storage and the winning lottery ticket this will just have to wait. The tin cost a little more than is advertised on the website, as they come from a different warehouse. I always find this odd, as I’m the one picking the item, they don’t have to package or deliver it, but hey if you need a tin fast you just have to suck it up I guess!
How many eggs?
10 eggs to be precise, all separated! The whites need to whisked until you have stiff peaks adding lemon zest, lemon juice, cream of tartar and salt part the way through. Before the recipe tells you to start whisking the egg whites it asks you to sift the flour with 100g of caster sugar. Being a little over enthusiastic and only having read the recipe once (rookie mistake), I missed the 100g measurement and added all of the sugar to the flour! Of course I didn’t realise this until the recipe says add the remaining 200g to the egg whites, “what remaining sugar?….bugger!“. Needless to say thats a portion of flour & sugar wasted!!
Now that I have lovely white peaks, not too stiff though, it’s time to start folding in the flower. I’ve always been told to use a metal spoon for this, which I presume is so the mixture doesn’t stick too much. Using a figure of 8 action to fold in the flour maybe a slow process but it helps to keep the air in the mix.
In the pan and knife it
Because this cake mix contains no fat, you don’t grease the tin. I know the tin is apparently non-stick but I’m sure I’m not the only one who still lines some of these ‘non-stick’ tins after some adhesive problems! But as I said in my ground rules, I have to follow the recipe and not cheat, which means trusting the recipe. After transferring the cake mix from the bowl to the tin, its important to run a knife around the centre of cake, following the general circular shape of the tin. This helps to cut through any large air pockets that may have formed when pouring the mix in. Now with fingers crossed it goes in oven…
What about the egg yolks?
Lemon curd. This was another first for me, I love lemon curd, but I’ve never made it. It’s hard to believe that a mixture that is made of egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest can turn thick enough to fill one jar, let alone two. You have to heat it over a low heat until it coats the bag of a spoon, which takes a lot longer than 5-7 minutes instructed by the recipe. I’ll be honest, if I was doing this on the actual GBBO I think I would have had a few problems with this curd. I probably wouldn’t have thought to heat the egg yolks with everything else, instead I might have cooked down the sugar and lemon juice then poured it slowly into the whisked yolk, no doubt resulting in a scrambled disaster! Once it was thick enough you have to pour it all through a sieve to get rid of the lemon zest, then pour into the sterilised jars. This of course is easy, and rewarding, not just because I now have two jars, but also the yummy candied lemon peel. Do NOT throw this away, it’s dangerously moreish!
Out it comes, nicely does it
Yippee it did rise, I have to say I was a little anxious about that part. Now time for the balancing act, and a little prayer that gravity will do the rest and help to release it from the pan. We’ll see…
It’ll fall right, maybe a little nudge
After about 40 minutes I’m getting a little impatient. I have never been very good a this part, waiting, I just want to get onto the next part! Anyway back to this particular cake, still sitting upside down on a cooling rack. Armed with a pallet knife I decided to give gravity a little nudge, going carefully around the outside of the pain, making sure not to damage the outside of the cake. Then even more carefully, and this bit was definitely more tricky go around the the centre ring. Tipping it back onto the rack, turning it back upside down and with a little tap, it fell! Now that part was over, I left it alone, a little less impatient than before.
Whipped cream, hmm more like cottage cheese
Having made this recipe I have decided never to use whipping cream again, whats the difference, why not just use double cream? I found that it takes much longer to whisk up whipping cream than it does for double cream, so why waste the time and effort?
But I have set the rules for a reason, and this one calls for whipping cream. The first attempt at whipping the cream was with a Kenwood mixer. I was watching it like a hawk, then turned away for less than a minute and voila, whipped cream is now cottage cheese! Dammit! By this time, I had to pack everything up and get ready to take the whole thing to a friends for dinner. This is another part of the pledge, to not to eat everything between myself and boyfriend. Instead to share the tasty but most definitely unhealthy, treats with everyone we know.
Dollop, spread, pour
Whipping cream, part deux, commenced with a detour to the shops for more cream. This time I decided to hand whisk it, no electrics here, and keep a steady eye on the progress. Once perfection was reached it was time to carefully spread it over the plated, cooled cake.
Yuck passion fruit
For the finishing touches I had to mix the 2 passion fruit with some of the cooled and wonderfully soft set lemon curd. I have never liked passion fruit. Ever since I was a kid and mum always used to by Tropical fruit squash. In my eyes it smells and tastes the smell of dirty armpits. Whenever I can taste it white wine (mainly sauvignon blanc) I can’t drink it. The idea of mixing it with the yummy lemon curd really didn’t entice me much as to its merits. But hey ho on we go…
Yum lemon curd and passion fruit!
After pouring the passion fruit and lemon curd over the cake, which now looks like a cake smothered with frog spawn! As they say the proof is in the pudding, and wow! The cake was light as air, and the curd with the passion fruit helped to cut through the cream, and there was not a single taste of a dirty armpit!