A grilled cake made up of what is effectively a fancy pancake batter. How hard can that be? Well not particularly, it was more about concentration than anything.

This bake called for an early morning session so that I could get a head start on the weekend ahead. I wanted to get this time consuming part of the challenge out of the way so that I could enjoy a day off work, and go to the Cake&Bake show at Earl’s Court. The rest of the bake I could finish when I got home. I have my self 2.5 hours for the morning bake, so it would give me enough time to get ready to go out. Ha it’s amazing how long a grilled cake actually takes…

Early bird
In order to speed up, I measured out all the ingredients the night before. It was when I did this that I realised I was low on chocolate as well as not having vanilla bean paste. Surely there can’t be much difference to using a vanilla pod as opposed to bean paste? Deciding to go with the substitution, I would aim to buy the paste during the day, so at least I would have it for the icing, along with buying the additional chocolate.

The first part of the recipe calls for the 10 eggs to be separated, a nice fun messy job for the start of the day! Once this was done the yolks needed to be whisked until pale, thick and creamy, which took about 5 minutes.

Next there was the butter and sugar to cream, with additions of vanilla and lemon. Once it was at the right consistency, the egg yolks were added along with the flour and cornflour, making a pale, thickish batter.

When the batter had been prepped to the stage mentioned, I focused my attention to the egg whites. These needed to be whisked until stiff peaks formed when the whisk is removed. Using the kenwood chef seemed to take ages doing the job. I don’t know if it is the size and height of the bowl but the egg at bottom and some of the sides seemed to take longer than the rest to transform into fluffy like clouds. In the end, after a good 8 minutes, I switched back you the electric hand whisk, and after an additional 3 minutes I had the egg whites I needed.

The key to folding in egg whites into a mixture like this, is to start with mixing a third of them in first, this way it loosens the stiff batter making it easier to fold in the remaining egg whites. With the amount of egg whites required for this, it took a while to combine them all, but eventually it all came together.

The recipe called for an 8” spring form tin, I only had an 8.5″ springform, but I did have an 8” lose bottom tin, so I went with that. With the pan greased and papered, and the grill set to high, the first layer needed to be poured into the tin.

Future proofing
It was difficult to gauge how much to put on the first layer as it’s hard to visualise the batter quantity in layers so I went with a heaped serving spoon. I used a pastry brush to spread the first layer around the bad of the pan, as tilting it like a labyrinth game only made the parchment crumple up! With the layer spread as evenly as possible, it was ready to go under the grill.

Timing is everything
The recipe called for two minutes for the light golden layers and three minutes for the dark golden layers. In the beginning of the bake this didn’t really produce any differentiation, I fact I had to extend both times by about 2 minutes. I think this was because of the depth of the pan at the distance that the batter was away from the grill. The more layers that went in and the closer to the grill it got the quicker the colourings happened. There were a few moments where I almost lost count of the layers and I think a light layer ended up being slightly more golden that it was meant to be. After 1.5 hours I had a 20 layered grilled cake that was left to cool while I went out for the day.

Icing on the cake
This part was less intensive on the brain cells than the layer baking. The apricot jam was melted and brushed liberally over the cake, to act as a glue for the glaze. The glaze was made by melting the butter, golden syrup, rum and the newly purchased chocolate. Once everything was melted to a smooth and glossy consistency it was left to cool, so that when it was poured over the cake it would hold its shape. My cheeky test for when it was ready was simply to dip my finger tip in it, and if it didn’t drip and held its position, it was ready (and eaten off my finger)!

The vanilla icing was just a simple water icing but instead of water it was rum, milk and vanilla bean paste. When the chocolate was poured over it needed a little coaxing to drape down the sides, sometimes with a little help of a palette knife. The vanilla needed to be piped over the top on thin lines. With no particular pattern in mind I went with a simple (if slightly wobbly) lattice.

Proof is in the pudding
After watching the BBC An Extra Slice and seeing the reaction from the judging panel of Tom Aikens, Fay Ripley and Josh Widdicombe, I was a little apprehensive to how this cake would taste. It was a bit tough to cut, and a bit dry, just like in the show, so at least that was right :). As you can see from the photos I had all the layers, even if 1 or 2 may have been a little darker than others

Overall it was a lot of effort for an impressive looking cake but with minimal flavour. Dry, maybe cos it got left out, uncovered, but it still could have done with something else. If I was to make this again I would be tempted to drizzle over a lemon syrup after the final layer in cooked, similar to a lemon drizzle cake. But in hindsight I’m not sure I will be baking it again.

Crikey this weekend if going to be hectic and somewhat time consuming.  I’m due to visit my parents again so I’m going to have to be very strict with my time. What with making fill pastry and grilling a cake it’s going to mean a few early mornings I think!

Signature Bake: Baklava (12 x 2 flavours)
Why do they have to start making things complicated of rate signature bake now?  I mean I know it s the semi final but 2 flavours of baklava is a bit ambitious. Hopefully last weeks adventures with the bread dough for the last weeks Povitica will help with the filo rolling.

Key points:

1. The syrup needs to bind together the filling making a sticky sweet delicacy.
2. To achieve a good thin filo pastry is to have a nice and stretchy dough.
3. Work quickly because the thinner you go the more fragile it gets, plus it starts to dry out and breaks.  Speed is of the essence.

I have made this once before, the rolled variety like the ones the once that Richard made, although mine was with walnuts.  This time I’m planning to do something with pistachios which is one of my favourites, I almost lost count the amount of pistachio gelato I had last week! I also have loads of flaked almonds in the cupboard so that will have to be the other flavour.

Technical Challenge: German Schichttorte
First things first, 20 layers! I say again 20 layers and all cooked under a grill!! I’ve never heard of a cake cooked under a grill so this is not only going to be new one not he taste buds but also my culinery skills. In theory this sounds like a bit of a pancake mix baked in fine layers to different colours.

Key points:

1. The grill needs to be high, it needs to watched closely to achieve the alternating colours throughout.
2. To achieve the wafer thin coloured layers it needs be grilled alternately for different times.
3. Make sure that every thing is cooled before pouring over the glaze.

This is the one that is going to take me the most time to bake and the most concentration draining me thinks!  Basically this is going to be German efficiency in cake form!

Showstopper Challenge: Entremets (12 x 2 flavours)
Fancy french fancies polished to perfection. Multi layered, with subtle flavours made with multiple textures and techniques! They need to be elegant, precise and beautiful small cakes. In a short it needs to be an edible work of art!

I’m glad that I don’t have to do these this weekend too, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be attempting these in the future!

My favourites this episode:

1. Richard, he is my favourite to win. I loved the look of his pistachio baklavas and once again his patterned sponge, genius.
2. Nancy, once again marching to the beat of her own drum and trying something new.  Muesli baklava, clever, and ganache covered entremets, simply brave.
3. Luis, in the words of Tom Aiken, his chocolate and cherry entremets were divine mix of ingredients.  He may have fell short on his signature bake but the technical was pristine.

Chetna was one of my favourites to win, and it after her failure in the technical I had a feeling that she would be going. Throughout the series she has been consistent with her flavours, and always managed to impress with combine the traditional with the new.

This weekends bake is certainly going to exercise the grey cells, if not gain me a few more grey hairs!

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.

Another week of dough and yeast, I’m gong to embrace it and hope for the best. The aim, to create a loaf that is fruity, free formed, unburnt (panettone) and cooked in the middle, all while using a recipe I’ve never made before!

This weekends baking has a bit of less relaxed affair. My best friend and I decided to go away for a long planned (15yr) trip to Rome, which was amazing but left little time to bake. Instead of trying to cram it all in by doing it in the evenings, I took Monday off to relax the tired legs (so much walking in Rome!) and do a spot of baking.

Mistaken identity
Having previously thought that this weeks signature bake was going to be doughnuts, the first thing I had to do was find a recipe that I could use for this sweet fruit loaf. I was inspired first of all by Richards Chelsea bun style tea ring and thought of looking for something similar. This lead me to the apricot couronne that featured on the last series of bake off, but as I had already made this I couldn’t do it again. After spending some time flicking through my books and the internet, I finally decided to go with a bread dough recipe for challah, but adding similar fruit and spices that featured in the couronne. There are so many designs for how to braid and mould challah that I was feeling confident about the free form aspect of the challenge, but first things first.

This bread dough seems pretty heavy on the yeast, 10g in fact, but I’m sure this will give it a good rise, hopefully. The elements that make this dough more advanced is the addition of eggs, warm milk and butter. All of these need to be added at the same time, and mixed together in the bowl first before it can be kneaded on a floured work surface. This all sounds simple enough now, but it wasn’t until I was 4 minutes into the kneading that I realised I had forgotten to add the butter! I had been watching a youtube video about making challah and the chef kept saying that the dough needed to be light and my thought the dough seemed a little stiff. Panicking I quickly grabbed the butter and folded it into the dough and continued kneading. I was just about to through it in the bin, when all of a sudden it started to blend together, the dough became softer and silky (when it wasn’t sliding on the butter smeared on the surface). Eventually after another 6/8 minutes kneading I had a lovely smooth dough that was ready to be left for the first prove, which could take up to 3 hours!

Rising Corner
It looks as though I have finally found the best place in my flat to get yeasted dough to rise. It is in a corner resting on benches around the dinner table. I don’t know what it is, but ever since I made the ciabatta in the same place, this seems to the best area. Maybe its a thermal spot, maybe there is a baking elf dancing around the corner, but what ever it is it works!

While the dough was left to its thing, the fruit and nuts needed my attention. As I am going at this recipe a litte blind, I have used the Hollywood recipe for the challah, and the same measurements for the fruit and Nuts from his apricot couronne recipe.

Juicy fruit
You may have thought that the apricots in the ingredients picture looked a little dark, this was because they were organic ones I had left over in my cupboard. After reading a little bit more from the jewish site, the most important thing about adding fruit to this kind of bread is that it is moist. If you add dried fruit will absorb the moisture in the baking process, preventing the rise. This this in mind I soaked the apricots and cranberries in some boiling water, until they were needed and while I chopped up the pecans.

When the 3 hours were up I had a great rise (thank you baking elf), and it was time to add the fruit and shape the dough. I think I may have been a little ambitious and over generous with my quantities.

All tied up
As I tried to knead it in as mush as possible I think I lost the same amount on the surface! I been watching the braiding videos for the challah and I was keen to try the 4 strand braid, but after adding the fruit it was clear that this was not going to happen! As an alternative, I found that the more traditional crown was the only option for this loaf. The addition of the fruit the dough had become slightly less pliable which meant shaping the dough out into long a roll was a little tricky. The roll needed to taper off at one end, so that it could wrap around the fatter end with created the centre of the crown. The smaller end was then tucked underneath, and the crown transferred (carefully) to the baking sheet for an egg wash and the second prove.

This second prove did not take long at all. After about 30 minutes it had almost doubled in size, so I had to work quickly to make sure it didn’t over prove. I had planned on baking the Povitivca bread first but this plan was soon aborted and the oven temperature turned up for the challah.

Once the bread was in the oven it was important to keep an eye on the colour. The bread had the the fruit and the egg was which meant that it would be prone to colouring quicker, plus I have decided to decorate it with some pearl sugar nibs too! I only had a guide for the timing on the bake so I had to rely a lot on instinct. After 30 minutes it was a good colour, but not done in enough in the middle. I covered it with tin foil and put It in for another 15 minutes, but checked on it every 5 minutes. Once I was happy with the hollow on the base, I took it out to cool

A holla, lotta, challah!
Wow is the only thing I can say. This bad boy, was all about the rising, it just kept on doing it! As you can see from the pictures, it was a bit of a giant. This would definitely feed a large family at dinner, or the more appropriately named shabbat. The flavours were good, although because it is quite a yeasty bread I think the cinnamon is lost. The apricots and pecans worked well but I don’t think I put the cranberries in next time, I think they’d work better with orange zest instead.

The bread itself was light and soft, with a nice crest. I will definitely be making this one again, but maybe a plain one so I can practice the braiding too!