This week it’s sweet vs savoury, layers vs biscuit, and straight vs the collapsed, basically everything that comes with making and baking pastry.

Signature – Frangipane tart

Not something I have made before but certainly something I would like to try. I’m not a big fan of the popular pear, but Flora’s use of apricots is certainly appealing!

Key Points

1. Don’t over work the dough, you don’t want to activate the gluten too much as it will make the pastry tough and rubbery
2. Work the butter carefully into the dough, again don’t over work it. You want it to stay cold and not melt during the preparation in order to get a light biscuity dough
3. Blind bake in order to avoid the dreaded soggy bottom
4. To avoid shrinkage, cut the edges after the blind bake, or after the final bake.

Once again Flora was more about the style over the substance.  Her timings allow her to  manages making extraneous thing that are not required, irrelevant the task in hand.  this week was no different as she made amaretti biscuits to cover up her burnt and bitter pastry case. Maybe she should have concentrated more on her flavourings as the rosemary didn’t seem to add anything so her fresh apricot filling.  Mattt seems to have an obsession with coconut, as he’s used it for the past few weeks in some form or other.  This week though his Pina Colada inspired cake looked a little plan the filling seemed a little bland and lacking in the rum. Ian seems to be slipping on his executions. His flavour was ok, and the design good, but it looked unfinished without its glaze. Alvin overworked his pastry, making it tough to roll out and leaving him with a thick base.  The best base colour seemed to be on Tama’ls, and although his design was a little chaotic this frangipane was perfection! Nadiya brave choice to use subtle flavours was a bold decision that paid off, even if she had a soggy bottom. The best tart by far came from Paul’s festive creation.  He’s made this before and you could tell he know what he was doing, especially when it came to his design and decoration

Technical – Flaounes x12

First off, what the Flaounes are these?  I’ve never heard of the them, let alone seen them and quite frankly anything that is flavoured with tree sap resin is not something I’m going to jump at to eat.

The main problem with everyone’s bake this week on the  technical was the shape, but who can blame them when faced with something you’ve never heard of. They needed to have a thin crust with a high dome shaped filling.  Alvin seemed to be the furthest away from this with his pizza style base, along with Tamal who’s bake was a bit flat and with the sesame seeds on the inside. Ian managed to make his look like a cornish pasty and Paul had patchy glazed crowns. Overall everyones were baked with a good flavour and Matt managed to win the technical with the closest shape and good shine.

Showstopper – Vol Au Vent x48 (24 of each flavour)
I understand how to get lamination, multiple layers and good colour, but how on earth do you guarantee a straight rise for puff pastry?

Key Points

1. Don’t freeze the butter layer, it will cause the layer to crack and you’ll be left with small pieces of butter rather than an even single layer.
2. Let the butter chill solidly between each layer to get even layers.
3. Keep the edges tidy and as straight as possible.

I really felt sorry for Nadiya on this challenge, she had to make her pastry again due to the butter cracking and didn’t have time to chill it properly.  However instead of giving up she served it deconstructed, which meant the paul and Mary could see that she could make a good pastry, and show off the amazing flavour combinations of her fillings. That took confidence.  Flora finally got the hint that it is about quality not quantity on this challenge, although I’m not sure if it will stop her from adding non-essential flourishes in the future. Her cocoa puff pastry was a brave however both of the pastries were a little dense. Ian’s fillings were a little simple to be fair and certainly not up to his usual standard. Tamal’s may have looked messy but they were certainly generously filled

Pastry really was Alvin’s nemesis, form the beginning of the show he didn’t sound very confident. His pastry in the Frangipane was too thick and the tart filling underbaked.  The Technical was interpreted the wrong way and his puff pastry was raw and doughy.  As Mary said he was going to need a miracle to save him from leaving, but his flavours in the final challenge were just not enough to make the leap.

Matt’s vol-au-vents were truly inspired. He managed to bring finesse to the fry up, and really did deserve this week’s star baker.

Oneliner of the week:  “I probably should concentrate on the baking…oh well.” Finally the penny drops for Flora

For a showstopper that is half way through the series, I would have thought they could have chosen something a bit more tricky.  The main element, the ice cream, in itself isn’t technically difficult, with the only tricky bit, the freezing, being out of your hands.  Even the sponge isn’t particularly taxing, especially for this far into the series. But enough of that let’s see how tricky it actually could be.

This week we had a bank holiday so I managed to get a good head start on things by making 2 of the main elements almost a week in advance.  Plus the day was miserable and raining so what better way to spend it than making jam and ice-cream?!

This weeks flavour inspiration from one of my favourite drinks, the Mojito. Choosing to use coconut milk as the main carrier of the ice-cream it was a case of trying to get the other main flavours to balance along with it. Mojito has a lot of fresh lime in it,  and instead of adding too much of this to the ice cream I decided that this would used in the jammy glue.

Sticky Fix
The first part of this jam/marmalade was certainly the most arduous, and after cutting my finger half way through the most painful! The first thing to do was to cut the fruit in half then juice it into the water in the pan, then came the fiddly bit. Each half of the fruit needed the inside pith removed (and kept), leaving just the shell. This was easier with the lemons then with the limes, and it ended up taking well over an hour till both fruits were completely empty.  The kept pith then was tied in a muslin bag and tied to the side of the jam pan (keeping it in the liquid), and then the fruit skins sliced into ribbons and added to the pan  

Once all the jam prep was done, the pan was left on a medium heat for 2 hours. Which gave me enough time to prepare the ice cream.

Dairy free does not mean mess free!
The ice cream mix in itself is pretty easy, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, one that I wasn’t too phased about.  I had previously made an avocado ice for my ‘Not So Savoury Nacho’s’ dessert which used a few of the same ingredients. After a bit of reading there were a few suggestion that in order to get a creamier, silky ice-cream you should use just the cream content of the coconut milk.  The only way to do this is to stick the cans in the fridge for a few hours until you are left with the scoopable cream sitting on top of a minimal amount of liquid. Once I had scooped out 5 tins of cream, I added chopped mint, grated lime zest, the juice of 1 lime and about 6 tablespoons of white rum, and mixed it together until really smooth.  In theory you could just use this mix as a creamy adornment to any cake, chocolate would probably be nice, but that’s something to try another day. For ice-cream I needed to churn it in an ice-cream maker.  Sadly, I don’t have the fancy maker they had on the show, nor do I know anyone that does. I did however have the use of my sisters simpler version where you freeze the bowl first and churn until it is thickened before adding to the freezer.  I worked great for the avocado ice cream and I should see no reason why it would be any different for this one.

The mixture for the ice cream needed to be churned in 2 sessions as the bowl was pretty small. With double the mixture there was no way it would all go in, especially as the volume increases with the churning and freezing process.

Frozen pipes
In order for the ice cream to freeze in the shape of a log, I needed a mould.  Seeing as I didn’t have anything fancy like Ian had in the show, I fashioned one out of a plastic shopping mat, lots of sellotape and topped with plastic container either end.  Blue Peter check that out!

The churned ice cream then got poured in and laid in a now clear freezer drawer to freeze. As I had some left over I froze the rest in a tub for testing! During the freezing process I chose to break up the forming ice-crystals with a fork, but I only managed do this once but maybe I should have done it more but I hoped that the alcohol in the mix would help to keep it semi-soft.

Jamming it up
Once the jam had simmered for 2 hours, the sugar had to be heated in the oven before pouring into the liquid.  I’m not too sure about this method, but maybe it’s just to get it to the same temp as the liquid and guarantee that it will fully dissolve rather than crystalise. Once poured into the liquid it, the pith bag was removed and the pan left to boil. At this point Delia, kindly suggests putting some saucers in the freezer to chill, the reason will be explained shortly…

Taking the pith
The purpose of retaining the piths and boiling them in a muslin bag was that they contain the pectin which is the setting agent that is usually found in preserving sugar.  Lemons and limes create their own pectin which is great, it’s just a question of how do you get it out? The answer is to squeeze the bag until it seeps through the cloth, easy right?  No, it’s bloody ridiculous, hot, messy and icky!  In the end the only way I could get a grip on the wet, sticky  jelly bag was to put rubber gloves on and then, most of the pectin substance came out on my fingers! After about 40 minutes of gunk squeezing and scraping I decided I couldn’t get anymore out and carried on with the rest.  

Jamming it up 2
The jam pan now needed to boil, a fast rolling boiling, for about 15 minutes. After these first 15 minutes one of the saucers comes out of the freezer and it’s purpose made clear.  A small spoonful of the jam is poured onto the frozen plate and left for a few minutes to cool.  Once cool, you can find out if it is cooked enough to be set by pushing the jam with your finger tip.  If it produces a crinkly like skin when you push it it’s ready, if not continue boiling for another 10 minutes and test again.

While the boiling was happening I placed my collection of jam jars (lids off) into the oven to sterilize.

After another 10 minutes the jam was ready, so I turned off the heat and left it to cool for 20 minutes before pouring it into the hot jars.  Once I had poured out half of the jars, I decided to add a little chopped mint to the remaining mixture to heighten the mint flavour of the mojito for the dessert.  A last minute idea, which I didn’t know whether it would work, but it looked pretty and smelt good.

Print and pipe
With all the over elements for this showstopper made, the final bit was the sponge. Now last year I managed to learn how to make a swiss roll, and made loads of them, so this was a relatively easy task.  But this is  a showstopper so easy isn’t really allowed.  I chose to do a plain vanilla sponges, but the showstopper element would have to come into play with the design. The pattern on the sponge was made match the holiday tropical vibe of the flavours using palm trees and cocktail glasses. This printed design was placed under the baking sheet to be piped on top using a thicker cake paste, that the remaining fatless sponge mixture.

The cake paste was a mixture of egg whites, flour, butter and sugar, and food colouring, or cocoa for the trees. With a paste that was thick and pipeable, the piping of the pattern had to be strategic; green tree tops first, then the brown trunks and lastly the pink cocktail glasses.

Once everything was piped I had a pattern similar to a Hawaiian shirt! This was then left to harden up in the freezer before pouring over the rest of the sponge mix, and baking

Rolling, rolling, rolling
Once the cake was baked, it needed to be cooled but rolled up for the process so that it didn’t crack later. In order to do this I had to to tip it over and remove the baking sheet allowing me to see the piped design.  It looked good but had lost a little of it’s definition with the main sponge colour, but you could still make it out.

After the sponge was cooled it was time to put everything together. The jam (made 5 days before) was spread over the sponge and the frozen log of ice cream (made 4 days before) placed on top.  As you can see the sponge did overlap slightly but it held together.

Proof is in the pudding
It took ages for the ice cream to soften, even after travelling in a hot car and packed picnic ice box for 2 hours with ice packs, in still hadn’t softened.  We left it on the side, fully constructed, for another 2 hours, while we ate dinner, and even after that it was pretty solid still. In hindsight, I’d love to try making this in a proper ice-cream maker, like on the show, and see if this would still be the case. Plus next time I think I would use less of the coconut cream and instead use the whole tin, and churn it for longer.  If I haven’t got an ice-cream machine, I’m just going to have to remember to break up the crystals more during the freeing process. The flavour was good and you could taste the key elements of the lime, mint and rum. However the rum definitely did not make much difference in keeping the mixture soft, maybe next time I should add more!

The marmalade was tasty and I like the added texture that the rind gave it, but next time I might try a curd instead, it might be more subtle and less tangy.

Overall I’m happy with the way it turned out.  I’d definitely do the designed sponge again and the ice cream, but not so sure on the jam. It was a good flavour jam, but I prefer orange marmalade and my limes to be in my drink instead of on my toast! Now I’m left 5 jars that I need to  get rid of!

Now this is definitely a first for bake off.  Over the years the baker’s have dabbled in this area independently but never has there been a fully dedicated week to it.  I have a few family member that are food intolerant in someway so we’re used to adapting recipes and coming up with something everyone can eat, so it’ll be interesting to see what the bakers come up with. Hopefully there will be a few new bakes’ to try by the end of the episode

Signature – Sugar free cakes
Seemingly an easy idea, but the main question is what sugar substitue you use to create the same effect.  For this the bakers chose a number of natural ingredients varying from, honey, syrup, agave, nectar, molasses and even dates!

Key Points (not many this week)

1. Apple and pear do not carry too much flavour you need to use something that will overide the sponge flavour
2. If the mixture is too slack the fruit will sink to the bottom

Three time start baker Ian didn’t quite hit the mark with this one. According to Paul his choice of pears was not good, as their flavour wasn’t strong enough and the use of honey as the sugar substitute did not give the cake the sweetness that it needed. On first glance I was worried that Alvin was playing it too safe, especially compared to what Flora rolled out, but if anything it just proved that sometimes simplicity works. He turned out a beautiful pineapple upsidedown cake, that was glazed with just the agave syrup. Flora’s was more about style over substance as her choice of apples made the sponge soggy and dense. Matt choice of CArrot and date cake could have lead to something really stodgy, and although it ended up looking a bit like a christmas cake it certainly delighted Pauls palette.

Technical – Gluten Free Pitta Breads x12
Grey and dense, wet and smelly, of the joys of working with something new! They used psyllium powder to create the gluten, but I’m more interested to know what flour they used.

Key Points

1. Right consistency is a sticky dough, not a wet dough
2. Use of psyllium powder to give it the gluten and help to create the elasticity it needs to rise and help to create iconic pocket found in pittas.
3. They need to be nice, thin, and even to create a uniform envelope

What I found more surprising with this challenge that almost half the bakers didn’t know what shape they were. I have make these before, allbeit with regular flour and came out with some questionable shapes. I thought everyone knew what would look like, but maybe I’ve just had a few too many kebabs in my lifetime! I was good to see Nadiya finally do week at a technical with near perfect pockets that have had a good colour and texture. Alvin on the other hand just seemed to be getting confused with a pitta vs. a nan.  Tamal at least could still see the funny side and stayed upbeat for the next stage

Showstopper – Dairy Free Ice cream, sponge roll
If I’m completely honest this almost seems like a bit of a cop out, easy showstopper, but I may well eat my words after the weekend.  I recently made dairy free avocado ice cream, which came out really well so the idea of this doesn’t really worry me that much.  What was funny, though hardly surprising, to see was how the show made sure that there was not another occurrence of last years Bin-Gate, by supplying each of the bakers their own mini freezer.

Sponge element of this bake proved a little more taxing for the bakers, with trying to find new ways to make it a showstopper. I think Paul surpassed himself with the beach scene and fondant sunbather on the top. Ian stepped up his game for the last challenge with creating a sauce core that ran through the middle of his icecream, creating flavour that was a knockout. Flora, again seemed to be trying too much with her take on the roll, and Matt simply got the brief wrong. Tamal is becoming my favourite, and Alvin is still producing some impressive bakes.

Ugne was simply trying too much for every challenge this week, but although she had all the right intentions and the flavour was right in some cases, the final execution just let her down.

Nadiya was the most impressive by far. In everything in the series so far she has bought new flavour combos and been experimental, and this week was no different.  Blueberry jam, with basil seeds, a chocolate ice cream so rich it covered up the coconut milk not to mention the fact that she finally did well in the technical challenge.

Oneliner of the week, not really a onliner, more of an inspirational boost:
“If you play safe it will be boring. We can do boring everyday, but’s not an everyday bake, its Bake Off!”

I love baked cheesecakes, I much prefer them to the no-bake variety They have more body and taste much more indulgent, with their velvety texture. I’ve recently made a blueberry cheesecake for someone at work, so I have a bit of practise with them.

Neapolitan nouveau
For this showstopper I decided to the make something with a twist. I like the ideas that Nadiya and Ian had by creating flavours inspired by drinks or sweet, so I’m going to do something a little similar. The main inspiration was a the retro frozen dessert, a Neapolitan ice cream with a chocolate, vanilla and strawberry layer. To keep to the basic flavours seems a bit boring so to make them a little be more interesting, I am going to use the other retro ice cream flavours of mint choc chip, rum raisin and raspberry ripple. The rum raisin, and raspberry fillings were easier to get recipe references for, however the mint chocolate layer was a little harder to find. Most of the recipes I could find were American, and had artificial colour green to them. I had to dig around for a chocolate based filling, and then adapt it for my idea.

After a bit of reading there are a few variations on the type cheese to use for the filling of cheesecakes. It could be just the sole use of mascarpone, or cream cheese (like Philidepha) or a mixture of one of these with crème fraiche, double cream and or soured cream. It’s difficult to remember what I tasted before and what one taste better than another, so I’m going to use a different combination for each cheesecake.

Buttery biscuit base
When watching the show last Wednesday the bakers used either a biscuit or pastry base for the cheesecake. I don’t think I have ever had a pastry crust, in fact when I presented the idea to the fiance I was met with a look of disgust, and the word “Never! It’s biscuits and nothing else!”. Taking that comment to heart, I could only go with one option. All of the recipes I looked through, and what I would normally use, required digestive biscuits. Usually I would buy these from the shop, but this being bake off, I couldn’t get away with that, so I chose to make a large batch to use for all the bases.

These biscuits are quite frugal when it comes to making them, and thankfully I had most of the ingredients in the cupboard. The main dry ingredients are wholemeal flour, mixed with oatmeal and sugar. The oatmeal required was the medium grain, however I thought that this would make them a bit more oaty and grainy than I would of liked, so I halved the required amount the the finer grain too. Plus this meant I could use them both up, and make more room in the already packed baking cupboard! The dry ingredients are then rubbed into butter, and once the breadcrumb stage is reached, milk is added to bind it altogether. The dough was then wrapped and packed into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes to harden up.

Once the dough is firm enough to roll out, I did so and cut out the biscuits for baking. In order to get them nice, crunchy and fully dried out, they had to be baked for 15-18 minutes and then cooled before bashing and mixing with the melted butter for the bases. Each base was then baked again, to ensure it was hard and crispy, before pouring over the fillings. I even brushed egg wash over a few to ensure it didn’t get soggy by the filling, similar to what you would do for a pastry case. When all the bases were ready it was time ot get started on the first of many layers.

Pink layer
In a true neapolitan ice-cream this is usually strawberry flavoured, I don’t mind strawberries, but I much prefer raspberries and they are in season at the moment, so I’ve decided to go these instead. For this filling I used solely mascarpone, and to get the vital pink colour I made a raspberry coulis that could also be used for the ripple and serving.  The coulis was pretty simple, it was just a case of boiling some water with sugar, lime juice and adding some frozen raspberries to it until they soften.  Once they were nice and squishy I blended them with the stick blender until smooth and left it to cool while the rest of the filling was prepped and the oven heated up.  

On top of the base of the biscuits, I placed some fresh raspberries in circles, in the hope that when you cut into the baked dessert you would also get a nice pattern with the fruit.  This hope was soon dashed when I poured the filling over the top, making them go all over the place! Next time I think I’ll pour a little of the filling on the base first so that the fruit has something to stick too.  I used some of the remaining coulis to decorate the top with a design I found on pintrest; Squeezing little dots of the coulis into circles on the top of the cake and dragging a cocktail stick through the. You are then left with a pretty heart shaped pattern, I just hoped it would stay this pretty after an hour long bake.

As well as experimenting with the various fillings that can be used as the base of the cheesecakes, I also decided to try the two different methods used for baking them.  One method is the water-bath, which helps to keep an even temperature around the cake while it bakes. The other is a dry bake, with just the cake in the oven, and no water-bath. This raspberry cheesecake along with the rum and Raisin flavour were baked with the water-bath method.  In order to ensure that the water doesn’t get to the cake, or more importantly the base, the tin needs to be wrapped prior to baking (and before you put the filling in). Once everything is ready and the filling is ready to pour, the tin is placed in the roasting tin, so that you don’t have to do any needless moving of the cake tin when its full! After the filling is in and it’s ready to bake, boiling water is poured into the roasting tin, so that it comes half way up the side of the tin, then bake.

White layer
While the pink payer was baking I moved onto the white, boozy, layer.  For this layer I could have gone with the family favourite of lemon and raisin, but I wanted to tart it up slightly, and what better way to do this than with a splash of alcohol.  Three days before baking this adult treat, I soaked all the raisins I had in the cupboard (about 200g) with a nice healthy lashing of spiced dark rum.  

For this recipe I thought I would try using one of the previous bake off contestant recipes, and found one by Jo Wheatley. Her filling uses cream cheese and sour cream, with half of the sour cream going on top of the baked cheesecake 10 minutes before the end of the bake. It was an interesting concept but I’m to sure what it was supposed to add to the cake.  For the baked decoration on this cake I wanted to replicate the heart design of the raspberry ripple, so I decided to make a caramel, with addition of a little rum. As you can see from the pictures, this didn’t go as well as I would have liked, probably because I didn’t leave it to cool down for long enough. Instead of a nice even pattern, I was left with something that looked like a Jackson Pollack painting. Oh well, on with the third…

Brown layer
Other than the tweaks to the recipe for the raspberry laker, this was the layer I felt was more tricky.  I wanted a mint infused filling, that reminded you of the ice cream but a bit more subtle, so that over-riding flavour was the chocolate. For this recipe I found an American one, that I decided to adapt.  The base for this filling was cream cheese, and double cream, mixed with some luxurious melted chocolate.  The first this I decided to change with this recipe was the amount of sugar as it seemed like an awful lot, however looking back this may have been to sweeten up the chocolate content.  The Chocolate needed to be melted with the cream and some cocoa, however what I was left with was not pourable and did not taste good.  Instead, after going out to buy more chocolate, I chose to melt the chocolate first, then mix in the cream so that I was left with a pourable ganache.  

This was then added to whipped up cream cheese, eggs and sugar. For the mint infusion I added freshly chopped mint and some home mint sugar syrup. The decoration on the top of this cake was to use of the chocolate chips  that were used inside the cake too.  The recipe calls for Nordstrom Makers Dark Chocolate Mint candies, which being in the UK i didn’t have, so instead I used regular chocolate chips.

This last layer was to be baked using the dry bake method, without the use of the water bath

Bakes the difference
All of the bakes needed to be cooked until there was still a little wobble in the middle of the cake.  For the ones cooked in the water bath this seemed to take a little longer than the dry bake method.  I have to remove the water-bath bakes from the oven so that I could continue with the other bakes, so in order for them not to cool down too quickly and crack I left them in the waterbaths.  The chocolate cheesecake however I took out of the oven, forgetting about the cracking (as it was late) and predictably it did crack! Damn!

Layer it up
Usually the presentation stage of the showstopper doesn’t really worry me however with each cake looking slightly different, I had my doubts on how to make these look good, let alone stand on three tiers!

First I tried using straws, like they did on the show, with near disastrous results. Pushing them into the raspberry layer lead to my thumb going into the filling. When I tried to balance the first layer onto it there was no way it was going to hold.

My next option was short lived. I had some plastic cake dowels, but they were too long and I was worried I would have more than my thumb in the cake if I tried push down on them.

The last idea I came up with was something that I spied out of the corner of my eye, shot glasses!  I placed on in the middle of the raspberry and the rum raisin layer, after having to scoop out some of the filling first and voila! I had a slightly messy (especially on the bottom layer) 3 tiered cheesecake, that balanced long enough to take a few pictures.

Saving grace
Thankfully, especially when it comes to overall presentation,  i am not on the bake off, and as such I could play with my presentation skills.  Instead of the tiered versions, I used the remaining coulis and caramel to decorate the slices. For the chocolate layer I added a whipped cream, with added chopped mint.

In hindsight I now think that I should have just cut the biscuit dough to fit the cake tins. I could then have used the same dough to make a high crust around the sides to prevent any filling from escaping.

Using the waterbath method created a creamier texture to the bake, and the edges were not as coloured as it would have been with a dry bake.  Leaving them to cool in the waterbath, lead to the edge of the bases to get a little soggy, but this may have been a poor seal with the tin foil. The chocolate bake was definitely drier and more dense, and closer to the regular baked cheesecake. I prefer this latter texture, however I found the chocolate a bit too rich,and I couldn’t taste the mint.  I’ll have to tweak this one, although I went down well with friends and family. The Rum and Raisin was my favourite, although I think it needed a bit longer in the oven. The overall favourite was the raspberry cheesecake. I’d be interested to see if what the results would be if I baked them all using the opposite methods, but I have had enough cheesecake now for at least a few months!