Bakewell Tarts

Part of the discipline of trying to do the technical challenges on Great British Bake Off is making things we don't particularly like.  This weeks challenge falls into that category.  Bakewell tart with its overly sweet icing and synthetic almondy taste falls isn't something I particularly relish, even with the associated childhood memories of kids parties.  Still, I had some creme amande in the freezer that needed using up and was running out of raspberry jam so Bakewell Tarts let me make the most of both.

As they pointed out on the show there wasn't anything particularly difficult about the component parts of a Bakewell Tart and I'd made all the component parts for other things before.  I love the fresh sharp taste of raspberry fridge jam and am very pleased to have a jar and a bit leftover to eat on toast with butter  - my favourite autumnal comfort food.

Sweet pastry was also quite straight forward, although I think it ended up too thick.  I decided to make a couple of smaller tarts rather than one big one which mean't there wasn't too much space for filling so I had to be quite careful with the different proportions of pastry, jam, frangipane and icing.

But the outcome was good for a Bakewell Tart, and no soggy bottom.

However, like the Mr Kipling version the almond icing over powered everything else.  I may make a Bakewell Tart again, but if I do I'll dispense with the icing and top with flaked almonds - A Tarte Amande with jam.

I used Mary Berry's GBBO recipe - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_bakewell_tart_12584

Lace Pancakes

The joy of pancakes is their ability to act as a background to the flavours and textures of the fillings that go with them.  Lace pancakes are therefore completely pointless - but to maintain the sequence of Great British Bake Off bakes I made three. They looked nothing like each other or the planned design but I can tick the box.

The rest of the mix were made into proper pancakes, things Mr Vitty loves - but only with lemon and sugar.  As we were eating them for tea I felt I should make at least some pretence of nutitional value so filled one of mine with cheese and ham (very healthy).  I also love the classic lemon and sugar, but also cinammon sugar and banana, maple syrup and chocolate sauce.

Dampfnodle

I love bread week on the Great British Bake Off.  More than any other week I can imagine what I would do in the signature bakes (chocolate and salted caramel chelsea bun type loaf) and despair about my lack of artistry in the show stopper.

It shows the power of GBBO that I suddenly, desperately, excitedly longed to make a bready dumpling like thing I'd never even heard of before - Dampfnodle.

 

Dampfnodle with Custard and Blackberry and Sloe Gin Sauce

Essentially a steamed enriched bread dough served with custard and a fruit sauce (Mr Vitty doesn't like the recommended plum so I substituted blackberry and sloe gin)  I quite enjoyed pottering around the kitchen making these having picked some of the blackberries this afternoon.  Making the dough was quite straight forward, it was the steaming process that was novel, but seemed to work well - even caramelising the dampfnodle on the bottom

Dough - a pretty straightforward enriched bread dough

Dampfnodle beginning to steam - I think I shaped them too tightly, as I would bread rolls

Steamed Dampfnodle

A Sticky Bottomed Dumpling

Washed down with a well deserved drink

As for the other technical challenges I followed the recipe on the Bake Off Website (http://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/paul-hollywoods-dampfnudel-technical-challenge/).  I liked them more than the viennese whirls of last week's technical challenge, but probably not enough to make them again (although they'll be less easy to buy than the first week's Jaffa Cakes).

 Blackberry and Sloe Gin Sauce

 

My blackberry and Sloe Gin Sauce involved heating blackberries over a medium heat until they'd given up all their juice.  I then passed them through a fine sieve to remove the seeds and then add some sugar, erring on the side of too little rather than too much as I could always add some later.  I then reduced the blackberry juice to a thin syrup, checked the sweetness and added a shot (or two) of sloe gin.

Viennese Whirls

The good thing about making all the technical challenges in the GBBO is likely to be the diversity of recipes and the opportunity to try something new.  The bad thing is that I'm likely to spend time making things I know I don't like.  When they announced that this weeks technical challenge was viennese whirls my heart sank, not because I thought they were difficult to make but because I've never liked the overly sweet commercial variety. Nonetheless it would be a bit weak to give up on week 2 just because I didn't like the product, so I spent a relaxing hour pottering around the kitchen and was quite pleased with the result.

Again I followed Mary Berry's recipe (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_viennese_whirls_96895) and this time didn't notice any mistakes!  The process is very straight foward, beating together butter and icing sugar before stirring in the flours and piping into rounds.  The biscuits that resulted were very crumbly and as expected tasted buttery and bland, the flavour of viennese Whirls is all in the filling.

As I have about half a dozen jars of homemade raspberry jam in the cupboard I didn't bother making the quick jam outlined in Mary's recipe.  My jam is somewhat less sweet than bought jam and I was hoping it would offset the overwhelming sweetness of the butter icing.

Making viennese whirls hasn't changed my dislike of their sweetness but making them gave me the chance to try something new and get some much needed practise with a piping bag.  Mr Vitty is enjoying them (and he doesn't object to my dislike of them - more for him!)