Jessica's Bake Off Challenge

I have been looking forward to this challenge for a few weeks. Now that I've completed it, I no longer feel so thrilled. The end result is tasty, although I got a little impatient with the decoration. The showstopper challenge from Series 5, Episode 7 was 24 eclairs- of two different flavors. I chose to make 12 lemon and lavender eclairs and 12 coconut key lime eclairs. One of my good friends specifically requested that I do this bake as soon as he saw the words key lime .  I wasted so many eggs trying to make my choux pastry. Making the choux pastry dough is not very difficult, but I kept messing up on the bake times. When choux pastry is properly baked, a nice hollow pocket will form, and the pastry will hold its shape for near-perpetuity. As I found out, the pastry will gradually deflate and the hollow pocket will collapse if the pastry is not baked long enough. I also found out- after finally making some decent choux one night- that the pastry will become soft and col

Hello again! Sorry for the late update. I baked the ciabatta for this technical a week ago, but had a migraine all week. Since I am only now getting to post, I am going to give you two posts today. This week, I purchased a cake decorating set. Considering how poor I am at decoration, I need all the supplies I can get. It came with a rotating cake stand, various frosting application knives and scrapers, a wire cake cutter, a bunch of piping tips, some reusable piping bags, silicone cupcake liners, a silicone candy mold (unfortunately heart-shaped), and more. I am very excited to have it, and look forward to using it to its optimal capacity. On to the ciabatta... My challenge last Sunday was to make Paul Hollywood's ciabatta recipe from the technical challenge of Series 5 Episode 3. I did not follow the recipe precisely, but the bread turned out pretty well. It was a little flatter than I would have liked (although I don't really know how fluffed ciabatta should be), but

Today, I had the opportunity to bake Harry Potter's favorite dessert! For those of you that have not read Harry Potter or who have (gasp!) forgotten some of the minute details from the book series, I baked treacle tart. Specifically, I baked Mary Berry's treacle tart recipe, used as the technical challenge of Series 3, Episode 3 of The Great British Bake Off . Despite having lived in England for a total of about 1 1/2 years, I have never before eaten treacle tart. It is certainly a well-known and classic tart, but is not as commonly found as Victoria sponge cakes, lemon drizzle cakes, or Bakewell tarts. Therefore, I have no frame of reference for how a treacle tart is supposed to taste. I assume my tart tastes right, because it does taste good. I am very glad that Vincent, my husband, suggested this treacle tart as my bake for this week, as it gave me an excuse to go shopping on Amazon! The recipe calls for a 7" deep fluted tin with a removable bottom. This is not a s

The Showstopper Challenge from Series 3, Episode 2 (Bread Week) seemed like a good challenge to try next. This particular challenge entailed baking 12 sweet and 12 savoury (British spelling) bagels. I am no stranger to baking bread, and I have certainly eaten my fair share of bagels after synagogue services and at social functions, but I had never before attempted to make bagels. Therefore, I decided to try making some plain bagels to test technique before playing with flavors. I am glad I did so, as the resultant quality of bagels correlated to the order in which I made them. What I made are still far from perfect; I would really like to revisit this challenge and tweak my technique in the future. One of the cooking processes that makes a bagel a bagel is the boiling process... This gives the almost rubbery crust. I found that 45-60 seconds on each side works well. The boiling is a rather perilous step; I accidentally broke my first bagel trying to take it out with tongs (I the

Welcome back. I'm glad all four or so of you (so far) have made it to the second post. Last night, I tackled the hidden design cake showstopper challenge from series 3, episode 1. I know it hardly sounds like a big challenge, but I'm not that great at decorating. I really had to think about how to do this. There were a few ways to try this- use a thick batter to keep sections separate (risky), make separate cakes and cut and assemble once all are baked, or put cut cooked cake pieces within cake batter before baking again. I went with the third option. I know it sounds strange. I knew there would be a danger that the pre-cooked cake pieces hidden in the center could overcook when re-baked. Knowing this, I chose to modify a sponge cake which is extremely difficult to overcook. I actually tried baking this for the first time on Tuesday evening, but it didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. It wasn't bad- Vincent's coworkers ate all of it- but I knew I could improve

Welcome to my blog. I, Jessica, have had a long-time love of baking, and would like to share it with you. How did this start? My Savta (my grandmother) would let me help her bake cakes and brownies when I visited her house as a child. Looking back, I realize we were just making boxed cakes, and she only really let me stir... But it was a start. Years later, though, she started me with baking from scratch. When I was a teenager, she taught me how to make my great-great-grandmother's mandelbrodt recipe. Ever since, I have insisted on baking almost everything from scratch... and I have had to make mandelbrodt for my Savta every time I visit. Let's fast forward a few years to university. I first heard about The Great British Bake Off  (henceforth referred to lovingly as GBBO) when I did a semester abroad in Nottingham in 2013. Sadly, I was in Nottingham in Spring, and did not see the show. When I went back to England for a Master's, though, I watched GBBO and quickly became