Skip to main content

Welcome!

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 a big fan. I've continued watching since returning to the US, and re-watch series on Netflix.

The Great British Bake Off has diversified my baking interests. Previously, I only really baked cakes, cookies, and pies. Now, I find myself experimenting with choux pastry, different sponges, and custards. I want to challenge myself further the way contestants are challenged in the baking tent. I invite you to follow my progress.

My goal is to do almost every challenge done on GBBO- signatures, technicals, and showstoppers. I will develop my own ideas and recipes for the signature and showstopper challenges, and will follow the recipes for technical challenges. I hope to do one challenge each week, although they will not necessarily be done in order. My husband, Vincent, and his coworkers will be my loyal taste-testers.

Yes, I only plan to do almost every challenge. I am a practicing Jew and keep a kosher household. When possible, I will try to adapt non-kosher recipes or challenges to being kosher. Hence, many of the savory challenges will likely end up vegetarian. There are, however, a few challenges (pork pies with bacon, lard, and gelatin, anyone?) that just can't be made kosher. Also, I know of at least one challenge which I cannot do for more logistical reasons. The series 9 final technical- the campfire pita challenge- would not go over very well with my HOA.

Well, I think you have the gist of what I will be doing. I hope you enjoy my journey!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Passion Fruit and Mango Opera Cake

Good afternoon! I had a lot of fun with this bake. It looks difficult to get right on the show (because it is), but the results can be fantastic. This past weekend, I baked/created/sculpted the French opera cake. Traditionally, an opera cake is made with thin layers of coffee syrup-soaked jaconde sponge, coffee buttercream, and chocolate ganache. A la Great British Bake Off , I mixed it up a bit. I had a lot of fun going for mango syrup to soak my sponges with, passion fruit buttercream, and white chocolate ganache... and   I added two layers of mango jelly into the cake. Creating the cake and all its elements was not tricky; the assembly and sculpting was the difficult part. For the ease of assembly, I tried to make all possible elements in the same 8" x 8" brownie pan. This made for a slightly smaller cake than those seen on the show, but it enabled me to have ample control over the end result (without too much cutting). When I tried to bake the sponge in a standard j...
Post a Comment
Read more

Orange French Silk Tart

Orange French Silk Tart This Orange French Silk tart was made for the Series 6 Episode 9 signature challenge of Great British Bake Off- a signature chocolate tart. You may remember that I made this tart for my Pi Day party, but didn't remember the recipe I created for it. Vincent's coworker's boyfriend liked the tart so much that I decided to make the next rendition of the tart for just the two of them. Vincent's coworker, who is a self-proclaimed pie hater, texted me later to say it is the best thing she thinks I've made. The classic French Silk tart is made with a sweet shortcrust pastry crust, a silky smooth creamy chocolate filling, and a whipped cream topping. It is rich without being overpowering, it is creamy smooth, it is refreshing on a nice hot day. I altered the basic French silk pie only slightly, adding orange to the flavor profile. Orange and chocolate is a common flavor combination in England (such as in Jaffa cakes), and works much bette...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mary Berry's Tarte au Citron Technical Challenge

Welcome back! This post and the next two posts will reflect challenges that I completed for Pi Day a month ago. Of course, Pi Day is my absolute favorite holiday of the year... And Vincent's and my anniversary. Yes, we did have wedding pie instead of cake. We usually have a Pi Day party every year. It didn't happen this year due to the pandemic. However, I did still manage to bake pies for a few local friends and neighbors. Today, I am sharing my experience baking Mary Berry's tarte au citron, the technical challenge from Series 2, Episode 2 of Great British Bake Off . Tarte au citron is just French for lemon tart. I absolutely love a good lemon tart, so I made this as one of the two pies for Vincent and me to keep. When I go back to a bake from one of the early series of GBBO , it is immediately evident that the show creators did not yet know how obscure or technically-difficult they could push the contestants. By my standards, this tarte au citron was incredibly simple. T...
Post a Comment
Read more