Project 60 - Number 33

Gold star and a coconut to anyone who knows what this is.

 

 

For those not now trying to work out the best way to open a coconut and not spill the milk, that there is home made candied orange and lemon peel.

 

I don't suppose anyone wants an extra coconut but you can have another gold star if you tell me what the point of making your own candied peel is? I certainly can't work it out. Other than to add to the Project 60 list.

 

You may be idly wondering why I bothered and it was to go on this

 

 



That is Lee's St Clements drizzle cake from last weeks Great British Bake Off. I decided that this year it might be fun to try making one thing from each episode, as the BBC put up a selection of the recipes on the web page. For the opening week I chose this. It was a mistake. In retrospect it might have been better to choose a recipe from someone other than the week's eliminated contestant.

 

Like the cake, I'm a bit bitter. The ingredients cost a bomb (14 eggs for starters) and I had to buy some new cake tins as 9" sponges have not previously featured on the family tea table. There were five elements to this cake and all had something wrong with them.

 

Cake. Dry, dense, flavourless.

Drizzle. Too much of it and far too sharp.

Orange curd. Filled the kitchen with that revolting smell of hot fresh orange juice, was lovely when it came out of the pan, but developed a nasty bitter aftertaste when cooled.

Icing. Possibly the most successful of the five (which isn't saying much) but again too sharp.

Candied peel. See above.

 

Respect to the bakers in the tent though. The drizzle cake was just morning  one of their Bake Off experience. They had to go on and make Jaffa Cakes in the afternoon and a showstopper cake with a mirror glaze the day after. It took me two days (on and off) to do this one cake and by the end I was on my knees. I don't know how they do it.

 

This week is biscuit week and I'm not much of a hand at  making biscuits at the best of times but I'll give it a go. I will try to make a better recipe selection this time around though.