The Not So Great Bake-Along 24
Miniature Battenberg
Bake Off is back!
Once again this year, I’ll be baking along with the technical challenges in an attempt to answer the question everyone (At least three people on twitter) is asking - is Bake Off being a bit silly?
In the past few years, the show has drawn criticism for being over-complicated, with impossible challenges created to make good TV, not test the bakers. This is meant to be the cosy, comfort cooking show - the antithesis of the fire and screaming on other competitions. Giving unreasonable time frames and unknowable recipes takes away from that - putting drama above cake. Nothing should be put above cake.
So far, the season’s off to a good start. The contestants are all charmingly wonderful, and I’ll have learned their names properly around week five. The first episode’s was elimination-free, due to Jeff’s unfortunate illness. (An American? In Bake Off? Scandal!) Obviously, Sumayah is precious and I adore Mike the farmer. Yes, I just had to look up all of these names. Maybe I’ll print out the class of 2024 and keep a cheat sheet pinned up next to my computer. That won’t look weird. Maybe I’ll get a corkboard and some red string.
Anyway, my challenge. Every week, as I did last year, I’ll be attempting to recreate the technical challenge, in the same time limit, with no recipe - just my own baking knowledge. I’m an ex-chef, a decent baker and obsessed with food - and I want to see how fair this is.
Clearly, this week, I have not stuck to recreating the technical challenge. In this first episode, the bakers weren’t given a recipe. Just a taster, and the instruction to use ‘equal quantities’. I considered forging on ahead without my added no-recipe handicap, and decided not to on the basis that I can’t stand Battenberg cake and I think Paul Hollywood chose it just to upset me, specifically. Instead, I attempted to make things difficult for myself by vaguely coming up with a concept, planning nothing, and creating a recipe for Chocolate and Raspberry Battenbergs on the fly. It went…ok.
The point here is to see if Bake Off really feels too cruel. Do I think the recipe-less challenge was harsh? On the one hand, no. All of the components in a Battenberg cake are fairly simple, the equal quantities instructions were there, and the bakers had a visual to work from. On the other hand - it’s the first episode. The first day in the tent. The bakers are going in with a fairly basic expectation on what’s got to be an incredibly nerve-wracking day. Throwing in a plot twist is incredibly unfair. And not just because it upsets the concept of this blog. (I am definitely being victimised by Paul Hollywood). Anyway, on to the cake!
The Rules:
I have to recreate, to the best of my ability, the Technical Challenge. (Or not, in this case)
I will not be looking at any kind of recipe. Each week, I have to do this purely with some context from the show and my own store of baking knowledge.
The time limit: The maximum amount of time I’ll be allowing myself is the time given to the bakers. However, as I don’t want to be wasting food and I don’t have a vast team of producers and camera operators to eat my bakes, I will sometimes be scaling my bakes down. When that happens, I’ll be reducing my total time accordingly.
The judging: I do not have handy professionals available to judge me. I have, however, considered purchasing some fabric to make my own gingham altar. I will be judging myself, and I’m a raging bitch so I won’t be particularly lenient. My partner will be scoring as well, and probably his office mates if there’s too much cake for us to consume in one sitting.
The equipment: I like to think I’ve got the sort of decently-stocked kitchen any skilled home baker would have. If a technical challenge requires specialist equipment I don’t have, I won’t be buying anything for the occasion. I will be MacGyvering it, and adjusting my handicaps accordingly.
On to the recipe!
Cake Week - Chocolate and Raspberry Battenberg
First, sadly, there is the shopping. In my case, this requires wandering around an unfamiliar Asda (I’ve recently moved house) and trying to decide whether I’m making a proper battenberg cake or not. A distinct lack of apricots and almond extract makes my chocolate and raspberry decision for me. A brief chat with a stranger about the price of fruit these days serves as my main social interaction for the week.
Then, on to the baking - and the swift realisation that the lack of counter space in my new kitchen is rapidly going to destroy the last few remnants of sanity I’ve been clinging to. I start the timer - two hours and fifteen minutes to go.
I throw a few chunks of chocolate into a double boiler situation to melt, and stare at my baking trays. I do not have one of the neatly perfect sized ones they’re using on the show, so I stare at my sad little rectangles and decide they’ll be fine. That means two eggs per cake, so four total, and that means 8 ounces of everything else. This, at least, I know.
Of course, I’ve based those calculations on the fact that I use the baking trays in question to make brownies. That will turn out to be less than ideal.
I chuck together a passable cake batter. Half of it gets pink food colouring and a shake from a container of freeze-dried raspberry pieces that may or may not be past their best. The chocolate has melted slowly, because the universe is cruel (and my house is bloody cold), but finally it goes into the other half of the cake batter, along with a spoonful of cocoa powder. I am beyond measuring at this point. The cake mix goes into my trays and I realise my error - my 2-egg brownie mix yields a lot more than a 2-egg cake mix. I have barely made enough cake. I tell myself it will be fine, and the cakes don’t need to be perfectly even anyway. One hour and fifty-three minutes to go, and my cakes are in the oven.
Jam then. Jam I can do. Equal amounts of raspberries and sugar in a pan. I zest in a lemon for some pectin, because I refuse to buy special jam sugar. (Pectin’s the stuff that makes jam set - jam sugar comes with added pectin. It’s also present enough in citrus zest that a lemon will do.) My original plan was to use a lime, but I appear to have used all of my limes for tequila & tonics. (I’m out of gin.)
Next - the age-old question - buttercream or ganache to hold the cakes together? I’ve forgotten to buy enough butter but I’ve got some cream that needs using up. I’m not so much coming up with a recipe on the fly as letting the contents of my fridge and my brain’s habit of switching almost completely off whenever I enter a supermarket dictate the recipe to me.
Forty-five minutes in. The cakes are out and cooling. The ganache is waiting in a piping bag. The jam is simmering. I can’t avoid it any longer. It’s time for the dreaded marzipan.
I feel, very strongly, that people who actively enjoy marzipan are wrong’uns. They can’t be trusted. They don’t pick up their litter at the seaside. However, I can’t think of another way to make these into battenberg cakes, so marzipan is a necessary evil. Someone on twitter mentioned hazelnut marzipan to me while I was watching this week’s Bake Off, and I’ve bought a small bag of hazelnuts just in case.
I’ve also only ever made marzipan once, many years ago, and barely remember the process. So I start by beating the shit out of my hazelnuts with a rolling pin, and hoping the neighbours aren’t perturbed by the noise. I could only afford 150g of them, and it doesn’t look like it’ll yield enough, so I accept that some ground almonds will end up in the mix. I blitz the beaten nuts with 100g caster sugar and pray my ancient, sit-up-and-beg food processor can take the strain. It survives. I add 150g of ground almonds to the mix, and 200g of icing sugar. (Equal quantities!) I add an egg white. It doesn’t seem like it’s enough. I add a second egg white. It’s definitely too much. I throw more icing sugar at the whole thing, throw the sticky ball of hatred in the fridge (Actually it’s quite nice with the hazelnut in there) and accept that it’ll probably be fine. There is an hour to go.
I am, miraculously, on schedule. I think. Then I remember the jam. The lovely homemade raspberry jam that definitely needs the seeds straining out. I could have just bought seedless jam and called it a day but I wanted to stick to the spirit of the challenge. I curse my own honesty and start forcing the jame through a sieve and start thinking of all the better ways I could be spending my time; working on the book that’s very close to deadline and not finished, learning the ‘Mein Herr’ dance routine from Cabaret, maybe sewing a ball gown for shits and grins. No. I am straining jam.
I have forty-five minutes to go. The jam is strained. The cakes are cool. I have no choice but to attempt assembly.
I almost start cutting the cakes, before realising my plan of cutting fifteen pieces of each won’t work - I will need sixteen and can’t magic one out of thin air. I cut each cake. The pieces aren’t even. I’ve accepted it. The piping of the ganache and assembly into little uncoated battenbergs goes surprisingly smoothly, if I ignore the amount of stray ganache coating every available surface in my tiny kitchen. There is, I will admit, some swearing.
I add to the generally sticky aura when I start rolling out pieces of marzipan. There’s sugar everywhere, jam all over the shop, and I question my life choices. The last hints of precision vanish out of the window. Somehow though, I do it.
I have eight mini chocolate & raspberry Battenberg cakes assembled, and nine minutes left on the clock. That’ll do.
The Judging
My partner’s verdict:
7/10 for Appearance, 9/10 for Flavour.
I demand to know what happened to that last flavour point, and he points out it needs more raspberry. I can accept that. On appearance, he does say that the cake ‘resembles a Battenberg.’ He says this in a tone that implies these resemble Battenberg cakes about as much as I resemble Dita Von Teese. Still, I’ll take it.
I’m giving them a 6/10. They’re delicious, and the hazelnut marzipan works, but they look mildly atrocious in places and honestly, I didn’t stick to the technical challenge and I should probably lose some points for that.
Do I think this was a fair challenge? Meh, slightly. I think the no-recipe twist works, but not on the first week of the show. I’d be more irate about it if it wasn’t obvious that no one was going home anyway.
Would I make these again? I want to ask this question because, again, I feel like it relates to the fairness of the show. You don’t become a talented amateur at something if you don’t really love it. And if a person doesn’t love something, are they going to get good at making it? I wouldn’t make these again. There are better delivery systems for these flavours that don’t waste as much in the way of cake trimmings. I don’t feel like a lot of bakers are making their own Battenberg cakes (although I could be wrong! I often am) but they probably are making other variations of these components.
This isn’t the worst opening technical challenge in the history of Bake Off, but I do think the ‘most people buy them in a packet for a reason’ challenges are going to be a consistent sticking point for me. They reek of content for telly over an interesting test.
Next week - biscuits! Let’s see if I stick to the challenge!
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Please buy it, and leave nice reviews for it everywhere. (Actually reading it is optional, but it’s quite good! Honest!)
Don't love the no-recipe twist for the first week, either, but I honestly wouldn't mind giving the bakers more sight/taste-tests before they go into the technical. I believe everyone has a right to know what they're supposed to be baking.
Good to see the bake-along back!