The Not-So-Great-Bake-Along '24 - Week 9
Opera Cake
Have I procrastinated and left writing-up my attempt at Bake Off’s semi-final technical challenge until the day of the Bake Off final? Did I also make a Banoffee Pie a couple of weeks ago, and fail to write about it? Yes! Very much so!
In my defence, I was laid up with a fever last week. That justifies not writing about the Banoffee Pie, although I’m not sure it justifies the not-so-great piping of the whipped cream. Still, I did make one, promise. See? Proof!
This week, opera cake, and the sad departure of Gill from the tent. I miss her. The world is a little quieter now, a little sadder. However, it was patisserie week, and I bloody love patisserie. It’s the perfect mix of refinement and over-indulgence. Everything has delicate layers. It’s a delight. And for once, I got to make a technical challenge that didn’t involve a bloody caramel.
Which reminds me. As I didn’t write up the Banoffee Pie recipe, I didn’t get the chance to share with the wider world my biggest rant about seventies week - the signature bake. That was not profiteroles, that was a croquembouche challenge. Calling it profiteroles is just rude.
Rant over, time for an opera cake!
The Rules
I have to recreate, to the best of my ability, the Technical Challenge.
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.
Patisserie Week - Opera Cake
I have never made an opera cake before. I have attempted most of the various components however, and I go into the challenge with a vague sense of competence and a large pot of strong coffee to hand. (This pot is also to compensate for my not being able to find coffee extract at the shop.)
With two hours, forty-five minutes on the clock, I start with a ganache. This is fine. I know how to make ganache. I’ve done it a million times. I heat up some cream, weigh out some chocolate, make sure I have some butter handy. It’s fine.
I don’t heat the cream up enough, I don’t chop the chocolate small enough, and my ganache is a lumpy mess. I throw it on a double boiler while I turn my attention to the sponge.
At this point, with my ganache fixing, egg whites to whip, egg yolks to whip and a need for melted butter, I consider moving house to somewhere with a larger kitchen, and buying another six mixing bowls. (I want the lilac one that Gill nicked.) Instead, I soldier bravely on. I know I need to whip separated eggs. I know I need to put ground almonds in the sponge. I know, when I’ve made similar cakes in the past, that a bit of melted butter will be necessary. I end up with something that definitely resembles a cake mix, and a ganache that looks like it will be useful. 25 minutes have passed. First crisis averted.
Next crisis: I do not have the relevant-shaped mould to make this cake. I do not know how big my sponges will need to be. I have one tray that looks about the right size, and opt for baking them one at a time and hoping everything will come together at the end. I decided to simply not think about how to put the whole damn thing together.
Next - coffee crème au beurre. I haven’t made a crème au beurre since last year’s custard creams, and yet I’m confident that I can do this with zero incident. I’ve even remembered that my mixer wont go deep enough, and I’ll need to whisk by hand. I start cooking down some of my strong coffee with some sugar, and separate more egg yolks. Whisking begins in earnest, by hand. The coffee syrup/egg yolk combination looks disgusting, but nothing appears to have gone horribly wrong. I put the whole lot in the mixer, and start throwing in blobs of butter. Of course, at the same time, I’m grabbing cakes out of the oven and attempting to spread more cake batter over a very hot tray. With butter on my hands. It’s fine, this is all fine.
Finally, about an hour into the challenge, I have three cakes baked, a coffee crème au beurre made, and so delicious that I have to fight not to stick my face directly into the bowl, and a coffee syrup started. This is easy, I think to myself. I can do patisserie. Technical challenges really aren’t so complicated any more.
Then I remember I need to temper some chocolate. I still do not own a thermometer. I do not have handy squares of acetate. I certainly don’t have nice little chocolate transfers. I’m also fully aware that I’m not going to manage nicely tempered chocolate using the cheap stuff. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Never one to step away from a challenge, I opt to create chocolate curls by balancing a rolling pin and some baking parchment on top of a couple of mugs. That’s how they do it in Paris, I’m sure.
With the faff out of the way and an hour and a half to go, I start thinking about layering. In place of a nice mould, I’ve opted for a battered roasting tin, some clingfilm, and hope. My sponges fit, at least, but I swiftly realise the whole thing is too damn big, and I won’t be able to spread the fillings to the edges. Still, I dump in ganache and start the tedious process of adding something, then chilling the cake, and so on and so forth until the inevitable heat death of the universe.
During this process I finally have to face the scary component. The glaze. I have never made one of these before. Luckily, a few months ago, I saw a very pretty chocolate glaze on a cake and looked up how to do it. I remember thinking to myself ‘oh, that’s just ganache with some liquid glucose in it.’ That is my sum knowledge.
So, I make a ganache, and add some liquid glucose. Much like the first ganache, it goes wrong, and has to be rectified. I’m starting to worry that by finally getting the hang of caramel, I’ve lost my ganache abilities. I’m also worried that I’m secretly a terrible person and everyone hates me, and that ants are plotting world domination, so I don’t think about the ganache thing too much.
Finally, with half an hour to go, my cake is assembled with a lovely layer of (fixed) chocolate glaze on top. Now, I just have to hope the whole thing sets enough and that unmolding it doesn’t break me, mentally.
With 15 minutes to go, I try to turn what is now one large wodge of chocolate into some pretty curls. I have medium success. I’ll take it. With 9 minutes to go, I manage to lift the cake out of its tin, and trim off the edges. Sadly, I’m left with a large bowl of cake trimmings. It’s a hard life I lead. I grab out a fancy plate, thinking it’s big enough for the cake. It is not. I now have to serve what could have been a perfect cake (it’s so far from perfect) with a plate-dip in the middle. I am not happy about physics. Still, with an entire minute left on the clock, I am done.
The Judging
My partner calls the cake ‘really fucking good’, and gives me tens for both appearance and flavour. He drops the flavour score to a nine, as the coffee isn’t strong enough. I hate to say it, but he’s right.
I’m giving myself a 7/10 for appearance - even with the plate dip, it’s quite pretty. 8/10 for flavour - the coffee could be stronger, but I have made a delicious cake.
Was this a fair challenge? On its own - yeah. It’s challenging, but doable in the time frame. And yet still, on the show, one of the bakers came close to walking out of the tent for good in response to the pressure. There is something about these challenges, and this show, that’s making people struggle more and more. Alison Hammond was absolutely fantastic in that moment, but it still felt unpleasant to watch - as if the cameras couldn’t give poor Georgie a second of privacy for her break down. It felt nasty, and voyeuristic. Between that, and some wildly inconsistent and biased judging from a particular person, this season of Bake Off might be less harsh when it comes to the challenges, but it still feels nastier than the earlier iterations of the show.
Anyway, finale time! Christiaan better take this.
Shameless self-promotion time - I’ve written a book! Friends and the Golden Age of the Sitcom is available now in all sorts of places, including signed copies on my website! (Please buy it so I can stop suffering the indignities of a lack of cake molds.)