The Not-So-Great Bake Along Week 4
Caramelised White Chocolate Cheesecakes
It’s Chocolate Week in the Bake Off tent and therefore, according to the inevitable rules of the universe, this week’s episode was filmed during one of the hottest, stickiest days of the year. British summers are unique, both in their volatility and their tendency towards sweltering days full of humidity that feels like a personal attack on my hair. (Picture Monica, in Friends, in Barbados. With a side of bigfoot. It’s very attractive.)
Unsurprisingly, the bakers suffered in the tent this week, with painful attempts at tempering chocolate and Tasha even leaving halfway through the technical challenge due to illness. At the time of writing this intro, my cheesecakes are still cooling down and I’d absolutely like to walk away from all baked goods, permanently. (That’s a lie, I baked a stunning loaf of bread this morning and I wouldn’t give up the resulting bacon sandwich for a winning lottery ticket.) It’s a long running complaint about Bake Off. Why can’t they find a way to air condition the damn tent? Admittedly, most home-bakers (in Britain, at least) wouldn’t be working in an air-conditioned kitchen. They also wouldn’t be stupid enough to temper chocolate in ridiculously hot weather. Well, some might. I may or may not have been stupid enough to attempt it in the past. It has never ended well.
On that note, I’m starting to realise that my consistent kitchen struggles might be casting doubt over my professional credentials. I should be good at these challenges, right? This only contributes to my theory (I’d be in a tin foil hat, but I think I’ve run out) that these challenges are intentionally just slightly impossible to do in the given time-frame. I’ve got fourteen minutes left on my cheesecakes - let’s see if they’re possible.
A reminder of 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. This week, I really wanted to recreate the challenge exactly, to test my theory about unfair timing, but couldn’t find the relevant moulds. I’ve kept the same time limit, and made two medium(ish) cheesecakes instead of six minis. I think it’s a fair comparison.
The judging: I still have a distinct lack of gingham altar and (thankfully) Paul Hollywood in my life. This week, my partner is happy to eat a lot cheesecake.
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. As I said, no silicone moulds this week. (I did actually order some on amazon. I did not check the sizes. They are far too small and I’ll be using them to experiment with a brownie idea instead.) I also lack silicone sheets for setting jelly (and suffer many related woes) and acetate for tempering chocolate. Finally, my kitchen has no microwave. This turns out to be less than ideal.
Week 4 - Caramelised White Chocolate Cheesecake
I start, as the bakers do, with my cheesecake base. I have a feeling it needs to be both buttery, and biscuity. (Yes, this has been in my head since watching the episode. I used to use this song to torture my potwashes when they weren’t working quickly enough.)
I haphazardly use the rubbing-in method, and make a healthy amount of dirty jokes while doing so. I am making these jokes alone, in my kitchen, to an audience of absolutely no one. I am a very cool and interesting person.
The aim is to make a shortbread with oats and extra butter, so after a brief starting delay as my scale refuses to cooperate, I rub together 150g of flour with 150g of butter, stir in 100g of oats and 50g of sugar for good measure. I don’t see them sweeten it on the show, but Prue’s recipe* does add sugar and honey, and for once I have a tiny amount of faith in my instincts. I shape the entire biscuit kerfuffle into an unattractive brick, and get it into the oven just 7 minutes into the challenge. So far, so good.
*To be clear: I reference Prue’s recipe a few times in this. I’d like to clarify that I didn’t look at it until after I’d completed the bake.
Something I look at, when doing these challenges, is where time can be saved. There’s bugger all anyone can do to adjust cooling times, proving times, bake times and the like, so it’s only places like assembling biscuit dough where I can try and save some helpful minutes.
Next up, I’m facing both the jelly and the caramelised white chocolate. I couldn’t find blackcurrants in the single supermarket I went to, and I’m not willing to spend time searching for specific fruit. Life is too brief a thing. I resort to blueberries (and not for the first time). 340g of them get thrown into a pan with 120g of sugar and 100ml of water. This is not how Prue suggests making the jelly. It is, however, very similar to the process that every single baker in the tent does. It’s also exactly how my grandmother would have done it, and I have total faith that she would rise from the grave and hit me with a passive-aggressive comment if I ever used a different method than one she taught me. While I keep an eye on the blueberries in the hope that I don’t repeat last week’s boiling-over incident, I start thinking about the chocolate.
As mentioned, I do not own a microwave. The other way to caramelise white chocolate, involves baking it on a very low heat for a decent amount of time. My oven is occupied, and I don’t have a decent amount of time. I resort to throwing 180g of white chocolate in a frying pan, putting it on a low heat, and hoping the colour turns.
At this point, I’m trying to manage the biscuit base, the berries and the bastard white chocolate. This was, possibly, a bad idea. After 15 minutes, the biscuit is ready, and I am confronted with the fact that my kitchen is very small. The white chocolate has melted, but is refusing to caramelise and I’m very conscious of the time limit. Given another 10 minutes, I think it might have turned that beautiful straw colour. Or, it might have been fucked. I take it off the heat and accept that my cheesecake will be imperfect.
I shove the blueberry situation through a sieve, add two leaves of gelatine*, whisk the bastard and realise I still need to set it. My genius plan is to line a baking tray with baking parchment (again, no silicone sheets here), and shove it in the fridge. I pour the hot mixture into the tray. It is determined to sit under the parchment. I give up on the parchment. Now I have a hot metal tray full of what will hopefully be jelly. I attempt to shove it in the fridge, and it doesn’t fit. I swear loudly, thoroughly and with great panache. In a panic, I realise that I have spare cake tins. I pour the jelly in and shove them in the fridge. My fingertips are slightly burnt, but that’s my general state of being.
*I have to admit to accidentally cheating here. Officially, I’m not looking up any recipes. But if a gelatine packet tells me the exact ratio on the front, who am I to ignore it?
I realise my jelly-based panic has slowed me down. I have an hour and 19 minutes left on the clock. I shove the biscuit base into the blender, spilling crumbs on every available bit of kitchen counter, and pray that said blender feels like working today. It’s a temperamental little thing. I discover if I hold one hand on the plug socket and hold the “on” switch just so - I can blitz the base.
Prue’s recipe calls for adding melted butter to that blitzed mixture before setting it in the fridge. If this was a set cheesecake, rather than baked, that’s exactly what I’d do. As it’s a baked cheesecake, I rely on my freezer and pure willpower, cramming the base into tins and regretting my purchase of oven chips as I shove those tins determinedly into the freezer.
Finally, I can make the filling. I reconsider one last attempt to caramelise the white chocolate, call myself a rude name, and decide against it. I throw 250g of mascarpone (Prue’s recipe just calls for cream cheese, but I’m *fancy*) into my mixer with 50ml of double cream, before adding an egg, 50g of cornflour, the white chocolate, and a splodge of golden syrup in the hope that it’ll give the cheesecake a caramelised vibe. (Spoiler: it did not.)
This part of the recipe, at least, I was feeling confident about. My mother made excellent chocolate cheesecakes and taught me how to do it so she didn’t have to. I still have her scruffy, handwritten and butter-splodged recipe. It’s a little piece of treasure.
The cheesecake mixture looks exactly how I want it to, and I dare to think for a second that everything might be alright. Of course, it won’t be. We’ve still got a Tory government. I glop the stuff on top of the biscuit base, get the tins in the oven, and realise that A) I still have an hour and 9 minutes left and B) the last 20 minutes of frenzied activity have left me with a horrific pile of blueberry-stained washing up. It looks like I’ve murdered Violet Beauregard over the sink. (She had it coming.) I curse the lack of a production team, once again.
It occurs to me that I could relax for five minutes. I don’t, of course. I haven’t relaxed since 1998. (I was listening to a Steps album at the time.) Washing up tackled, I remember in a panic that I need to temper some white chocolate. I start it melting, make some Chantilly cream, and I’m delighted to note that I actually bought piping bags! I can use a real nozzle and everything this week! A five minute interlude of searching for the piping bags ensues, complete with the Benny Hill theme (in my head at least). They were in my handbag, obviously.
After 20 minutes, the cheesecakes are definitely baked. Possibly over-baked. I’m splitting the difference and calling them caramelised. I have 49 minutes left to cool and decorate them. I make the genius decision to transfer the (still not-set) jelly to the freezer, and chill the cheesecakes in the fridge.
I realise that there is absolutely nowhere left to chill the white chocolate and create those pretty shards. I don’t have those stunningly empty Bake Off fridges full of empty shelves. I have a real, domestic fridge, full of cheese and vegetables and leftovers that need eating. However, unlike most home bakers, I do come from a family of mildly pretentious wankers, and therefore I’ve inherited a beautiful slab of marble that makes a perfect heat sink for cooling down melted chocolate. I cover it in parchment for easy transfer, cover that parchment in white chocolate, add another layer of paper for easy flipping, and hope.
At this point, there are 30 minutes left, and absolutely nothing I can do. I start writing this piece. (Oh god it’s all gone meta.) I’m trying very hard not to think about how much the jelly isn’t going to come out of those tins.
With 10(ish) minutes left, I return to the cheesecakes and face a dilemma. I think I can decorate each one in five or so minutes. They are, however, definitely still warm. Do I try and finish both and solely stick to the Bake Off limit? Or do I experiment?
Experimenting wins out. I set a five minute timer. As things start coming out of the freezer, I squeeze in the not-quite-set white chocolate. I attempt to top the first cheesecake with jelly. (The jelly has, unfortunately, slightly frozen. The cheesecake is warm. Things start running.) Obviously I don’t have a beautiful clean disc, but there’s definitely a layer of blueberry jelly on top of this cheesecake. I finish it with cream, blueberries and mint, and my five minutes are up. I remember the white chocolate after the fact, accept that I’m still within the two hours, and grab a few bits that have just set enough around the edges to decorate the cheesecake.
I leave it until the two hour timer is done before I even consider slicing or taking a photograph. I set another timer - giving myself an extra thirty minutes.
I take a picture. I slice it. We try it. I note down scores.
I go back to writing this, while I wait. With ten minutes left, I return to my second cheesecake. Amazingly, it’s cooled and the second tray of jelly has defrosted. It still won’t come out of it’s bastard tin, to be fair, and I regret my lack of silicone, but it sits pretty on the cake. The cream pipes beautifully on top, and I finish up with berries, mint, and fully-set white chocolate shards.
It is 2 hours and 27 minutes since I began the challenge.
For fairness, I let the second cheesecake sit for a few minutes before cutting or slicing. It is, unsurprisingly, a better cheesecake.
The Judging:
Cheesecake No. 1:
My partner’s thoughts:
“Definitely needs more time to set”.
Appearance: 7/10
Flavour: 7/10
My thoughts:
My partner should be more generous when judging. It’s messy, yes, but a fairly tasty cheesecake. Ultimately, I’m supposed to be harsh so I mostly agree.
Appearance: 6/10
Flavour: 7/10
Cheesecake No. 2:
My partner’s thoughts:
“I can’t explain it but the blueberry tastes more.”
Appearance: 8/10
Flavour: 7/10
My thoughts:
He’s right, if lacking in eloquence. That half an hour has made all the difference. The blueberry flavour is stronger and sharper. The whole thing is also just more…together. The base isn’t crumbling, the jelly isn’t dripping. It’s a superior cheesecake.
Appearance: 9/10 (I’m taking a point off for the imperfect jelly.)
Flavour: 9/10 (I’m begrudgingly taking a point off for the uncaramelised white chocolate. It’s bloody delicious though.)
I think it’s interesting that the recipe provided by Prue on the Bake Off website has no overall time listed. I went into this challenge expecting an unfair time limit, and I was right. An extra half an hour made a world of difference to the final result, and that would be exceptionally true in a baking (sorry) hot tent.
The Great British Bake Off became a beloved bit of British reality TV because it’s nice. It’s not, unlike other reality shows and especially American cooking shows, a mean show that sets people up to fail. The contestants are sweet to each other, the hosts are motivators and the judges seem to care.
Except, that meanness, that built-in unfairness, is still very much there. Home bakers don’t suffer from time limits. Professionals might, but they’re much more likely to have a convenient working environment and the right equipment. On television, the only reason for time limits is to create tension and drama. That’s fine, it’s the show, it’s what makes a challenge a challenge. But setting up the bakers to fail with isn’t a challenge - it’s just cruel.
Next week, pastry! What fuckery awaits us?
The blueberry is more
In their own ways, Sewing Bee and Strictly also have that sense of community, and dichotomy between that and crowd-pleading dis*aster* dahling!