The Not-So-Great Bake Along Week 6
Lemon & Thyme Drizzle Cake
It’s Botanicals week - a first for Bake Off. My knowledge of “botanicals” extends to “things that flavour gin” and not much further, but I know plenty about herbs and spices, and a fair bit about cooking with flowers. This week did feel slightly like a theme hastily thrown together to replace the traditional “cultural insensitivity” week, but it was a fun episode. Spiced buns abounded and the floral showstopper almost stopped Cristy. It almost seemed like we were going to get bingate 2.0 until she pulled herself together, and fair play to her. She’s not been my favourite contestant so far, largely because I never really warm to the “I’m doing it all for my spouse/kids” contestants (it’s not their fault, I’m just a bitter old spinster), but it would have been a shame to see someone go over a broken ganache…thingy. Admittedly, seeing Dana go was heartbreaking - I’ve taken so much joy in her ridiculous unflappability. Still, it could have been worse. If Saku goes, we riot.
On, then, to the technical. This week, it was a lemon & thyme drizzle cake. Honestly, I felt like I was cheating from the start this week. I’ve been doing the Lemon & Thyme Drizzle (it’s like the Lambeth Walk, but stickier) since I first found the recipe for a cupcake version in a copy of Waitrose magazine, many moons ago. It’s a go-to for me, one of those things that sounds fancy but is, in fact, dead easy. I debated various ways to handicap myself for the challenge, from bondage to blindfolds to bollocksing up the recipe. In the end, I’ve just chosen to be grateful for the easy week. I’m sure the Bake Off gods will find an entertaining way to smite me next time.
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 considered a reduced time limit to give myself a challenge. I decided against it.
The judging: I still have a distinct lack of gingham altar and (thankfully) Paul Hollywood in my life. My partner’s doing the honours again this week, and thankfully he really likes lemon cake.
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. This week, I did decide the challenge would be even less fair without using a special bundt tin. I will now be baking everything I can in that tin to get my money’s worth.
Week 5 - Lemon & Thyme Drizzle Cake
A quick peek behind the curtain - before starting my timer each week I do sit down with a notebook and plan my recipe. This week, that planning involved staring at my shiny new bundt tin and guessing the number of eggs I’d need to make the right amount of cake batter. I settle on five, which means ten ounce measures of almost everything else. (My years spent with a Canadian head chef mean all of my recipes are an eldritch mix of metric and imperial measurements.)
When the timer starts, I set my oven to preheating and swear at my not-softened butter. It’s at room temperature, and has been all day. Unfortunately, Winter is Coming (huge thanks to Sean Bean for guesting on my Substack today) and therefore my flat is a fridge. I stick the ten ounces of butter and sugar in the mixer and hope for the best.
While my mixer struggles, I begin suffering. I’ve got three lemons to zest, with a zester that likes to alternate between being frustratingly blunt and attempting to shred my finger tips. I manage, and the lemon zest goes into my ten ounces of self-raising flour. Next, I strip the leaves off of a 20g bunch of thyme. This takes (haha) some time. My mind wanders off, god knows where. Stripping herbs is a surprisingly meditative experience. When I come back to myself, thyme stripped, I realise any thoughts of giving myself a reduced time limit are out the window. I accept my flaws and throw the thyme leaves in with the flour, keeping the stalks for later. I get the eggs and flour into the cake mix as quickly as possible, and turn to my baking tin.
Actually, I turn to the cupboard, attempting to return a mixing bowl. Calamity ensues, and one of my lovely little Pyrex bowls crashes to the floor, erupting spectacularly. I briefly wonder if the ghost of Noel Fielding is haunting my kitchen, causing chaos. If anyone could, he would.
Luckily, the shattered glass hasn’t reached the kitchen counters, so shards swept to the side, I can finally grease my bundt tin. (Say no more, squire.) A tiny sprinkle of flour over the buttered tin, the cake mix gets delicately shoved in, roughly spread, and I throw it into the oven and hope for the best. I have an hour left on the timer, and 40 minutes of that will be baking time. This is fine, everything’s fine.
Glass swept up, and the first mountain of washing up tackled, I turn to the crystallised decorations and mentally call Prue Leith a number of appalling names. I hate making these little bastards, I don’t care how pretty they are. The proper way to crystallise lemon peel involves simmering it in water and sugar before drying it out. I can’t be bothered and don’t have the time. I don’t think the contestants in the tent had the time either. Instead, I go for the incredibly dull egg white and sugar faff. I mentally forgive Prue slightly, as doing these now means I have a spare egg yolk in the fridge. Tragically, I’ll now have to make a hollandaise sauce to go in a filthy breakfast sandwich tomorrow. It’s a hard life.
Without a snazzy proving drawer, I shove my sugar coated lemon and thyme in the top half of my oven and hope they do…something. The syrup, at least, is easy. The juice of those zested lemons goes into a saucepan with an equal amount of sugar and those saved thyme stalks. (Always save your herb stalks! They’re full of flavour! Put them in a stock and feel virtuous about avoiding kitchen waste!) I sternly instruct the syrup not to boil over.
Finally, a bit more lemon juice and some icing sugar get whisked together for that final icing. It’s slightly too thick so I add some water. Now it’s slightly too thin so I add some icing sugar. This goes on until I realise life is short and I resent putting icing on the cake anyway, so I give up. It will do.
The resentment is probably unfair - I just don’t think the cake needs icing and crystallised nonsense. These are the most irritating parts of the technical challenges - the extra details that add very little to the bake, but give contestants something to faff about with on screen. Personally, I’d rather see the contestants have to clean up after themselves - it would be more a more realistic depiction of a home bakers experience. It’s entirely possible I just really hate doing the washing up.
Accoutrements assembled and the cake still has fifteen minutes in the oven. I have nothing to do. I do, however, have some odd bits of lemon and some gin. I make a strong G&T and contemplate my life choices. The kitchen’s starting to smell like cake and therefore I find them acceptable.
Finally, the cake is done, and I have 20 minutes left until the end of the challenge. In places, it looks a little overdone, which I blame entirely on my cursed, fucky oven. I quickly sacrifice a quick goat to calm down the Noel Fielding poltergeist and miraculously manage to turn my cake out onto a cooling rack in one piece.
My crystallised decorations are looking limp and sad, so I throw them into the cooling oven in the hope that they’ll do what they’re told before I start dousing the cake in syrup. I’m slow and methodical at this, repeatedly brushing the “drizzle” part of the cake over every available nook and cranny. Once again, my mind wanders. Honestly, for a meditation exercise, I highly recommend making this cake. Possibly not in a time crunch though, because suddenly there are three minutes left. I transfer the cake to a plate. I haphazardly spoon on the icing and it looks…well, it’s white icing. It looks.
With less than a minute, I carefully (not carefully) place on the prettiest bits of crystallised decoration. With five seconds on the timer, I step back. It’s the best I could have done. I’m at peace with my lemon & thyme drizzle cake.
The Judging
This week, my judge is biased. (Well, technically he’s biased every week but he really likes lemon cake.)
His thoughts: “That’s good cake.” (No “fucking” this week - am I off my game or is he getting politer?)
Appearance: 10/10
Flavour: 10/10
I am wondering, slightly, if he’s giving me tens after I put the fear into him on pastry week. No matter, I’ll accept them regardless. I ask if the slightly burnt edge bothers him, but he tells me “the crusty edge won me over.” It’s the most romantic thing a man’s ever said to me.
My thoughts:
Appearance: 8/10. I’m willing to admit that it’s almost burnt, and the icing still…looks.
Flavour: 10/10. It’s lemony, the thyme’s all over it and it tastes exactly like my go-to lemon & thyme cake always does - excellent. (I’m trying out self esteem this week. I think it works.)
Bake Off’s getting better after a couple of frustrating weeks - this felt like a fair challenge. It’s doable in the thyme frame (I’m sorry, I had to), it’s skills a baker should know. My main criticism is, honestly, that it’s just a bit too basic.
I’ve got a feeling that next week - dessert week - I’ll be eating my words.
