Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Let's Get Technical Great British Bake Off 2016 - Pastry week


Week 5 saw a Mary Berry technical of a bakewell tart in 2 and a half hours.





















Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Let's Get Technical Great British Bake Off 2016 - Batter week

Week 4 in the (not) tent saw a Great British Bake Off first with Batter week.

Social media was a buzz with home bakers boycotting this week's challenge due to the simplicity of batter. I actually found this the most challenging of all the technical challenges in the history of bake off. 

There is a try skill in achieving the perfect pancake especially mastering the right cooking temperature. 

You can see from my 12 lacy pancakes it is not a skill I have mastered and if I were in the real tent I would have been served a Mel and Sue sandwich. (eliminated for those not as familiar with bake off)

I had seen lacy pancakes previously in the excellent book Great British Bakes by Mary-Anne Boermans (GBBO 2011) and will have to study up to improve my skills. If you have the chance to check out Mary-Anne's book I highly recommend it as all the recipes I have tried have worked perfectly. (not sponsored)

If you'd like to give lacy pancakes a try here is the recipe





















Let's Get Technical Great British Bake Off 2016 - Bread week


For week three our lone baker had to tackle bread week without an oven! What is this madness??

The technical challenge looked to Germany and the "feed an army" steamy bun, the Dampfnudeln.
Served with plum sauce and custard  the dampfnudel is a soft bun steamed in milk.

While I am almost certain I will never make a dampfnudel again I'm sure the plum sauce will be a repeat guest star. Delicious! 























If you are keen to give them a go yourself here is the recipe

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Let's Get Technical Great British Bake Off 2016 - Biscuit week



Week two in the tent saw our lone baker being called to the dance floor for a Viennese whirl.

While there was the risk of some dodgy piping this bake appeared to go off without a hitch and is something I'd happily make again.






















Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Let's Get Technical Great British Bake Off 2016 - Cake week


It's that magical time of the year between Eurovision and Christmas when the world stops to watch some people bake a cake in a tent. I wonder if that is how they first pitched the show to the network?

Yes the Great British Bake Off is back which means one thing.....my Sundays are filled with #Lets_get_technical. 

Like the previous 2 years of Bake Off I will again attempt all the technical challenges in real time on social media in the allotted time limit.

This could be described as a display of madness but I like the discipline of a prescribed bake and mostly being able to achieve a fairly decent result. 

The first technical challenge for this series was to make 12 individual jaffa cakes in 2 hours.....simples?

I think Mel and Sue have nothing to fear..... 





I remember the first time I saw UK jelly it was Reading 2008, it comes in a solid block a bit like a gummy bear. 
















The judges were right about this bake being deceptively simple and to be honest you could complete this challenge in about 60 minutes. The devil is in the detail and the real skill is to complete the 3 simple elements perfectly. I'm going to practice more with the chocolate. 

I enjoyed this first challenge and have made it again since sunday. Chocolate and orange are not my favourite flavour combo but I can see myself using the base recipe again and mixing up the flavours.


New series new photo! 



Looking forward to biscuit week now!
The hashtag to follow is #lets_get_technical on instagram, facebook and twitter Sunday afternoons from 3pm AEST