Great British Bake Along: Gâteau Vert

After an initial week that was falsely reassuring suddenly we were back in classic technical challenge territory. A recipe for a dish that no-one has ever heard of? Check. At least one obscure and difficult to source ingredient? Check (pistachio essence I'm looking at you). A messy, multistage recipe that takes hours and assumes ownership of at least three stand mixers (or a washing up minion)? Check. Costs more to make than would ever be reasonable to spend on a cake and makes you realise what a ridiculous budget the programme must have, not least for pistachio nuts alone? Check. A weird flavour combination that makes you doubt if you will even want to eat the end result? Spinach icing, you say? Check.

And so it was, I found myself preparing to make a Gâteau Vert. Apparently it was Claude Monet's favourite birthday cake, though that didn't make me any more enthused. My mum spoke to me on Wednesday, and summed up the general mood when she asked "you're not going to make that cake with the spinach are you?". I urgently acquired pistachio essence (huge kudos here to a website I have never used before called StefChef who shipped it quickly, were competitively priced and had lovely customer service, I recommend them completely for any sudden pistachio essence needs you may have). I armed myself with pistachios, edible flowers, a huge amount of spinach, a bottle of kirsch and a receipt for nearly £30 which The Husband has not been privy to.

Oh this cake, can you tell I wasn't a fan? Everything I owned was green, there was a persistent odour of pistachio and spinach, it took forever and the worst bit of all, I'm not really sure I even liked it. The Husband rejected it outright at the mere mention of spinach, my parents valiantly tried it and said what a lovely flavour it had, and T devoured it but he is not exactly a discerning audience when it comes to cake. I didn't mind it, the flavour was pleasant enough, and there wasn't actually any taste of spinach at all. While that felt like a success of sorts, it also begged the question of why I had bothered to use it at all. I know the point of it was to colour the whole cake naturally, but it did feel slightly excessive to wilt and blitz and puree and squeeze spinach, particularly as since Monet's time we have developed the technology to allow purchase of a wonderful range of purpose-made food colourings.

It wasn't overly difficult, it was just long-winded, and I found myself getting thoroughly disheartened when I kept realising I had to grind yet more pistachios, or start adding spinach water to yet another bowl. There was another episode, much like with the Wagon Wheels, of making syrup while whisking an egg and then rapidly adding one mixture to the other, but that was about as complicated as it got. The marzipan was the nicest part, and overall it looked quite appealing but I fear my genoise was where the fault lay. It seems that I have not learnt from the Mokatines of 2015, and although it appeared entirely successful from the outside, as I sliced through the genoise, much of the middle was quite dense, and again I could see the occasional pocket of flour. I think I remain too tentative when combining the mixture, and I guess the stodgy central layer of genoise is what dried out the gateau and made it less palatable than it might otherwise have been.

The overall effect is quite pleasing visually, assuming you like the colour green on a cake, and I have learnt that edible flowers can make most things look appealing. I also managed to disguise the fact that despite buying a ridiculous amount of pistachio nuts I still managed to miscalculate and somehow ended up with barely any at the end with which to decorate the edge. However, I think it says it all when I admit that, even in a house with a cake-loving toddler and a permanently hungry pregnant woman, after a few days languishing on the counter, some of the leftovers ended up in the bin. And in a move that would make Monet despair, T and I spent an happy afternoon last week making packet mix fairy cakes and sticking edible Peppa Pig decorations on the top, a process which was both more enjoyable and more successful (and didn't result in any leftovers!). If, after all of that you are still keen to try, the recipe is here, and meanwhile I will aim to be more positive for bread week! 

Great British Bake Along: Wagon Wheels

So it is that time again when I, many might say foolishly, attempt to join in with Great British Bake Off and try my hand at the technical challenges from the series. Will I last beyond the first week? Will I ever find a love for baking bread? Will I manage to source the increasingly bizarre ingredients as the challenges progress? All will be revealed in the months ahead, but for now, wagon wheels.

Saturday morning came around, after a week of long shifts, a poorly child, and a general air of chaos and disorder hanging over the house, I obviously decided the best way to spend T's naptime would be making biscuits, jam, marshmallow and attempting to construct wagon wheels. Not my best idea in retrospect, or the atmosphere most conducive to some relaxed baking, but it wasn't a complete disaster.

It was a less than promising start. The Husband commented that he didn't really like wagon wheels, and I was inclined to agree with him. I also forgot lesson number of one Bake Off challenges, which is to be vaguely prepared, have a relatively tidy kitchen and to read the recipe. I didn't realise when I used the egg yolk that I would use the white later in the recipe so wasted it needlessly. I also had a distinct lack of clear work surfaces which made the whole process trickier.

However, the recipe was actually quite manageable. The biscuits were simple and tasted really good, and I was reminded of the simple joy of making jam too. The marshmallow was the most tense aspect, involving whisking egg white while also boiling sugar and adding gelatine. Having used a stand mixer to help I found that the whisks didn't reach deeply enough into the bowl to actually whisk the single egg white so I ended up dashing between the mixer and the pan trying to keep an eye on both. Despite the multi-tasking required the marshmallow, somewhat to my surprise, actually came together well.

With all the components made, next came the assembly, and this is where things went somewhat downhill. Firstly, a coughing fit meant that T needed a snuggle to settle him down back to sleep. Whilst the cuddle was a welcome break I returned back to the kitchen to find the marshmallow had morphed from a soft, glossy, swirl to a springy, solid mass. I then needed to enlist The Husband's help to locate my piping nozzles, which were apparently stored in the exact place that I swore adamantly I had looked at least three times already.

My slightly, ahem, informal approach to cutting the biscuits now became problematic, as they were not consistently round, which made pairing them up to be sandwiched together somewhat akin to a game of Tetris to find the ones that were most closely matched. Then the firmness of the marshmallow made it tricky to pipe, and it was so well set that as I tried to sandwich the biscuits together a few biscuits snapped as the marshmallow put up rather an excessive amount of resistance.

By this stage T was awake, well over two hours had passed, and my focus was on getting finished and trying to rescue the kitchen rather than delicately coating my biscuits. As you can tell from the pictures this part was particularly slapdash, and for some reason the chocolate marbled as it set. But, it did set, and they did look vaguely recognisable, so all in all I'm counting it as a success.

So what was the verdict for technical challenge number one? Well, the recipe was surprisingly easy to follow, with great results for all of the components. They were really tasty, although the dark chocolate made them very rich, and The Husband was not a fan as a result. T, however, adored them, and they got rave reviews from everyone else who tried one. We have now, also, taken to calling them wheelie wagons, after we repeated the phrase from the programme, T has adopted it as his own, and it was far too lovable to even think of correcting him. I did keep thinking how easy it would be to go and buy a packet if I really wanted the option of eating a wagon wheel, but actually the end result seemed to reflect the effort that had gone into it, and it felt like a special treat. I won't be writing out the recipes this time around but if you ever have a hankering to rustle up a homemade wagon wheel, you won't go far wrong giving this recipe a try.

first things first

The first of September.

The first week of Bake Off - did you watch it? I spent some of today valiantly attempting the Wagon Wheel technical challenge (post to follow), and reminded myself of the many reasons why it is better, in this instance, to watch than take part. They were not a complete disaster though, and I even managed to restore the kitchen to a relatively acceptable state, which I think The Husband felt was a particularly noteworthy first.

The first night in recent days where I actually had to sing to T at bedtime. After a few days of illness, including the gut-wrenching call from nursery to say he was not himself and had a temperature, and a trip to the doctor yesterday when he suddenly went downhill, he happily seems to be improving today. The last few evenings he has been asleep almost immediately after his bath, and as he requested one song after another tonight and then lay chatting to himself in the dark, it was nice to feel like he was getting back to his usual self.

The first quiet weekend in a while. We were actually due to be at a friend's daughter's birthday party tomorrow, but thought we should probably not turn up with a poorly, germ-ridden toddler. And so it is, after busy birthday celebrations, and then an intense stretch of shifts at work, including the Bank Holiday weekend, it is nice to have some slower-paced days ahead.

September also brings with it the first days of my third trimester. Time appears to be flying by at an alarming rate, and so I find myself without that usual nostalgic new beginnings feeling (usually accompanied by new stationery) that I usually associate with this time of year. Instead I feel more on a slow countdown to December, enjoying life as we are, and anticipating instead the new beginnings that for now, are just around the corner.

We had a visit from a plasterer this week too, the first forays in to moving T to a "big boy" bedroom. While the co-ordinating of the different jobs, and the clearing out of the room do not fill me with immediate joy, especially as the latter has developed into a clear out of two or three other rooms as well, I am very excited for him to have his first proper childhood room. I can't wait to get on with picking colours, and fabrics, finding homes for his favourite things and creating a space for the lovely little boy he has grown into.

And so September is here, bringing with it the first days of Autumn, the promise of cooler days, cosy evenings, and my favourite part of the year.