GBBO Challenge Final Week: Chetna's Masala Chai Baklava

Well, I'm having a "crackin'" day today: I was featured with no less than three recipes/pictures on the ELLE Food Netherlands website!! I can tell you, when I saw traffic coming from that site, my heart skipped a beat. To me, this is a pretty big deal! I danced around the room a bit, hypered, highfived my mom and took a screenshot before it will eventually come down from the FRONTPAGE! Simply over the moon. The recipes featured are Gevulde Koeken, Southern Dutch Apple Pie and Broccoli and Gouda Cheese Tart. Alright, forgive this slight happy-rant, but I couldn't help but share this with you. Now on to what this post should actually be about: the crispy, sugary, sticky yumminess that is baklava.

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GBBO Challenge Week 7: Kouign Amann

This week on the GBBO: a technical challenge which no-one knew of - such fun! In fact, the same thing happened on the Dutch Bake Off this week, but everyone there failed miserably there. That strengthened my belief that British Bake Off contestants are just the best, as they did a whole lot better considering. 

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GBBO Challenge Week 5: Classic Vanilla Custard Tart

This is probably the first time that I have genuinely felt like a GBBO contestant. I set out to make a simple custard tart - the first time I had ever attempted one. Tart dough made - so far so good, I had done this many times. Rolling out the dough proved a little difficult, as the fat content of this dough was quite high. 

The first cracks started to appear in my confidence, as well as in the crust as I was lifting it into the tart tin. As I placed the tart shell in the oven, I told it to behave well, and not dare shrink on me. Of course, I had an disobedient tart shell and it decided to shrink on me anyway. As I saw the crust creeping down the sides of the tin, I felt this could never work out. 

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GBBO Challenge Week 4: What Puds?! 7 of the Best Molten Lava Cakes

Source: @BritishBakeOff on Twitter

This week, I felt a little bit like Norman does pretty much every week: confused and wanting to go back to baking roots. I had never heard of a self-saucing pud and baked alaskas are, to me, somewhat of a fuss (I don't say that too often..). I wanted to have a go at Kate's chocolate puds with salted caramel filling and vanilla whipped cream, but I had a case of Murphy's Law, not having time to bake them before (darn thesis!) being out of eggs, not being able to go to the shops and not having the right equipment (but honestly, are dariole molds worth investing in? I don't know). So this week no recipe, but rather a nice list of yummy looking self saucing puds (a.k.a. molten lava cakes) to get inspired. Warning: chocolate is involved, in a big way! I think most of what could have been said about last week's episode has been said already - and then again - on (social) media so I will just keep to the list this time!

10 of the Best Molten Lava Cakes

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GBBO Challenge Week 3: Party Pinwheel Bread with Bell Pepper Pesto

Bread week! My favorite week on GBBO, together with pastry. Bread week has a knack of bringing out the best ánd the worst in bakers. And let's not forget that the winner of bread week has quite a big chance of making it to the final (season 1 through 3 saw the winner of bread week winning the whole thing, while Ruby made it to the final last year). Luís has been on my final three list since last week, I'd say he's now statistically a sure thing! But it's Richard whom I have based this week's (showstopper) bake on. I loved his idea of a pinwheel bread, which I later found out is a "kalács" in Hungary. But a party pesto pinwheel bread just alliterates way better, so I stuck with that. I adapted Richard's recipe as I thought his bread was a little too big to be eaten by my four-headed family, and added a bit more liquid. The result is a super tasty bread which will do well on any party or get-together! Tear and share taken to a new level!

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GBBO Challenge Week 1: Mary's Cherry Cake

I'm aware I'm quite late with this.. The second episode of the Great British Bake Off (GBBO) is pretty much about to air and here I am with a post about the first episode! I watched the first episode at my friend's house after a baking marathon for the competition I told ya'll about. I was travelling, and since my parents are on holiday I haven't had many eaters for my baking. Anyway, I want to do a challenge for each GBBO episode, and I thought I might as well start with Mary's lovely cherry cake. You can expect a GBBO themed post every week from now on out! 

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Bagels with Poppy and Sesame Seeds

Are we all still doing okay? Don't worry, this is not an existential question, I'm just wondering whether you're all still keeping your cool in these days of food frenzy! I'm quite alright myself, even though I have to bake 4 cakes, loads of bread and cook a three course dinner. I'm planning ahead and freezing whatever I can. I've already baked a carrot cake, banana bread and of course these bagels! 

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