Hey guys!

So, for the past few weeks I haven’t been able to bake the technical bakes from The Great British Bake Off for various reasons, but when I heard last week’s technical bake I was excited to be able to find all to the ingredients on the supermarket shelves!

The bake was a Tennis Cake from BBC

So, where do I start? As you can see from the pictures, this did not go well. The cake itself was lovely... the mixture was so smooth and such an easy bake, so go Mary Berry! The only thing is I forgot to add the sultanas... in a fruit cake! Who does that?!

Then it went onto the decoration. The marzipan and icing were great, rolled out smoothly, but the piping work was awful! I tried my hardest to get those straight lines of the tennis court but it was impossible. I don’t know how the bakers did it so well! So we have a wobbly tennis court! Haha! Then I piped the net and rackets and they piped perfectly. No problem there.

Next up came the icing to pipe around the outside, which I ran out of icing sugar for. Amateur mistake! So instead I made cute little roses instead.

So... then it came to assembling the cake, and everything just fell apart! L Boo!

Never mind hey! I can laugh about it and that’s what all this is about!

Did you try this recipe? I would love to hear what you think about it

Love,  Ky 

Great British Bake Off: Week 1

Hey guys,

Hope you’re all well?! So living up to my blog post about The Great British Bake Off last week of attempting the technical bakes on my blog, and showing the results good or bad, here we are with week one, and this is definitely bad... great start hey!

So as you may know, the technical bake this week was a walnut cake from Mary Berry. Now the cake itself turned out great! It had a lovely colour, a lovely bounce to it when it came out of the oven and tasted great. (I had a cheeky taste from the bits that came off in the mould!) the walnuts we evenly distributed and didn’t sink too! YAY!

Next I attempted the caramelised walnuts. This is where it all started to go wrong. I had three attempts at the caramel and all three attempts went to pot... each and every time I always crystallised the sugar and there was no sign of it turning to caramel any time soon. But like a trooper, if you don’t succeed try and try again. I did try... and try again, and then I decided to stop because I was close to running out of sugar. Oops.

The butter cream came next, just a plain and simple butter cream, where can you go wrong. It’s a favourite for everyone and makes a great filling which it did!

Then the boiled icing came. Oh dear. It was like de ja vu. It just would not go right. I was standing there whisking this for a good twenty minutes and it was so grainy! It tasted lovely, but you could feel the granules of sugar and it was not enjoyable. So in the end I accepted defeat...

Although the icing tasted great, I feel like it was a lot of effort that wasn’t needed. The cake tastes lovely without it and I feel like it would be overwhelmingly sweet with the icing on too, plus very bad for your teeth! Not only that I feel like this recipe is a lot of trouble for an icing, and an Italian meringue would give the same effect and would be much easier to create. Sorry Mary!

Overall, this week did not go very well. I would defiantly be 12^th place! Oops... better luck next time hey?!

Did you try this recipe out? If you did let me know in the comments, I would love to see anyone else’s opinion of it too!

Unfortunately, as you may know I am going away to Rome next week, and so I am going to miss the Great British Bake Off, which I am quite upset about. This means I would be able to do the next couple of technical bakes for obvious reasons. Sorry! I will make sure I do it one I’m back though I promise!

Anyway until next time!

Love Ky 

Great British Bake Off

Hello everybody,

Photo take from The Great British Bake Off website

So The Great British Bake Off starts this week and my excitement is at an all time high! As this is my first year doing a blog, I thought I would incorporate GBBO into my blog post somehow which gave me the idea to test myself with each technical bake they create, if I have the equipment to do so, with the results being published on my blog... good or bad. I think this will be a good little challenge for me and I would love it if you could join me!

Before I go can we just talk about the advert for a second! I don’t know about you but I love it... it’s so funny and I’m pretty sure I know all the words to it as well now! If you haven’t seen it yet I will leave the video below and you can let me know your thoughts.

See you next time for a technical bake!

Happy baking!

Love, Ky. 

Lemon meringue cheesecake!

Hello lovelies. First off, I am sorry, as I have been very quiet lately. Life has just gotten on top of me, with juggling work, university and family my blog has been neglected. But that is all about to change. I am going to try my hardest to ensure that I post at least once a week, maybe even twice (but don’t hold me to that!).

Anyway, moving on to why you’re really here; the lemon meringue cheesecake.

So I had a few days off work a really wanted to do some baking and so combined two of my favourites, a lemon meringue pie and cheesecake. I chose this because as it’s reaching summer, (I know, it does not feel like it), it’s time to steer away from the warm pie and custard and step into the light and creamy desserts. So what better than a lemon meringue cheesecake!? It’s got a lovely sharp tang to balance the creamy filling of the cheesecake and will want everyone coming back for more!

Biscuit base

1. Crush the digestives using a rolling pin. This is where you can let all your anger out! Alternatively, whizz them in a food processor.

2. Melt the butter in the microwave then mix into the crush digestives.

3. Place at the bottom of your chosen mould and leave to set.

Cheesecake filling

4. Whilst the biscuit base is setting, mix the mascarpone and cream cheese until combined.

5. Mix in the icing sugar, trying not to get it everywhere!

6.  Stir in the juice from two lemons. At this point, taste the mix to see if you want to add more juice.

7. Place this on top of the biscuit base and pop it back into the fridge

Italian meringue

8. Place the sugar and water in a saucepan with a sugar thermometer

9. Leave to boil until it reaches 121 degrees or hard ball

10. Meanwhile whisk the egg white until it form soft peaks. If you’re feeling brave enough test if it is done by turning the bowl upside down over your head. If it doesn’t fall then it’s done, if it does fall, then I’m sorry!

11. When the sugar has boiled, slowly pour it into the egg constantly whisking.

12. When done, place into a piping bag and decorate the top of the cheesecake how you want! Be creative!

13. Optional. Blowtorch to give colour to the meringue.

14. Tuck in!

I hope you enjoy this and re-create it! If you do I would love to see them so leave comment below!

Happy baking! Love, Ky 

Cookies!

Hello everyone! 

I made some cookies this week and thought that I would share the recipe! They are soft and chewy and so delicious! I added all my favourite chocolate instead of chocolate chips and they were so yummy! So here’s the recipe., it makes roughly 10 cookies...

 1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 Degrees Celsius

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. The finished look should be light and fluffy.

3. Slowly mix in the egg

4. Sift in the flour then carefully fold it into the mixture until it is fully incorporated

5. Add in all your favourite chocolate... Trying not to eat them in the process

6. Line a baking tray with baking paper

7. Place equal amounts of the dough on the tray leaving enough space for them to spread.

8. Place in the oven for 10 minutes

9. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. They will be really gooey o make sure you leave them to cool otherwise they will fall apart

10. Eat!

There you go... My first recipe blog post! I had so much fun baking these and would love to see if you recreate them! Leave me comments if you did!

Happy Baking!

Love, Ky