If any of you just happened to be wondering what I've been up to today then here it is! I made a battenburg cake.
Of course, it didn't take me all day. I've been up to other stuff too like guitar lessons and cycling.
Thank you very much to my aunt who gave me the recipe for this. It came out really well as you can see.
I did have a few hiccups though and one rather blonde moment! For some reason the cake just wouldn't cook so I ended up having to whack up the heat. The cake was in for a total of 40 minutes as oppose to the suggested 25-30 mins. Don't know what happened there but eventually it cooked.
I wanted to make my own marzipan too but the ingredients were so expensive for that. I worked out that I would need to buy £5 worth of almonds! 5 quid for a few bags of nuts???!!!! I love almonds but still! For that reason, I opted for the ready made stuff!My blonde moment in the baking process came at the end when I had to heat up the jam. Ok then, I thought. So on went a saucepan on the hob and I plopped a spoonful of jam in. BIG mistake! The noise and smoke that came from this pan was insane. I'm really surprised it didn't set of the smoke alarm.
I quickly got the jam out and slowly started to pour water in as it was spitting out little bits of boiling sugar everywhere.
Not clever!
If saucepans were to convey emotions, this one would be very angry indeed!
But it all worked out and I've got a big thumbs up from people who have got their chops around a bit.
8 comments:
Hoorah! Another Mighty Battenburg!
I look forward to creative colour combinations in the future.
definitely! the colour combinations are endless aren't they! Not only that but you can have different flavours too.
I wanted to do the original for the first time though. Is that what you did?
Yes.
And yours came out more mathematically correct than mine!
I don't think it's worth making your own marzipan for this one. My experience of making marzipan is tha it comes out pretty soft and you need a good hard shell for a battenburg, although mine went very sticky over the week it was kept in the cake tin.
Have you been watching the Great British Bake Off?
yes I have actually. I hadn't seen the final or anything and watching the bbc breakfast programme this morning, they went and told me who had won.
After watching the cake one with all the do's and don'ts of making the perfect sponge, I felt really aware of what my sponge mix was doing yesterday!
What do you think of the programme?
I liked the programme but it really irritated at times. My main irritant was all the prissiness about "Rules". Since when did it matter that scones rise unevenly or have glaze running down them - that is part of their charm. Ditto all that obsessing over the even crumb of the bread, the "overworked" pastry, and last night, the apparent rule (news to me) that you don't have savoury tarts in afternoon tea, nor indeed cupcakes.
That bloke judge, for this all came from him, drove me bonkers. I rather got the impression he was driving the rest of them bonkers as well...
I just think all that pernicketiness will put people off baking rather than encourage them. OK so you have to get a few things right, but some of that stuff was just unecessary.
I agree that the man took his judging of those scones way too seriously!
I don't really think baking should be judged like this. Baking is an innocent pastime to just enjoy personally.
I had a friend round yesterday and we had a slice of battenburg with a scoop of 'frozen smoothie' Ellen and I made the other day. It went really well together.
Has your batternburg gone yet???
Yes it's finally gone. I am under orders not to make another one for a while!
The things I want to try next are eclairs (which I have never done) and those posh little french macarons...
They're not batternburg fans then!My battenburg is still to be eaten but I bet that'll change when dad's home tonight. He's been away all week so will be pretty peckish. Knowing him he'll have it with custard!
It's funny you should say that about wanting to make those eclairs and macarons. I was saying to Ellen about how I'd love to try making pretty things like that.
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