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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

Yes yes, I realise this post is super late. The show finished some two and a half weeks ago now and I'm yet to upload my final bake. I have come armed with excuses however. Like;

1. I work in retail and it's Christmas and our store was open till midnight and that really sucked. 2. I got bombarded by family over Christmas and new year. 3. I actually had an occasion for this bake so I pushed the time frame just a teeny, tiny bit.

So the final Challenge. It's finally here. It's been 10 weeks (technically 12 now but meh) and I'm finally done!

For the last ever showstopper of The Great Australian Bake Off 2015 the category was 'Ladies Choice' - so basically make whatever you think would be suitably epic enough to impress the judges.

I hated how open this challenge was, some people would relish the freedom, but I'm more the sort of person that likes to work off a foundation - just tell me what to do and I'll do it, don't make me pick! As you may have surmised by now, there was much dilly dallying regarding what exactly it was that I should make.

Should I make a croquembouche? Those are pretty epic. Should I make a cake? Should I make something savoury? Just to be really different. Maybe I could make a really amazing gingerbread sculpture? Like Gingerbread Hogwarts or something. I could always make lots of little things and present them like a high tea... Wait, I did that already.   Maybe I could do like a combination of all the other challenges!

Seriously, it took me an entire week just to figure out what I was making and even once I'd decided, I still wasn't 100% sure about it.

In the end I went with a cake, which I was going to make my uncle's 40th birthday cake. This cake was a two tiered chocolate hazelnut cake filled with chocolate hazelnut spread *coughnutellacough* and chocolate mousse, iced in the oh so popular semi-naked style with dark chocolate ganache and topped with chocolate shards and coffee macarons filled with Swiss meringue buttercream.  

I had sort of assumed that this bake would be pretty straight forward. I had sort of assumed wrong.

Besides the cake itself; which was delicious, rich and super moist, everything else decided to be a pain in my ass. Let me give you a super quick rundown...

Mousse - wouldn't set Macarons - wouldn't dry. Curse you Summer humidity. Tiers - kept sliding every which way and wouldn't stay neatly stacked. Macarons - wouldn't stay glued to the side of the cake. White chocolate attempt 1 - seized White chocolate attempt 2 - badly tempered (like the heating and cooling of the chocolate, the chocolate itself wasn't in a bad mood or anything). White chocolate attempt 3 - shards kept melting and breaking. White chocolate attempt 4 - screw it I'm using dark chocolate. White chocolate can go fuck itself :)  

After about eight hours of work, the help of some hidden tooth picks, some patience and a lot of frustration, I ended up with a cake I was really quite happy with. Best of all my uncle, and the rest of my family thought it looked and tasted pretty amazing too.  

10 weeks is a long time and I'm equally happy and sad that these challenges are over. I learned a lot and made so many things I never though I would, could, or want to ever again.

I've compiled a bit of a summary of what went into my bakes over the last 10 weeks.

Time: about 75 hours total (including baking, cleaning and photography.) Flour: about 12 kilos. Eggs: about 6 dozen. Butter: about 7-8 kilos. Milk: 10 litres.

Weight gained: about 2 kilos.

To those who read these blogs (yes you quiet lurkers hiding out there, you too), liked my photos or helped me eat all this food, thanks! To my mother/sous chef/kitchen hand/therapist/personal shopper, who I'm pretty sure is the only person who read all 10 of these posts, love you long time and thank you!    

See you next year GABO!

Programming on Baking and Batman will now resume as normal...

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

This is my second to last challenge!

Honestly I'm not sure if I'm excited or a wee bit disappointed. On the one hand I've had so much fun doing these challenges and I've made things I never though I would/could. On the other hand however, I have, on occasion, been insanely stressed out and made things I never, ever want to see again in my life. Strudel pastry I'm looking at you!

The second to last challenge in the 2015 Great Australian Bake Off saw the contestants making high tea. I love high tea - I've had high tea at the gorgeous Queen Victoria building here in Sydney, I've been on a high tea cruise along Sydney harbour and I've had high tea in Piccadilly Circus in London and at the stunning Edinburgh Castle - so needless to say I was looking forward to this week's challenge.

I've made my own high tea before with dainty cucumber sandwiches with their crusts cut off, scones with jam and clotted cream, and sweet little berry tartlets, but I knew this week I'd need to do more than the standard CWA approved high tea.

For this week's challenge I went ahead and made three recipes I've never made before - they don't call it the showstopper challenge for nothin'. The recipes I went with were; a mango mousse with a minty mango salsa, grilled peach and nectarine pavlova nests topped with crunchy homemade honeycomb and, for my 'Australian' dessert I went with an Aussie classic - the Tim Tam slam in cheesecake form.  

It was all relatively smooth sailing with everything this week, and I was making such good time, that I decided to get a little creative - and that's where it all came unstuck...

... My pretty mango mousses needed height I'd decided - So I went ahead and made sugar spirals - an hour later, two burn fingers and a cracked thermometer I'd managed to scrounge up a mere eight sugar spirals that hadn't snapped, shattered or simply stuck out of sheer spite.

To further add insult to injury I decided that my mocha Tim Tam slam cheesecakes needed handles - like proper mugs had. These fiddly little chocolate handles refused to set and then proceeded to break when I attempted to stick them to the sides of my cheesecakes. In the end I just grabbed the whole lot and binned 'em. Problem solved.

Overall though everything worked out well and my family, who were visiting from Canberra this weekend, loved all the treats I'd made them. My super fussy uncle even deemed the little pavlova nests "once of the best desserts [he'd] ever had!" #Winning!

Can't wait to see what chaos the judges will conjure up for the final showstopper, or who'll win this year's Bake Off - my money's on Sian.

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

Pastry is a bastard and I hate it. #justkidding #sortof

So the proverbial bubble burst this week. It didn't explode in a hail of chocolate chips and a cloud of flour or anything, it more just sort of, deflated.

So week 8, pastry week. I'd been stressing about pastry week since I knew about pastry week. And when I stress, I procrastinate.

I post these blogs every Tuesday, right before the next episode of the Great Australian Bake Off airs, normally having baked my showstopper a few days ago. This week though was a little different. I literally finished baking 35 minutes ago. I've not even had time to edit my photos, or have a proper slice of my strudel!

So pastry week. The showstopper challenge this week was strudel and yes, I had to make that stupidly thin pastry from scratch and roll it up with a table cloth and everything.

Flavour-wise I wanted to get a little creative. Sure I could have made a delicious apple strudel or cheese and cherry strudel, but really, how dull, delicious, but dull. So I made a lamington instead.

...What?

Let me explain.

While holidaying in Austria a few years ago I spotted the above t-shirt for sale in a souvenir store in Salzburg. Playing off this I decided to clash cultural culinary classics by making a Lamington Strudel, which I've affectionately called 'From Austria/alia With Love' (I realise that pun is terrible. Its almost so terrible that it's actually good though, right? Right!?). So basically I made a vanilla cream cheese and ricotta filling and wrapped it in layers of chocolate and coconut covered dough.    

My biggest challenge this week, in what was actually one of my least time consuming showstoppers to date, was obviously the dough itself. They say the dough needs to be stretched thin enough to read a newspaper from beneath. With this in mind I successfully stretched my strudel dough into a giant lumpy, hole infested mass that only just contained my filling - go me! Everyone has their strong suits. Strudel pastry aint mine.  

In the end my strudel turned out okay, for a first attempt. It's certainly not the prettiest thing I've ever made, my mother has even likened its appearance to that of a slug's, but it tastes pretty good and didn't explode in the oven, so I'm still counting it as a win.

Week 9 is 'the classics' and the showstopper challenge sees us making a traditional High Tea. It's all sounding suspiciously simple at the moment... We shall have to wait and see.  

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DC Trinity

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Second Dawn of Justice Trailer Reveals New Villain

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Epic Movie Mash-up is Epic

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

So I'd kind of assumed that dessert week was going to be a disaster.

It wasn't!

I have three main reasons why I thought my Botanical Banquet (catchy name, right!? #notsarcasm) was going to be a disaster;

1. I assumed everything would taste like soap. 2. I assumed at least one of the 12 things I made was bound to go wrong - curdled crème pâtissièr, flat macarons, split buttercream, I could go on and on. 3. I assumed everything would taste like soap.  

So week 7, dessert week. The Show stopper challenge: a tiered, themed dessert. We saw lots of themes on the show from a zany carnival concoction to 50 shades of lemon and a tiered tart tower.

For my theme I wanted to go with something a little different. Fruit or chocolate is always delicious, but it's also safe and I'm sure the judges wouldn't appreciate 'safe' at this point in the competition. So instead I went with something I had limited knowledge of - because I like making my life difficult.  

My theme: Flowers. My dessert/s: A rose water and strawberry cake, lavender and lemon éclairs, and orange blossom and pistachio macarons.

My biggest challenge this week came in the form of actually sourcing my flowers. Orange blossom and rose are pretty common flavours in Middle Eastern desserts so these were pretty easy to come by -  like a good Lebanese family we had these shoved in the back of our 'Lebo food cupboard' next to the tahini paste and tinned chickpeas (for homemade hummus, obviously) right between the pomegranate molasses and haleweh.

The lavender proved a little harder to come by however. Our neighbours have lavender growing in their front yard - apparently not all lavender is edible though, so that sort of put a dampener on my late night lavender borrowing (read: taking without asking and with no actual intent to return) mission. As I had only a few days, ordering online was out of the question, and as I have a day job, traipsing about Sydney looking for culinary lavender wasn't really an option either. My culinary lavender dilemma was solved one fine lunch break as I made my way towards the food court. Passing a T2 I thought I'd pop in to see if they had a lavender infused tea, what they actually had was a product called 'Just Lavender,' which is exactly what it says on the box - just dried lavender. Problem solved!

After that it was all surprisingly smooth sailing.

Let me just list for you exactly what went into making this week's show stopper;

- Vanilla cake - Choux pastry - Pistachio macarons - Rose water strawberries - Chantilly cream - Rose Swiss meringue buttercream - Lavender and lemon crème pâtissièr - White chocolate glaze - Orange blossom Swiss meringue buttercream

I think this might be my favourite showstopper yet - seriously, look how freakin' pretty it is!

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Batman Unmasked in New Dawn of Justice Sneak Peek

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

Of all the weeks, I was least looking forward to bread week. Earlier this year I had a run in with a white loaf that refused to stop bursting and tearing at the seams and since then I've not made any bread.

My ambivalence towards bread week grew even more when I discovered that I was to be making stollen for this week's challenge.  I don't really like sweet breads and I don't really like dried fruit and unfortunately stollen is a food comprised of both of those things.

I'm pretty sure the first (and last time) I ate stollen was while perusing the snow capped stalls of the Christkindl Markets in Munich some three years ago where I nicked a free sample, probably because I thought it was cake. So to amp up my enthusiasm for this weeks' bake I decided to combine my baking with my love of travel by making a Black Forest Black Forest stollen.

When I shared my idea, which I thought was inspired by the way, with my mother, she pretty much straight up told me that it was a bit shit. I made it anyway though because isn't not listening to your parents exactly what kids are meant to do? Also I love proving naysayers wrong.  

Despite my aforementioned disdain for sweet breads and dried fruit, I'm alarmed to say that I think this week's bake might actually be my favourite.

My Black Forest stollen filled with glacé cherries, and dark chocolate chips was surprisingly delicious and the sweet, spicy aroma it filled the house with reminded me of the Christmas Markets I'd visited while travelling through Europe. I even made marzipan for the very first time and the little chocolate trees I crafted didn’t crack, snap, melt or split, for which I am eternally grateful. Also, perks of a summer Christmas - my Black Forest stollen had gorgeous fresh cherries!  

All in all the bake went of without a hitch and I’m super pleased with the result. I have to say, I think this sweet bread's stollen my heart (y’all knew that was coming).  

The last few weeks have been relatively painless. I’m starting to get worried...     

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DC Trinity Chocolate Mousse Cakes

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

I survived chocolate week!

Actually, not only did I survive, but I think I'm star baker for chocolate week! I realise that it helps that I'm not competing against anyone, but whatever, let me relish in my glory. 

So way back when in week one, I attempted a Batman cake, which ended up being a starry night cake, so I figured it was time to try again and do the superhero thing justice - Dawn of Justice style.  

Baking & Batman is baking Batman!

For my chocolate week showstopper I decided to make a Justice League Trinity Trio of Chocolate Mousse Cakes - catchy name, right? Yeah not really, it's a work in progress.

Each week I normally spend a few days um-ing and ah-ing over what to do, this week though I new before the episode was even over what I'd do as my showstopper. 

I ended up making three cakes, three mousses, three different coloured joconde sponges and three different coloured décor pastes. Superman was a raspberry vanilla and white chocolate mousse cake. Wonder Woman was a Bounty inspired chocolate coconut cake with a milk chocolate mousse and Batman was a chocolate mocha cake with a dark chocolate mousse. Each mini cake was topped with a chocolate comic-esque exploding word bubble.  

Astonishingly this week was pretty smooth sailing - my first ever attempt at a joconde went well, my mousses all set up and my cakes all behaved. Perhaps the most difficult thing was sorting out the mould for my cakes. Finding loose bottom tins in a smaller size is relatively difficult, so I had to get creative.

On Sunday afternoon I popped into my local Bunnings Warehouse, the following exchange took place with the lady that greets and directs people when they enter the store. I've forgotten her name, but for the sake of this exchange we'll call her Janet, she looked like a Janet.

Janet: "Hi how are you? How can I direct you today?" Me: "Hi, I'm after some pipe." Janet: "Okay, what sort of pipe? Me: "... Plastic pipe?" Janet: "Okay PVC. What are you using it for?"

Now at this point my brain is screaming 'say plumbing stuff' but Janet seemed chatty and I was worried she'd ask about my PVC pipe requiring plumbing related job and god help me I know nothing about plumbing, so what I actually ended up spitting out was; "baking."

Janet: "... Baking!?" Me: "Yeah, I'm making cakes that need to be a certain size and I can't find normal tins..." Janet: "...Won't the pipe melt...?" Me: "Im not baking the cakes in the pipe, just using the pipe to put baked cakes into. Like as a mould thing, so the pipe isn't actually going in the oven or anything."

By this point Janet was well and truly baffled so she just conceded to my pipe requiring needs and directed me to aisle 54 where I found exactly what I needed. I think she was still a little dubious of this 'pipe baking' though as she wished me luck on my way out. Whatever, the pipes did the trick.

I’m now half way! It’s bread week next week and I'm quietly confident... which is rather worrying.

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

The last two weeks have been challenging, but not 'throw everything in the trash, douse kitchen in gasoline and set it on fire' kind of challenging - I feel like the bubble is going to burst reaaaally soon.

Anyway week four brought us pies! In my mind I was going to bake the most beautiful lattice top fruit pie the world had ever seen and let it cool on my windowsill while I cleaned my kitchen wearing a pastel twin set, a poodle skirt, matching kitten heels, and a frilly apron - like something straight out of a 1950s catalogue.

In reality it was pissing rain, so I couldn't even open the windows, and I chose to bake in my pjs and a Batman hoodie. Whatever.

So my pie. On the show we saw a lot of apple pies and berry pies. Now I'm not one to poo poo a really cracking apple pie, but I felt like I just needed to up my hypothetical game a bit this week. Being Lebanese I really wanted to inject a little Middle Eastern flavour into my bake this week, and so, after to-ing and fro-ing for a couple of days I settled on a strawberry, rosewater and pistachio pie.

I've never actually made a double crust pie before, I'm more a crumble kinda gal, so I was really looking forward to it.

Ultimately my showstopper pie swallowed up almost 1.5 kilos of strawberries (thank god they're in season!) and took only about 3 hours, which included making the pastry, slicing 1.5 kilos of strawberries, wrangling my lattice, and baking. I even had time to make a crème anglaise while my pie baked (go me!). Those three hours however didn't include the time required for the pie to cool and the filling to set...

... Now I could pretend that this bake was all smooth sailing, like my whimsical 50s scene from before, but it wasn't. Despite adding flour and corn flour to my fruit filling, the strawberries were apparently hell-bent on staging a protest. My filling, although it tasted amazing, was soggy and the first 'slice' of pie I cut should have gone in a bowl and been called crumble.

In a last ditch effort to save my pie I drained off the excess liquid, cranked the oven to about 220 and chucked the pie back in to dry up the pastry. I am pleased, and still a little shocked, to report that this actually worked, although there was no chance of me removing the entire pie from the baking dish to present - oh well, at least there were no soggy bottoms. 

Next week is chocolate week, which a feeling deep in my gut tells me is going to be hell. If you don't hear from me next week, please tell the coroner it was death by chocolate.

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Strawberry, Rose Water & Pistachio Pie

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The Great Australian Bake Off Challenge

So, stupid, naïve me thought she'd been granted a reprieve this week...

Week three on The Great Australian Bake Off 2015 was choux pastry week. I've made choux before, it's a pretty standard pasty, a few ingredients and not a ton steps or time required - I got this!

I didn't got this.

Like I said, I'd made choux before, so I was relatively confident going into this week's challenge. Thing is, with me deciding to do the showstopper challenge each week, it wasn't just a matter of cranking out a few éclairs, making sure they're all even, and making them look pretty. Noooooo instead I was making a Gateau Saint-Honoré, which besides having eaten once I had very little knowledge of.

Turns out a classic  Saint-Honoré required a few key components; 1. Choux pastry buns 2. Puff pastry base 3. Crème pâtissière 4. Caramel 5. Chantilly cream

I didn't want my  Saint-Honoré to be deemed dull, or safe, or common by the judges (my family, sadly not Maggie Beer and Matt Moran) and as I've a penchant for self destruction, I decided to make my  Saint-Honoré a Pecan Pie  Saint-Honoré (a fusion of continents and cultures you see - also I just really like pecan pie). So to do this I decided to inject my crème pât with caramel and top each choux bun with a caramel pecan brittle to mimic the traditional pecan pie filling.

Easy!

Nope.  

I noticed on the show that they'd been given four hours to complete their Saint-Honoré - mine was not completed in four hours. In fairness to me though I did stop to take 50 photos of each step and also ran out of bowls at one point so I had to do some dishes. My cat, Jewel, who hates me generally speaking, also happened to pick this precise moment to start loving me and demanding my attention - typical cat.     

All in all my Pecan Pie Saint-Honoré took some six hours to finish. My first attempt at rough puff worked quite well, my choux buns puffed and were light, dry, and airy, and I managed to only burn one batch of caramel and just two fingers on my right hand - which still counts as a success. Only my caramel crème pât caused problems, but a little Googling, a little patience, and a little corn flour fixed that right up.

Next week is pie week. I really like pie. I hope to still like pie by the end of my next bake.