GTBBO Week 7: Desserts
The Great Taisty Bytes Bake Off
Welcome to #GTBBO—The Great Taisty Bytes Bake Off! 🍰
With the new season of Bake Off gracing our screens, I thought why not join in on the fun and attempt as many of the weekly challenges as I can? It’ll be a great way to push my baking skills in real time, try new recipes and give me the perfect excuse to create some chaos in the kitchen!
For more info and to see how Week 6: Autumn Week went, check out this post:
Hello, friends and welcome back!
Here we are again, dropping a post on Monday. I need to be careful or I might fall into the habit of being organised and posting early each week!
That said, I don’t feel like I’ve been very organised in the kitchen - as I’ve been under the deathly grip of meringues. After a pretty promising start, my first batch turned out more marshmallowy than light and airy. A happy mistake, nevertheless, if you like marshmallows!
Inspired (or perhaps driven a bit mad) by this outcome, I decided to double down. So, in a moment of sheer madness, I chose to tackle both the signature and technical challenges together, at the same time, in one afternoon. That’s right - two bakes, one kitchen, zero sanity remaining.
Have I descended into complete madness? Quite possibly! Let’s see how I got on…
Week 7: Dessert Week
Signature Challenge: Meringue Nests
Success!! Man did it seem like a long couple of days to get here (if you’ve been following my Notes, you’ll have been on the journey with me), but we got there in the end.
The funny thing is, I seemed to have gotten the hardest part down - making the meringue reach stiff peaks before going in the oven - pretty easily. Whipping those egg whites into submission wasn’t as daunting as I’d first imagined. It was either the completion or the drying time that fudged me over with the first batch.
I was following Prue’s recipe, and the method called for adding warm sugar to the egg whites, which gave it a silky texture. It smelled amazing, too! After putting them in the oven for a good couple of hours they seemed perfect. I turned the oven off, set the door ajar with a wooden spoon, and left them overnight, feeling quite chuffed with myself.
Cut to the next day, and when removing them from the oven, I felt that they had turned really sticky, and the centers were full-on marshmallows. I’m not sure how and I’m not sure why, but marshmallows they were. Not exactly the light and airy meringues I was aiming for.
The same happened with the second batch - however this time, after some research (thank you baking forums!), I learned that you can put them back in the oven to continue… cooking? Drying? I’m not sure what the term is.
So after the initial bake and cool, for roughly 6 hours, the second batch was still a tad sticky too. So I fired up the oven and cooked them for another 45 minutes - this time, they could have practically floated out of the oven!
I left them to cool once again in the oven, slowly, to make sure no cracks appeared due to the drop in temperature. After a good chunk of time, I moved on to make the filling and topping.
A simple chai-spiced cream topped with baked spiced plums. Honestly, I can’t describe how much this was packed with flavours! Sweet and sticky, with the warmth of spice, it worked so well with the meringues. I’m quite seriously considering adding this to the list of desserts to make (again) for Christmas!
Technical Challenge: Steamed Suet Pudding - Spotted Dick
You obviously can’t see me grinning from ear to ear, but trust me - I am. I’m not sure if it’s because of how well this Spotted Dick turned out, or how great the photo looks! Maybe it’s a bit of both.
I’m really surprised at how many people have messaged me asking what it tastes like. Growing up in Lancashire, this was a staple dessert at mealtimes! Go into any gastro pub where I lived and you would, without fail, always see on the menu: Apple Crumble, Spotted Dick and Custard, and Knickerbocker Glory.
As far as technical challenges go, I was really surprised at how simple this one was to make. It was just a case of ‘throw everything into a bowl and mix.’ No complicated steps - just a straightforward ‘bake’.
The hardest part of the whole process was trying to tie the string around the pudding basin tight enough to make sure no water seeped in while it was cooking! I quite easily lost a good 10-15 mins trying to get that sorted.
You can see it does have an ever so slight wonk to it, as it did break apart a bit when it shot out of the basin. But it was cooked perfectly and tastes amazing - thank all the cooking gods.
And so I’m really interested to know: have you tried Spotted Dick before? If so, what do you have it with? For me, it’s custard - every time!
Well, that’s all from me today, friends. Thanks for stopping by and sharing in my little corner of the world. Next week we will be reviewing how 1970s Week has gone. It seems the signature is potentially choux… so that will be interesting!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or just say hi. I love hearing from you!
Until next time,
Mark
The food! The photography!
I haven't tried either of these recipes yet but looking forward to doing so. Wonder where I can find suet in a U.S. grocery store.