Work are doing a charity bake off that I've been roped into. Can't really complain - for every entry work are donating £50 to cancer research.
I'm a decent cook and I'm certainly no stranger to baking but I've run into a bit of a problem. I'd already decided what to make and did a test run today. If you're a fan of the bake off you might remember a 20 layer, grilled cake from the 2014 series - a schichttorte.
So, I made this today
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5256888/schichttorte.jpgIt looks pretty good in my opinion and it tastes pretty good too but it has a really off putting, rubbery texture. A quick look online suggests that it's meant to be like that but that doesn't really help my chances of winning.
So, I'm looking for something else to make that's reasonably impressive and doesn't feel like you're chewing on cold pancakes. Any ideas?
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You could make a guitar body out of that chopping board.
http://pajamabaker.com/2012/09/09/lemon-griestorte/
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Front runners at the moment are the griestorte and the chocolate torte. Would love to do the guitar cake idea but it's meant to be anonymous and I think it would give me away.
I'm wondering if to go savoury and do a fancy loaf. Maybe something like this
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nQqDoVupfXk/VKNFPOoPQVI/AAAAAAAAIIA/YIRMi0Qx248/s1600/DSC_0121.JPG
The griestorte looks quite pretty and tastes fantastic.
The winner is usually something relatively easy but with mass appeal. Black forest cupcakes won the last one even though the actual cake was dry!!!
Go for something easy and visually impressive
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I'm leaning towards the bread. I know bread pretty well but the problem is finding the time to make a loaf that's still fresh in time for the bake off. It's on Thursday and we're rehearsing on Wednesday night. I think I need to work out how early I'd need to get up on Thursday morning to make a loaf and get it into work for 9am.
http://i59.tinypic.com/2rnx4iq.jpg
At the moment I've got a test loaf proving - it's a new recipe to me and some of the quantities looked off so I've tweaked it (mainly adding more liquid) and the dough still felt tight while kneading it but I guess time will tell.
I did look at a red velvet cake. I think I've already got red gel dye in from making a spiderman cake for my neice's birthday.
I'll see how this loaf turns out - the initial proving didn't give much of rise in the dough though. Maybe my yeast is past it's best.