The Great Purple Alpha-Bake | Almond & Orange cake

So the Alpha-Bake started, but i've been so busy the past 2 weeks I just haven't had a chance to upload photos and post... So better late then never, here it is ;-)

Almond & Orange cake

Prep: 2hrs 15mins / Cooking: 45mins

For some reason I came in off the street took my coat off, washed my hands and started baking. Sounds perfectly feasible until I tell you I still hand on my brand new boots, scarf and sunglasses… Excited?? Possibly. Honing my stylish chef personality?? Obviously, but also constantly losing focus and just forgot to remove them.

After spending the past few weeks buying all the baking utensils I thought I’d need (including mini silicone cupcake cases, which are infact the work of evil fairy bakers) I found myself caught short with no greaseproof paper or apron!! Oh well, new boots and sunglasses totally made up for it.

I put my oranges (which needed to be simmered for 2 hours) on the stove (is it still called a stove?) and took mini-me to ballet. That was the hardest part. When I came back I put all the ingredients in the food processor, blitzed it and put it in an oven proof bowl in the oven. Oven proof bowl and not cake tin as of course I had no greaseproof paper!

The cake took 45 minutes to cook, but unlike normal cakes the clean knife test was no good as this cake contained 6 eggs and no flour so the consistency would be slightly different. It smelt delicious coming out of the oven and looked quite nice too, I had my fingers crossed that it would come out of the bowl as I’d buttered and floured it within an inch of it’s life as i'd overlooked the fact that greaseproof paper was quite important to the whole baking process. It slipped out like a breeze and stayed in one piece. Looks good, smells good, feels kinda sticky-ish, more pudding like then cake-like, but I figure that by the time it cools it'll be more cake-y (are these actual words?)

So it cools and before I gather everyone for the tasting I cut myself a piece, and am immediately disappointed. The texture is weird, kinda grainy, but also still kinda wet. Initially i'm not sure that I don't totally like it. It isn't very orangey or sweet or anything really, it's kinda 'blah'. Neither here nor there. I could take it, but much more easily I could leave it (I don't say this about cake often). It's weirdly damp, which is probably the main reason I don't like it. I check the recipe to make sure I baked it for the right time, yep 45 minutes. Nowhere in the recipe description does it mention it being wet and pudding-like. The word cake is in the title, this is not cake!!

So I decide (in all of my day old baking wisdom) that the only sensible thing to do is put it back in the oven "for a bit" like a twice baked souffle type thing. Maybe that will make it better... It didn't... It was awful... It was binned.

So "A" in The Great Purple Alpha-Bake is a huge fail!! There is room to grow, i'm only just beginning.

This week it's Banoffee pie, one of my favourites. If I mess it up i'm quitting - lol

Let them eat CAKE!!!

I haven't blogged for a while as I was ill and then really busy playing catch up at work, but i'm back and i'm inspired...

While I was "under the weather" I spent the whole time on the sofa watching nowt but food programmes. From Barefoot Contessa to The Great British Dish. Come Dine with Me to Masterchef. Nigella Bites to The Great British Bakeoff. Ace of Cakes to James Martin. Iron Chef to Heston Blumenthal. If it was on I watched it. And thought about all the food that I couldn't eat because I was ill!

I was told about a book which was recently made into a film called "Julie and Julia", I have the book and the film but have neither read nor watched either as I haven't had time. I know the story and it has inspired my latest "hobby" I guess we could call it (like I don't have enough to do). The basis of the story is that Julie makes every recipe from Julia Childs cookbook i think it takes about a year.

So i've come up with my own "Purple Version". Once a week I will be baking a recipe for every letter of the alphabet using a variety of different chef's. It should take 26 weeks, but we'll have to take 'life' into account so some weeks it may not be possible. I shall photograph and blog every attempt, regardless of how fabulous it may or may not be.

Sound interesting?? Maybe i'm just using it as a way to feed my incessant need to eat cake and also possibly put on the weight everyone says i'm lacking. Either way i'm hoping i'll enjoy it and hone a new talent, whilst of course indulging in some cake eating which is of course my ultimate life goal :-)

In my next post i'll publish an alphabetical list of the desserts i'll be making over the next 26 or so weeks...