Gibby Bakes

The Bake-a-Long continues with Desserts Week, and this week you get two for the price of one! You'll be pleased to hear I'm over the moon with how this week's bakes turned out, so let's not waste any time before getting into it!  For Desserts Week, the bakers were task with preparing a Creme Caramel Signature, an Orange and Ginger Treacle Pudding Technical, and a Meringue Bombe Showstopper to finish.  I really couldn't decide which challenge to to choose this week. I ruled out the showstopper this week, for, as much as I love love love meringue, I've attempted the showstopper three times in a row now, and ingredients are getting expensive! If you've checked out my Instagram lately you'll see that I've been practicing steaming puddings for some time now, so imagine my delight when a steamed treacle pudding technical came up! I knew instantly I had to give this a go. But, not too long ago I also attempted coffee flavoured Creme Caramels, and I was so e

Now, I've already said that my Botanicals Week showstopper was a shocker, and I couldn't just move on from the week without trying to redeem myself! With that in mind, here's a little bit of bonus content!  Enter then this Lemon and Thyme Ring Cake, inspired by the Botanicals Week technical challenge. I had to make a couple of alterations to the recipe though. I didn't have a proper bundt tin, which meant decorating the cake according to the recipe on the Bake Off website just wasn't going to happen. And as ever, my oven remains a thorn in my side, so I had to experiment with the temperature a little bit!  Preparing the cake batter was very simple, by creaming together butter and sugar, then adding self raising flour, baking powder, eggs, lemon zest and juice, and fresh thyme. Once baked, the still warm is brushed with a lemon and thyme syrup to boost the flavour. With the decoration problem I simply decided to go with a "flood" of lemon glace icing, toppi

The Bake-a-long continues! And this week's is an absolute shocker... It's been two months since I last posted! A combination of work, COVID, and Christmas haven't left me with a great deal of time. But I'm back to continue the bake-a-long saga! In what has certainly proved to be one of the more interesting themed weeks of the season, the bakers were tasked with creating Spiced Buns for the Signature, a Lemon and Thyme Bundt Cake Technical, and a Layered Floral Dessert Showstopper, which had to contain a significant baked element.  I've had my eye on the recipe for Hermine's Chocolate and Raspberry Mousse Jelly Cake for quite some time now, which immediately settled which of the three challenges I'd be attempting this week. I didn't anticipate struggling as much as I did, but with the benefit of hindsight it's actually a miracle I got as far as I did. Let's get into it! Now, I was going to face one critical problem. With the exception of the spong