The Great British Bake Off started last week! It airs in the UK on Tuesday, and then I have to wait until Friday for the episode to appear on Netflix – which means I have to be very careful about getting on Instagram. I don’t want any spoilers! I don’t realize how much time I spend on Instagram until I can’t…😬
Anyway. Week one was cake week!! Usually, this one is a struggle for me since I have no interest in eating an entire cake and don’t have enough people to share it with, either. Last year I “cheated” and made coffee cake, so this year I decided I’d better do things right.
copacetic (adj): in excellent order; completely satisfactory
I had one requirement for this cake. I had to use the blackberries in the fridge. They were on sale for 99¢, and Tim came home with 10 packages. I had only asked for eight. 🙃 I settled on an Earl Grey and blackberry cake with blackberry cream cheese frosting and got baking!
I had faith in the flavour combo but wasn’t certain the earl grey would come through enough. I only steeped a couple bags in half a cup of milk and didn’t believe it would be strong. But it was! The earl grey actually ended up being the dominant flavour, occasionally interrupted by the tartness of roasted blackberry.
I roasted my blackberries in a nonstick skillet. It was very similar to setting berries to simmer for jam; you just don’t let them go as long. The recipe has you mashing the berries in the pan, but I thought that concept was a bit ill-formed. Metal forks aren’t good for a nonstick. I just transferred to a bowl and got them mashed in that. You use some of the berries for the cake and the leftover juice to flavor the cream cheese icing. I ended up using all the remaining juice for the icing and still thought it could have used a bit more. I’d recommend roasting extra blackberries so you have more to play around with in terms of flavour, and there’s a bonus. If you don’t use all that juice, it’d be lovely over vanilla ice cream. 😋
I baked these into 12 cupcakes and took half to work. Tim and I ate four of the last six that day.😬🙃 I will probably make these the next time I’m in the mood for cake. The flavor is full and unique and the texture is wonderful – light like a cake but holds together like a muffin. I wasn’t afraid to eat these over the floor (or in bed, where we watched the first episode of GGBO).
On to biscuit week!
The recipe for the roasted blackberry and Earl Grey cupcakes can be found here.
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