Apparently, Netflix discontinued their free trials. So we bought ourselves a Christmas present. One month of Nextflix – that means we have been able to watch Glass Onion (not as good as Knives Out), Eddie Redmayne’s new movie The Good Nurse (the supporting cast wasn’t super great), 1889 (disappointed in the ending), Rebecca (an updated classic with Lily James & Armie Hammer), and a few other things thrown in.
However, the REAL reason for this present was the ‘22 season of GBBO. 😍 I’d been waiting so long, and it was good to finally see it through.
This year, all the bakers really showed up. They came into the tent with sights on the final and dove into the competition from the off. It was really cool to see them challenge themselves in addition to the tasks Paul and Prue set. There was so much good food in the tent – I don’t think I’d ever wanted to be able to reach through the screen and grab a taste more!
Huge congrats to Syabira for the win! She stunned us all with her flavours – I mean, savoury macarons? and sweetcorn cake? Who does that!? Although Janusz’s crickets seemed a bit out of left field. 😳 Sandro always had a lot going on – maybe too much – but he pulled me in right away with those white roses and had me rooting for him from day one, and that spherical mousse cake!? I was delighted to see him make a success of that! It was also really fun to watch Abdul bloom. Quiet but precise, he was strong throughout, but then really picked up his game in the second half! Really pleased to see him in the final.
As for my final five bakes? Well, it was a mixed bag this time.
Week 5: Dessert Week
Our buy-along for this week was a bit impromptu. On the way back from Plitvice National Park, the bus driver stopped at a roadside restaurant for a 15-minute break. Tim ran inside to go to the bathroom and came back with this “donut” topped with plum jam and icing sugar. 😋
Since I’m abroad, dessert week was the most challenging to do with a minimal amount of ingredients and equipment. Decorated cakes were out, mousse was out, brownies were basic. What was left?
Since Christmas was approaching, I settled on a batch of toffee. Growing up, my aunt and uncle would always send my family a box for the holidays, so I thought it’d be a good nostalgia trip. And it’d be the perfect dessert to share with our landlords since it was nut and egg-free (you can sprinkle chopped nuts on top if you’d like).
However, things didn’t go to plan. I stood at the stove stirring that caramel for almost two hours before it turned amber. Even then, it was gritty. I pulled it off the stove and left it to set anyway, covered it in milk chocolate, and left it in the fridge overnight. It didn’t set hard, and the toffee remained gritty. It had a really good flavour, though! 😅 I ended up scraping the chocolate off and throwing the rest away.
And then I did some Googling to see what went wrong, especially since I have made caramel before with no issues. Likely culprit: uneven heating. Electric stovetops in Europe have a tendency to work like electric heating. When they reach the desired temp, they kick off and begin to cool; once they become too cold, they turn on again. Though American stovetops do this, too, it seems like it happens at a quicker rate here.
experience since I’ve never made them with powdered sugar before! They were pretty tasty.
Positive part of this experience? I learned how to repair separated caramel!
Week 7: Custard Week
This is by far Tim’s favourite week – he’s a glutton for custard! 😆
The buy-along was easy! There’s always gelato in Split. We went to Luka for this one, which is supposedly the best gelato around. Tim got vanilla swirled with a fig jam. Mine was packed with orange peel and a touch of cinnamon. Yum!
My bake-along, however, was nowhere near as delicious or successful. I picked up some day-old bread at Lidl for 79 lira (that’s Croatian cents) and set about making bread pudding. The bread didn’t soak up enough of the custard, even though I left it to set overnight. And then it just didn’t bake. I gave it an extra 30+ minutes, but it reimagined a soggy mess. That one also went in the bin. 😕
Week 8: Pastry Week
It took long enough for this theme to roll around. I bought ahead in Portugal, anticipating this one, but it didn’t show! You can’t go to Portugal without buying pastéis de nata (custard tarts), so I made a point of getting ours at Pastéis de Belém, the place to go. Pastéis de Belém began making custard tarts in 1837 using a recipe from the Jerónimos Monastery. Today, the tarts are still made by hand using traditional methods.
And since we were full up on sweet things, I took this opportunity to make Tim dinner and chose a savoury galette.
I used my favourite shortcrust recipe. Fun fact: a bake is “short” if the weight of the butter is exactly half the weight of flour. The galette was the perfect recipe since we already had most of the ingredients – I think I only had to buy the zucchini. We made this a second time, too!
Week 9: Patisserie Week
Though my heart belongs to bread week, patisserie is the skill I most envy. I believe myself capable, but all these beautiful creations need so much equipment. I can’t finance that!
I picked up another treat from Lidl for this buy-along! These mini dessert domes looked better than they tasted! They were raspberry, mango, and passion fruit “textured desserts” on a biscuit base with a white chocolate dome. Lots of fun (and on sale), so it wasn’t a complete waste.
And then I cheated a bit for the bake-along and grabbed some pre-made puff pastry. With dinner in mind, I chose to make savoury palmiers. I made a few filling adjustments on this one. I couldn’t find any gruyère, so I substituted Emmental (which had a vaguely Swiss taste), used spicy Dijon instead of horseradish (using what we had!), and crisped up some fatty cured pork since the grocery stores were bacon-free (smoked up the kitchen doing this). They tasted wonderful, and I’d definitely make them again – super easy, too!
Week 10: Final Week
I usually pull out all the stops for this one, so it was a challenge to come up with a “responsible” showstopper. 😅
But I splurged a bit and bought this triple chocolate mousse cake from my favourite coffee shop in Split. It was a fun little date with Tim.
Because bread seemed to be the only thing our oven in Split could bake consistently, I focused on creating an indulgent bake with cozy winter flavours. I filled an enriched sweet dough with melted chocolate and chopped pistachios. Tim and I ate half of this as soon as it came out of the oven…
Though I was unable to be as varied or complicated in my bake-along as I have been in the past, this year, I faced new challenges. I was forced to make do with very few ingredients, and I was very pleased with how much variety I could do on a lower budget. I also faced more failures this year than I have in the past. I’d like to blame the oven, but no one is a perfect baker – that’s how GBBO works, after all. Someone must go home. And several times this year, that would have been me. Even though it’s frustrating, that’s okay. I’ve learned more about baking, ingredients, and cooking time, and those are things that’ll only help me get better!
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