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Review:"I bought this book with a view to upping my baking game, inspired by the programme. It is based on the two Channel 4 series (8 & 9). Encouragingly, after intros by Paul and Prue, there are good bios of each baker in series 9. Assemble the cake. Remove one bowl of the icing from the fridge. Using a large, serrated knife, level the sponges, keeping any offcuts for the decoration. Slice each sponge in half horizontally so you have 6 thin sponges. Smear a little of the icing onto the middle of a cake plate or cake stand and top with the first sponge. Review:"A staple of any baker's recipe collection, this book is absolutely fantastic for anyone with even a passing interest in baking as the recipes are simple and very easy to follow. Perfect for someone with a busy life or not much time as almost all the recipes use the one bowl method. Everything I've tried has turned out great and I absolutely swear by the basic traybake recipe - it's amazing! There is a variety of recipes including simple layered cakes, biscuits, cheesecakes and even some more challenging recipes for more adventurous bakers like a Battenburg. Remove the second bowl of icing from the fridge. Using a palette knife, spread half of the icing over the outside of the cake to seal and neaten. Clean the palette knife and smooth off any excess icing to create a smooth even icing layer. In a small bowl, mix the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda together, then add this to the bowl and beat gently until the mixture is smooth.
No GBBO list would be complete without the queen of baking, Mary Berry, herself (we miss you on the TV Mary!) Almost every recipe inside this cookbook takes just ten minutes to prepare, so no matter how busy you are, you'll always have time to make the perfect cake. Here’s the thing. Even if the bakers’ creations are disappointing, Bake Off has never been a place to tear people down. It’s Bake Off! A programme that has been all about celebrating the good rather than dwelling on the bad. If you want harsh critiques, there are plenty of other shows that already cater for you.
Series 2
Spread one fifth of the icing over the first sponge, then top with a second sponge. Spread with another fifth of the icing, then top with a third sponge. Continue layering until you have 5 layers of icing between 6 sponges. Spoon the remaining icing into the piping bag fitted with a medium closed star nozzle and pipe 8 rosettes around the top edge of the cake. But more about the orangutan. “He’s saying: ‘This is my home. Preserve it’,” says Syabira. I don’t pretend to have the baking expertise of judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith, but surely a talking sponge-based ape should stop not just a show but any human doing anything – except standing with their amazed cake hole open. And that is why, in my view, Syabira is a worthy winner.
Using half of the remaining icing, spread a second thin, even layer over the top of the cake and smooth it with a palette knife. This cookbook from the latest series has plenty of easy-to-follow recipes for you to have a go at, including buns, biscuits, pies and pastries. One of our favourites is the raspberry and salted caramel eclairs. Delicious. And yet Bake Off has long been a proving ground for a kinder, more diverse and inclusive Britain. Think of Mary Berry reduced to happy tears after Nadiya Hussain won Bake Off in 2014, despite the nasty Islamophobic jibe the Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell wrote about the diversity of the show’s contestants, including the Bangladeshi-heritage national treasure. Syabira has been an absolute triumph from start to finish. Her baking was consistent. She was the only contestant to win Star Baker three times. In fact, as she has won the whole show (and thus the final episode) I guess that makes her a four-time Star Baker! Although to be fair, British TV cooks have a history of clunking cultural appropriation. Jamie Oliver, for instance, is paella non grata in Spain after his inauthentic recipe.
Series 12
Combine the buttermilk and salt in a jug. Mix one third into the bowl, then add one third of the flour. Continue to mix in the buttermilk and flour alternately until thoroughly combined. Make the filling and icing. Whisk the cream cheese, cream, vanilla, icing sugar, mascarpone and salt in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk until the mixture is smooth and holds stiff peaks. Divide the icing equally between two bowls, then chill it until needed. Crude use of stereotypes … Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas dress in sombreros and ponchos for a widely lambasted Mexican week. Photograph: Triangle News/Channel 4 Towards the end of this final, if you listen really carefully, you can hear a noise that sounds like a fan oven but actually turns out to be Suella Braverman firing up the Kigali-bound jet, to send Sandro, Syabira and Abdul to compete in The Great Rwandan Bake Off. As with the orangutan cake, I’m kidding, but a truth remains. It is everything else that is wrong. Just look at the challenges, which increasingly feel as though they belong in a show called The Great British Cook Off. So far in this series they have had to make pizza, tacos (with steak, refried beans and guacamole fillings) and spring rolls (consisting of a ridiculous 29 ingredients.) The spring rolls this week also required a dipping sauce, whose ingredient quantities weren’t specified by Prue Leith’s instructions – leaving the bakers to freewheel combinations of fish oil, soy sauce and other flavourings. Watching it, you genuinely had to remind yourself: this is a baking competition! For Halloween week, they had to make an edible hanging lantern, which also had to double up as a piñata. Why?
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