Meet the Blogger and GBBO Contestant: Jason White

Those of you who were following The Great British Bake Off may now feel a food-inspiration gap in your week nights now that the series has come to an end. Hopefully today’s post will provide a little entertainment that helps to fill that gap. Today, I’m interviewing the Great British Bake Off contestant, Jason White. I really admired Jason’s enthusiasm and creativity on the show. Thanks to Jason’s blog, I can continue to admire, and be inspired by, his creativity – why not pop over there (after reading this interview) and have a little look at it yourself? And you can also find Jason on Twitter, where he tweets as @officialchefjae.

Although the Great British Bake Off* has disappeared not only from television but also from BBC iPlayer, there’s a whole new series next year to look forward to. If you’re interested, head over to the BBC’s The Great British Bake Off website, where there is a section with further details. If you managed to catch this year’s series, which of Jason’s bakes was your favourite and what did you like most about the show? Leave a comment below this post and let me know!

Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, Jason, and welcome to my little blog!

We’ll start with some quick-fire questions...

Cheese or chocolate?

Chocolate!

Hand mixer or standing mixer?

Hand mixer!

Savoury pie or sweet tart?

Sweet tart!

Steak or cake?

Cake!

Engineering or baking ... you don’t have to answer that one if you don’t want to!

Hehe it's actually baking!

Congratulations on getting on to the Great British Bake Off this year. You always seemed pretty cheerful and upbeat even when the pressure was on. What was it like and how has it changed you as a baker?

Why thank you. It was great fun in that tent, I love baking so I was always happy to be in there. The pressure didn't really get to me but when it did I'd just try and laugh it off! Being in the Bake Off has changed me massively as a baker, I'm challenging myself a lot more and also baking my way through the 'classics' to improve my skills set from the foundations up to the... umm... penthouse? Lol

Where did you find inspiration for your recipes on the Great British Bake Off?

I am inspired by all sorts and for me once we had the brief it was just trying to come up ideas would (hopefully) be different from the rest and have my name all over them!

What was your favourite/best bake on the show?

My favourite bake is and always will be my macaroon mocktails! [Editor’s note – if you’re lucky enough to own the Bake Off book that accompanies the TV series, Jason’s macaroon recipe can be found on page 84].

You have a great blog with some very tasty treats on it. How did you get into blogging, and what is your favourite recipe on your blog?

Thanks again. It was after looking at many other blogs and thinking it would be an excuse for me to be more creative with my baking and put it out there for others to see (and judge!). My favourite recipe is my Honeycomb Layer Cake - I made it for my sister's birthday and she loved it!

Apart from your own (!), which blog (or blogs) are your favourite or particularly inspire you?

Hehe Donal Skehan's blog/site http://www.donalskehan.com/was a huge inspiration to start my own as he has some great ideas - and he's a young guy like me too!

And finally, what advice would you give an aspiring blogger?

Go for it! Come up with an idea that you want to theme your recipes around, brainstorm it and make it happen!

* Disclaimer: I’ve chosen to interview Jason White, and to talk about The Great British Bake Off, because I love the programme. I’ve not received any kind of compensation for this interview. All of Jason’s answers are copyright to him, and you will need to contact him if you want to replicate them in any way.

Meet the Blogger and GBBO Contestant: Yasmin Limbert

Well, Great British Bake Off may have left the screens of British televisions, but I’m here to provide a little fragrance of summer remembrances with a blog post that continues the series of interviews with some of the Great British Bake Off contestants. And today I’m very pleased to welcome Yasmin Limbert to my little blog. I really enjoyed watched Yasmin on the show and felt that I really identified with her style of baking. And not only does Yasmin bake delicious goodies but she also has a blog where her readers are tempted by posts on tasty treats (illustrated in lovely photos), and can find blog posts on other things too. Yasmin can also be found on Twitter, where she tweets as @YasminLimbert.

Unfortunately, the Great British Bake Off* has not only disappeared from television but also from BBC iPlayer. However, I have noticed that the BBC’s The Great British Bake Off website has a section looking for participants in next year’s show. If you managed to catch this year’s series, which of Yasmin’s bakes was your favourite and what did you like most about the show? Leave a comment below this post and let me know!

Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, Yasmin, and welcome to my little blog!

We’ll start with some quick-fire questions...

Sweet or savoury?

Savoury but I'm disappointed if I go out and don't get a pudding.

Marshmallows or jelly sweets?

Jelly sweets, in particular cherry's

Cupcake or cake?

Cake - Black forest Gateaux a bit retro but a classic

Baking in a competition or baking at home?

Baking at home definitely

Congratulations on getting on to the Great British Bake Off this year. You’ve come up with some really tasty looking dishes. What was it like and how has it changed you as a baker?

The Bake Off has given me a bit more confidence.  I always thought I good following a recipe but the competition has made me develop my own recipes and combinations so I feel a more accomplished cook now.

Where did you find inspiration for your recipes on the Great British Bake Off?

A few of the recipes were things a bake regularly for friends and my family.  Others came from flavours that I like and wanted to use.  It was difficult coming up with flavours that would be a bit different but not too daring that the judges would just reject for being weird.

What is your best bake that didn’t get any airtime?

There are a few recipes I was disappointed that didn't get air time in the first half of the series.  My hazelnut and blueberry tarts were a big success with the judges and my 3 tired passion cake with a cascade of flowers.

You have a great blog. How did you get into blogging, and what is your favourite recipe on your blog?

I was encouraged to blog by some of the other contestants on the show, my husband was also quite enthusiastic and helped me put it together.  My favourite recipe is always the last on.

Your blog has beautiful photos – do you take them yourself and how do you make them look so good?

I'm very lucky that my husband is a photographer so he takes the pictures, I just set them up and tell him what I want.

Apart from your own (!), which blog (or blogs) are your favourite or particularly inspire you?

I think all the contestants have really good blogs and everyone's is different but Mary-Anne's particularly stands out for me, she always has something so original in there, things I've never heard of and would never think of myself.  I'm always inspired by her recipes and her writing is hilarious.

And finally, in one sentence, what advice would you give an aspiring blogger?

Do what you want to do, not what you think people want and don't be scared to go off piste now and then.

* Disclaimer: I’ve chosen to interview Yasmin Limbert, and to talk about The Great British Bake Off, because I love the programme. I’ve not received any kind of compensation for this interview. All of Yasmin’s answers are copyright to her, and you will need to contact her if you want to replicate them in any way.

Zebra Meringues

Well, it appears that whilst having a job means that there is money to pay for baking supplies, it unfortunately also means that I’ve not got much time to bake, and even less time to turn that baking into blog posts. And all that is a round about way of apologising for my lack of posting recently. Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, in the hopes of coming up with material for at least a couple of blog posts and these meringues were one of the things I made. I last made them just over a month ago but unfortunately whilst taking photos my digital SLR camera decided to break (no fault of my own – something has happened to the shutter), rendering me nice-camera-less and having to make do with a digital point and shoot. So apologies in advance for the quality of the photos in this post. I’m looking forward to the time in the hopefully not-too-distant-future when J will hopefully look at (and fix) the nice camera shutter.

I was going to call these coconut meringues, but when I finished decorating them with chocolate I realised that there was only one suitable name … and so I give to you Zebra Meringues. They are crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle with a smooth chocolate coating. If you prefer them to be more dry and less chewy, leave them in the oven to bake for a bit longer. These ingredients were measured using a 250 ml mug as equal to one cup, and the quantities below make about 35 to 40 meringues, depending on the size.

What you’ll need:

2 egg whites

2/3 cup white sugar

2/3 cup desiccated coconut (the unsweetened one)

Small bar dark chocolate (I used a 50 gram bar)

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 2 (150º C or 300º F).

2. Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until they reach soft peak stage.

3. Beat the sugar into the egg whites, adding one to two tablespoons of sugar and thoroughly incorporating it before adding the next one to two tablespoons.

4. Add the coconut to the egg whites and sugar and gently fold in.

5. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking parchment and pipe or spoon the meringue mixture on the parchment.

6. Turn the oven down to gas mark 1 (140º C or 275º F) right before putting the meringues into the middle of the oven and baking for about 40 minutes until crisp and dry on the outside.

7. Remove the meringues from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

8. When the meringues are fully cool, melt the chocolate and drizzle over the cooked meringues (you may need to wait for the chocolate to cool a little first).

9. Leave the meringues in a cool place for the chocolate to set before eating.

These made me happy this week…

Sloe Gin

For the past few years round about this time of year, J and I have discussed trying our hand at making sloe gin, usually prompted by seeing an abundantly-laden bush whilst out walking. Last weekend, we began such a discussion once again, but in contrast to previous years, we started picking some sloes from the bush that triggered the discussion, which we duly carried home. Every day last week, I planned to go back to the same bushes, which are not far from our house, to pick enough to make some sloe gin, but never got round to doing so. But today, we did make it and came home with loads of sloes. This evening, we put together our sloes, gin and sugar, using the easy recipe/proportions on the great blog, A Trifle Rushed (for the sloe gin post, see here). Our proportions are not as well measured as they are on A Trifle Rushed, and vary from bottle to bottle (just slightly competitively we’ve made a note of who did which bottle), but I thought I’d share what we did here. Closer to Christmas, when we crack them open, I’ll let you know how they taste. Apologies in advance for the pictures – it was evening when I took them and I lost the natural light…

For now, I’m praising God for, and raising my glass for a virtual clink in celebration of a job starting tomorrow!

What you’ll need (for each bottle of sloe gin):

1/3 bottle sloes

1/3 bottle white sugar

1/3 bottle gin

What to do:

1. Go out and pick some juicy looking sloes.

2. Prick each sloe with a cocktail stick.

3. Fill each bottle about a 1/3 of the way full with the pricked sloes (as you can see we interpreted that measurement quite loosely!).

4. Pour about a 1/3 of a bottle of sugar on to the sloes.

5. Fill the bottle to the top with gin (sorry – I didn’t get a picture of this stage…).

6. Swirl it all around to mix together and then leave to one side. You may need to re-fill the bottle slightly as everything settles over the next couple of hours.

7. Shake up the bottle once or twice a week to mix everything together and leave somewhere to mature and become yummy!

Cultivating Quietness

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee way; and “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.” (Isaiah 30:14 ESV).

We live in such an instant, active world, with so much stimulation and challenge for every sense all around us - emails, texting, the internet on one’s phone and one’s computer, music, the radio and TV, cars and trains and buses all filled with people on the move going somewhere, shops and busy streets and shopping centres, work pressures, pressures to be places on time, pressures to be a good friend, a good employee, a good boss, a good parent, a good daughter or son, a good spouse, pressure to wear the latest clothes, to drive a nice car, to live in a good house, to own the latest gadgets, to climb the career ladder, to a be a good citizen, to contribute to those in need, to exercise and eat healthily and so many more things than I can list in one short blog post. None of these things are bad in themselves (and most are actually quite good), but they can feel unceasing.

Which makes me wonder … when was the last time you just let yourself be? When was the last time you allowed quietness to be a part of your day? When was the last time you stopped talking to God and started listening instead?

It’s been a couple of weeks since I handed in my PhD thesis. It was an awesome day. A day of rejoicing and of phoning and texting various people to tell them how happy I was (and that was only in the first half hour after submitting). And then on the following Monday a different kind of reality took over and I moved from being someone who was finishing off a PhD thesis and applying for the odd job that looked good to someone who was spending every day looking for jobs, applying for jobs, sending my CV to recruitment agencies and signing up with recruitment agencies. The few times that I’ve done temp work in the past I’ve got work pretty fast and I went into this post-PhD period thinking this time would be the same. And in many ways it is – it has only been a couple of weeks since I handed in my thesis and I’ve got a few possibilities I’m waiting to hear back about. But I’m very aware of each day that passes without significant progress and that makes time seem to go slowly. A couple of weeks has seemed like a month. Then towards the end of last week I realised that with each slowly-passing day God is teaching me something. It is a lesson in trust, in waiting and in cultivating quietness. I realised that it had been a long time since I’d actually sat down to listen to God without a fixed end-time in mind, rather than just talk and quickly read my Bible because there’s lots to do and I need to get on. Although it is a challenge to sit and be still, to cultivate quietness, and to make time and space to listen to God, it is balm for my soul, it restores and encourages me, and gives me strength to keep going. It reminds me how important it is to cultivate times of quietness in my life - as the verse above says, strength is found “in quietness and trust”.

Triple-Layer Chocolate Celebration Cake

Those of you who read this blog regularly may have noticed that I’ve slacked off a little bit in the past few weeks, and there has been a serious lack of baking and cooking posts. The lack of these posts on the blog reflects a lack of activity in the kitchen, and J has been a fantastic provider of last-minute-I-really-need-to-do-this-so-please-can-you-cook-tonight meals as well as a support in countless other ways, whilst I finished my PhD thesis, which I submitted at the end of last week. God was so good to me throughout my research and provided in countless ways so that things worked out right to the end.

A few weeks ago, whilst in the midst of formatting and editing, I started planning how I might celebrate submitting my thesis in baked form. It didn’t take long before I decided it had to involve chocolate and I really fancied trying a cake with more than two layers (but you know, maybe a bit more normal than nine layers of rainbow cake. A coffee cake with mascarpone icing made by my grandmother quite a while ago convinced me that it had to have mascarpone icing, and well, ganache … ganache is just one of the most awesome, delicious things ever. And so this cake was born in my mind long before it materialised in my hand, and shortly thereafter in my tummy. Unfortunately, this chocolate cake turned out a bit dry – in an earlier version I added half a cup of milk and I’d recommend doing the same if you make this, although I’ve not included it in the instructions below (if you do, beat it into the mixture after mixing in the eggs and then carry on as described with the flour and egg whites). I made this using 9-inch round cake tins. All the cup measurements below were made using a 250 ml mug as equivalent to 1 cup. Apologies for the quality of the method photos – I made this in the evening and the light was not good. Now, all I hope is that it keeps in the fridge until Saturday when I’ll have some calorie-consuming help …

For the cake:

What you’ll need:

2/3 cup margarine or butter

2 cups light brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

3 eggs, separated

2 cups self-raising flour

Pinch salt

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

What to do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5 (190º C or 375º F) and grease the cake tins (I only had two so did them one at a time and washed and re-used one part way through).

2. Cream together the margarine or butter and sugar.

3. Mix in the vanilla essence and then beat in the egg yolks, one at a time. If you want to add milk, add half a cup (not included in the ingredients list) after the eggs and beat in thoroughly.

4. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt into the marg/sugar/egg mixture and fold in. If you don’t add milk in the above step, the mixture will look quite dry, as you can see from the photos – don’t worry about it but do make sure the whole thing is mixed thoroughly (and all looks a bit damp) before moving on to the next step.

5. Beat the egg whites until stiff and then fold thoroughly into the marg/sugar/egg/flour/cocoa powder mixture.

6. Divide the mixture into three and spread (it is more a spreading or coaxing operation than pouring because the batter is quite stiff) in the three prepared cake tins.

7. Bake one at a time in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes or until just baked. When each layer is done, remove it from its tin and leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.

For the mascarpone icing:

What you’ll need:

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

4 tablespoons brown sugar

10 tablespoons cold water

500 gram (or 2 x 250 gram) pack of mascarpone

What to do:

1. Thoroughly mix the cocoa powder and sugar with the cold water until it forms a runny paste/mixture thing.

  

2. Tip the mascarpone into a mixing bowl and add the cocoa powder and sugar mixture.

 

3. Beat together thoroughly with an electric mixer and set aside until needed. The mixture should be spreadable. If it starts to get too runny, put it into the fridge for a few minutes to cool.

For the ganache:

What you’ll need:

200 gram bar milk chocolate

300 ml carton of double cream

What to do:

1. Heat the cream over a low heat in a double boiler or in a heatproof bowl over boiling water. As it is warming up, break up the chocolate into small pieces and then add it to the cream.

2. Stir the cream and chocolate together occasionally until the chocolate has thoroughly melted and been fully incorporated into the cream.

3. Remove the cream from the heat and set aside to cool. I’m not sure exactly how long I put it aside for but it need to get quite cool as if it is too hot it may melt the mascarpone icing during the assembly stage.

To assemble the cake:

1. Put the first layer of the cooled cake on a plate. I put strips of wax paper around the edge of the cake, between the cake and the plate to make tidying it all up later a bit easier, but you don’t have to.

2. Generously spread about half of the mascarpone icing onto the first layer of cake. Add the second layer of cake and then the rest of the mascarpone icing. Top with the final layer of cake.

3. Gently pour the (now fairly cool) ganache over the top of the cake and coax it down the sides if necessary. My ganache was probably still a bit too warm and so melted a bit of the mascarpone icing. I put the plate with the cake on it on more wax paper on a tray, to catch all the run-off of the ganache – it made cleaning up a bit easier!

4. Decorate as desired and then leave in the fridge for at least a couple of hours for the ganache to set before eating. Yum!