The 114th Bake: Summer Pudding Alaska
The last bake and this was one of the scariest looking bakes in the book. So after 13 months and 13 days I have finally baked all the recipes out of the Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking as well as 30 of my own recipes. Exhausting, but fun, fun fun!!! 🙂 I have learnt so much about baking and time management too. And it just shows me that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to. I have loved all the baking, it’s been so much fun, though stressful at times, but well worth the effort. I’m really pleased I did it.
I had already done a Baked Alaska so I knew this was going to be a big bake, but this recipe which was Nancy’s Showstopper, involved making your own ice cream, not one, but three different ice creams!!! Eeeekkk
I needed a bit of time for this one, it took about 24 hours!! No kidding, because each time I made an ice-cream and placed it in the mould I had to leave it to set for 4 hours. It was fun making ice-cream, in fact each ice-cream used different ingredients and a different process. My challenge was that I didn’t have an ice-cream churner but I got away without one, I used my electric beater with the paddle attachment, hey improvisation is a great thing, saved me money and having to acquire another appliance for the kitchen. So I made the forest berry ice cream with frozen mixed berries, caster sugar and cream. Not having any creme de cassis in the house I used Pacharán made from blackthorn berries (close enough to blackcurrant in my book).
berries and sugar 
cream 
and pacharan! 🙂 
combined 
churning in the mixer!!
I whizzed the mixed berries with caster sugar, added cream and Pacharán liqueur, then put it into the mixer to churn until firm. (well, mine didn’t really go firm so to speak, but nothing that the freezer couldn’t fix). So I poured this into the mould and placed another smaller bowl on top to make the hole for the next ice cream. Fun, fun fun. ;/
berry ice cream into the bowl 
making a dome
Time to go to bed and have another crack at the next layer in the morning! For the next ice cream, which was strawberry and mint, I needed an unusual ingredient which I had never bought, a can of
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A sunny afternoon, I had just done some exercise, so thought I would start this recipe, then go for a shower and finish the cake in a leisurely fashion during the afternoon. Didn’t happen. Once I had started the sponge I kind of had to finish it, so it was a quick bake, needless to say I didn’t wait for the sponge to finish cooling down before I rolled it and wammo, not a good idea. It flopped and folded instead of rolled. 
Oh well, still tasted good and went down a treat. In fact, it was a public holiday so we had lunch in the sun with pancakes and fruit made by my daughter and that was delicious. The sun was bright, and it got me thinking about light, how important it is to us. It’s got so many functions, heat, illumination, guidance, protection, symbolism, spirituality, you name it. 
The moon was bright last night and as I looked at the stars I thought how everyone has their thing, their little bit of light that they want to shine into the world. Stars remind us of what we are reaching for: something bright to put into the world, but they also remind us of how far away our dreams are, how big they are, and that they are worth striving for. Now that’s deep! Onto the bake. 
Time for cake in the house! I had all the ingredients except for full-fat crème fraîche. So I decided to whip this up before heading to a book reading in the afternoon. This cake was so full of the scent and subtle flavour of cardamom, delicious and unexpected. It actually tasted like a lemon cake.
Fabulous place, you could get lost there for hours with its room after room of categorized books, historical fiction, cooking, gardening, nonfiction and the list goes on. There is a sale at the end of the month. GO 🙂
I am an avid watcher of master chef and had to buy Julie’s recipe book, the first winner of Master chef Australia as soon as it came out. It’s great. Simple honest food. And it’s true, it never fails to amaze me how lush and moist this cake turns out every time. I added grated orange zest and sliced almonds to the mixture. It’s the sort of cake you can add flavours to if you want.
I love sweet peas and cornflowers especially, so old fashioned and beautiful. Recently I bought a coriander seed pot which I have planted and have on the window sill. I am waiting for the seeds to sprout, fingers crossed.
This Tiramisu Cake looks decadent and delicious and takes four packets of mascarpone cream so it’s got to be good!! I read the recipe the night before and as it involved a large sponge roll tin, (which I didn’t own) I made one to measure out of tinfoil, 35 x 25cm. Tick. Now I’ll have to make it!
I had an excuse to bake a big flash layered cake as family are visiting from Australia. This took most of the afternoon, although I have to say, having been through these steps before it does make it easier somehow. I needed two baking tins, so moulded one out of tinfoil to save having to bake the second sponge after the first. It was Maori language week and I went for coffee with my family to Crave, a local cafe. 
They were getting right into the spirit of things. If you ordered your coffee in Te Reo, you got it free. So I ordered “He rate pĩni nui koa” Large soy latté please. It’s great to see the Maori language encouraged as although my Te Reo is wanting, it’s good to give it a go. Funnily enough “Kei te pēhea koe?” was in my head from childhood, don’t know how, but it’s there. So much better and more effective to learn a language as a kid, when we can soak up information like a sponge without having to think about it. Now for the baking, I first made