vanilla parfait

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!!! đŸ™‚ 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 PacharĂ¡n made from blackthorn berries (close enough to blackcurrant in my book).

  • berries and sugar
  • cream
  • and pacharan! đŸ™‚
  • combined
  • churning in the mixer!!

I whizzed the mixed berries with caster sugar, added cream and PacharĂ¡n 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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By Denise, ago