The Bake Off Bake Along || Week 1 – Pineapple Illusion Cake

HOORAY!

Today, I’m very pleased to announce, the Bake Off Bake Along is BACK!

I know it’s a controversial year, what with the channel 4 transfer and the lack of Mary, Mel and Sue, but ultimeately I willadmit, I still love the baking, and Bake Off is worth watching, even with adverts…

Did you catch episode one on Tuesday?

I’m chuffed it’s changed days actually, as now on a Wednesday night after my HIIT class, instead of racing home to watch as I used to, I’ll now be racing down to Cornwall to work from home on a Thursday and Friday – yipee!!

So far I think Stephen is fantastic (that sandwich!!), Flo is also a dark horse and looks like she could be a very good baker, and whilst Yan’s illusion cake was pretty special, she irritates me quite a bit (sorry Yan!). Ultimately, the bakers actually seems to have quite a lot of skill for week one, and if Noel and Sandi relax a bit and don’t force the euphemisms, it could actually be quite a good series!

Anyway – onto this weeks Bake Along….I’ve chosen to combine two of the challenges in a fruity cake AND an illusion cake!

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 2

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 3

Luckily for me, it coincided very very nicely with my best friend’s birthday, and as she had given me strict instructions for what she wanted, the bake was perfect for the bake along! 3D Pineapple cake, tick! Not pineapple flavour, tick! Incorporate some sort of passion fruit and white chocolate, TICK!

I present to you, week one’s cake…a pineapple illusion cake made with lemon drizzle sponges, filled with passion fruit curd and decorated with passion fruit buttercream and white chocolate leaves.

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 4

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 6

Things to note:

  • I actually made the equivalent of 3x normal lemon drizzles, giving me 6 layers of sponge
  • I used kebab sticks to hold the layers together once they were sandwiched with the passion fruit curd whilst I trimmed it into shape.
  • Keep the crumbs, and mix with some of the green dyed buttercream to make cake pop type mixture to push your white chocolate spikes into.
  • With the white chocolate, mix your green gel food colouring in little by little – plus if I did it again I’d make them a little thicker as lots of mine snapped
  • To get the green and yellow spikes, I put a small amount of the green buttercream into the piping bag first, squished it around a bit, and then opened it out so just the outside had green, then filled the centre with yellow. Next time, perhaps need to learn to be more consistent with the quantities as some bits were greener than others.

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 5

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 9

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 8

 

Overall, I am so proud of how this cake came out, the sponges were zesty and moist with lemon drizzle, the passion fruit curd was sweet and sharp and the buttercream had loads of flavour. I thought the spikey leaves also worked better than I expected, even if I definitely should have used an oil based gel but pineapple leaves look a bit dusty anyway hey?!

For week one, it happened to work out brilliantly in terms of the commissioned bake I already had planned, even though all three challenges were fun – I had great plans of making a delicious apple cake of some variety with our apple tree’s apples from the fruity cake in round one. Mini rolls are delicious (even if they throw a wild card in from peppermint flavoured creme!) but this week, an illusion cake was on the cards. It may not be 100% an illusion (I might have had to tone down the colour of the buttercream first!) but I think most people would be able to tell exactly what it was I’d intended to bake, and for that reason alone, I’m very pleased!

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 9

If you’d like to join in the #BakeOffBakeAlong, upload your post each week to Amanda’s blog Rhyme and Ribbons, or use the hashtag on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook so we can all see what you’ve created!

All I can say now is…bring on week two’s biscuits…!!

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 7

The Bake Off Bake Along Week One - Pineapple Illusion Cake 10