The Bake Off Bake Along: The Final

Can you believe it, here we are…it’s the finaaaalllll!! This week I was equally excited and sad really. I’ve loved doing the bake off bake along and its added a certain excitement to each episode! Wednesday nights won’t quite be the same what without our weekly dose of baking deliciousness followed by tense frustration and awe at Doctor Foster (please tell me some of you also absolutely LOVED that drama?!)

As for the final, I think it was pretty predictable throughout each task who was going to win as Nadiya really was the best baker during this episode. As much as my heart wanted Tamal to win, as long as smug Ian didn’t, I was happy for Nadiya (plus her facial expressions were one of the show highlights throughout). I loved her closing speech especially and the great friendship banter between her and Jamal! Plus, Mary choking up was just the best, bless them!

As for the actual bakes, I can’t say I was particularly impressed (do you see a reoccurring theme this series?). Iced buns are great, but hey, it’s basically sweet bread with some icing shoved on top. The technical looked fancy, but difficult to eat and kinda a faff for not much gain. Then the showstopper – classic British bake. Fair enough it was on a theme. I thought Ian’s carrot decorating was crap, even if his cake was delicious. Tamal’s bake…ehh?! I didn’t quite understand what was going on there, don’t think he didn’t either if I’m honest, but it showed a lot of sugar work skill, just looked pretty weird! Nadiyas thought behind hers was lovely, but I was quite underwhelmed by the finished product.

This week I had one evening to make my bake. End of the working week, Friday night rolls around and most people collapse in an exhausted heap onto their sofas- I get in and crack on with baking a three tier Autumnal Victoria sponge! Because hey, one day later I’d be sat in the departures lounge in Gatwick airport! I usually watch the episode on a Wednesday, bake on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, write my post after work on a Monday and the post it on Tuesday morning. This week was slightly different due to a last minute holiday to the Med! I watched both the final episodes of bake off and Dr Foster with mum as per, then rather than my usual drive to Plymouth on a Friday, I got home and baked some delicious sponge and crafted fondant into Autumnal colours ready to harden overnight so we could cut them into leaf shapes.

Admittedly, as it got quite late, mum was busy sewing and the last cake was still quite warm, I waited until morning to decorate it. Filled with a delicious layer of homemade bramble jelly and chantilly cream, I then enlisted the help of mum collecting some beautiful leaves to decorate with, and mums best friend Katie, who is a photographer part time to take the photos of me in the garden. I may also add that as it is the final, I was made a beautiful Autumn crown of leaves, acorns and berries, which quite made the whole ensemble don’t you think?

Autumnal Victoria Sponge

Ingredients

• 18oz self raising flour
• 18oz butter
• 18oz sugar
• 9 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 jar homemade bramble jelly (recipe found HERE)
• 600ml double cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp icing sugar (for dusting)
• 1 can edible gold spray
• green, red and yellow fondant icing
• 2 figs to decorate

Method

For this bake I used my own tried and tested sponge recipe just on an enormous scale, for a normal sized cake I’d usually just use ratios of 6-6-6-3 like my granny taught me!

1. Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees (or just accept the AGA will be at whatever temp it feels like that day!)
2. In the biggest bowl you can find, weigh it empty remembering how heavy it was, then cream together the sugar and butter until all smooth and light.
3. Crack in the eggs a couple at a time and mix mix mix. If it curdles, add a tbsp of flour which should sort it out
4. Once the eggs are all in, it’s time to sift in your flour, probably resulting in a huge cloud as this recipe required SO much!
5. Youll now have a huge bowl of deliciousness, which you can stir in the vanilla extract into.
6. Now you’ll need to weigh the whole thing, subtract the weight of the bowl and divide it by 3 so you can evenly bake each tier. I used our ancient but very much loved star tin, but this meant I had to bake and cool each layer separately, and didn’t weigh the bowl beforehand, meaning that my layers were slightly larger on the first two bakes and slightly smaller on my last, but I actually really liked the effect on the middle layer in the end so it didn’t matter too much as you can’t really tell.
7. To essemble, spray all the edges of your sponge gold, then place your bottom layer on your cake stand, slather on a generous amount of homemade bramble jelly, followed by half of the whipped double cream and vanilla.
8. Sandwich on the next layer and repeat, followed by the top.
9. First of all we tried to decorate the top using the leaf patterns and icing, to create silhouettes but I didn’t much like it, so I ended up covering the whole of the top in dusted icing sugar, then making a decorative ensemble of fondant leaves and gilded figs, surrounding the base with lots of Autumn leaves.

I really enjoyed this bake, and in fact all the bakes I’ve done for the #bakeoffbakealong. It was great to go out with a bake I have been making since before I can remember, and it was definitely appreciated by the entire family (and friends, and mum and dads colleagues…that thing was HUGE!). I am super pleased and proud that I’ve managed to complete every single bake each week, and have tried many new baking techniques which I’d never have done otherwise! Thanks go to Amanda at Rhyme and Ribbons, and Ala at This Particular for making this fab competition happen, and I have really enjoyed getting to know all the other bakers who have also taken part!