As usual a week late in the posting. Canadian Thanksgiving weekend knocked bake off baking down the priority list once again. Having said that I worked on Saturday and then Tim had to work on Monday. Our long weekend together consisted of Sunday afternoon and evening. But, we are thankful for our jobs. Very thankful.

The final of the Great British Bake Off was a nail biter. I have to say I was disappointed that Richard had an off weekend and didn’t win, but on the finals Nancy did deserve it. There’s always one recipe that’s a stand out for me each series. This time it was Richard’s apple and cinnamon doughnuts, and I’m not even a doughnut fan. Just delicious. It’s a good thing that the amount of oil needed to fry them will prevent me from me from making them too often. I think Richard should bring out a book called, ‘The Builder Bakes’, or something along those lines.

Back to the finals. If I remember correctly the signature bake was to produce two kinds of pastries, the technical was to make the basics – twelve mini victoria sponges, twelve scones and twelve lemon tartlets in two hours with no recipes given them, and then the showstopper was a mountain of a cake of their own design featuring sponge, caramel (sugar work), choux pastry and petit fours.

I chose to do part of the technical challenge. Having no need to make thirty-six desserts over Thanksgiving on top of all the left-over turkey and banoffee pie (our family are not big lovers of pumpkin pie), I made twelve mini victoria sponges. I did make three bakes at the same time, just not all the bake off ones. We needed some cookies and bread for the week so I had to do those too. My original plan was to make croissants in line with the signature challenge, but my youngest insisted on the victoria sponges. ‘Pleeeease’, she begged. Besides which I kept forgetting every evening to get the croissant dough going.

I do not own a ‘mini sandwich tin’ so had to make do with a muffin tin for the sponges. I didn’t even use the bake off recipe, but Nigella’s sponge recipe instead as I’ve found that to be our favourite. I filled the sponge with homemade jam from last summer and buttercream, instead of the double cream suggested, so they could be kept a little longer.

They may not be perfect looking, but they were appreciated. The one who requested them told me I should get ‘star baker’, and, to be honest, that’s all the approval necessary. Most parents who bake would get ‘star baker’ in their children’s eyes. That’s the way it should be.

A fine way to round off the Bake Off challenge on my blog. Whatever next?!