If you read my blog or know me even only slightly you will know that I have a growing love of baking.  And more specifically I love Great British Bake Off.  Confession: I actually have a relatively serious intension of applying to go on the show sometime in the future.

So I figure it won’t harm to get my self “game ready” for that moment when the notion turns into  a completed application form.  And so begins my Great British Bake Off training, which I plan to document on my blog and will entitle as above so if you are not in the slightest bit interest in this subject matter you can click on by…

There are a few parts to my training.  One simple thing I have pledged to do is try out hard recipes, ones that I would normally not bother with, like macarons, pastries, little fiddly things.  And every week I will bake at least one type of bread.

This week I watched the Masterclasses of Series Two.  This has Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood going through all the technical challenges they set in the series and I figure if I do each one of these then I’ll learn new stuff, find out what the judges like and get inspired.  Here’s my first one:

Paul Hollywood’s Iced Buns (ugh I can see Mel and Sue smirking as I type this).

I’ve probably made dough without a bread maker about twice before in my life and those times were both for pizza so this is going to be a big learning curve for me and keep this in mind when you look at my rolls.

Kneeding, going to need some practice on this one but I really enjoy it so I’m up for it.  I think I added the water in too fast and it was a sloppy mess for too long for my liking
so I added some flour, which I’m pretty sure Paul would be in disapproval of.  But that’s nothing to the stern looks and shaking of head he would make if he saw the dough buns I rolled up.  I like them though, each one is unique.

Baking went fine I think.  Pulled them out at the right time and they looked a nice colour.  Of course, all different sizes and shapes so that would be me bottom of the pack on an actual GBBO technical challenge.  Smelled amazing though and look at this rise – respectable no?

As you can probably tell by the dark windows in the background, I baked these on Saturday night and then had to leave them to cool overnight as it was too late by that point to be getting into dressing up buns.  Plus I had a couple of episodes of Elementary to watch.

Sunday morning, whilst the children pottered around me wanting to know when the heck was breakfast coming I iced, whipped and jammed those bad boys up.

OK so my icing was too runny, my piping was shocking and I should have used a different jam but given that this isn’t actually a technical challenge, I’m just starting my training and you know, it’s not all about looks, I think they were pretty awesome.  And a couple of hungry food testers seemed to like them so can I have a six out of ten?