Yes, I know, you've got the book or seen the recipe online, and it's not swirly icing, is it, it's feather icing. Piped lines of white chocolate artfully smudged with a cocktail stick to make pretty, Mr Kipling-esque 'feathers' across the top of the milk chocolate ganache.
Yeah, right. Like that's ever going to happen for me.
Off for a final hoorah of the summer holidays this weekend (camping for a good friend's 40th birthday, on the campsite that she and her husband and kids have just bought. How cool is that? Our friends - our camping buddies - own a campsite. How COOL is that??) though, cake was called for and traybake was going to fit the bill.
But first, I must digress.
I haven't written much about camping this summer. Truth is that a couple of things have conspired.
Firstly, I feel strangely coy about our decision, subsequently executed at the beginning of the year, to sell our beloved Daisy and upgrade to Sadie (or Wussie as she seems to be referred to mostly, based on an unfortunate number plate). We all loved Daisy, our 1989 T25, and selling her wasn't an easy decision but she was viciously uneconomical in the petrol department and we weren't content with pottering down to Dorset every couple of weekends. Already planning trips into Europe, and knowing in our hearts that she wouldn't be up to it (or, rather, our holiday fund wasn't up to funding her guzzling petrol all the way through France), the move to Wales was the final nail in the coffin - her paintwork would never have survived the salty atmosphere living by the sea. So Daisy went to a good home (I won't go into details, but I felt like she was continuing the good work she started with us) and we searched for our next van. We have upgraded massively, and on every level Wussie is superior. I miss Daisy. But not enough to feel too sad.
Secondly, we haven't actually done that much camping. Plenty of day trips, and having the van has meant we can stay out longer, take food with us, but as I may have mentioned before, living in such a coastal and rural area, well, the need, the desperate desire to escape to the sea that certainly I used to feel, is just not there. We did have a fantastic weekend camping down in Newport, a mere 20 minute drive away, and of course, the holiday in France, all made possible by Wussie, but, really, that's it.
But this weekend, the last of the summer holidays, we're off camping on our friends' campsite for Liz's 40th. Liz is awesome, and she's going to be such a fantastic campsite owner. At the moment, the site they've bought isn't licensed for tents, but they are working on it. And if you have a caravan or camper and need somewhere near Chippenham/Bath to stay, let me know...
In the tradition of several awesome camping birthdays we've been to, there's an element of everyone mucking in together to bring tonnes of booze salads, puddings and cakes.
Incidentally, does anyone get the feeling that as you get older, there's a formula that should be applied to ensure you don't bring too much booze to events like this? I haven't quite worked it out - I bet I'm not the only person to have experienced these weekends where everyone forgets that they have kids and responsible jobs (either in or outside the home) and enthusiastically brings the same amount as they would have aged 23...
Anyway, digression over, and cake is where I was. I made 2 Mary Berry traybakes in preparation for the festivities. I'm not a huge fan of Mary Berry, and my views on the whole GBBO caravan have already been documented - I wouldn't know exactly what happened in recent episodes, because I'm not watching the latest series, but I'd just like to say that the suggestion of 'naughty editing' by the BBC to make more out of the Baked Alaska issue than was there, painting a darker picture of the actions of one of the contestants, only goes to convince me that I'm right, and this show is not really much better than Jeremy Kyle...
But my mother in law gave me a Mary Berry cookbook for my birthday, and I'll concede that conniver in carcrash TV or not, Mary Berry does make a good tray bake. Her lemon drizzle traybake is pretty hard to beat for quick and easy, and I've made it a number of times, and, for this weekend, I also made her rich chocolate tray bake with feathered icing. Very straightforward, chocolate sponge, chocolate ganache, and then white chocolate.
The white chocolate should have been piped in straight lines (ha!), evenly spaced across the cake, and then I should have dragged a cocktail stick through to produce the 'feathers'.
Well there was no chance. I'm not great at decorative icing, and while I did toy with attempting a white chocolate "Happy Birthday Liz", I thought better of it and decided swirls would be a good option. And so they were. Melted white chocolate spooned into a piping bag, I snipped the end off as close to the end as I could and simply swirled.
So, did you do it? Did you hold your breath, fill out the form and click send? What do you mean, you don't know what I'm talking about. The Great British Bake Off 4 of course. Did you apply?
Reader, I was seized by a sort of madness on the last day for applications, and yes, I did. I filled out the form as wittily as possible, attached various photos from this blog in an attempt to demonstrate my baking *ahem* prowess, and clicked send. I sort of felt that I ought to put my money where my mouth was. Not my fault if I didn't fit the demographic the producers are looking for: I expect there were more than enough white married mothers who applied to tick that particular box, although I'll admit to playing the disability card by mentioning the fact that my dog only has 3 legs.
I spent the whole of Friday terrified that the phone would ring, then on Saturday I hotfooted up to Town for the second annual meeting of the Non-Bookclub Bookclub (you can read what happened at the first meeting, this time last year, here what happened at the second meeting involved coffee, culture and cocktails, and that's all I'm saying for now, except that I really love my friends. I really love them). The instructions/application said that if we hadn't heard by 2 February, we weren't in. I checked my email and my messages. Nada. Rien. Not a sausage. Reader, my soggy bottom will not be gracing your TV screen this summer. Phew!
But niggling away at the back of my mind through all this was a worry about what was driving me to enter. I really do have no wish to be humiliated (even if it is by the doyen of British Baking and the Silver Fox) on national TV, to have my fairly average baking skills shot down in flames politely derided. What on earth drove me to put that application in?? Given that I can often be found ranting (given half the chance and a couple of glasses of wine) about the evils of car crash TV, would I not be betraying myself, albeit in a very middle class and acceptable way, by taking part?
I recently read a very interesting book by the journalist Jon Ronson called The Psychopath Test. It's not as heavy as it sounds, but it deals with a fairly heavy issue, that of the classification of psychopaths.
I had a residual interest in this anyway. Many years ago as a trainee lawyer, I did some work in connection with Mental Health Review Tribunals. I was involved with those tribunals of psychopaths incarcerated in high security hospitals Broadmoor, Rampton), who argued that as they were effectively 'untreatable' they should be in prison, not hospital. It's easier to get released from prison than hospital, and when someone has raped and murdered without turning a hair, you can imagine that there's a certain interest in these particular hearings. I can't say any more or I'd have to kill you, but I should say that all this was a good 15 years ago, and the law will have moved on. Hopefully, the psychopaths won't.
The reason I mention this, though, is that there is a chapter in the Ronson book about how bookers for those day time TV shows where people go on and 'air their family differences' work. Essentially, the bookers ring potential participants up relatively frequently, whipping them up into a sort of frenzy before the programme. They also (this is quoted in the book) ask if the people concerned are on medication. Anything that would suggest a bi-polar disorder - lithium for example, is a no no - "too mad", but people taking mildish anti-depressants are in. They are just mad enough. Does that not make you feel even a little uneasy? And why do people apply to go on these shows (by the way, I include Big Brother in this and the audition rounds of X Factor and Britains Got Talent - total car crash humiliation TV)? For fame? For notoriety? For someone to hear them? To be trashed and humiliated on national TV in the pursuit of their 15 minutes? For (that most dreadful of words) 'Celebrity'?
Were my motives any different in applying for the GBBO? I would have been terrible - but it would all have been done rather nicely and with a wry smile. And
imagine the fodder for this blog. May be I'd be asked to open the school
fete as our own local GBBO contestant. The mind boggles as the world of
G list celebrity beckoned briefly...
I know that we all love to slate those 'my sister is sleeping with my husband's crack dealer' type of TV shows. I genuinely do not watch them - and am even more convinced of that having read Ronson's book, but - strike me down - is GBBO not just the same thing, albeit dressed up as a fancy middle class
Village Show baking class? If I got through (some hope) would I actually
be trashing all my principles for the sake of my own 5 minutes of fame
(I would never have lasted longer than the first round, believe me!) and some extra baking burns to add to my collection?
I
watched most of the GBBO series 3 (btw I think the wrong person won) and enjoyed it, but I
got the same niggling feelings, as Messrs Berry & Hollywood
grimaced and eyebrow-raised their way through it, as I do whenever I catch bits of those other shows I mentioned in rare channel surfing moments. I love Mel and Sue,
but it all felt like a bit of a parody, a bit set up, in the same way
that those conversations between the judges on Masterchef feel all
staged - Greg says one thing, John contradicts, Greg changes his mind
(unless it's about pudding) and John gets his way. It's true. I've
studied it. In some ways, it might even be worse, because most of the Bake Off contestants seemed to be me to be pretty good bakers, yet the way it was presented, well, I cringed. People putting their heart and soul into something to have it trashed for a soggy bottom. I felt a bit bad that I was contributing to the success of the programme by watching. On the other hand, it can't be worse than putting people the producers KNOW are on medication up in front of a TV audience and getting them to scrap it out? As far as I'm concerned, willing participant or not, that is exploitation, and I'd be hard pushed to use that word about GBBO, but is that because I probably fall slap, bang into the GBBO target audience?
It's true that nowhere on the GBBO application form was there any requirement to enter any medication I was taking - just spaces to include any family baking stories. Maybe, though, my tale of being a conspirator in the great icing sugar cover up says as much about me as any medication I might be taking (actually, none). So there we go. Am I too sane to be on the GBBO? I'm not going to analyse the contestants on last year's GBBO (the first series I watched). I was more interested in the cakes to pay them too much attention. I did notice that they all had vulnerabilities that the programme tried to highlight and play on, but they all seemed pretty sane to me, even the scary one who made the blackbird pie thing. Maybe, then, it is different, and may be it is OK that I applied. May be if I had been accepted, I could have entered with a clear conscience. The (soggy?) bottom line is that, had I got through, I (speaking personally) would have been there to entertain the nation with my baking inadequacies, and may be, really, that is just a little bit 'car crash' ?.
On the other hand, though, following twitter through the heats, it wasn't just the disasters that made everyone tweet, but the wonderful stuff too. And I totally loved James for pulling things back from the brink - that 'deserted barn' - awesome!. So rather than it just being about the bad stuff, it does genuinely celebrate the good. And I'll accept that once it gets to the final rounds of X Factor and Britain's Got Talent etc, it's the same. Gone is the sniping and bitching, and there is is, great singing and real talent (OK may be not dancing dogs), celebrated as it should be, and we're rooting for the finalists all the way
Does this just sound like sour grapes (it's not, it really isn't - I reiterate that I would have been TERRIBLE on it)? I'm sure I will watch series 4, and enjoy it. I wish all those that got through the best of luck - and remember, I'm rooting for you all, and I promise not to laugh at any soggy bottoms. But I expect that when I'm watching I'll be secretly glad that I didn't get selected, so I don't have to ask myself these questions...
UA-44695690-1
