The Great British Bake Off: A Review Of The Series 3 Cookbook & App

I am a HUGE fan of BBC's The Great British Bake Off, and anyone who is familiar with my blog will know I do love making cake and experimenting with flavour combinations. I tune in each Tuesday to see what delightful treats will be made and what technical challenge will be set.

Therefore, when I was asked if I would like to review the new book The Great British Bake Off How To Turn Everyday Bakes InTo Showstoppers I jumped at the chance. The book is packed full of recipes from the series aswell as showstopper challenges set by the book itself. Each chapter begins with one such challenge which takes its inspiration from the series, giving the reader a basic recipe which can be made into three different showstoppers going from intermediate up to a professional level. Providing readers with tips and ideas to inspire all bakers at every level.

With my grandparents visiting me last weekend, and knowing that they enjoy a traditional coffee and walnut type cake, I decided to try and make the Mocha Marbled Loaf Cake the first recipe featured in the book. This was deemed an easy bake - ideal for when you want to create a tasty teatime treat in between looking after two young children, and when you only have a couple of hours to prepare for your family visiting you!

Here is my version of this recipe - as I didnt have all of the ingredients as mentioned in the book!

Ingredients For The Cake

250g unsalted butter or, as I used Stork liquid baking magarine 

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

250g self raising flour, sifted

pinch of salt

3-5 tbsp milk (if required)

30g cocoa powder, sifted

1 tbsp instant coffee, mixed with 1 tbsp boiling water 

(if you like your coffee cake stronger I flavour, I would add an extra tbsp)

2 tbsp chocolate chips  

(the recipe called for dark chocolate but I used white chocolate) 

* Ingredients For the White Chocolate Drizzle Topping

100g good quality white chocolate 

20g butter

80ml double cream

Cocoa powder for dusting

*the cake is meant to be topped with a white chocolate ganache, but because I only had double cream instead of whipping cream my topping ended up being a drizzle!

Method

Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin and pre heat the oven to 180C/160C fan

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy

Gradually add the eggs and flour and mix well and then fold in the salt

Then divide equally the cake batter into two bowls

In bowl 1 add the sifted cocoa powder and the milk and mix well so no streaks of the cocoa powder can be seen

In bowl 2, add the cooled coffee liquid and stir through thoroughly and add the chocolate chunks/chips

Spoon both mixtures into your loaf tin a spoonful at a time. Once the mixture is all in the tin, bang on the surface to eliminate pockets of air. Smooth the surface and then using a cocktail stick (or skewer in my case!) swirl the two mixtures to enable to marble effect.

Bake in the oven for approx 60-75 minutes until cooked all the way through and allow to cool thoroughly

Meanwhile make your white chocolate drizzle (or ganache if you have whipping cream!)

Break up the chocolate and place into a heat proof bowl

 and place your butter and cream into a saucepan

Slowly heat the cream and butter making sure not to overheat and NOT boil

Then pour over the chocolate and leave for a few minutes to melt into the cream, and then stir gently to make a smooth and glossy mixture. Leave to cool (about 15 minutes) so that it thickens. 

Now as I used double cream it didnt thicken enough hence, the drizzle topping which I added to the top of my now cooled loaf cake which gets messy. So I did this by placing the cake on a wire rack with a plate underneath. Once the drizzle has cooled slightly decorate with the cocoa powder dusting 

And there you have it, my Choca Mocha Drizzle Cake

It went down really well despite my drizzle topping!! And the marble effect wasn't as striking as the book shows it but thats probably because I used drinking chocolate rather than actual cocoa powder which is darker in appearance.

Here is the cake from the book - which does look better I admit!! I dont think I would have scored very well on this technical challenge by Paul and Mary on for my ganache and marble effect, BUT as an interpretation and for flavour and bake I think a 8/10 would be reasonable!! 

But mine got eaten and everyone said how nice it was (I didn't show them the cake from the book!). It was very moist and had a delicate coffee flavour coming through and the white chocolate both inside and outside complemented it well.

The Great British Bake Off How To Turn Everyday Bakes InTo Showstoppers is available now to buy from all good book stockists RRP is £20.

There is also an app available for the iPhone, the first baking app to be released from the Great British Bake Off series . Priced at £2.99 the app allows instant access to recipes taken from the best selling book The Great British Bake Off  and The Great British Bake Off How To Turn Everyday Bakes InTo Showstoppers .

  The app's interface is very easy to use and its simple to navigate your way around the recipes to select one then find out what ingredients you require and the method. Lovely photographs of the finished food items are included too.

I was sent a copy of the book and a code to download the app with for the purpose of this (rather long!) review. All opinions made are my own and are honest, after all I love cake! It was my decision to attempt a recipe from the book, which I adapted based on the ingredients I had to hand.

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