Great British Bake Off

I have a new TV obsession in the form of the Great British Bake Off. Considering my usual taste either involves a good murder/crime plot, or an american drama with lots of emotional and ridiculous story lines (One Tree Hill, you will always be my guilty pleasure), I didn't think this show would really grab me. How wrong I was!! I can't believe the amount of baking related drama possible! First, the disastrous discovery of a 'soggy bottom' bake - usually resulting in head in hands reaction and welling up of the eyes. Then, the moment when a contestant has a complete moment of stupidity and manages to drop half their bake on the floor/throw their pastry across the marquee, followed by speeches about how much of a failure they are to themselves/their families/bakers everywhere... BUT! This week reached a drama peak, when John managed to cut his finger so badly making strudel pastry (so difficult to make, even Mary Berry would rather buy it!) that he managed to fill an entire blue medical glove with blood. Yum.

My love of this programme clearly qualifies me as an O.A.P, particularly as I usually watch it in a warm cardigan with a mug of tea, but I have no shame. In fact, it's inspired me to get on the baking wagon! Calorie concerns were put aside (I'm attempting a health kick... not very successfully clearly...), vast amounts of icing sugar and decorations were bought, and my cousin Eleanor and I had a great time dancing around to some classic tunes and cooking up a storm! (Literally, the kitchen looked like a hurricane had hit by the time we were done...). In G.B.B.O. they always go on about  'exciting flavour combinations'. So we stretched ourselves by putting raspberry jam in the middle of the cakes - pushing ourselves to the limit. The cakes weren't actually that delicious in the end (probably as we'd eaten half the mixture and felt pretty sick by this point...), but we found that good decorating can covering up anything, so out came the food colouring edible glitter!

Overall it was lush, and as soon as I am a size 8 with the metabolism of Kate Moss, I am sure I will be baking more! X