My attempt at Great British Bake Off: Biscuit Week

With the return of the Great British Bake Off I thought I would try my hand at making someone every week for myself and Victoria, she introduced me to the show last year and I have to admit it was a good bit of fun. I only ever make brownies (very calorific brownies) so I thought each week of the show that I would bake something that was linked to the theme of the episode. The first week was Biscuit week, let’s see what I made.

The requirements

If you have been following my blog for a while you will know that Victoria has a couple of dietary requirements. She is a vegan, but also has a couple of intolerances such as gluten and soya, plus a few others. This means that everything I make for us to munch on when we are watching the show has to have all of these set in place. So no vegan week for me as every week will be vegan week! This is fine as luckily there are a lot of recipes out there to assist me as when it comes to baking, I am worse than a novice! I feel throughout the weeks that I will get better, but, who knows!

Cookie time

Biscuit week means I am completely in the unknown and I had to figure out what I could make that Victoria would like. We buy the odd box of free from cookies from Asda and I noticed that she was loving them as they were new products. So why not make some nice homemade cookies! That should be easy right?

So, off the shops I went to get all the necessary ingredients, Gluten free flour etc and most importantly, the vegan chocolate! I wanted to try my hand at the old Chocolate chip cookie as I thought that I could handle that for a first go. Never go too big! It wasn’t until I got back home and saw everything in front of me did I first begin to doubt myself. Usually (in my opinion) when I bake for Victoria it goes wrong. I can’t think of a time when the baking has went right. Don’t even ask her about the pancakes I tried to make her a little while ago. #disaster.

I began working away the night before and I had to tinker slightly with the recipe that I had, but it was close enough to the same. This could have been due to me being a bit dopey though, as I think at one point I added a little too much almond milk and had to add a touch more flour to it. But it was made and in a nice big ball as it said it should be. My confidence began to increase, maybe I could do this! Only have to put them into little balls and stick them in the oven, easy peasy….

Where it went wrong

Yep, I buggered it up. I made a number of mistakes! Lucky stupid me! First off I made the balls a touch too large (read way too large, like what the hell are you thinking Gilliland large) so when they began to bake in the oven, they didn’t flatten enough. My novice little mind did not once consider pressing them down a little when I realised they weren’t going down. So my cookies were going to be a little thick, that’s okay I guess. I took them out for a second to investigate and although they were incredible thick for a cookie, I was confident.

C

onfidence then went away when I put them back on the wrong platform and let them bake more. I stupidly put them on the platform thing on the one a bit higher to the top than the one firmly in the middle as my recipe had instructed. I only realised my error five minutes later when I came back to take them out and noticed that they were now a little bit… black at the top. Yep, after being a little cocky, I made slightly burnt fat cookies. Failure.

The show was on a break and I prepped them up, I even got Victoria some warm almond milk for dunking as I have seen that in movies.

Victoria tried to take a bite, but couldn’t the outside was too hard, so I had to break it open and I saw her struggling and I was furious with myself. I had messed it up when I was on the brink of success! I told her she could stop trying and she said the sweetest thing “No, I want to finish one” too sweet. She then dunked the cookie in the milk and found it softened it! So she ate a couple of them.

The Verdict

I would have been out on my arse in the first week with that little disaster. Though I am trying them again this week (not for GBBO night) but just in general as I want to correct my error!

Tuesday brings cake week and I am hoping not to muck this one up as much! Happy baking!