The final challenge took the contestants right back to week one -cakes. The cakes had to be chiffon though, which are cakes that use oil over butter, and only beaten egg whites as a raising agent. The theme was about "your" 2012; Brendan made a love-heart shaped caked, flavored with almond to show a family reunion, John made a heaven and hell cake, with an uber-glossy chocolate ganache topping to represent the highs and lows of his year; and James went all out with five cakes to represent the coming together of the countries of the United Kingdom in the Jubilee and Olympic year.
I was so happy when John won; as he was the contestant who wanted to travel to Paris and study Patisserie. Unbelievably, both John and James were in the middle of their university exams and Finals-for Law and Medicine respectively -throughout the later stages of the competition, and both came out with amazing grades.
In the aftermath, I'm not worried about the Bake-Off gap in my week, as I am currently being bombarded with foodie programs, including, I believe, Mary Berry's new show next week. Meanwhile though, I've been baking up some flapjacks as a thank you to my Dad for buying me some lovely new wellies at the weekend. All our existing wellies have various holes and seem splits in them; perfectly adequate for walks; not so good for wading through rivers in the name of Geography A Level next week.
I based my recipe on The River Cottage's Family Cookbook. Flapjacks are one of the easiest recipes to adapt to what you have or what you fancy, and mine turned out like this:
Zest of a lemon or/and orange
50g (2 tbsp) golden syrup
175g butter
150g sugar, ideally soft brown
200g of oats (cheaper is better here, as expensive jumbo oats will make a very crumbly flapjack)
70g raisins
30g chopped dried apricots
100g chopped nuts -I used a mixed bag of almonds walnuts and peanuts and some pumpkin seeds that I had left from roasting a pumpkin earlier on in the week.
Optional -150g chocolate, for melting over the top.
I also added a handful of plain granola for added crunch, and I replaced around 5g of the sugar for a slosh of hazelnut syrup -the type you buy to add into coffee. Gorgeous!
Preheat the oven to gas 3/160'C. Grease and line a tin with butter or a spay of oil, and some greaseproof paper.
Add the zest of the orange and lemon to a large saucepan. Dollop on the golden syrup, using a warm or oiled spoon to help it off. Add the butter and sugar, and melt over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until everything is mixed, dissolved and melted, adding any hazelnut syrup if using. Remove from the heat.
In a large bowl, combine the oats, fruit and nuts, before adding to the saucepan and giving it a really good mix.
Spread evenly onto the tin, making sure that the edges have plenty of flapjack mix -and don't forget to save yourself a little mouthful, as this warm, syrupy mix is heavenly.
Bake in the middle of the oven for 30-35 minutes, until it's golden and making your kitchen smell delicious. Leave to cool on a rack or board for ten minutes so that it can hold it's shape as you lift it out using the parchment. After that, carefully mark out where you are going to cut your flapjacks into squares.
While my flapjacks were cooling, I decided to add some melted chocolate. I don't usually do this, but sometimes you just fancy an extra treat. I heated around 150g of milk chocolate over a bain marie until melted. Then, taking individual squares of the cooling, but still warm, flapjack, I spooned on the chocolate diagonally, so that half of the flapjack was dipped in a cheeky layer of bliss. Leave to cool at room temperature, to help the chocolate to cool slowly in order to get a shiny, tempered, finish.
YUM,
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