Great British Bake Off Challenge - Week 5; 'Alternative Ingredients'

The first thing that sprang to mind when I heard that the initial bake of week 5 was sugar free cake was beetroot chocolate cake so lets ignore the fact that I said in my cheesecake post I'd be making a polenta cake, shall we? 

Mind you, a polenta cake may have been more sensible and my kitchen may not look like a crime scene if I had stuck to that plan, but ohhhh well. 

Beetroot added to cake sounds disgusting but is actually probably one of my favourite methods because when done well it yields a wonderfully sticky, moist and fudgey texture to a chocolate cake. This cake is no different however the lack of sugar means that it tastes rather... uhm, earthy. Whilst there is some definite sweetness to the taste it's not overwhelming and if your taste buds are tuned to sweetness like most peoples are when presented with a slice of cake then you'll probably dislike this quite a lot. I am in two minds whether I like it or not. I mean, I don't dislike it, but I wouldn't go crazy over making it again in this form. I'd happily make another beetroot cake! 

The ganache and strawberries really save this cake even though the ganache definitely defeats the object of not using refined sugar. Whilst we're tentatively on the subject of what you can legitimately use in a sugar free cake, I think we need to have a brief discussion about how a) what you bake on the show should probably be edible and b) how a cake is a sweet item, and not a savoury one, so not including any sugar at all would not yield a cake at the end. Yes, honey, maple syrup and agave syrup are all still sugars but then so are fruits (fructose) and natural sweeteners such as Xylitol and stevia. I saw the challenge as more of a 'Don't make a cake using your traditional grain sugars' rather than 'Don't use any sweet ingredients at all'. 

Anyway. 

Once again, I've slightly adapted a recipe I've found online, this time it's from The Wholesome Cook. 

3 cups self raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarb of soda

6 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tsp Chinese five spice powder

1 cup of raw grated beetroot

2/3 cup of olive oil

2/3 cup of honey

1 1/3 cup of cold water

2 tbsp vanilla extract 

250g dark chocolate

275ml double cream

Oven temp: 150 degrees fan. Line a spring release tin with greaseproof paper.

Combine all the dry ingredients with the beetroot and mix well. 

In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients and combine with the dry. Fold in gentley with a wooden spoon. 

Transfer to the pre-pared tin and bake for 30 - 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

To make the ganache put the double cream in a glass bowl over a bain marie until warm (don't boil it). Add the chocolate and remove from the heat, stir until all melted. Chill in the fridge for two hours or until set enough to spread on the cake. 

Reasons Why You Should Run

Running has quickly become a huge part of my life - I currently run three to four times a week and often feel a bit 'odd' if I don't get chance to run. But if you'd have said to me even five months ago that I'd be running this much, training for a 10k in October and loving every second of it I'd have called you crazy. See, I haven't always been a runner... My running watch will tell you that much. I've dabbled in running since I was at university but never really pushed myself to run to a routine, or to run further/faster/better. Until I moved back home in April this year, that is.

See, the end of my four year long relationship with my ex boyfriend brought me to a turning point - I could either sit and mope around, doing nothing with my life or I can grab my newly single self and shake shit up. I chose the latter. So I chose running. I dropped some cash on a new set of running shoes and wrote up some goals to try and achieve.

I started out with 3.5k, and have worked my way up to 6.5k for a regular run and 10k when I'm feeling fresh. But how? Running is horrible. Well, it is when you start. The reasons I run include:

• The feeling of achieving my goals. At first it was just to run continuously for 15 - 20 - 25 minutes, now it's 50 - 55 - 60 minutes. Pace wise I started out running at a 6:30 pace consistently; I'm now working to bring that down to a 5:20 pace and my ultimate goal is a sub 5 minute/km pace for initially a 5k, then 10k.
• The feeling of setting new goals and knowing that I will eventually achieve them. My original goal of running a 5k has now morphed in a 10k and actually, I'm strongly considering the idea of a half marathon next summer.
• The knowledge that I am infinitely more mentally strong than I give myself credit for. Mental strength and will power, much like physical strength, are muscles that must be exercised to be improved. Every time I come home from work and lace up my running shoes I am flexing those muscles. Every time I want to sit on the sofa and eat chocolate all night rather than be a productive member of society I have to exercise those muscles.
• The calm tranquility of a long run cannot be beaten. All worries slip away when all you've got to worry about is whether or not you're keeping the right pace. Nothing else matters but your foot steps. On my runs I write stories, I listen to music, I debate philosophy and ethics, I muse about what car I want to drive in ten years time.
• That runners high. I promise it exists (it took about three months of three runs a week for mine to appear though).
• You can improve very quickly in a very short space of time with running  - check out my running progress on my MapMyRun profile. If I can do it, then so can you!
• For every bad run, there is an equally great one.
• Because one day, I won't be able to run.

Whether you run 1km or 10km, it doesn't matter. Nor does it matter if you run at a 7 minute per kilometre pace or a 4 minute per kilometre pace - because the battle you are fighting on each run is your own. No-one out there knows how far you've run, how far you have left or how fast you're running. And anyone who cares probably aint running themselves, so sod them. Just get out there and run. 

Great British Bake Off Challenge - Week 4; Baked Cheesecake

Oh dear, it had to happen at least once in this challenge, didn't it? I had a total fail. An absolute flop. If I had been in The Tent, it  may have ended up being another Bin-Gate style scandal (Cheesecake-Gate doesn't have the same ring to it, thankfully). It was so bad it went almost straight in the bin. Dessert week got me, and it got me good. Not wanting to make crème brûlées and not really knowing what a Spanischer Windtorte was, I decided to tackle baked cheesecake. I'm not a particular fan of baked cheesecake so I've never attempted one before and well... I probably won't attempt one again any time soon. 

I had grand ideas for this; what about a chocolate and honeycomb baked cheesecake with a dark chocolate biscuit base and honeycomb crushed over the top? It'd surely look and taste amazing. Rich, creamy dark chocolate cheesecake and crackly, golden homemade honeycomb running through it. Yum. A true showstopper! 

The best laid plans eh?

That being said, I don't think it was the recipe that was the problem. It was me. I overworked the mixture, and then cooked it totally inappropriately. I ended up with this rather sad mess:

Oooph. I can hear Sue softly weeping in the background. I can feel Paul's glare. Mary would have a small heart attack trying to summon up something nice to say about this monstrosity.

Poor, poor cheesecake. I couldn't do much other than put it out of it's misery... by putting it in the bin. I did try a bit (for science!) and it made me feel thoroughly sick.

Yes, that base is burnt. The sides are burnt. The top is burnt with shards of honeycomb melted into it (apparently if you sprinkle honeycomb on top of something that's going to bake for 45 minutes it'll melt and then harden, because you know, high sugar content). The middle is strangely under AND overcooked. The honeycomb has dissolved from the mixture to nothing. It's sunk in the middle and become dense and uh, chewy. The honeycomb that I made largely stuck to the pan and ended up being abandoned until two days later when it had become a soft sticky mess.

No recipe this week because who the frick would want to recreate that mess?! Maybe I overworked the mix (I definitely overworked the mix). Maybe I had the temperature on the wrong setting (180 - would 160 have been better for my fan oven?). Maybe I set it too close to the bottom of the oven. Should I have used Tamal's bain marie method? Maybe, Should I have just eaten the chilled base and not bothered adding the mixture? I'm inclined to say yes.

Whilst I lick my wounds, I'll be sticking to chilled cheesecakes for a little while I think. Though things may take another turn for the worse as I attempt to tackle polenta cake for Week 5 - Alternative Ingredients week...