The Great British Bakeoff is back, and just in time for fall baking season. COVID protocols mean the bakers must quarantine together in a bubble before filming, but they've otherwise managed to keep the show vibe similar to past seasons. Week One, as always, was Cake Week, and I decided to try my hand at the technical, formally named Paul Hollywood’s Pineapple Upside-down Cakes.
Apparently this recipe features in the latest Bakeoff volume, "The Great British Bake Off: Love to Bake," (out yesterday in hardcover) along with other recipes we've seen so far, forever dispelling my theory that one could win the bakeoff by simply memorizing and mastering every single recipe in every Bakeoff book ever published.
Anyway, because its pandemic times and nothing is normal, it took me awhile to gather the necessary bits and bobs for my bake. Pineapples, for example, were out of stock at my local Targets so Target.com shipped me a $1 can of DelMonte canned pineapple slices on their own dime. That's it. Had its own box and everything. You can't make this stuff up. After that, I wasn't going to waste another several days and $15 on Amazon to get something remotely resembling the dessert - excuse me, pudding - tins they use on the show. The recipe requires "175ml mini pudding moulds x 6" and you know what? No. I measured the capaciity of the ramekins I already owned and they were 175 ml on the dot so close enough. I also didn't bother with making custard or whipping cream. Dairy products are often hard to come by these days, but I did snag a can of Reddi Whip. I already know how to make whipping cream so that wasn't really the challenge for me. Stovetop syrup or caramel on the other hand? Well, you can ask my family how well the Cement Caramel Pie of 2019 went down. If it seems like I took a lot of shortcuts, I did. Sue me and my tired pregnant body. Even with time savers like not carving my own pineapple (because why would I do that voluntarily?) this recipe took a couple hours to come together.
I did spend an embarrassing amount of time puzzling over the ingredients and metric measurements. It would be cool if they could include conversions for the dumb lazy Americans who want to make GBBO bakes, just saying. Alexa and Siri got quite a work out telling me weird temperature conversions like 390 degrees Fahrenheit. If you've ever before made a recipe at such an odd duck temp, I'll eat my hat. I did get out a postal scale I have that will measure in grams, but I kept mucking up the tare function.
Excitingly, I also made my own caster sugar, which is not really impressive but just consists of blending/ processing American granulated sugar until it is even finer (but not powdered sugar). Here's a how-to.
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