Join me as I bake through the Great British Bake Off.
Tennis cakes were a big hit in the late 1800s, when lawn tennis became a popular sport that men and women could play together. The cakes were elaborately decorated with candied fruit or royal icing in the shape of tennis balls and racquets. This was the technical challenge for Victorian week in The Great British Bake Off 2015.
The brief for this showstopper challenge was a 3D biscuit scene, so I decided to make something reminiscent of my own childhood, The Sledding Hill. Using gingerbread for the base, I covered it with fondant and meringue "snow," then added gingerbread people and nut-shortbread trees.
I’ve been thinking about making this cake ever since I first watched this episode of the Great British Baking Show (2012 season, episode 1). You might even say it was my initial inspiration for this blogging adventure. I love a challenge, and figuring out how to embed a design inside a cake in such a way that it would be visible in every slice is something I’d never thought of before. What design could I make that would be unique but simple enough for me, an amateur baker, to pull off? I thought of the goose that laid the golden egg.
Here's the Dish 