Join me as I bake through the Great British Bake Off.
This delicate, lacy cookie is traditionally made with almonds and orange flavors, reminiscent of Italian baking, but the use of butter and cream is evidence of its French origins. Mary Berry's version uses a variety of dried fruits and nuts and then, after baking, is brushed with a decadent layer of dark chocolate.
The challenge—to create three different kinds of petits fours (like the canapés of desserts) using different baking techniques—seemed like a test of all that the bakers on The Great British Baking Show had learned so far. For my petits fours, I made chocolate macarons with mocha ganache filling; lime, mint & white chocolate mousse tartlets; and raspberry–chocolate mousse in chocolate cups.
It’s biscuit week in the Great White Tent, and Paul Hollywood’s technical challenge is a chocolate tea cake, whose only connection to biscuits is a thin, wafer-like cookie at the base of a meringue-filled chocolate dome, the whole effect of which seems more like a candy bar than a biscuit.
