It’s finals time! Miraculously, I’ve made it through all ten weeks of Bake Off with my fingers and sanity intact. I wasn’t expecting it. That was, honestly, a delight of a finale. We had buns, we had cake, we had a length specification instead of a height
Well, that was a well-received, not-controversial, entirely sane Bake Off semi-final. Just kidding! What an absolute shit show of an episode. We had puff pastry in a heat wave, we had yet another showstopper with a nonsensical height distinction, we had advanced pastry-chef techniques in the technical (on this show
It’s dessert week! As most desserts are also baking and almost all baking could technically be a dessert (I said almost! Don’t remind me of the pork-and-egg-pie-fandango) this gets to be a very vague week! Almost all of this week infuriated me. Largely, this is because I’m
It’s meringue week! Which means I’ve had to triple-check how to spell meringue! I think I’m getting it right! I like it when Bake Off does a new week (provided the show never repeats the horror of Mexican week), and what amounts to just whipping egg whites
What fresh hell is this? It’s a pie! You might have noticed this Bake Off write-up is coming out a little late. Don’t worry, unlike last year I did not decide to opt out of pastry week for the sake of my mental health. I’m just dying.
Finally, some good television! It was Chocolate week on Bake Off, and I absolutely love chocolate. (Not white chocolate, which was a bit of a shame for this week’s challenge, but we can’t have everything.) What a relief to see a chocolate week that clearly wasn’t filmed
Is it just me, or was this an incredibly dull week on Bake Off? Fair play to them for trying something new, but I just could not get excited about school week. Maybe it’s because I didn’t love school, so I found the rose-tinted nostalgia a little bit
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
It’s Bread week! Consistently, I get very excited for bread week. For once, I might get to make a not-sweet technical challenge. (Considering my distinct lack of a sweet tooth, doing this bake-along every year is a particularly stupid endeavour. Also for a lot of other reasons.) And yet,
It’s biscuit week! I feel like I need to issue a formal ‘thank you’ to whoever comes up with the challenges on Bake Off. Particularly, the showstoppers. Every year, we get to hear more and more ridiculous descriptions of biscuit-related items, presented as if they are a totally normal
Bake Off is back! Once again, I’ll be baking along with the technical challenges every week. I’ll be trying to answer the question - is this just mean? Bake Off used to be the feel-good reality/competition show. It was the not-like-other-shows show, but in recent years it’
Hello! I did say in my platform switching Substack announcement that a cover reveal was incoming - and here it is! Designed by wonderful artist (and good pal and all-around excellent human being) Francine Carrel, here is the cover for my newest book - American Teen Dramas (From Sunnydale to
Oh hi, it’s been a minute. I promise I haven’t disappeared into the void or fallen down a well. In fact, I’ve been slaving away over a hot keyboard doing all sorts of exciting things. (Well, writing, mostly.) I’ve got a big announcement coming very soon,
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Afternoon Tea
Opera Cake
Spotted Dick
Vegan Parkin
Pear Tarte Tatin
Seven-Strand Plaited Loaf