It’s caramel week - my absolute nemesis! I’d managed to somehow block that horrific summer heatwave out of my brain (largely because the weather’s turned cold and I hate it) but it all came roaring back this week - that was not the weather for nougatine or feuilletine or
It’s Free-From Party week! I’d better start off by addressing the elephant in the room. Well, the axolotl in the room. Well, the cursed demonic entity that vaguely resembles an axolotl in the room. I did not do my best work this week - and I’m somewhat
It’s pastry week! Incredibly, my streak of not-feeling-too-much-rage after watching Bake Off has continued - I absolutely didn’t hate this episode. (Well, I hated Clara going home - she was an absolute delight.) But what an array of absolutely normal challenges; pasties, a pie, and for
It’s dessert week, and for once I’m not full of exhausted rage!It may come as no surprise to anyone who’s clocked my wonderfully sizable arse (huge, so it has a tremendous sense of value) that I’m a dessert fan. Or pudding, or afters, or sweet,
Well, that was definitely an episode of the Great British Bake Off. Apologies for the lack of technical challenge last week, but A) I was ill, and B) there wasn’t really a technical challenge for me to recreate. A pantry is not a technical challenge - it’s filler. As
I’m going to be honest - I don’t think I like biscuit week. This has absolutely nothing to do with this week’s technical challenge, and everything to do with the fact that I’m just not really a biscuit person, and I feel like there’s just a
Bake Off is back, and so am I! I’m once again going to be recreating the technical challenge every week, and trying to answer the question ‘Is this fair?’ I’ll be honest, I wasn’t going to do this again. I’m tired, I’m a few years
Thoughts, stories and ideas.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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 Riverdale)
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,