praying i haven't got a soggy bottom

I'm working my way through the Great British Bake off book: Everyday: Over 100 Foolproof Bakes. We'll see just how foolproof they are!

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Paul’s Spanakopita This was filo pastry (shop bought, I'm not silly) with lemony feta and spinach innards. Wouldn't make it again, it was pretty boring. 🙄

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Rhubarb and ginger tart One of those recipes that I wouldn't never have picked myself, but now it'll be a go to recipe in rhubarb season!

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Chestnut Meringue Roulade This was a meringue swiss roll, basically. Inside was a chocolatey, chestnutty (crème de marrons) goodness. Awful photos before I wasn't at home.

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Whipped chocolate layer cake Tasted as good as it sounded! The icing was a meringue icing, really good, but tricky to fold in well.

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Potato bread Really nice recipe. A mixture of mashed potato and lumps of roasted potato seasoned with rosemary. Eaten warm!

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English muffins This is being banked in my recipes to go back to collection! Pretty easy and the result is just perfect.

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Earl grey tea loaf/hot cross buns Fruit was soaked in earl grey for an hour. Sorry for the crappy photo, they tasted a lot better than they look!

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Orange brûlée (Puddings - 13/20) You can probably see from the photos that this split for some reason. I think it might have been the orange flower water, the one that I used was very oily. It was tasty, just rather oily. :(

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Apple 'Cake' (Pastry - 12/24)

Still not sure why this is called a 'cake' and not just a pie. It was stuffed full of apples in a buttery filling, wrapped in shortcrust pastry made with milk and baking powder. I love apple pie, so I'll probably be digging out this recipe again some time!

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Paul's Brioche Têtes (Sweet Breads - weekend baking 1/4)

I had to buy special little molds for this bake, so I'll be making these again to make the purchase worthwhile! Definitely best warm, i.e. straight from the oven. They don't look like they do in the book, they're not all perfect and puffy on top, but I can't figure out how he managed that! 

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Mary's Ginger and Treacle Spiced Traybake (Biscuits and Little Cakes - Weekend Baking 1/3)

I had an incident! I was transferring the traybake, prior to icing, from the tin and it folded in half and my world ended. That's me without make up on looking devastated - that's my devastated face.

I still powered on and iced the ogre, I did chop it up so it looked presentable, but apparently I was too distraught to take any photos of that! The orange chunks on top are stem ginger, and the icing was made with the ginger syrup from the stem ginger jar. I might make this again in a few months when the wounds have healed. It was definitely a unique bake, like nothing I've ever had before. It kind of tasted 'dark'!

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Apple and Oat Muffins (Biscuits and little cakes 18/27)

Nice and simple recipe. Chunks of soft apple throughout the muffin and demerara sugar oat mix on top to give it a crunch.

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Raspberry Crumble Shortbread (Biscuits and Little Cakes 17/27)

Amazing recipe! Bake a regular shortbread for about half the time to cook it completely, then top with your favourite jam (I used the raspberry and redcurrant jam from the book), then top with some more shortbreak recipe all mixed up with almond flakes, then bake. Oh my days! It's a chewy kind of heaven! The jam becomes super thick like some chewy sweet and do not wait until it's cooled to eat it!

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Chewy apricot cookies (Biscuits and little cakes - 15/27)

No apricots were actually recipe... they're really almond cookies with apricot jam inside, but I was mistaken in thinking that I had apricot jam in my fridge, so I used a berry jam that I made a few weeks ago, and then the rest of them had butter icing inside. They were chewy, indeed, but I think ice cream inside would have been less rich, or just eaten on their own would have been better!

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Mary's Spiced Whole Orange Cake (Cakes - Weekend baking 3/7)

Lovely cake, and it looked like I'd made a masterpiece! This literally did have a whole orange in the cake mix which I wasn't expecting. It was nice and moist, with orange butter and mascarpone icing, and home candied orange peel to decorate.

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Cranberry and Marzipan Cake (Cakes -  15/20)

Simple fruity cake with marzipan in the batter, not in chunks! Almond flakes all over the top prior to baking.

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Lemon Meringue Cake (Cakes - 14/20) 

Lovely recipe! Got to make lemon curd again, I find it so therapeutic... I also got to use a blowtorch! Making the italian meringue took ages and ages, I even managed to get arm ache with an electric whisk. Super pleased with the result though. (Even if my whisked sponge didn't rise as much as I would have liked it to have done...)