10 September, 2015

Week 6, Pastry Week

Comments : 1 Posted in : My Blog on 10th September 2015 by : Ugne

Recap of Another Week in the Tent

This week was pastry week on GBBO and having gone home last week it was my objective to keep up with each episode as we go on and to share my thoughts and ideas with you all.  I love making pastry and I felt that I had a good line-up of ‘bakes’ planned  for week 6, which obviously you all now know I never got the opportunity to showcase.

However, just what did Ugne have in mind for ‘Pastry week’ – well, back in Lithuania I come from an area which has hectares and hectares of Woodlands which are ’home’ to the most  fantastic wild strawberries and Ceps.  I had these two ingredients firmly in mind for pastry week.  In the signature challenge I would’ve gone with  Ceps and Summer Truffle Vol-au-Vents (incorporating fresh finely chopped summer truffle- not truffle oil), alongside my signature Bobotie Vol-au-Vents.  As for the showstopper I would have baked a Wild Strawberry Frangipane tart.  No chocolate you may ask – nope – nooo chocolate!

It was a shame to see my good Bake-Off friend Alvin depart this week.  Alvin is in my opinion in the top 3 most talented Bakers in that tent (regardless leaving this week) – one bad week do not define the Baker and not is that an indication of a less talented baker that the remainder of the bakes (there are fine margins between glory and failure in that Tent)!

Throughout this series, irritatingly so at times,  there has been a lot of ‘hot-air’ about this year’s Bakers trying too hard or being all about flavour – less so about baking, now I tell you again that it is easy to bake a good Victoria sponge yet very difficult to bring something new to the table which I feel a lot of this year’s bakers have done after rall its 2015 not 1945.  Food is ALL about flavour first and foremost so!    I think there will always be ‘opinions’, remember someone else’s opinions don’t define us – we define who we are in fighting for what we believe in and are passionate for – it will be a sad day if we do what we do to please others instead of remaining true to ourselves.     I salute anyone who try to push a bit further – yes it does not always work, but if it comes of what a ‘beautiful picture’ it does not ‘paint’.  See you all next week.

X Ugne