Welcome, once again my friends, to The Great British Baking Show: Walton Edition! This week our intrepid bakers shake off the winter chill and celebrate the return of sunny weather with Spring Bake Week!
This was our last bake before we took a break for the quarantine. This will also be the start of my incredibly short write ups, since I have a lot of bakes backlogged and I need to get them posted. So here we go! Dan and Mandy’s daughter Evey made us all chocolate milkshakes, above, once again securing for herself the title of this week’s Junior Star Baker.
This is my Fettuccine Quarantini. I wanted to make something with whatever I could find at the grocery, and it turns out that in a pandemic people will hoard pasta as well as toilet paper. People are idiots. These bird’s nests were the only pasta I could find, so I made it work.
I wanted to use Corona in my recipe. It’s Fettuccine Quarantini, so Corona seemed à propos, and it lent a body to the sauce that impressed me. This was a delicious recipe, but I inadvertently used unsalted butter and forgot to salt the dish. The bacon alone wasn’t enough to season it. It was bland. My flavors didn’t come through. I was not pleased.
Mark made mandarin orange cakes with candied mandarin oranges, homemade whipped cream, and a mandarin-rum syrup. I don’t remember much about them but I do remember liking them.
Mandy baked this beautiful chocolate cake with strawberry icing. I don’t know how we didn’t get a picture of it before it was cut, but I regret it. Take my word, it was stunning.
Dan made an apple rhubarb coffee cake. I don’t even like rhubarb and I voted for this bake. It was wonderful, and it won Dan this week’s Star Baker! Well done, Dan, and please join us next time for Ghostbusters Week!
Until next time, bon appétit!
2021 Update: Mandy came across this picture of her cake before we sliced into it. Gorgeous!