GBBO 2015 Bakealong: Week 2

I missed the second episode of GBBO on Wednesday evening, due to an overdue appointment with some nice people and a great big pizza.
I was a little worried that I might never see it, due to the tragic broadband drought that was going on at my flat, but happily BT came up with the goods and I managed to catch up last night.

Biscuit week seems a bit unpopular on the Social Meejas - I'm not really sure why - I love a nice biscuit.

I'm a little less certain about boxes/structures made of biscuits, tbh, but I can only assume that some people love them (and consider them a worthwhile endeavour).

Biscotti, I am happy with - they can appear a slightly odd beast, I think, until (rather like last week's cake, in fact) you realise that they are much improved by an accompanying glass of something (vin santo if you can find a nice one - I might just reuse the Madeira) to dip them in!

My recipe was a slightly bastardised version of the one from "500 Cookies", a slightly eccentric but very heavily used book that I have had for a fair chunk of forever.

I was a bit unsure about the wisdom of putting dried fruit in biscotti, what with the twice cooking and everything, but it seems to be A Thing, so I went for sour cherry and almond, with a wee bit of orange zest and extract.

They were super easy and came out beautifully, if a touch on the large side - I've made quite a few biscotti in my time, and never quite got the hang of making the initial "loaves" a sensible size.

I confess that I don't really understand the obsession on GBBO with making things a uniform size - part of the joy of things like these biscotti is that they are cut from a loaf, which, by its very nature, is likely to taper at the extremeties... What do they expect you to do with the ends (the Best Bits!)? Throw them away?

Anyway - mine are large and unwieldy, in no way the same size as each other and (as far as I can tell) just tooth-breaking enough and, in my opinion, that is exactly how they should be.

Next week is, apparently, Bread Week - officially the stupidest week to try to squash into two short days of baking... I clearly wasn't really paying attention as I have no clue what the signature bake is going to be - I guess it will be a nice surprise when I find out!

Baking Along With GBBO: Week Two: Florentines

I confess that I wasn't massively excited about biscuit week - I have a few nice biscuit/cookie recipes that I use over and over again, as they clearly represent a handy portable baked item, but I can't say that I find them very, well, exciting.

Anyway, the technical challenge turned out to be florentines, which I'm not certain I'd ever really considered even to be a biscuit, but I'd certainly never made before.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_florentines_49833

Not super challenging, I think, other than the tempering of the chocolate (I used a nasty cheap chocolate for the first lot that entirely refused to temper and switched to some kind of Aldi dark for the remainder which worked much better), but a bit of microwaving took care of that.

They turned out pretty well, though I was far too lazy to make the proper zigzags that the judges were so inexplicably keen on :)

Husband conducted a taste test during a period of extreme hunger when I was late home for dinner last night.

He declared them "OK - tasty (and crisp like Mary Berry wanted), but not really a biscuit", which, I think pretty much sums them up.

I might make them for Christmas - they seem festive.