Maple Vanilla Basque Cheesecake
GBBO Bake Along Week 8 - Dessert Week
Hello, I’m back for another week of my Great British Bake Off bake along, it’s the quarter finals and dessert week in the tent which sounds exciting but I thought that this week was perhaps slightly boring? I think I’m starting to lose interest in this season and maybe Bake Off as a whole. The bakers are amazing but I’d love to see some fresh faces when it comes to the judging, someone that’s actually worked in the industry in the past ten years and isn’t afraid of interesting flavours, I’d love to Ravneet Gill Taiano, who currently judges Junior Bake Off or even
if she could be persuaded! I’m desperate for some fresh faces.Anyway, enough complaining, let’s chat about the episode…
Signature
I’m a bit confused about both Paul and Prue’s description of basque cheesecake. Prue said that it should be “as light as anything” and “somewhere between a cheesecake and a very light sponge cake” while Paul seemed to think that it should be “jelly-like” … what??? Basque cheesecake isn’t (and shouldn’t be) any lighter than a regular cheesecake, if anything we want to avoid adding any air so that we get a lovely smooth texture and a jelly-like basque is a clear sign that it’s been over baked.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by any of the cheesecakes, the flavours sounded nice but I thought most of them looked over baked, apart from Tom’s but the judges didn’t seem to like his anyway (I think they have a vendetta against black sesame).
Cheesecake Deep Dive (free), Maple Vanilla Basque (paid, below)
A good basque should have a nice dark exterior and a smooth, creamy centre. This week we’re making a maple and vanilla basque cheesecake, all of the sugar in this recipe comes from the maple syrup so it has a lovely strong maple flavour that works so well with the caramelised flavour from the slightly burnt edges and it means that there’s no refined sugar in this recipe so it’s healthy, right… right????
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Technical
The judges seem to be obsessed with steamed puddings. I do like a steamed pudding but I can’t say it’s something I find myself making very often. I know I’ve been moaning about the technicals being too difficult but I feel like for the quarter finals, they could have chosen something a bit more exciting but I’m sure they bakers were thankful for a more straight forward challenge.
I don’t have any steamed pudding recipes, however the lemon bundt cake I’ve linked below uses a similar technique of boiling whole fruits before blitzing into the cake batter and it makes for a such a lovely, moist crumb. If you haven’t tried that technique before, I would highly recommend giving it a go!
Lemon & Olive Oil Bundt (free)
Showstopper
Ok, at first I thought that this challenge was insane. However after further consideration I don’t think that a freestanding trifle is too crazy. What is a charlotte, fraisier or even prinsesstårta if not a freestanding trifle? They all have some kind of sponge, custard, cream and a fruity element, a bit of jelly isn’t difficult to incorporate, I wish the bakers had gone down this route rather than trying to make fillings stable enough to support a classic layer cake although I liked Iain and Toby’s idea of wrapping their trifles in sponge to give it some kind of stability. I wasn’t really sure about how I felt about the final trifles, I thought that Iain’s looked the neatest but Aaron’s flavours were more up my street.
Fraisier (paid), Prinsesstårta (paid)
Let’s get into today’s recipe…