Ever since we’ve started watching The Great British Bake Off and seeing all the mouth-wateringly delightful projects these amazing bakers pull off, I’ve wanted to try my hand. Well, it wasn’t very long before Becky bought me a cookbook as part of Jólabókaflóð, and I started looking for opportunities.

So I set aside some weekend time for baking projects, bought some staples that we hadn’t had in our pantry for years (AP flour! Yeast!), ordered some exotic-in-the-States ingredients (Black pudding! Dark treacle! Muscovado!), and set to work.

This is part of our 100 Things in 2018 challenge. Make sure to click on the photos!

Project 1: Sticky Gingerbread

Lucia helped me make this. It’s essentially a very moist gingerbread cake with a very sticky sauce on top, and it was delightful. It didn’t last long.

Project 2: Roquefort Walnut Loaf

This was a huge hit. In essence it’s a regular loaf, but kneaded with walnuts and with a ribbon of roquefort rolled within. Toast with butter, and it’s amazing. Highly recommended.

Project 3: Pecan Shorties

With Lucia’s help again, we made these lovely little shortbread cookies, which are partially dipped in melted chocolate, and disappear very quickly when presented to hungry people.

Project 4: Morello Cherry Bakewell

A Bakewell Tart is a pie crust, whose filling is a series of layers, including frangipane and jam. This one tasted of creamy almonds and deeply dark cherries. I messed it up a bit, but it was still pretty darn good.

Project 5: Paul’s Sausage Rolls

These turned out to be very useful, and even helped power us up the side of Mt. St. Helens. The plaits were a lot of fun to make, and they look pretty good, don’t they?

Project 6: Hazelnut Strawberry Roulade

So good. This tasted like strawberries and cream wrapped up in crispy-baked meringue. It disappeared in record time.

I really enjoyed these projects, and although we’ve discovered that nobody in our family has a dairy intolerance any longer (yay!), this amount of carbs just doesn’t agree with us. So I won’t be making a lifestyle out of baking, but I do intend to continue making treats from time to time.