A Sad Flat Cake: Lemon Poppy Seed Tray Bake.

Welcome to week two of recreating treats from The Great British Baking Show! This week, I chose to make a lemon poppy seed tray bake with lemon cream cheese frosting. The contestant whose cake I chose to recreate was sent home at the end of the episode foreshadowing a failure on my part as well. 

Minimal ingredients were required for this recipe. Basic cake ingredients such as flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, and butter along with lemons, poppy seeds, and cream cheese for the icing was all that was necessary for this week’s kitchen experiment. Although the instructions said to put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix, I separated the ingredients, so that I wouldn’t be covered in a flour and sugar mess once the mixer was turned on. For a few minutes, I thought my eggs had scrambled, but on the show, there was no time to restart, and I kept going. 

Episode 2, otherwise called “Cake Week,” is (surprise!) all about cake. In the first and signature round, Luke, a home baker, made the lemon poppy seed cake that I made today. His results were not much better than mine as the judges commented his cake was “tough as old boots” and “sloppy.” Unfortunately, I can’t say that my cake turned out any prettier. After the cake had time to cool, and I covered it in icing, I asked my mom to assist me in tasting my newest creation. I ask myself the questions that I think Paul Hollywood would ask. Is the cake light? Does it have good flavor? Is the bake good? I can not answer yes to any of these questions. My cake was flat, likely the result of using all-purpose flour instead of self-rising flour. Note to self: if the recipe says self-rising flour, use self-rising flour. The type of flour used makes more of a difference than I originally thought. In addition, the cake lacked a strong lemon flavor. The icing is the real superstar. It balances sweetness and cream cheese and tart lemon perfectly, however, my icing skills could use some improvement. Overall, I think my cake was disappointing because of how delicious last week’s biscuits were. Hopefully, if Paul and Pru were to taste and judge my cake, they would have at least given me an “A” for effort. 

To conclude, I would like to leave this piece of wisdom from British baking legend and former judge on The Great British Baking Show, Mary Berry: “Cakes are healthy too, you just eat a small slice.”