Baking!

Well, it's official - my budget's about to be completely blown on baking ingredients!

The Great British Bake Off has returned to our screens, and as ever I am following contestants on twitter, and through their blogs and avidly V+'ing all episodes!

The reason for this mad fanaticism is I love baking, I find it really therapeutic to disappear into the kitchen, my iPod on a really dodgy playlist that no-one else likes (just to ensure no other interruptions) and bake away to my hearts content, or my ingredient cupboard is empty, usually whichever comes first. But here is my startling confession....... I only follow recipes, I could no more start to make my own cakes than I could fly to the moon!

I love recipe books; one of the contestants of the GBBO on her blog describes recipe books as "food porn" and I know exactly what she means. I could read a recipe book from cover to cover, and frequently do so tucked in a comfy chair with a cup of tea whilst the other half is watching match of the day highlights with 2 random football teams that I have never heard of (but that is a rant for another day!)

My mum has always said, if you can read, you can cook/bake and I know what she means, if you can read the recipe, then you can follow it. I do think though that a certain amount of common sense and baking acumen has to be involved too - otherwise I am talking myself down. Anyway, I do follow the recipes, and then stick little post-it notes inside the pages with little notes of my own (even though the books belong to me, I couldn't go so far as to actually mar them with my own writing). But I long to be able to just carelessly throw things together with an "I don't care if it works or not" attitude. Randomly selecting ingredients from my cupboard and throwing them over my shoulder like a deranged Mary Poppins where they land effortlessly in my Kenwood bowl and then come out of my oven beautifully cooked (and sometimes in my wildest imaginings iced and decorated too) so I can whirl them to the table to gasps of admiration from my waiting family and friends. Yeah right!

Anyway, I now have even more recipes to follow and try and I am determined that I am going to create my own signature dish whilst I am off work. It may take a while, and once I create it, I will be making it until my friends and family are completely sick of eating it, but until that happy day, I remain all the gear, no idea!