Great British Bake Off Technical Bake 1 – Chocolate Mini Rolls

Just like many others, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about GBBO in its new home on Channel 4 and with new hosts. I’ve watched it since the first year and part of me wondered whether maybe it was time to go out on a high. But, getting back after a training session at the athletics track on a Tuesday evening, I found myself rushing to tune in a see what this year’s batch of bakers had in store.

These are NOT mine!

Yes Prue seems a bit reserved to start with and Noel and Sandi need to let loose a bit, but in general I’d say it’s fine at the moment. It’s not got that final bit of sparkle yet but the contestants are great as always and I think it might grow throughout the series. I do miss the history bits though. Yep. Geek.

Anyway, I’d also said to myself that I was done with the whole technical challenge bakealong thing. It was the Isles Flotantes that sealed it for me the other year. They’re not baking and they’re not nice and you can’t share them with people! But… then they wheeled out the mini rolls. I’ve tried about 5 times to make a swiss roll and I’ve only ever managed to make a tasty mess, but never a successful roll, so this appealed to the stubborn baker in me.

I’m not going to force myself to take great photos each week or indeed to write a big blurb (though this one would seem to suggest otherwise) but I think I’ll try and have a bash at them and see if I get all the way through.

The recipe for the mini rolls can be found here over at the official GBBO website.

My main observations would be:

1. I think a ganache would work better for the coating. It’s pretty impossible to get them totally covered and lovely and smooth unless you use that OR a lot of extra chocolate and totally immerse them in dunking
2. When you make the cocoa and hot water paster don’t do what I did and assume that you’ve read the recipe wrong. It’s REALLY thick and seems like it shouldn’t work but it does
3. The actual cake batter is quite bitter, but that’s fine when it’s got a load of butter cream and covered in chocolate
4. I’m not a huge fan of the mint-choc thing but trust Prue here. Just the tiniest hint of mint stops it being overpoweringly sickly
5. They are very big for something that’s called mini
6. Your kitchen will be entirely covered in chocolate by the end
7. If you want GBBO perfection do use a piping bag for the white chocolate drizzle and don’t just flick it around the place like I did

Here’s mine:

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I’m baking along with other bloggers and MummyMishaps.co.uk