Great British Bake Off Challenge

I love almondy things, to the point that I would happily sit down and eat an entire block of marzipan. So Battenburg, one of the challenges on the great British bake off, is right up my street. I have never made one before, mainly because it looks like a bit of a faff and fiddle, but also because I'd eat the entire thing, and would be considerably larger than I am. I do love a challenge though, and since I was palming the calorie laden coffee and walnut battenburg onto my appreciative work colleagues, it was all fine.

The recipe can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/coffee_and_walnut_88342

The finished result was pretty good, although it could have looked slightly better. It tasted very nice though and I had a fight on my hands trying to wrestle it off my husband so I could take it to work.

The Finished Christmas cake

I have finally finished the Christmas cake that I have toiled over in class for the last few months. We had yet another buffet lunch at work last week, so I thought I would bring my cake in, partly because I can't be bothered making anything else and also it means that I won't eat the entire thing by myself.

It was a little heartbreaking to eat it after spending all that time on it, but the waft of Whiskey from the cake when it sliced into it reminded me why I wanted to try it. It was really moist and went down very well, but I think the department became 10% less productive after lunch as a result of the alcoholic content (certainly not one to hand round at the AA Christmas party).