Time to be Free.

Free From week! We are half way through The Great British Bake Off already and this week the bakers had to face the challenge of keeping their bakes free from ingredients. Always a challenge!

It was obvious that all the bakers were gunning for Ian’s dominance of the Star Baker award. In the first challenge the bakers were tasked with coming up with Sugar Free Cakes.

Tamal’s honey and grapefruit Polenta Cake looked very interesting. He loves using his medical equipment in baking and the syringes made another appearance in the tent. I am starting to worry we might see a surgery in one of the episodes soon!

Alvin’s made a quick Pineapple upside down cake which he thought might be too simple but got great feedback from Paul and Mary. Ugne went for gold with sugar AND gluten free Chocolate and Hazelnut cake using alternate flours. Unfortunately even though the cake tasted good it collapsed in the end.

The technical challenge was Pitta Bread. This innocuous looking bread turned out to be quite tricky. Alvin came last while Nadiya won the challenge with her perfect pitta ending her struggles with the technical challenges.

The showstopper was Ice-cream Rolls, which brought back memories of the Bingate incident from last year!

Tamal decorated his Passionfruit and Pineapple Ice-cream roll with baby bunting.Paul made another creative bake- “Dessert Island” featuring palm trees and a bikini-clad sunbather.

Dessert Island cake

Flora’s chocolate and pear roll failed to impress judges and Mat’s ice-cream roll was missing the ice-cream. Nadiya’s chocolate, strawberry and lime roll was much appreciated by Paul and Mary. Ugne made Peanut butter ice-cream which sounded great but she struggled with her finishing again and Paul thought she had dropped it from ten floors up!

In the end Nadiya deservedly won the Star Baker and Ugne was the latest baker to leave the tent.

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This week in books

This week I met up with the lovely Anna James from We love this book, the UK’s biggest and brightest online books magazine. We chatted about Bake Off, My upcoming book- The Cardamom Trail and Cookbook Confidential, a brand new exciting festival being organised by Octopus Publishing where I will be doing a food demonstration.

Here is the video of my interview with We love this book.

Food with Chetna

I am really excited to share Gluten free, Guilt free recipe made by guest Baking Star Kate Henry. These Basil and Nectarine Mini Frangipane cakes are super delicious and light. They are perfect bite sized great little treats which are super quick to make.

Do give these a try and I am sure you WILL be amazed!

If you like the recipe don’t forget to give us a Thumbs up and don;t forget to subscribe to Food with Chetna for more exciting recipes!