It was such a surreal experience to win the Great British Bake Off,” says Frances Quinn, the underdog contestant who scooped the top prize in 2013. “I was in complete shock. I remember feeling I’d put everything I had into my cake designs, but I still wasn’t sure if what I’d created would be enough.”
It was her three-tiered wedding cake, inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, layered with fruit and rose petals, that wowed the judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood.
The following two years have been a dream for Quinn, who left her job and devoted herself to baking full-time. Her first book, Quinntessential Baking, is out at the end of August. The following recipes are from the book, which is packed full of witty and imaginative cake designs.
Fun, says Quinn, was the antidote to the task of producing her cakes under pressure while filming the hugely popular TV series. “There’d be times when the icing designs were melting in the heat of the tent, or the crews would want a specific shot, and make you take the cake in and out of the oven several times. I’d be pulling my hair out, thinking, I don’t have time for this. But I now know I can produce great cakes under extreme pressure.”
Quinn says you don’t have to be a professional baker to make these creations at home: “When it comes to decorating your bakes, anything goes! Don’t worry if your first bakes have a few rough edges. I’d rather be served something that looks handmade and individual than a super-smooth creation, armoured in flawless, but not very tasty, icing. The more you bake, the more your confidence grows, feeding your imagination and appetite.”
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Brownie owls
This recipe makes use of round, cream-filled chocolate biscuits, split in half. The cream-covered sides make up the owls’ wise eyes; some of the other halves go to make crunchy bases for the cakes; and the remainder are broken up and stirred into the mix to give you a brownie with bite. If you want even more texture, add a handful of chopped nuts to the batter too: they’ll make for a bake that’s totally top of the tree!
For the brownies
24 round, cream-filled chocolate biscuits, such as Oreos (about 265g)
150g butter, roughly chopped
3 tbsp golden or maple syrup
300g golden caster sugar
300g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 tbsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, at room temperature
150g plain flour
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For the ganache
100g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
150ml double cream
To finish
24 giant milk chocolate buttons (about 100g)
24 small, round, dark chocolate chips
12 whole skin-on almonds
72 milk chocolate buttons (about 90g)
12 walnuts
12 pecans
Equipment needed
12-hole muffin tin
12 paper muffin cases
Fine paintbrush
Makes: 12 brownies
1. Heat the oven to 180C. Line the tin with the muffin cases. Split the chocolate biscuits in half. Set the 24 cream-covered halves aside. Put 12 of the plain halves into your muffin cases, embossed side down. Put the remaining 12 plain halves in a sandwich bag encased in a tea towel, and bash into large crumbs using a rolling pin. Set aside.
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2. Put the butter, syrup and sugar into a pan. Set it over a medium heat and warm, stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the heat and add the chopped chocolate and vanilla extract. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the chocolate to soften.
3. Stir the warm, chocolatey mixture in the pan until smoothly combined, then use a hand-held electric whisk to beat in the eggs until the mixture is thick and velvety. Sift over the flour in a couple of batches, folding in each batch until just combined. Finally, fold in the broken-up biscuit pieces.
4. Spoon the mixture into the biscuit-based muffin cases, dividing it evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the brownies have risen and are firm to the touch (a skewer inserted into the centre should come out a little sticky).
5. Leave the brownies to cool in the tin — they will firm up as they cool. If you like a really fudgey brownie, refrigerate them before decorating.
6. While the brownies are cooling, make the ganache. Put the chocolate in a medium-sized heatproof bowl with the golden syrup and vanilla extract.
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7. Gently heat the cream in a small pan over a medium heat. When it’s coming to the boil, pour it over the chocolate and stir gently until smooth and shiny. Leave the ganache to cool slightly, but use it while still runny.
8. To make the eyes, lay the 24 cream-sided biscuit halves cream side up. Using the paintbrush, dab some chocolate ganache on the centre of each biscuit, then stick a giant milk chocolate button onto this. Dab more ganache onto the middle of each button and stick on a dark chocolate chip to create the pupil in the eye. To add even more personality and expression to your brownie owls, place the chocolate-chip pupils in varying positions on the buttons. Leave to set.
9. Leave the remaining ganache to cool further. You want it to reach a soft spreadable consistency for topping the brownies, so you may want to put it in the fridge to firm up.
10. Once the brownies have cooled, remove from their paper cases. Cover each one with ganache. Place two chocolate eyes on each cake and insert an almond between them to represent a beak. Press the milk chocolate buttons into the ganache — six per owl, in overlapping rows — to look like feathers. Cut the pecans and walnuts in half. Place the pecans between the eyes to represent eyebrows, and the walnuts either side of the chocolate buttons, as wings.
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Rainbow cake
This spectacular cake is simple to make. You can use a ring-shaped savarin tin to bake it, but I quite like the DIY approach of putting an empty golden-syrup tin inside a round cake tin — a pot of gold in more ways than one!
Serves: 6-8
For the cake
Cake-release spray
100g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
2 lemons
2 eggs, at room temperature
100g self-raising flour
2 tbsp ground almonds
For the lemon syrup
100g caster sugar to decorate
300ml double cream
1 kiwi fruit
1 mango
150g strawberries
50g blueberries
Equipment needed
23cm round, deep,loose-bottomed tin, greased and fully lined
Empty golden syrup tin (454g size)
Cocktail stick
Medium paintbrush
1. Heat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease the outside of the syrup tin with cake-release spray, then wrap it in baking parchment. Place it in the centre of the lined round tin.
2. Using a hand-held electric whisk, or in a free-standing mixer, beat the butter and sugar together for 5-10 minutes until light, pale and creamy. Grate the zest from the lemons into the mix and beat it in. Beat the eggs in a mug or jug, then add the egg to the butter and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. If the mixture looks like it’s curdling, add a spoon of the flour.
3. Sift the flour and almonds into the mixture, in batches, folding in each batch until just combined. Squeeze all the juice from the lemons. Stir 2 tbsp of the juice into the cake mixture. Set the rest of the juice aside.
4. Spoon the cake mixture into your tin, taking care to keep the syrup tin central as you spread the mixture around it. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cake is risen and lightly golden brown, and a skewer inserted into it comes out clean.
5. While the cake is baking, make the lemon syrup. Measure the reserved lemon juice and add water, if necessary, to make it up to 100ml. Pour into a pan. Add the caster sugar and set the pan over a medium-high heat. Warm for several minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat and allow to cool.
6. Once the cake is baked, and while still warm, prick the surface with the cocktail stick. Brush over the lemon syrup using the paintbrush or a pastry brush, allowing the syrup to soak into the sponge. Set aside the remaining syrup to glaze the fruit later.
7. Leave the cake to cool slightly before lifting out of the syrup tin. Set the cake, still in its round tin, on a wire rack to cool. Remove the cooled cake from the tin.
8. Using a ruler as a guide, cut the cake across in half to make two rainbow shapes. Whip the cream with a hand-held electric whisk until it forms soft-to-medium peaks.
9. Using a small palette knife, spread half the cream over each rainbow-shaped cake, creating a slightly textured finish. Place one cream-covered rainbow cake on top of the other. Cut the top and bottom off the kiwi fruit, then slice the skin away in strips.
10. Use a small, sharp knife to peel the mango, then slice the flesh off the central stone in large pieces; you’ll only need about half of this, depending on the mango’s size. Cut the kiwi, mango and strawberries into neat 1-2cm pieces.
11. Arrange the pieces of fruit on top of the cake in neat rows, to create the appearance of a rainbow. Brush the remaining lemon syrup over the fruit as a glaze. (Leftover syrup can be kept in the fridge for up to a week and used to flavour other cakes.)
Strawberry shortcake
Here you can have your cake and eat it, together with a biscuit or two! This fusion of vanilla sponge, jam, cream, strawberries and the all-important, buttery shortcake biscuits sums up British summertime at its sweetest. I use the classic, fluted-edged shop-bought shortbread biscuits for this, which measure 6 x 3.5cm. Serve with extra strawberries, if you like.
Serves: 2-3
For the cake
50g butter, softened
50g caster sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
50g self-raising flour
1 tsp warm water
To decorate
50g strawberry jam — homemade or shop-bought
50ml double cream
½ tbsp icing sugar
Few drops of vanilla extract
9 shortcake biscuits
1 medium and 2 small strawberries
1 tsp freeze-dried strawberry pieces
Equipment needed
10cm round, deep, loose-bottomed tin (pork-pie size), greased and fully lined
1. Heat the oven to 180C. Using a hand-held electric whisk, beat the butter and sugar together for 5-10 minutes, or until very light, pale and creamy. Lightly beat the egg with the vanilla extract. Gradually add the egg to the butter and sugar mixture, beating well after each addition. Sift the flour into the mixture and fold in until just combined, then gently fold in the warm water. Scrape the cake mixture into the prepared tin and spread it out level with a spatula.
2. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before removing the cake and transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
3. Use a long, serrated knife to carefully slice the cake horizontally into two equal layers. If the cake is very domed, you can also level off the top.
4. Place the bottom cake layer on your chosen cake board or stand. Spread a few teaspoons of jam over the cut surface — don’t be too generous because you don’t want the jam to spill out too much. Place the other cake layer on top. Put the cream in a bowl with the icing sugar and vanilla extract, and whip until the cream holds soft-to-medium peaks. Spoon the cream on top of the cake and smooth it out with a palette knife, creating a slightly textured finish.
5. Spread some jam over the back of each shortcake biscuit to act as glue: spread the jam over three-quarters of the biscuit, leaving the top quarter uncovered. If your jam contains chunks of fruit, avoid them, because any lumps will create an uneven finish.
6. Press the biscuits around the side of the cake, with the un-jammed sections uppermost, to give a clean finish. The nine biscuits won’t be wedged tightly up against one another: there should be a few millimetres between them, creating neat spaces for cutting the cake into even slices.
7. Decorate the top of the cake with the three strawberries, placing the larger one in the centre and the smaller two alongside, slightly off-centre. Scatter the freeze-dried strawberry pieces over the top.
8. Extra strawberries and freeze-dried strawberry pieces look lovely scattered around the cake, and I like to serve extra whipped cream alongside the cake in a pretty bowl.
Union flapjack
It seems very fitting to use one of the nation’s favourite traybakes as the base for our national flag, brought to life with fruit and a fanfare of chocolate. Complementing and cutting through the sweetness of the flapjack base and the white chocolate “canvas” are zingy lemon zest and tangy dried cranberries, creating a truly triumphant range of textures and tastes.
Serves: 12
For the flapjack
200g butter, roughly chopped
200g golden caster sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
400g porridge oats
80g dried cranberries
To decorate
200g white chocolate, chopped into small pieces
200g fresh raspberries
200g fresh blueberries
20g dried cranberries
Equipment needed
20 x 27cm brownie tin, greased and lined with parchment straps
Cocktail stick, optional
1. Heat the oven to 180C. Put the butter, sugar, syrup and lemon zest in a medium pan. Set it over a medium heat and warm, stirring occasionally, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the oats and cranberries, combining everything thoroughly.
2. Transfer the mix to your lined tin. Smooth the surface level using a cranked palette knife or dough scraper. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until lightly golden brown around the edges. Once out of the oven, it’s a good idea to use the palette knife to gently pat down and even out the edges of the flapjack, which can tend to rise at the sides of the tin.
3. Allow the flapjack to cool in the tin before removing it with the help of the parchment straps (long, continuous pieces of parchment that overhang the tin on either side and will help you lift the cake out). Place the flapjack on a chopping board.
4. Melt the white chocolate in a microwave or a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (know as a bain-marie). Pour the chocolate over the flapjack and spread with a palette knife to create a smooth, even surface. Allow the chocolate to cool and firm up slightly before creating your Union Jack design.
5. You can, if you like, lightly score guidelines on the white chocolate with the end of a cocktail stick. Start by creating the central raspberry cross, two raspberries (about 4cm) wide, placing the raspberries rounded end upwards on the chocolate.
6. Once you’ve created your cross, cut the remaining raspberries into pieces to fill in any gaps so no white chocolate is visible through the cross. Next, create the blueberry sections.
7. After the main shapes have been created, cut the remaining blueberries into pieces with a sharp knife and fill in the gaps, like a majestic mosaic.
8. Finally, place the cranberries in diagonal lines as shown in the photograph, inserting the dried fruit into the chocolate so that they stick up and are level with the raspberries and blueberries, rather than lying flat. Leave to set before serving.
Quinntessential Baking by Frances Quinn (Bloomsbury, £25), is published on August 27. It is available for £20 inc. p&p. Tel: 0845 271 2135, or visit thesundaytimes.co.uk/bookshop
Follow @frances_quinn