Some TV shows
just pull you in and refuse to let you go until they’ve left an indelible mark
on your life. They seep into your pores and your brain, and they augment bits of your personality
and how you view the world.
For example, The Office changed me into the kind of
person who can never not say "That’s what she said" in any situation that could be misconstrued as suggestive,
and Mad Men altered the way I look at
advertising. Now, I’m always coming up with new and better taglines for
everyday products and snarkily yelling, “Thanks, Don!” whenever I come across a
really WTF-inducing ad on TV.
The latest show
to have a significant effect on me has been the BBC’s gem of a show, The Great British Bake Off. I started
watching this on a whim when I found the first season on YouTube while browsing for British shows to watch while I was fighting the Cold From Hell last winter. Since then, Mr. Picky Bitch and I have fallen in love with Bake Off and have burned through every single season and episode to date.
Between the immense support that the show's bakers give one another to the lack of the usual reality cooking show stresses, Bake Off is a masterpiece to behold even if you are an ardent hater of reality TV.
While it's quickly become one of our favourite TV shows, I'm always kind of miffed that no contestants have been vegan bakers, so I decided to have my own informal, vegan version of Bake Off in my own home last fall. I called it the Great Picky Bake Off, and over the course of 10 weekends, I challenged myself to create vegan bakes that would fill each of the usual Bake Off themes/categories.
This post is very picture-heavy (and is definitely a long time coming), so bear with me as I review the deliciousness that went down during the first five weeks of the Great Picky Bake Off.
Week 1: Tray Bakes
I've been trying to perfect vegan brownies since I first became vegan nearly six years ago. My Holy Grail brownie is on the fudgier side, and I was always on the lookout for recipes that might closely replicate the gooey, decadent, walnut-topped brownies they sold at the movie theatre I used to frequent as a kid.
Between the immense support that the show's bakers give one another to the lack of the usual reality cooking show stresses, Bake Off is a masterpiece to behold even if you are an ardent hater of reality TV.
While it's quickly become one of our favourite TV shows, I'm always kind of miffed that no contestants have been vegan bakers, so I decided to have my own informal, vegan version of Bake Off in my own home last fall. I called it the Great Picky Bake Off, and over the course of 10 weekends, I challenged myself to create vegan bakes that would fill each of the usual Bake Off themes/categories.
This post is very picture-heavy (and is definitely a long time coming), so bear with me as I review the deliciousness that went down during the first five weeks of the Great Picky Bake Off.
Week 1: Tray Bakes
I've been trying to perfect vegan brownies since I first became vegan nearly six years ago. My Holy Grail brownie is on the fudgier side, and I was always on the lookout for recipes that might closely replicate the gooey, decadent, walnut-topped brownies they sold at the movie theatre I used to frequent as a kid.
