Do you watch The Great British Baking Show (PBS and Netflix)? If you don’t , and you like to bake, you really should. They make some interesting British treats, both savory and sweet. Eric and I both like this show and we both received one of their cookbooks for Christmas so I’m sure you can guess where we’ll find this years recipes.
We’ve both wanted to do a mirror glaze for a while so thought we would start out with a bang and do the Ultimate Indulgence Mirror-Glaze Cake. Recipe available on Pinterest and here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-3791328/Bring-home-Bake-Ultimate-indulgence-mirror-glaze-cake.html . Once again, what looks so easy on TV , turns out to be a challenge in my real life kitchen. I have a theory as to why my glaze didn’t work out but I’ll get to that later. First, I want to tell you that even if you don’t want to make the cake, you NEED to make the salted caramel cream. Seriously, it would be wonderful on any chocolate cake, on cupcakes, a steaming cup of hot chocolate or a spoon (speaking from experience there). It is a culinary life changer!
Beat over boiling water for what seems like forever! 
Once fluffy, gently fold in the flour. 
A little thin, I think because of the butter incident I lost some air.
Back to baking day. As I was reading the recipe for the first time, (I really need to start reading the entire recipe first, not just going by the ingredients list and the pretty picture), I realized it was a genoise sponge. That’s the same kind of cake I attempted to make in the ill-fated princess cake debacle of 2019. The groan that emitted from my kitchen was heard in Washington, Montana and parts of Canada. Yeti hunters all over the region were on high alert! Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but there was definitely a sigh, eye roll, curse combination going on. But I gave myself a little pep talk about elevating my baking skills and conquering the challenge…yada yada yada. Despite the previous epic failure, I squared my shoulders and marched onward. Except for that one instance where I poured the batter (which actually tasted good) into the pans, then had to pour it back into the bowl because I forgot to add the melted butter, all went well!
While cake is baking, blanch those hazelnuts! 
And attempt those sugary spikes (after they have dried from blanching.
Next, I made the wonderful salted caramel cream which came out perfectly! On to the decorative hazelnuts and the mirror glaze. Here again, reading all the directions would have come in handy. I didn’t have toothpicks, which were needed to make the pretty spikes of caramelized sugar on the hazelnuts. I tried to use tongs, but that wasn’t working, so I just dumped them all in, thinking I would coat them all then just put them on the cake spike less. Yeah….that didn’t work either, it crystallized before I could get them all out, becoming a big glob of flesh-burning sugar nuts. I was able to separate some out that weren’t too bad, and it only took a few days for my fingertips to heal. Eric told me he had to skip the hazelnuts, his sugar crystallized 3 times and that was enough…the sugar won that battle. Onward to the mirror glaze. I wasn’t able to find sheets of gelatine anywhere and had to substitute powdered gelatine. Numerous people on google assured me it could be substituted with no problem, not that I doubt their integrity, but there was a problem. It semi-flowed, but I think the gelatine sheets would have made the glaze thinner because they are dipped in water first, which would increase the flow and shiney-ness. Eric had to do the same substitution, with the same results. Lesson learned there (don’t always trust google).
Luscious cream going between layers. 
Eric’s crumb coat.
This cake tasted good to me and my husband. Eric thought the orange in the cake was too strong. I have to admit, I was worried about the orange caramel combo, but it worked for me, and it got better each day. I’m sticking this one in the success column and once I find those gelatine sheets I’ll be making another mirror glaze.
“This cake has given me many issues,” said Eric. 
Sorry, for some reason all my finished product photos are blurry. Didn’t notice until I uploaded to blog :/