{the great british cake off}

Round here, we are crazy about The Great British Bake Off, a BBC cooking competition that has contestants cooking everything from loaves of bread to meringue pies. An hour of deliciousness every Tuesday evening at 8pm. (And, lucky for those of us outside the UK, episodes can be seen online here)

Of course, after seeing all that amazing food, we wanted to try it for ourselves. Many of the recipes are available on BBC Food, and we've also found that some of the contestants have blogs -- not only do they share the things they cooked on the show, but add other things that they're cooking in real life, too. My favourites are Jason (because I wanted him to win) and Holly (because her recipes seem the tastiest, if a little too perfect), but the whole list of sites can be found here.

The first dish to be cooked up by our very own home cooks: Best Ever Bakewell Tart Cupcakes, (our recipe, based on Holly's recipe). Slightly almondy sponge cake, raspberry jam, and a dollop of icing. Here's Chef Alice gently blowing crumbs from the tops of the cakes, while Chef Louise finishes filling them with jam, Chef Mum adds the icing, and lucky little Chef Tilly eats the cut-out middles of the cakes.

Twelve of them disappeared frighteningly quickly. Make sure you check out the finished cakes over at The Fable of the Table -- with fresh raspberries on top, they are rather pretty. And, dare I admit it, we're making another batch tonight, with a different kind of icing...