Fashion was the theme for episode eleven of Season 2 of Koekedoor, the episode leading to the demise of one of the four contestants, the Top Three remaining, one of them becoming the winner of Season 2 in two weeks from now.  The theme was chosen to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Huisgenoot magazine this year, and was transformed into fashionable baking as the theme for this episode.

1. Tuisgebak/Home Baking

The fashion theme influenced the Tuisgebak challenge, the contestants having to bake and ice a red velvet cake, making their own creation. They were given 2½ hours in which to prepare their work.

Errieda du Toit, Koekedoor Content Manager and PR consultant, provided some background about the Red Velvet Cake, being ‘a super star that started life in home kitchens, in the 1800’s. In the Victorian era cakes with interesting names were all the rage: velvet cakes and red devil’s food cakes.  The reddish brown tint from the chemical reaction between the cacao and the buttermilk might have added the ‘red’ part to red velvet. The intense, glamorous (if somewhat artificial looking) red known today came about in the 1940’s as a brilliant marketing stunt by the Adams Extract Company in Texas. Customers who bought their flavour essences received a red velvet cake recipe and two bottles of red food colouring! Its fame only spread from the American Mid West to the rest of the world when it had a cameo role in the movie ‘Steel Magnolias’, the iconic Magnolia Bakery further spreading its fame. Now it’s a supermodel’. Contestants had access to Rolkem’s natural food colour concentrates, such as Rolkem Red Velvet Gel and Scarlett Red Gel, to get the very bright, very intense red colour.

Corli coincidentally wore a red top, matching the colour of the challenge.  She made a five-layer red velvet cake decorated between the layers and on top with piped cream cheese frosting ‘pearls’. She embellished the top with candy striped meringue kisses, which are all the rage in baking circles.   The edges of Corli’s cake were hard, but the judges praised it for looking like velvet.

Sanet was excited about the challenge, saying that she bakes red velvet cake every day in her coffee shop. She said that it is her best seller.  She turned her red velvet cake into a richly textured ‘designer dress’, combining her  own trusted recipe with modern decorating techniques – she ‘clothed’ the cake with red velvet crumbs and decorated it with super trendy frosting rosettes in various tints of red.  It also showed off her good piping techniques.

Wessels planned to make a red velvet cake with layers. The contestants got into the swing of things, and strutted their stuff on the kitchen floor, looking like models, to keep to the fashion theme!  Wessels’ cake fell apart as he cut it, and he had to place it in the freezer. While he was waiting for it, he contemplated what he could have done better. Wessels swam upstream, not following the standard red velvet cake shape, rather opting for red velvet ‘custard’ slices. Instead of roses, often used to decorate this style of cake, he made candy poppy flower petals. The custard let him down on this innovative concept.

Kanya‘s cake had cracks, typical of red velvet cakes. It also showed off her excellent piping techniques, as well as her deft hand at hand-made edible roses – the red roses, if somewhat sweet, forming a striking contrast with the white cream cheese frosting.

2.  Fyngebak/Advanced Technique Challenge

For the Fyngebak challenge judge Mari-Louis challenged the four contestants to Parisian precision with ‘merveilleux‘ (French for marvellous), beautifully decorated in very stylish colours of beiges, creams and muted rose pink. Instead of the original bake’s meringue layers, Mari-Louis’ design had them bake ‘Biscuit De Reims’ in 3 different colours (vanilla, rose, and chocolate) and then using elements such as melted chocolate, whipped cream, nougatine, chocolate curls, and ballet pink meringue kisses to assemble the merveilleux. It was the trickiest Fyngebak challenge yet as timing, order of preparation, and the ability to form an ‘assembly line’ to produce 4 each of 3 different combinations with patisserie precision, without having an idea what the bakes look like, was very tough.

Biscuit de Reims (the pink biscuits they used as the body of the mervilleux) is an iconic 400 year-old French biscuit from the Reims-region in Champagne, used as an aperitif to dip in champagne (like dipping rusks in coffee). It is a stylish cousin to the boudoir finger biscuit, and in Reims it is still coloured pink with cochineal, a dye from Mexico.  The contestants had to make Merveilleux cookies, in chocolate, nougatine, and meringue. The nougatine is a type of brittle made with sugar, water, butter, and walnuts. They were given a recipe, but did not see the completed creation made by Mari-Louis, until they had baked their own creations, this challenge making the contestants sweat. They were all quiet while working, having been given 3½ hours to finish their challenge.

Corli told the camera that she was focused on her creation, and not looking what the others were doing. The contestants realized that they needed a piping bag to make their mix even. The pink biscuits forming part of this challenge were dunked into champagne by the judges, while they waited for he contestants to finish. Sanet’s work was judged to be somewhat too small relative to the size specifications of the recipe.

3.   Pronkgebak/Flaunt It Challenge

The last challenge was to create a hybrid bake which combined an international element as well as a South African one, the Cronut being shown to the contestants as an example, being a French croissant and an American doughnut hybrid.  As an example, the judges discussed the creation of cronut-creator Dominique Ansel, trying out a freshly made cronut with a champagne ganache and peppermint crisp crumbs.

They were given four hours to complete one big cake or twelve small ones.  Wessels was the only contestant who made one large cake.

Sanet used coconut in her bake, making Herzoggies, using apricots and marshmallows. Sanet’s ‘Generaal Meer’ (General More) combined the South African Hertzoggie, named after the politician JBM Hertzog (with flavours of coconut, meringue, and apricot) with the American camp fire treat S’mores, made from toasted marshmallows and chocolate between two Graham crackers. A huge success, and innovative. She had to add cream to reduce the sour taste of the apricots, softening it.

Kanya combined a Gateaux St Honoré with a melktert in honour of her Ouma and Tannie Susie. She looked into the oven, becoming worried about what she saw, saying that her two elements did not seem to work together. She created spun sugar work to top her milk tart, which the judges were critical about. Nessum Dorma was very dramatic music at this stage of the challenge.  Kanya put a lot of memories of her grandmothers into her hybrid, fusing a South African milk tart with the French classic Gateaux St Honore. The St Honore was created by a French chef to honour the patron saint of bakers, and is made from choux pastry filled with crème patisserie, which Kanya replaced with her grandmother’s milk tart filling. She crowned her hybrid with spun sugar. At this crucial stage of the competition the underbaked crust let her down, while her hybrid concept could have been stronger. A firm favourite and excellent baker, she left her mark on the episode with her marvellous ‘mode-lopie’ – walking down the cat walk, taking off her apron as she strutted her stuff.

Corli made a peppermint crisp tart Boston pie, a hybrid of two icons – the Boston Cream Pie from the 19^th century, and Peppermint Crisp tart, which became fashionable in the 20^th century. She created Peppermint Bostons for the 21st century. Boston Cream Pie, created in 1856 for the Parker House Hotel in Boston, consists of two layers of sponge cake with a thick layer of vanilla custard pudding, topped with chocolate glaze.

Wessels made a combination cinnabun (British) and Mosbolletjie (using must as the raising agent) cake, naming it ‘Kan Mos’.  He decorated it with a cream cheese glaze poured over the warm bake.

Surprising was the criticism by the judges of Kanya’s work, the spun sugar work as well as her underdone pastry crust, costing her the continued participation in Koekedoor. There was a shocked silence from the other contestants, many contestants and viewers having thought that Kanya would win Season 2. The judges were happy with the creations of Corli, becoming the episode winner, of Wessels, and of Sanet, now remaining as the Top 3.

As in the fashion world, baking trends come and go, and the classics stay. The baking from an era also reflects the world around it, with outside influences leaving its mark. The baker becomes fashion designer with colours, textures, embellishments, and new technology to play with.

Koekedoor, kykNET, channel 144 on DStv. Thursdays 20h30 – 21h30. www.kyknet.dstv.com Twitter: @Koekedoor @kykNETtv

Chris von Ulmenstein, WhaleTales Blog: www.whalecottage.com/blog  Tel 082 55 11 323 Twitter:@WhaleCottage  Facebook:  click here Instagram: @Chris_Ulmenstein