Hollywood and friends

It's feeling like autumn. The nights are drawing in, the conkers and leaves are tumbling, yet the weather still has to warm up for summer...

Televisually, September means we are back with old friends. Hapless Pete and pals on Cold Feet. The increasingly psychopathic but much wronged Doctor Foster. Fondly bickering Phil and Kirstie on Location Location Location, though sadly this series won't be featuring the episode filmed in our part of York sometime in May. Disparaging Jeremy and his Oxbridge nobs on University Challenge. Clever Victoria on Only Connect, which also featured Oxbridge nob and University Challenge winner (til her team was disqualified) Gail Trimble.

And The Great British Bake-Off. I was going to stay loyal to the BBC, I really was, like Mary, Mel and Sue before me. But the BBC has become a hideous Tory propaganda machine and is so biased (pro-Brexit, anti-Labour) in its news reporting that frankly it doesn't deserve my loyalty. Plus I actually like Channel 4. Because Last Leg. Because Jon Snow. Because Frasier. Because of my beautiful subtitles gracing its Countdown screens all those years ago.

And the news is so stressful right now that it's unbearable. I just want to look at cake instead. And biscuits and bread and sticky toffee caramel. And, new presenters aside, the show is so reassuringly familiar and cosy. The rest of it has been transferred in its entirety. The music. The bad puns laced with innuendo. The marquee with torrential rain streaming down its window panes. The tea cups and bunting. The malfunctioning ovens. The cakes hovering over bins. The mysterious proving drawers. The crazy contestants, although they seem a little Liverpool heavy this year, maybe as an homage to Paul, the only surviving face from the original series. He's just the same too, with his fierce eyes, dismissive comments and occasional bear-like handshake reaching across the work surfaces.

Admittedly, the ad breaks and heavy sponsorship are as irritating as I feared, but at least the content of the programme hasn't been cut short to accommodate them. And I'm having to get used to it being on a Tuesday, with Jo Brand's Extra Slice on a Thursday, rather than the Wednesday and Friday slots they held on the BBC. Routine is important to me. But Sandi Toksvig is very cuddly, and I quite like Noel Fielding's dreamlike musing, even if he doesn't seem to be that interested in the food. Prue Leith is scary though. She's much more of a force to be reckoned with than Mary Berry. She's about twice the height of Mary for starters. And you won't be crying on her shoulder (you wouldn't reach that far!) or getting any sympathy or gentle advice if you mess up.

I am part of a small team working on a baking book at the moment. It's to raise money for the school (so it can still afford to buy things like books, and, er, staff) and putting it together has been a lot of fun. It's going to feature lots of delicious everyday recipes, submitted by parents, teachers and local cafes. Mostly things that you should be able to bake with kids, as opposed to the impossible challenges you see on Bake Off. So more this:

Than this:

The book will come complete with professional colour photos, hopefully no typos (since it's my job to find them) and a decent level of wit. Please buy a copy when it's published, hopefully sometime when we are officially - rather than only weatherwise - in autumn.

The Great British Bake-Off (2) - Going Gluten Free

Another year of Great British Bake-Off. It comes around too early, like the start of the football season. I think of it as autumn viewing, yet it started in August. Right now, mid-September, with the conkers ripening and the leaves developing an orange tint, I am still waiting for summer.

As is the Bake-Off tent. No melting baked Alaskas this year, just Paul Hollywood staring menacingly at rain.

This year, they had a "Free From" week. Which caught my attention, as I gave up eating gluten mid-June. (Which generally cancels the point of watching Bake-Off.) If you look at any online support group for Hashimoto's thyroiditis, one of the first things they usually tell you to do is give up gluten. (Something to do with gluten triggering a particular immune response in the thyroid.) Obviously no doctor tells you to do this, but I learned long ago that GPs know pretty much shit about thyroids, and are happy to let people go around feeling like crap for years so long as a score on a blood test comes back somewhere within a very large range of numbers. Given that I was diagnosed with this disease 11 years ago and have possibly had it for up to 30, I maybe should have tried stopping gluten a very long time ago, before I became dependent on medication for the rest of my life. I only finally cracked and tried it because I had developed an acid reflux problem on top of everything else (also common in Hashimoto's). A useless GP made the acid reflux a million times worse by making me take a ghastly PPI drug when really she should have left well alone. And I got desperate.

I can't say giving up gluten has had a wholly positive effect. I instantly felt clearer headed and more energetic, but this quickly shot into mania as my thyroxine dose became too high. This had a knock-on effect on other hormones as the summer progressed, and now I think my thyroxine has been cut too much and I will be battling fatigue, bone pain, hair loss and neck swelling until I can get a blood test score out of range enough for a GP to allow me to make a small increase. But it's interesting that my digestive system became so much better at absorbing my medication by stopping gluten. The sudden hyperthyroidism may have also had something to do with me rapidly losing weight - weight loss I partly attribute to no longer being able to eat nice bread and cakes. Shop-bought gluten-free versions are at best textually weird or packed with salt and sugar, and at worst downright revolting. Rather than making do with substitutes, I have learned to make my own or stick to things that are naturally gluten-free, like chick pea crackers or ground almond brownies.

So I was keen to see what Bake-Off could show me on the gluten-free front. The only part involving no gluten was the technical challenge - a Paul Hollywood gluten-free pitta bread recipe. The dough looked sticky and unappetising and the finished product not much nicer in comparison to the "real" thing served up in your average Greek taverna. Shame. I haven't managed to make anything better myself, which has a lot to do with having to put eggs and vinegar in gluten-free bread recipes, the taste of which I find cannot be masked.

It's been interesting eating out on a gluten-free diet. I haven't obsessed too much about cross-contamination, which I would have to do if I were a Coeliac. What a nightmare that must be, when a single grain of gluten can make you seriously ill. Cupboards and surfaces and utensils must be scrupulously clean of any trace of traditional flour, and restaurants need to be stringent about storage and preparation. Which of course many won't be. It's really made me understand how difficult life (and it is for life) must be for a Coeliac.

I can't speak for restaurant kitchens of places I have visited, only the menus. I have really only been to chain restaurants to eat out since I changed my diet, as they are good about publishing information about allergens, so I can check things in advance. They are also the sort of place that my daughter is happy in, because of the whole colouring and ice cream thing. Otherwise I have eaten a lot of baked potatoes in cafes, and a lot of quinoa salad. I would highly commend Jamie's Italian, who handed me a gluten-free menu as soon as I walked in, having made a reservation online which informed them of my dietary requirements. The menu had lots of yummy things to choose from, as opposed to the token one or two dishes you might find elsewhere. Pizza Express also has a couple of nice gluten-free dishes which aren't just their pizza toppings on a bought-in gluten-free base - things like risotto or baked aubergines. I have sampled gluten-free fish and chips in Filey, which tasted all the better for being freshly prepared to order, rather than sitting on the counter like the regular ones. I have yet to try gluten-only cafes like El Piano in York or the Walrus and Carpenter in Whitby. But the best place I have been to so far is a small bistro in Grasmere, Green's, which gave me the best shepherd's pie of my life and brought me a special cookie to have with my cup of tea without even being asked. Small touches make big impressions.

As for the less good experiences, I would have to include Wagamama's. which surprised me, as you think of rice-based Oriental food as being quite gluten light. However, nearly all their sauces contain soy sauce, which means you can't have them. Wagamama's will leave the dish unsauced and bring you a bottle of gluten-free soy to sprinkle on instead, but that doesn't taste nearly as good. Frankie and Benny's was also fairly shocking. I have never been under the illusion that Frankie and Benny's is a high quality place to eat. I only go there after I have taken my daughter to the cinema, as the "singing cafe" (as she calls it) is next door. Impressed to see they even had a gluten free menu, I was quickly disappointed to realise that this mostly consisted of salads of meagre portion size for an inflated £12 price tag. They were literally a lump of goat's cheese or the most revolting looking stewed pastrami on a few lettuce leaves and shreds of carrot, with just one small slice of new potato thrown in to be the carbohydrate filler. Gluten-eaters could have a gigantic lunch deal of wraps, fries etc for £6. I left hungry and poor, and therefore angry. Gluten free products are expensive, but there wasn't anything expensive in the dish I ordered for what they charged me. My decision to cut gluten was a personal choice rather than an absolutely necessary medical requirement, but it's very unfair of Frankie & Benny's to rip off people with a condition like Coeliac disease in this way.

The other dishes on the "Free From" Bake-Off were a sugar-free cake and a dairy-free Arctic roll. The contestants found humour in the fact that all the good stuff had been taken out of these dishes, but really the skill of a good baker in these circumstances lies in enabling people who have to miss out on some of the finer things in life to still find pleasure in food.

Gluten-free birthday cake for our girl so Mummy could eat it too

The Great British Bake-Off

I've been desperately clutching at straws to find an excuse to write about The Great British Bake-Off because, well, it's really all I'm watching at the moment. I love it. I am obsessed by it. And I know I am not alone. I wake up every Wednesday morning already excited about that evening's episode. (I'm sorry, but I have a young child and I take life's small pleasures whenever I can.) Usually, I want to eat everything they make (apart from the lavender meringue), though rarely believe I could attempt anything remotely similar. Nonetheless, I suck up all of Mary Berry's careful baking advice. And I have learned not to let Paul Hollywood's smugness wind me up any more. And while Mel and Sue's banter is getting ever more ridiculous, it's still making me snigger. As does Jo Brand's Extra Slice on a Friday night.

I don't think this sort of thing is allowed

But The Great British Bake-Off didn't really fit in with the required "travel memory" aspect of my blog. For starters, this series the tent has unhelpfully moved location to Welford Park in Berkshire. I have been on a few visits to Berkshire - and while these were generally confined to the M4 or the First Great Western railway, they include six to Windsor and Eton, two to Reading, and even one to Slough, but none to anywhere near Welford Park.

But my grandmother in Grasmere did once make us a Baked Alaska. I remember the day-long build-up to it being much more exciting than the end product. And not long ago, my friend Clare made Ryan's famous Key Lime Pie for Sunday lunch, and it was indeed as divine as Paul and Mary had claimed. But these links were all rather tenuous.

Then finally, last night during European Cakes Week, Sue got drunk on cake in South Jutland, Denmark and I thought, "I did that once at an 18th birthday party" (though the drunkenness in my case was all barbed-wire schnaps and not cake), and I was good to go.

So where were we last night? Bereft of Norman's dourness, we have been left with a mighty six of baking ingenuity: Luis, lovable Manc who always makes simply beautiful food. Martha, who has been on far too many skiing holidays for someone her age and is obviously at some sort of Swiss finishing school run by Betty's of Harrogate. Chetna, who has an annoying manner with a kitchen timer. Nancy, who is as down to earth as they come and dismisses Paul as "the male judge". Richard, who with his pencil still behind his ear is starting to show more typical British builder traits of unreliability. And finally Kate, last week's star baker, with her perfect curls and dreamy air. My husband said right at the start that none of them would be going home.

And what would "the male judge" say about this?

This week, everybody seems to be talking about winging it, even Martha, who is busy revising for exams. Nancy talks about her relevant experience and training - "I've had lots of European holidays, and I've probably eaten lots of cake, but not thought about how they're made or what they're called." Mel and Sue are simply talking in dodgy accents.

First up is a yeast-leavened cake. Lots of gigantic zig-zaggy tins are wielded. Mel says one looks like a piles cushion. German dialectal variation or just badly consistent spelling is in evidence in cake name captions. Nancy decides to bypass Europe entirely and go with a Caribbean theme somewhere along the lines of a Del Boy in Peckham pina colada. Kate is making an Israeli inspired cake, which she thinks is allowed because Israel takes part in Eurovision.

Then the technical challenge. Mary Berry's Swedish Princess Cake. It looks amazing. There is jam, creme patissiere, whipped cream, genoese sponge, more whipped cream, green marzipan, chocolate piping and a dainty rose on top. Thankfully, I've learned today that they serve them in the IKEA cafe, so I will be off to Batley shortly to buy one.

Then the showstopper, a Hungarian dobos torte, which involved dozens of stripey layers of sponge and ganache and ridiculous amounts of caramel artwork on top. Or that is the remit, anyway. Martha uses a mould to make chess pieces. Mary tuts. And Kate, because she felt that a two tiered cake looked too much "like a hat", decides to make an extra tier, which means she only has time to caramelise a few pistachios, which just simply isn't good enough, apparently. Whereas Richard's "bird", cut in inch-thick crude-cut toffee, gives him plenty of caramel, but looks like I'd made it. Meanwhile, Chetna is busy caramelising grapes. And masterful Luis makes a Hungarian style castle cage on a hill and still has about 20 minutes left to spare at the finish. He is shown calmly wiping down his work surface while all frantic hell breaks loose around him. "It's spectacular. It's what I call a showstopper," says Mary about the end result. Too right. "Sorry about destroying it," says Paul, merrily carving straight through with a giant knife.

There is no doubt that Kate and Richard have ballsed up. Richard's is the second cake of the day to be described as "sad". But Mary and the male judge can't decide which of Richard and Kate has ballsed up more. When really they can both be brilliant. I had hoped to see previously unseen footage of this heated debate on An Extra Slice on Friday night. But there was none. Maybe the battle was just too bloody. In any case, all six contestants get to live another day. A pasty day. David Cameron will be excited. Chetna's caramelised grapes leave her crowned star baker, even if she did commit the crime of making a Victoria rather than a Genoese sponge for her showstopper. Which must be up there with a soggy bottom, surely?

The cakes I gorged that day all those years ago in Denmark still linger in my memory. One involved layers of raspberry mousse between delicate slices of sponge, with little Danish flags on top. The other was small rectangles of perfect coconut sponge and with a sticky caramel topping.  So a good hint of the challenges on last night's Bake Off in both. And both absolutely ruined by those shots of Aalborg Akvavit.