Meet our cover creator
In our May issue, we challenged you to create a cake worthy of our cover – one that looks as good as it tastes. Our winner was Trisha Jones with her showstopping apple and caramel layer cake, it’s gracing our October issue cover, out now. Here she tells us the story behind her fabulous cake.
How did you get into baking?
I have always been a big fan of cooking. I think I got it from my mum and my two grandmas. Eating was always the main event growing up, and these women have been such inspiring cooks to me. I really enjoy cooking but baking was something I did for fun only on rare occasions growing up, but my friend Lucy started baking a lot in our final year of university. She was really amazing and that inspired me to get more into it too. When I moved to Berlin recently I really missed English cakes and baked goods, especially iced buns and Victoria sponge. So I just had to make them myself. It has become a bit of an obsession now!
What made you enter the delicious. bake off?
I was in Manchester visiting Lucy and we saw the competition when we were reading delicious. We had been baking and cooking together all weekend and we joked about cakes we would enter. I just thought, why not? I thought it would be good practice – but I never in a million years thought I would win.
What was your inspiration for your cake?
My mum used to make the most amazing apple crumbles on Sundays during the spring after a roast dinner. We would get the apples from the tree in our garden and the whole process evokes a lovely nostalgia and feeling of home whenever I make it. It was one of the first desserts that my mum taught me to make.
How did you go about creating the recipe?
I made it as a bundt cake initially, not a layer cake. But I felt that I wanted to make something with great English flavours and panache – and what is more English than the layer cake structure of the Victoria Sponge cake? I tried different types of sponges to see what worked best. I tried the sandwich filling with cream instead of yoghurt at first but it was too bland and didn’t offset the sweetness of the sponge and caramalised apples enough.
What makes it so special to you?
Other than the memories of apple crumble, it’s the first recipe I formulated myself, and it really pushed me to do it more. I have now started my own baking blog Sugar Thumb and it’s encouraging me to be more adventurous. The competition has given me so much more confidence in my baking. It has been a wonderful experience, from the conception of the cake to the day of the bake off. It really made me step up in my baking from a technical and creative standpoint.
To try Trisha’s recipe, pick up a copy of the October issue, out now.
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