An apology to Paul Hollywood!

Anyone who knows me, will know I have a celebrity crush on Paul Hollywood!  It’s been going on for many years.  I’m not sure if its the beautiful blue eyes, the cheeky smile or just his rugged good looks that attract me too him, but I also think he is an brilliant baker too!

Before anyone worries, I also think he has a look of my hubby too!

So anyway, back to Paul! 

I’ve been a massive fan of Paul as I said for years.  I have many of his cookbooks.  In my old house, a couple of them were pride of place on my kitchen top.  Everyday, I would get my Hollywood fix!  Sadly, in my new house, I don’t have the same work space, so he is now on a book shelf in my hubby’s study!

Whenever I need to bake, I first go to Paul for inspiration and direction.  Whether it be from one of his many books or online! So when we arranged a GBBO mince pie competition at work, there was only one man to help me!

I wanted to stand out, and Paul didn’t disappoint with his recipe.  The filling took a normal jar of mince meat, and turned it into something special.  By adding chopped apple and satsumas, it was delicious.  The problem for me was the pastry!

I can make bread, but for some reason pastry just doesn’t go right for me!

My mum bakes regularly.  As we were to make vegetarian pies, I asked her for advice.  She suggested Trex!  So I substituted butter for Trex.

As my Youtube video will show, it all went a bit wet at first, but with a bit of flour I got it sorted. 

I decided to not do a full lid, but be creative with a star!  Hum!  Maybe I didn’t think that through, as the filling leaked over the edge!  Now I couldn’t really tell if they were fully cooked or if it was the juice catching!

I finally pulled them out of the oven and left them to cool!

They certainly didn’t look anything like Paul’s would!   In fact I’m a bit embarrassed, but as I had run out of ingredients, they had to do!

I brought them into work and placed them on the plate with my name on the underside.  We had 4 staff blind judging them on taste and look!  As I expected, I didn’t win!  Apparently, they tasted good, but I had a soggy bottom!!  

I mean, what would Paul say to a soggy bottom!

I suppose I should be grateful that my other colleagues got comments too like, the filling was missing, the pastry wasn’t good enough or the filling was too sweet!  

Oh Paul, what did I do wrong?  I’m so sorry that I took one of your amazing recipes and turned it into a complete disaster!

I’m not going to be beaten though!  I’m going to keep going until I can master the pastry!  Or if Paul is out there and wants to show me where I’m going wrong, of course I wouldn’t be offended!!

Happy baking!!