The other week I was invited down to London’s Old Street to a cookery school and cafe to take part in a Bake Off style challenge with a twist – we had no amounts on our ingredients, no oven temperature or cooking times! I was paired up with the lovely Elena from A Spanish Mummy, it was great to talk blogging and food – two of my favourite subjects! I’m a big Bake Off geek too, so meeting Ian Cumming from last year’s final was a mini dream come true. Once again I felt like I was stepping into the TV. We had Go Pro cameras strapped to our heads to record everything, and we were ready to bake!
I took the challenge very seriously, I’m competitive, Monica style but also impetuous, so I like to throw things in and hope for the best. My Mum always says that if you know how a recipe or food is supposed to look, you’re halfway there. This is true, when we were challenged to make cupcakes – chiffon cupcakes (???), I knew what a cake mix is like, and what stiff peak egg whites look like. I also know that a cake mix is equal parts flour and sugar. Even so, with no scales, numbers and only a basic recipe, it was difficult.
I even did Bake Off style wafting of cakes so they could cool before the icing went on – I never got why they did that before, now I know, they were under time constraints and needed to cool things quickly so the icing didn’t melt when they put it on – Ian cooled his by putting them under the air conditioning!
We managed to make passable cakes and icing, they certainly tasted ok! It helped that we were opposite Ian, so we could pick his brains over anything we weren’t sure of.
A quick tea break and we were back making savoury scones. Again no amounts just a load of ingredients and recipe. We made the mistake of putting the cheese in the mix instead of on top but made passable scones. There was less time on this challenge, I made them a bit too thin but they tasted ok.
Once the judging was done we got to mingle, I met some lovely people, Leo from What Dad Cooked and CassieĀ from Lily’s Little Learners. There were yummy treats (even mini scones) and wine – I was due to drive back from the station so only had one glass more’s the pity. Afterwards, we got to keep the apron, bowl and whisk as a souvenir and got the actual recipes (with amounts!) along with some scales to keep.
The important part of the event was to talk about the importance of using a smart meter for your gas and electricity. At the moment they aren’t compulsory, and energy companies aren’t required to fit them, but they will if you ask. We had one fitted a few months ago, we rang them to see where we could save money (we’re with SSE), and they suggested a smart meter. It was fitted no problem to both our gas and electric meter, it feeds back direct to the company so no more estimated bills, men coming round or me phoning up with meter readings. We also get to see how much we’re using at different times and can see where we could save money. It works out targets too. When we first got it installed I was looking at it a lot, but now it tends to sit under the telephone table (Daniel prefers it there).
I’d like to challenge ourselves to get the numbers down a bit to save money on our bills – if you would like a smart meter, contact your energy company to see if you can get one fitted, it’s free – we could do a challenge together! I’d love to know how many of you have a smart meter and if it’s made a difference to the way you use your energy. How can we save money together? Here are some ways I can think off:
- Pay by direct debit
- Go Paperless
- Get a smart meter – find out more at Smart Energy GB
- Change energy company – shop around
- Turn appliances off instead of standby
- Only boil what water you need in the kettle
- Turn the heating down or off where possible
We’ve all seen the ads about how we shouldn’t accept estimating in other areas of our lives, like recipes or supermarkets, so we shouldn’t accept it with our energy bills. So find out today if you could get a smart meter, you’ll be better off. Let me know the results!
Sponsored Post
Thank you for reading - if you enjoyed this content, please consider buying me a coffee here or browse my Amazon wishlist I really appreciate your support and it helps to keep the site running and for my time š