An admission before we begin - this week I was forced to pick the recipe before I’d actually seen the Bake Off show. My viewing was delayed until Thursday, and I had to order my online shopping before that, so I viewed the episode recipe options on the BBC’s site and decided on the one that looked the best.

The options this time:

• Signature dish - Sponge puddings
• Technical challenge - Queen of Puddings
• Showstopper - Strudel

I opted for the Queen of Puddings, because it didn’t seem too crazy challenging but still had something new in it (meringue).

Step 1 - Ingredients!

Step 2 - Warm the milk and butter together, and then add to whisked egg yolks… while still whisking. This recipe requires so much multi-tasking, it’s incredible!

Step 3 - Layer the breadcrumbs and pour the above milk/egg mixture to it and leave to soak. This is meant to be custard?? It looks like something out of Doctor Who.

Step 4 - Whisk the egg whites until stiff and then add sugar whilst still mixing. Multi-tasking!

Step 5 - Repeat the above because it goes totally wrong the first time.

Much better the second time round, but I don’t know what I did wrong the first time. Over-whisking, I guess.

Step 6 - Assemble the layers. So, the recipe calls for making jam but after last week’s mess, I opted for ready-made jam and just melted it a little. There was also some piping of meringue involved. I can officially state now, after two weeks in a row, that I am not ready for piping. The results look terrible and I can’t yet cope with the messy hands I’m getting whilst doing it.

Conclusion - The above is the view after baking, and the meringue looks a lot whiter than it does in real life. It had great crunch and I was so impressed with the meringue part - I’ve never made it before, I thought it would be really complicated and hard, but actually (aside from having to repeat a step), it all worked out okay.

I wasn’t really a fan of the “custard” base and jam layer. It felt like there should be something more sponge-like and solid underneath. A lot of that will likely be my taste in desserts, though, rather than how well I managed the recipe.

I really do have a lot of work to do with presentation (this is Mary Berry’s version) but all in all, this wasn’t a disaster. And that is a very good thing because I was sure it was going to be, and that would have been two unsatisfactory weeks in a row.