As you may have read several days ago, we are officially moved into our new flat!
Safe to say, I am so happy to be here. I’ve already noticed a reduction in my stress levels since we moved into our fourth-floor walk up here on the Pest side of the Danube.
First of all, it’s only ten minutes walk to my work. Win!
Secondly, since it’s so many floors up, we are surrounded by trees. We don’t currently have a view of anything but leaves, even from our balcony, which sort of makes it feel like a treehouse. It’s so peaceful! (Please don’t break my heart and tell me that will change come winter).
Finally, the apartment itself is just lovely. We’ve upgraded from a studio to a one-bedroom, we have a bathtub (!!), we have a table and a desk so E can finally have a decent place to work, we have a dishwasher (!!!!), AND….
We have an oven!
Which means I can finally take part in the Bake Off Bake Along, hosted by the lovely ladies, Amanda and Ala.
If you aren’t in the know, the Bake Along is inspired by the Great British Bake Off, which E and I discovered–somewhat embarrassingly–on our honeymoon in Costa Rica. One rainy night, tired of watching Spanish TV, we found one channel in English–the BBC–and two episodes later, we were hooked! The show follows bakers who compete in three categories: a signature bake, a technical challenge, and a showstopper. For the Bake Along, I’ll be choosing one of their assigned bakes to make each week.
I won’t be sharing any recipes, except for my sources of course, since I’m not experienced enough (and I’m too out of practice!) to be inventing any. In addition, since I’m living in Hungary, it’s often a confusing adventure to buy the most basic ingredients. I will, however, try to use my travels to inspire my bakes!
For the first week, and my first bake ever in my new kitchen–and my first bake ever in Hungary, for that matter–I wanted to choose the simplest course, likely to be the signature bake. The showstopper was a mirror glaze, which seemed insurmountable for my first bake, or the Jaffa cake, which I have no desire to ever make. That left the signature: a classic British drizzle cake.
It took me waaaay to long to figure out what baking powder was in Hungarian, how to use vanilla sugar (they don’t really have vanilla extract here at most supermarkets), and I accidentally bought the coarsest sugar known to mankind.
This is going to be fun!
I made this Lemon Blueberry Drizzle Cake since simple was the byword. I did make a few changes: more lemon zest, more lemon juice (as I used vanilla sugar, I needed extra liquid anyway), I made extra drizzle just in case (can you ever have enough?) and I dusted the blueberries in flour before adding them. An essential step to keep them from dropping, and I did a poor job so half of mine dropped to the bottom anyway!
Would Paul and Mary want to eat this cake? Truth be told, it was over-baked and it wasn’t very pretty–but it was pretty delicious. I might have to up my game in the following weeks!
Good job!! The new flat looks totally awesome, I bet having an oven after having to live without one would be a great change. Looking forward to more bakes!
Thanks! 🙂 I’m thrilled to have an oven again!
Your new flat looks awesome! and yay for all of the upgrades!
Yes it’s kind of amazing…I feel so spoiled!
Love the tree view! So exciting moving into a new place!
Yes we love it! And the trees the best 🙂 have you been in the same place for awhile?
We have, same place the whole time I have lived here. We have been looking to buy for the past few months now, it is proving more challenging but hopefully soon a new place will happen!:)
Oooh yay! Buying wow 🙂 good luck!!! Are there a lot of options to buy, or is the housing market tricky?
It is soo tough! With the tourism boom a lot of people took their rentals off the market to rent Air BnB which has increased the number of people trying to buy. Most places are selling before their open house for over the asking price! But the search continues, fingers crossed it ends soon:)
Loving the new flat, it looks great! And being a ten minute walk from work, is always a good one! 🙂 I haven’t been able to get hold of GBBO here in Chile, if you have any tips on where to watch it online, please let me know 😀
We watch it on the BBC iPlayer website, through a VPN 🙂 (I like hola!) gotta get your GBBO fix!!!
We always used to use Hola but it’s stopped working now, boohoo 🙁 I need to find another way!
Bummer 🙁 I’ve tried watchseries too and sometimes it works!!! Good luck!
Girl, I’m loving the new flat and your plant situation is on point! (is that a balcony out there?) How awesome! Living in a tree house sounds gooood to me!
Good luck baking along GBBO this year. I did it last year and it was fun but dannnng, I’m still getting over some of the more traumatic baking weeks, haha. It definitely improved my baking skills though – really fun challenge!
Also: do they have M&S in Budapest? That’s where I get my vanilla extract 🙂
Cynthia are you not joining in this year – booooo!! 🙁 xxx
I knowww hahaha. Having all those baked goods around the house for ten weeks was killing me last year. But it was so much fun! I’ll still have to follow your guys’ bakes 🙂
You’re not going to join this year? I’m having fun so far but looking back on past bakes in the show I’m getting a bit freaked out haha. This is really going to push my skills!
Also, yes to a balcony!! It’s private as it’s surrounded by leaves as well…the dream ;). And yes there are M&S here, but only one of them has a decently stocked grocery section. Of course that one is really far away but I’ll have to trek there, thanks for the tip!
If it tastes really good then that’s all you need! Love the combination of lemon and blueberry too so I bet it was delicious! The flat looks great, but I don’t envy you having to find all the ingredients in Hungarian! Alice xxx
http://www.woodenwindowsills.co.uk
Thanks, Alice! 🙂 it was a good cake. I need to up my presentation game for the next few weeks, though! I’ve already been searching for the ingredients for next week–I’m hoping there will be strudel one week since there is strudel flour everywhere, ha!
nice cake! I have occasionally problems with viewing your site, I don’t know why..it hasn’t happened with other blogs:(
Thanks so much! And thanks for letting me know. Does the site itself not load, or is it just pictures? I did do some updating so maybe it’s related to that…ooooh technology :/
the whole site just loads differently, and the photos are as big as the screen! then when I close and open a few times it loads and looks normally:)
Hmm I haven’t heard of that one!! But I did some more updates so maybe now it will work better? Let me know!! 🙂
Your new flat is gorgeous!!!!!! And in the end, it doesn’t matter what a cake looks like as long as it’s tasty, right? (Or at least that what I tell myself…) Plus, I think you’re being hard on yourself, it doesn’t look overbaked! And you’re right, you can never have too much drizzle! xx
Thank you! Isn’t it so pretty? And sooo relaxing. My landlady is also the best which helps so much, I’ve found. I think maybe I’m being super critical of my bakes since I’m taking pictures of them, ha! Gotta up my game for this week 🙂 thanks so much for hosting this!!
Lovely flat! haha congrats on the oven 😉 Always nice to finally some luxuries when you haven’t had them in other flats. And that cakes looks super yummy!
Thanks! And yes I feel so spoiled now. I mean, a dishwasher?? I’m starting to feel lazy!! The cake was pretty good. Are you taking part in the bake off this year??
This looks so tasty! Congratulations on your new home – my drizzle cake for the bake along was the first time I’d baked in my new oven, so I cn totally understand your excitement!
Beth x
http://www.thequietpeople.com
Thanks Beth! Your drizzle cake is GORGEOUS!! You were way more ambitious for the first-oven time than I was 🙂
Oh it looks delicious! and I feel your pain with trying to work out what everything is in another language! Also, Belgium doesn’t have vanilla extract either… I have the choice of some incredible expensive (probably made from golden vanilla) extract from the bio shop or cycling an our to the British store to get some that’s a fourth of the price.
Not one single supermarket will see me vanilla extract… it’s been the bane of my baking life here!
Yes!! What is with that?? I’ve been using the vanilla sugar and adding extra liquid, or sometimes adding almond extract instead–not quite the same but for some reason the British store has extremely expensive vanilla or not-so-expensive almond!
GBBO and Mary Berry are national treasures, I’m so glad they’re making their mark globally! 😉 Your flat and cake both look incredible!
I’m sure Mary Berry IS a national treasure!! 🙂 I adore her. And the Bake Off!!
Yummm I love lemon and blueberry cakes! Two great flavours combined. I’m very impressed with you working out baking ingredients in Hungary 🙂
Haha sometimes it’s more successful than others ;). I just realized today that I tried to make biscuits with strudel flour…NOT successful lol. The translations are just a mess usually—if you put “flour” into my Google translate app, it comes up with a word that is nowhere on any of the shelves! But now at least I can avoid strudel flour unless I actually want to make strudel. 😉
I love your new apartment – I think I already said this to you but your loaf cake looks yummy and I wish that I has managed to find my loaf tin for the bake off!
Thanks so much! It’s so peaceful which helps 🙂 you moved too recently, right? How are you liking your new place?
Yeah we did, we love it! We have spent a small and rather naughty fortune making it looks nice but I am glad we did because we are so settled there now!