chapter 3 biscuit week

Vince had been looking forward to biscuit week for a whole year since the last series of ‘Bake Off’. Biscuits were an ideal snack. They were so much more portable than any other bakery treat. There was also so much more variety. There was so much more to biscuits than the American style cookie. He was excited to find out what he would be trying out this week.
The signature bake was about decorated chocolate bars with biscuit in it.
Oh! He gave out a sigh! This was going to be an even better week than he thought! He guessed a rocky road style bar was out of the question because it did not need any baking... or those chocolate crispies made from cornflakes or Rice Krispies. They would be too simple for ‘Bake Off’ when they had two and a half hours to make it.
Amy, as usual was avidly making notes and shouting at the invisible cameraman at the other end of the telly when they did not show her what she wanted to see. She told the contestants off when things went wrong and told them what they should have done to put things right. She also complimented the contestants who did really well. It was as if it was a live interactive show as far as she was concerned, but clearly, it was not. It had been recorded at least a month or so ago.
Vince finished his last bit of cake off as Amy made her way into the kitchen immediately after the programme. Of course she did not have the recipes, but she knew how to bake.
She already had most of the ingredients she would need in the house. It was only the really unusual ingredients she would have to hunt out.
The programme aired at 20.00. An hour earlier than usual. Was it going to be the same for the other series? Or was this just a one off? It made it better for Vince. His first product for tasting emerged from the kitchen around midnight. He had been looking forward to a mocha caramel sensation, but he was disappointed to see that she had created the fig rolls from the technical challenge. A fig roll! It was something his granny would eat with a cup of tea. It wasn’t a dunking biscuit like a digestive or a rich tea... or even a hobnob. Oh he loved an oaty hobnob with a cup of coffee. The chocolate topped ones were even better, especially when the chocolate melted after being dunked in the coffee. You couldn’t soak it for too long, though or the whole thing would break up and fall into the cup.
He picked up his first fig roll to taste. The pastry like coating was soft and crumbly, the filling was sweet and sticky with a strange granular texture. Then he got a big hit of heat from the ginger. They were delicious! The Co-op fig rolls had never been like this! ...He ate six of them straight off. They were very small, after all.later on that night, Amy brought out some lemon and rosemary biscuit bars with gin icing. They were good! He could really taste the gin in the topping. Mmmmm delicious!

He took the rest of the fig rolls and lemon and rosemary bars to work with him to share around the office, but hung on to half of them himself. He pretended that the greedy accounts department had already taken their share.
Another good thing about biscuits was they were easy to hide.
By lunchtime his hidden stash had gone. He even ventured to see if he could steal some back from the already donated ones, but they had all gone too. Disappointed, he returned to his desk. It was a good job he still had a bit of cake left over from last week!
That afternoon, he suffered the consequences of eating too many figs! Now he knew why his granny had liked one with her cup of tea. One was enough to keep her going to the toilet without having to make too many visits.
He made many visits that afternoon, but at least it had cleared away all that cake from last week!

That evening, he tried half a dozen chocolate caramel macchiato biscuit bars, half a dozen virgin mojito bars and some earl grey shortbread that had been used in the showstopper. Later on he tried some gingerbread, some brandy snaps and some ‘wicked witch fingers’ made with matcha tea.
As he settled down to sleep that night, with a full, but satisfied belly he wondered how Prue and Paul never seemed to put weight on during the series. Was it because they starved themselves the rest of the week? Neither of them looked like they visited the gym regularly. He imagined himself as Paul Hollywood trying out twelve types of biscuits in the morning and then eating twelve fig rolls in the afternoon. He got an erection at the mere thought of it! When Amy came to bed that night she got more than the cuddle she usually got as a thank you for all of her special treats!
In the programme, Paul and Prue only took very small bites to sample the bakers’ produce. Vince’s sample size was much, much bigger. If he was sampling a cake, he didn’t offer an opinion until he’d eaten a large slice, not a single, small bite from a slice. Then he’d want more... just to test if it was the same all the way through. With biscuits, he would offer an opinion after eating a whole one, then expect more so that he could see if the whole batch was baked evenly.
At work on Thursday he had plenty more biscuits to take with him. This time there was more than double the amount he’d taken in the day before. Every time someone made him a cup of coffee, he would eat half a dozen biscuits. If he didn’t receive a cup of coffee every couple of hours, he would go and make a round of coffees. He drank at least four cups of coffee per day... well normally he did. When ‘Bake Off’ was on, he managed to squeeze another cup in so that he could eat more.

That evening, he had more to try. He had Bakewell bars made with raspberry instead of cherry. He liked the almond flavour that came through with them. Then there was some honeycomb peanut and mallow bars to try, some sugar biscuits with florentines, some chocolate orange gingerbread with a hit of chilli and a ginger tuille. Followed by some coco-nutty chocolate bars made with nougat before bed. He was in biscuit heaven!

On Friday, he was aware his shirts were starting to get a bit tight. It was an expected side effect of eating too much cake and biscuits. He simply took his shirt off and went for a larger size left over from last year when he’d gained his Bake Off weight.

That evening, Amy could not be bothered to cook, she was too busy baking, so she got a takeaway. The portion sizes from the local Indian were huge! Vince got through all of his tandoori chicken masala and all of his keema pilau rice. Amy ate less than half of her king prawn biriyani. Vince finished hers off for her as well as one and a half peshwari nan breads.
He washed all that down with a couple of large glasses of beer. It was the weekend after all!
All that food was making him feel rather full and bloated, but not so full that he couldn’t Amy's version of Indian barfi biscuit bars with cardamom covered in ruby chocolate. Followed by some langues du chat biscuits with orange and cardamom and brandy snaps.

On Saturday, Amy started baking early. He made himself comfortable in the conservatory and started playing games on his console. She kept him supplied with biscuits all day, which he ate during the quieter periods of gameplay where he could actually put his controller down. He got through a whole batch of lemon shortbread, some macaroons, more brandy snaps and some cardamom pistachio gingerbread and some pistachio, almond and raisin nougat biscuit bars.
Sunday was also spent in front of the console, where he tried orange and cranberry white chocolate fudge bars, more gingerbread, more brandy snaps, some chocolate gingerbread, some grapefruit and caraway shortbread, fennel and lime shortbread, cardamom and lemon shortbread, plain lemon shortbread, bourbon style biscuits coconut macaroons and some coconut lime shortbread.
He did not eat every biscuit Amy baked, but he did try them all... at least three of each type.
There was plenty of leftovers to take into work the next day, but as usual, he held on to half of them for himself.
That evening Amy baked his his favourites from the week. More fig rolls, more virgin mojito biscuit bars, more spiced gingerbread and more lemon and rosemary biscuits with the gin icing.
That evening, he dreamed of biscuits. He wished biscuit week could last longer, but he knew tomorrow, after eight o’clock everything would change. Tomorrow was the start of bread week.