Telegraph Great British Bake Off: episode one, cake challenge The method is relatively straightforward: cream the butter, sugar and whatever passion fruit you can find, sift the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then combine everything as you add the eggs, one at a time. But there seemed to be an awful lot of butter and sugar (an entire packet of both, the mere thought of which made my arteries quiver), and the addition of the desiccated coconut made the whole thing a little lumpy. Not having two equal-sized cake tins, I fudged by putting it all into one - which, annoyingly, simultaneously resulted in a crispy top and a squidgy middle. Thankfully, however, no soggy bottom. The sheer heat of my kitchen reduced my buttercream, much like Howard's, to something resembling curdled milk, but it still tasted good - sweet, tangy and refreshing. That, combined with the passion fruit syrup for the top, which I heated in a saucepan to dissolve the sugar in the lime juice, were the stand-out parts of the cake. Overall, the whole thing looked a little, well, beige. Howard himself admitted it was "low impact," and without a colourful filling or topping, it's not the sort of sponge you'd look at twice in a bakery. On the plus side, the xanthan gum did, as promised, give "more of a cakey feel" (and I do like my cakes cakey) - and the sponge was evenly-baked, moist and very moreish. Having eaten most of the buttercream straight from the bowl, I found it all a bit sickening - and I resorted to covering the dull top with some leftover coconut and lime zest. It was the first time I'd tried a gluten-free recipe, and maybe I need to work on my technique, but it was a far cry from the creation Mary Berry judged "absolutely perfect" on the show. Low impact? The finished product In short? Something a little bit different, with an aftertaste remarkably like a can of Lilt. Would you bake it again? Probably not - next time, I'll try the chocolate squirrel. Leah Hyslop: grapefruit sandwich I count myself as a reasonably adept amateur baker, but when I first looked at the ingredients list for this cake, I felt a little nervous. Making the sponge would, it appeared, be the easy part. The recipe, a creation of military wife Beca, also required me to churn out candied grapefruit peel, a grapefruit sugar syrup, mascarpone cream and - something I'd never made before - a homemade curd. And all this with an electric oven as unpredictable as Paul Hollywood's approval. Mindful of my oven's tendency to occasionally incinerate cakes in fits of venom, I gambled on setting the temperature slightly lower than asked for. Then I rolled up my sleeves and got cracking on the cake mix and curd (it was perhaps unwise to try to do both at the same time, but in my defence, it was 8pm). Getting the two sponges in the oven was straightforward, but I soon stumbled at the curd. The recipe said simply to mix the ingredients "untill thickened" , which sounded like it shouldn't take long - but 20 minutes later, I was still faced with a rather thin mixture. After much hand wringing and frenetic Googling, I eventually jacked up the heat and lo and behold - success. Slow process: grapefruit curd for the cake's filling Next came the candied peel. It was at this point I realised that somewhere between Sainsbury's and my flat, I had lost a grapefruit. There was nothing for it - I would have to use the grapefruit zest I had left and then substitute a lemon that was rolling around in my fridge. Thankfully, both this and the syrup were fairly easy, and by the time the cakes came out of the oven I was feeling pleasantly domestic goddess-like. Cakes drizzled with syrup and mascarpone cream whipped, now came the tricky part - assembling my creation. Beca instructed me to spread the bottom cake with mascarpone cream and a "generous" amount of curd - "some curd may spill over the edges but don't worry about this," the recipe read reassuringly. I had far more curd than really needed, so, rather than let it go to waste, piled it on happily. I then sandwiched the layers together, got to work with my piping bag and decorated with the candied peel. For one glorious moment, I thought it was the best cake I had ever made. Then all, of a sudden, I realised a tide of curd was gushing from the cake's centre. The picture here was taken just as the grapefruit geyser erupted, but it got a lot worse after that. The cake tasted, as Paul had said, delicious. But it was no use. I had created a soggy bottom. The grapefruit sponge, complete with curd tsunami In short: Moist with an unusual, refreshing taste, though a little complicated for everyday. Yes, but I'd be tempted to simplify the recipe - maybe discarding the sugar syrup. Have you tried to recreate any Great British Bake Off treats? Tweet us your pictures @TelegraphFood