Homemade versus shop bought

Just because I’m a relatively recent convert to the joys of baking it doesn’t mean that I haven’t always enjoyed cake and baked things in general. Back then they were either shop bought or baked by someone else in the house.

My Mum loved to bake and I have many childhood memories of being in the kitchen with her. She would make tangy lemon meringue pies, rich chocolate cakes with vanilla cream, or fruit cakes laden with sultanas and raisins. Whatever the bake was there was always a final treat of being allowed to get a spoon and scrape any remaining batter from the bowl after the rest was in the tin and safely in the oven. I hope Mum would approve that I still maintain that baking tradition to this day.

Shop bought cakes were a whole different world. The only ones that I remember Mum bringing home were either Angel Cakes or Battenberg’s. These were very occasional treats, but with their highly coloured cake and super sweet icing they made a big impression on a young boy.

Ever since I’ve been baking I’ve tended to keep that homemade versus shop bought idea in my mind, but that might all be about to change.

This weeks #twitterbakealong challenge was to bake Devon spilts. Don’t worry if you not sure what they are, I had to google it. It turns out that Devon splits are the buns that were always my childhood first choice if we were having a cake out. A slightly sweetened dough filled with jam and cream, an extra blob of jam on top and the whole thing then sprinkled with icing sugar.

On the face of it a relatively straight forward bake, but with so many memories I was actually quite nervous to make them. Wondering if they would taste like those shop bought ones.

Well I did make them but of course they didn’t taste like they used to. These were a grown up version. The dough had just a hint of butter and sugar added to it. The cream was whipped thick and actually tasted of cream. The jam was homemade and tasted of the fruit in it. 

As always with my Sunday baking I posted a picture on Twitter and I’ve never had the level of response that these buns generated. So many people from the UK getting in touch with their memories and so many people outside of the UK wanting to know more about them. It was wonderful to spend so much time chatting with people about baking.

Now that I’ve broken that barrier and baked shop cakes at home it can’t be long until there are grown up Angel Cake and Battenberg in the kitchen.

If anyone fancies having a go at Devon splits the details are below. As I keep getting told that I’m baking too much sweet stuff I made six and have listed the ingredients accordingly. However if you want to double up and indulge in a dozen please do.

Ingredients

250g strong white bread flour

1tsp salt

20g caster sugar

7g instant yeast

20g unsalted butter – softened & diced

75ml milk

75ml water

Filling

100ml double cream

50g strawberry jam

icing sugar to dust

Method

Put the flour, salt sugar and yeast in a bowl. Add the butter, milk and 75% of the water. Mix gently by hand.

Add the remaining water a little at a time until you have incorporated all of the flour into a soft sticky dough.

Turn out the dough and knead for five minutes until it is no longer sticky. Put the dough back in the bowl and leave to rise for one hour.

After an hour knock the air from the risen dough. Then split the dough into 6. Roll the dough into balls and place on a lined baking tray. Leave to rise for a further 40 minutes.

Heat the oven to gas 7.

Bake the rolls for 10 to 12 minutes. They should be golden and sound hollow when tapped underneath. Leave to cool.

Cut the rolls ( I found it best to not to cut them completely in half ). Spread jam on each half then fill with whipped cream.  Dot some more jam on the cream and sprinkle with icing sugar.