David in the kitchen.

Cooking with care

As someone who cooks regularly for the fun, pleasure and indulgence of it, the last week few days have been a reminder that sometimes plain and simple options are best. That an empty plate and a contented smile at the end of a meal is the best feedback you can get.

My partners mother suffered a minor stroke last week. After a night in hospital she’s already on the mend but it’s going to be slow progress. She’s been living with us since coming out of hospital and is likely to for some time yet. Planning meals around what she can eat and what’s going to be good for her are the priority. It needs to be nutritious and healthy, while not being too substantial, as her appetite slowly comes back. Having said that she’s already asking when I’m next going to bake a cake, so we must be moving in the right direction.

Little and often seems to be the way that she wants to eat at the moment, so I’m making sure that there’s lots of homemade bread available. I have a favourite quick and easy bread recipe and the loaf that I made yesterday afternoon is already half gone. If any of my previous posts about the joys of bread making have tempted you to have a go this is a good one to start with.

Ingredients

2tsp (10 grams) dried yeast
350mil warm water
3tbsp runny honey
250g dark rye flour
250g white spelt flour
1tsp salt
50g seeds ( I use whatever I have in the pantry. Yesterday it was a mixture of poppy & sunflower)

Method

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water then add the honey.
Combine the flours, salt and seeds in a bowl
Pour the yeast and water over the flours. Mix with your hands to form a dough. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes.
Return the dough to a bowl. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise for an hour.
After an hour briefly knead the dough again. Then form the dough into a flat oval. Place it on a floured baking tray and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.
With 15 minutes to go pre heat the oven to gas mark 8.
Put a baking tray in the bottom the oven and fill it with boiling water. This helps to form a good crust on the bread.
Bake the loaf for 30 minutes. When you take it out tap the bottom of the bread. If it’s ready the bread should sound hollow.

So we’ll keep taking it one day at a time and hopefully a mixture of rest, gentle exercise and food cooked with care will have her up and about again soon.

The joy of cassettes

I’ve been seeing cassettes everywhere recently. They’re my current frequency illusion. Maybe those lightweight plastic encased tapes aren’t the museum pieces we all thought they’d become.

Only this week I’ve seen both a Twitter request from Alison Tyler as to which tracks people would put on a mixtape if they were creating one for her and an article in the Guardian about how cassette sales have risen dramatically in recent months. It appears that they are following in the wake of the vinyl revival. Then this morning I was sorting through a cupboard and found a box of tapes that I’d long forgotten about. Most of them are tapes that I’ve made of radio shows. This was in the days long before digital archives and catch up services, a time when if you wanted to hear a show again taping was your only option. I used to do this every week with the shows that Andy Kershaw had on BBC radio. Andy was a protege of John Peel and one of the tapes I’ve found is the tribute programme that he did the day John died. Andy used to fill his show with a wonderful mix of ethnic musics from around the world along with punk, soul, country and blues. He hasn’t been on the radio for years now but to this day a large percentage of my record collection is by artists first heard on Andy’s show.

The great thing about creating cassettes was that you were in control. Digital streaming may give you a greater range but so much of it feels as if it’s being picked for you, I always have my doubts about those ‘if you liked that you might like this’ messages. With cassettes it’s up to you what goes in the mix. The music may not always segue perfectly together but it does always mean something to you. I remember a time when holiday planning always included creating a tape for the journey. One hand on the arm of the record deck, the other hovering over the tape machine stop & start buttons. Trying to get that perfect link.

Another of this mornings finds was a Ted Hawkins concert bootleg. We used to have a stall on Norwich market that had tapes of virtually every gig that took place in the city. They were always in garishly coloured cases and were available within days of a show happening. I’m sure they were illegal but that didn’t stop me buying, particularly if it was a gig I’d been at. I do have to admit though that the sound was usually rubbish, the conversations of people standing next to the guy taping much clearer then any of the music.

Championing cassettes may seem a bit luddite but in these homogenised digital times it’s good that they’re still there.

My suggested mixtape tracks for Alison were

May You Never.. John Martyn
So What.. Miles Davis
Dirty Little Religion..Warren Zevon
Road To Nowhere..Talking Heads
Massive Nights..The Hold Steady
Levi Stubbs Tears..Billy Bragg
Born Slippy..Underworld
Little Fluffy Cloud..The Orb
P-Funk..Parliament
Country Honk..Rolling Stones

The cassette table shown in the photo is in the garden of The Playhouse Theatre bar in Norwich

Food & drink memories

There’s no memory quite as evocative as a food or drink memory. It does so much more than just bring the tastes flooding back.

I’ve recently been reading Nigel Slaters wonderful autobiography Toast where he links just about every moment of childhood to a particular food or drink item. They range from sweets or chocolate that he saved up his pocket money to buy, through to meals cooked for him by parents or grandparents. Whatever the memory that’s being recounted it’s food or drink that’s at the centre of it.

It’s a great way to tell a life story and got me to thinking about some of the things that I would list.

7 Up* Floats

I remember these as an exotic childhood treat when I lived in Malta. 7 Up poured over ice with a generous scoop of ice cream floated on top. As the drink was always served very cold it meant that much of the ice cream survived to the bottom of the glass and could then be eaten with a long handled spoon. To the ten year old me this felt like the hight of sophistication. As soon as I think of them I’m back at a cafe by a Maltese beach.

Chocolate Angel Delight with Maltesers.

Angel Delight was a powder that you mixed with milk to make a mouse like dessert. I’m using the past tense as I don’t remember this since childhood but it might still be available. The reason I have such fond memories of it is that it bought out the sweet tooth that my mother always had. Not content with the richness of the chocolate version she would add a packet of Maltesers and mix them in. This meant that every second or third spoonful would include a chocolate coated crunch. Just writing about that is enough to make me smile.

Egg Nog

My memory of egg nog is very different from the dessert that Wikipedia has just shown me. In my world it was the mixture of Advocaat and lemonade that used to be my grandmothers favourite Christmas tipple. A vivid yellow, very sweet drink that often had a cherry floating on top. Being allowed to have one of these at Christmas, probably mixed at 99% lemonade to 1% Advocaat, was always a thrill.

Marmite

If the previous ones are memories locked in childhood, this is one that’s continued on. From almost as far back as I can remember there is the rich salty taste of Marmite. It might be on toast first thing in the morning, it might be in a crusty bread sandwich with cheese late at night. Whenever it is, life feels better if there’s Marmite.

Dad cooking on a Sunday

During my childhood my mother suffered from severe migraines. When they struck she was bed ridden for most of the day. If it was the weekend it meant the novelty of dad to the rescue with cooking. I’t wasn’t that he couldn’t cook, just that me and my sister seldom saw him do it and always thought of the kitchen as mums domain. Unfortunately I’m struggling to remember exactly what he cooked but I know that as children we found them exciting Sundays.

The first cup of coffee on a trip to France

I’m jumping ahead a few years with this one. It’s hard to remember now but prior to the coffeeshop boom of the last few years a good cup was quite a hard thing to find in the UK. As a result if you were lucky enough to get to France there was never any doubt on priority number one. A cafe, a table and a cup that tasted of everything that you wanted France to be. If I close my eyes I’m there now, signalling to the waiter for a refill

As someone who thinks an awful lot about food I’m sure this is a theme that I’ll be returning to.

* I was reading the history of 7 Up (as you do) and was fascinated to see that until 1948 the recipe included lithium citrate which is a mood stabilising drug. Perhaps the addition of ice cream has the same affect.

Kitchen epiphany

It’s two in the afternoon, it’s wet and miserable outside and I’ve hardly ventured out of the house all day. You’d have thought that living in the UK would have made me used to this sort of November day by now. The sort of day when dusk is the perfect description for all of the daylight hours.

All is not lost though. I’ve put the morning to good use and just maybe had a bit of a kitchen epiphany. I set myself two tasks, one was to tidy up the fridge and pantry, the other to do some baking. The tidy up came first and pretty quickly it made me realise just how many half used bags of ingredients there were in the pantry. The list covered virtually every component that can go into a bake and in some cases I was finding items with more than one bag on the go. Onto the fridge and that wasn’t much better, shelves full of half used jars, many of which hadn’t seen the light of day for a long time. Thankfully nothing had gone passed it’s used by date but there were many that will need using up sooner rather than later.

What the tidy up has shown me is the potential flaw in how I plan a lot of what I cook or bake. I spend an inordinate amount of time reading cookbooks or food magazines and am often jotting down or tearing out recipes that I want to try. This means that the recipe is always coming first in the process. I then check what ingredients I have to hand before making a list of what will need buying before I cook. What I think I need to do more often is spin that process around. Check the full range of ingredients that I have in the house and then do the recipe search to fit them. This will not only make better use of the fairly limited storage space that we have but should also cut down on the risk of things getting wasted as they sit at the back of a shelf.

There’s no time like the present to put a plan into place so I’ve made bacon, cheese & red onion scones for this weeks #twitterbakealong challenge, based solely on ingredients I had to hand. The recipe below makes six scones.

Ingredients

1 red onion

25g butter

Salt & pepper

100g cheese

225g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

50g cold butter cut into cubes.

250g yoghurt

100g bacon – approximately 4 rashers

1 beaten egg

Method

Thinly slice the red onion and sauté it in 25g of butter for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper during this process. Remove onion from the pan and leave to cool
Chop the bacon and fry in the pan that you’ve used for the bacon.
In a bowl mix the flour, cheese and baking powder together. Add the cubed butter and work with your fingers until the mixture is crumbly.
Add the yogurt, bacon and onions. Use your hands to bring the mixture together as a dough.
Pat the dough into a rectangle and cut out whatever shape you want your scones to be. I find triangles works best.
Put the scones on a lined baking tray and then put the tray in the fridge for an hour to chill the scones. About 10 minutes before you take the scones out of the fridge heat the oven to gas mark 4.
When you take the scones out of the fridge brush them with beaten egg and bake for 30 minutes. The scones should be a golden brown when taken out of the oven.

The beauty of this sort of recipe is that you can use any cheese that you have to hand and the onion and bacon can easily be switched for whatever you have in your fridge on the day.

Great British Bake Off week ten

Bake Off week ten and we’re there, after bread, cake, pastry and a whole bunch of slightly odd themed weeks it’s the final three bakers. Three challenges left before they turn off the ovens and pack up the tent for another year.

If you’ve been following the series in the UK you’ll know that this season hasn’t been received quite as positively as previous years. I think there are a couple of reasons for this.

The first was the age range of the contestants. Previous series have had bakers from their teens to their sixties and seventies involved, this time around over half of the bakers were in their twenties and only one was over forty. In itself this isn’t a problem but I do think it hinders a large proportion of the shows viewers from directly identifying with those taking part. As a baker who would have significantly increased the average age of this years tent I can vouch for that.

The second issue that people had was with the judging on the show, in particular how harsh it was at times. Here I think the show has perhaps become a victim of it’s own success. There’s no doubt that the skill levels of the bakers is getting higher year on year and an inevitable outcome has to be the judges expecting ever higher standards. They just need to remember that however good the bakers are it is only an amateur show. If you set the bar too high it risks scaring people off.

Neither of these were major issues but I hope that the shows makers take them into consideration when the time comes for the next series.

Back to the final and as with previous years it wasn’t themed, so the bakers faced three random challenges. For the signature bake they were asked to make their ultimate chocolate cake, for the technical bake it was stilton souffles with lavash crackers and for the show stopper bake a surprise picnic selection

By surprise the judges meant food that wasn’t what it looked like. If you click the link there is an example of a cheese board selection that is actually made of cake. Definitely something to do in the Bake Off tent rather than a home kitchen bake.

As a confirmed chocoholic there was never really much doubt which of the bakes I was going for, but I have to admit to a slight hiccup in my plans as it’s not happened yet. After nine weeks of GBBO baking real life has got in the way this week and I’ve not been able to get my chocolate cake baked in time for this post. When I do it’s going to be a White Forest Gateau and as they say on all the best TV cookery shows “here’s one I made earlier”

If you’re looking to make a special occasion cake, or just fancy some indulgence, this is gorgeous.

So that’s it for another year. Of the bakes I did as I followed along with the show it was the fig rolls that surprised me the most. Prior to the bake I didn’t think I liked them but they are now a firm favourite. Angel Cake was the first time as a home bake, I’d only known it previously as a shop bought childhood treat. Maids of Honour were the most intricate bake, I’m glad I made them I can’t see it it happening again.

The big decisions to be made now are what takes the place of Bake Off on Tuesday evening and do I pluck up courage to have a go at applying for next year.

Great British Bake Off week nine

Bake Off week nine and we’ve reached the semi finals. Only two more to go before we all get our Tuesday evenings back and I have to find something else to write about.

This time the theme was patisserie. That fiddly and intricate style of baking that’s guarantied to make you stop and stare with lust into any French cake shop window, but not necessarily the sort that inspires you to have a go at making it in your own kitchen.

For the last couple of years there’s been a Bake Off professionals show on TV as well as the amateur one that we’re currently watching. I’ve found it very difficult to engage with the professional version because it’s baking at a level way beyond the domestic kitchen and I could never imagine myself doing it at home. That’s a little how I felt with this weeks amateur show. I watched but didn’t feel engaged or involved.

The challenges that the bakers faced were a domed patisserie cake for the signature bake, a Gateau Saint Honore for the technical and a patisserie selection presented in a sugar glass box for the showstopper. Yes you did read that correctly. The bakers were asked to construct a see through sugar box to display their baking in, then to compound the madness of it all the boxes were simply admired and lifted to one side. It was baking as a form of architecture with zero consideration given to what it would taste like if eaten. As much as i love to bake I have no interest unless I or someone else is going to eat and enjoy the results of my efforts.

When I was considering which of the challenges to have a go at I did consider the domed cake but there were two things going against it. Firstly if you’ve clicked on the link you will have already seen that the recipe runs to twenty stages , secondly it required a silicone mold to make the domes in and I don’t own one.

I then looked at the Gateau Honore recipe and that ran to twenty two stages. Maybe this show caught me on an unadventurous week but that felt like quite a few stages too many.

I clearly wasn’t alone in feeling a bit daunted by this week. I’ve mentioned before that I bake for #GBBOTwitterBakeAlong and so far we’ve stuck to the shows challenges. This week it was agreed to take a wider interpretation and simply to bake and share any patisserie that we wanted. That was fine with me and I opted for raspberry eclairs. Choux pastry filled with raspberry cream and topped with melted chocolate. A prefect tea time treat and proof that patisserie doesn’t have to be up to French cake shop standards.

There’s a recipe below for raspberry eclairs if you fancy having a go. It’s by Trine Hannmann and if you’re looking to treat yourself to a cookery book anytime soon her Scandinavian Baking is one of the most used on my shelf and highly recommended.

Raspberry eclair recipe

Next week it’s the final.

A day in Cambridge with my Dad.

I spent the day in Cambridge with my Dad yesterday. It was his birthday last weekend and as we couldn’t get together on the day we’d agreed to meet up for a belated birthday lunch. Cambridge has long since been one of my favourite places so any chance to jump on a train and spend the day there is always welcome.

On dad’s recommendation we ate at the The Cambridge Chop House. Situated on Kings Parade and just opposite Kings College, there can’t be many restaurants with a better view than this one. It was a long leisurely meal that provided ample opportunity for family updates and reminiscing. There was also the inevitable protracted Brexit discussion. Probably the only good thing to come out of Brexit is putting paid to the cliche that the British only talk about the weather.

My Mother died a couple of years ago now and thinking about her as I travelled home at the end of the day reminded me about a piece I wrote a little while ago. It also felt appropriate to share it after yesterday.

Mum & Dad in the garden

Mum was meticulous, but in a casual sort of way, if that makes sense. She always knew what she wanted, knew how she thought things should be, but somehow you were never really aware of her doing it. It wasn’t at all unusual to come home and find that things had changed in the house. Sometimes it might be a minor alteration, pictures moved or book shelves rearranged, other days it could be a completely redecorated room, walls and ceiling painted and all of the furniture in different places.

It wasn’t that dad didn’t get involved involved in the house, simply the case that mum was better at it.

The garden was different though. Here there were definitely his and her zones. Areas where they both felt they had their own expertise. Dads was the lawn. Always immaculately mowed and trimmed, never a weed or daisy in site. He’d spend hours in his old gardening trousers and shoes producing a bowling green that was never bowled on.

The rest of the garden was set to flowers and this was mums world, a riot of colour , always something in bloom. That same casual yet meticulous streak. She would match dads hours in the garden, in her case dressed in shorts and flip flops, bent over or kneeling as she worked on her pride and joy.

The only thing that ever disturbed this picture of domestic tranquility was if dad had the temerity to stray into mums zone. If dad should take it upon himself to dead head something that didn’t need it. I’m not sure that I ever really saw my parent argue but i think that these must have been some of the closets moments.

It would start with “ Geoffrey, what are you doing “ Geoffrey was reserved for when he was in trouble. Other than that it as always Geoff.

“Only trying to help”

“Well I’m fine thank you, if I need help I’ll ask for it”

At that point a slightly crest fallen dad would leave her to it

Mums gone now but the garden still looks good. Dad has turned his hand to looking after flowers as well as the lawn and even gets to dead head things when he wants to. Although I’m sure he still hears mums voice when he does.

Great British Bake Off week eight

Bake Off week eight and as we’re down to the last five bakers it’s the quarter final. That might sound a bit confusing but don’t forget that three bakers take part in the final.

After some unusual themes in recent weeks this show returned to a baking staple as it was about all things pastry. I’ve found pastry to be the most difficult thing to master since I started baking. Probably because it’s the one baking skill where you really can’t hide mistakes. If a cakes hasn’t quite worked you can always add some extra cream or icing. If a loaf of bread doesn’t look how you intended it to there’s always the “it’s meant to be rustic” option. However with pastry there aren’t any get out of jail cards, a pie case or quiche base either holds the contents or it doesn’t.

The challenges set for the bakers this week were a savoury Tarte Tatin for the signature, a Moroccan pie using brick pastry for the technical and a vertical pie for the show stopper.

The first of these is a savoury version of what I think most people will know of as a classic French dessert. Something that you will find on virtually any French restaurant menu. Created by The Tatin sisters at the Tatin hotel in the 1860’s , Tarte Tatin is a caramelised apple tart. The apples and other ingredients go into the pan first with the pastry base placed on top. It’s then baked like this before being turned over onto a plate when it comes out of the oven.

Moroccan style pies are one of my favourites and there is a recipe for a Moroccan Chicken Pie that tops my special occasion dishes.

What was new to me was the brick pastry that Bake Off wanted the contestants to make for it. I use filo pastry for my pie and wouldn’t for a moment consider making it, shop bought wins every time. Brick pastry is a North African home made equivalent to filo. It’s made out of semolina, flour and oil with the batter then spread very thinly onto a hot pan that is over the top of simmering water. What you finish up with are wafer thin sheets of pastry.

The vertical pie showstopper was really a pile of pies. The judges seemed to be looking for a pie structure. One of those woefully impractical ideas where so much thought has to go into the look that it shouldn’t really come as any great surprise when the final tase is all a bit under whelming.

With no desire to make a pile of pies and brick pastry looking like a bit of a faff I went with option one as my Sunday bake. An onion, mushroom and walnut Tarte Tatin. The vegetables and nuts sitting on blue cheese with a puff pastry base. The filling was going to be relatively straight forward, really just a case of sweating down the onions and mushrooms in a pan before adding in the nuts at the last moment. What wasn’t going to be so easy was the pastry. My partner swears by Delia Smith and pointed me at her site for a recipe. I duly did and I’m here to tell you that Delia’s quick-flaky-pastry might just have changed my baking life. Far and away the easiest pastry I’ve ever made and some of the crispest that I’ve ever baked. So not only did Delia make the cake on the cover of The Rolling Stones Let It Bleed album (I so hope that’s not an urban myth) she also now has my go to pastry recipe.

Tarte Tatin are relatively straight forward to bake and there’s a recipe below if you fancy having a go. If you don’t want to make pastry use shop bought.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/333631/onion-walnut-and-mushroom-tarte-tatin

Only four bakers left now and next time it’s the semi finals.

Breakfast in Koblenz

The cold meats and cheeses that I had for my first breakfast in Germany were a whole new experience to me.

I’ve written quite a lot in previous posts about childhood memories of food. How living in Malta for a few years broadened my tastes at an early age, what an adventurous cook my mother was and also about my grandmothers cooking. One memory from those times that I haven’t touched on is a school trip to Koblenz in Germany. I’m not sure if they still happen but this was a school exchange where I and a number of school friends went to live with German families for a week, before our opposite numbers came and stayed with us a few weeks later. The days were spent either in a German school or on organised trips but first thing in the morning and in the evening it was just you, your exchange partner and his family

I was fourteen years old and had been taking German lessons for about a year. A long day of coach and ferry travel had seen us arrive late the evening before. Our hosts and their parents had been there to meet us and for the next five days this was going to be home. We’d gone to bed very soon after arriving so breakfast was the first real challenge.

Joachim, my German partner, and his parents were already up. I’d stayed in bed as long as I could worrying about my limited German skills, rehearsing my “Guten morgen” and “Danke”. Seriously doubting that I could cope. However five minutes at the breakfast table was all it took to allay my fears.

This wasn’t due to any new found fluency in German, it was all due to Joachim’s mother. She apparently had been taking English lessons for months and was thrilled to have someone in the house that she could practice on.I’d like to say that I declined and insisted that we speak German, but the truth is that I was a hungry schoolboy who wanted his breakfast..and what a breakfast it was. Along with the cheese and meats there was juice, fresh fruits and breads unlike any I had ever tasted before. To this day the taste of dark, sticky rye bread takes me back to that trip. I think this might also have been where I had my first experience of coffee. Up until then I’d always drunk tea, with coffee being that ‘grown up’ thing that mum and dad had.

Having got over that first hurdle the week flew by. I’d be lying if I said I could remember too much about the time in school or the trips to local sites. But I do remember some mazing sausages being eaten and the fact that there was cake every evening. As well as revelling in the chance to practice her English Joachim’s mother also loved to bake.

I’m not sure that the trip did my German skills a great deal of good, a failed O’level is testament to that, but it left food memories that have never faded.

I never did keep in touch with Joachim but it would be interesting to know if his time in England a few weeks later left any comparable memories.

Great British Bake Off Week Seven

Bake Off week seven and this times it was festivals. I don’t think that’s a theme they’ve used previously and I wasn’t too sure what to expect. In the end it turned out to be food for festivals in the sense of Christmas or Easter, not what you might expect to find to eat at a music festival. So there won’t be any vegan burgers here.

The challenges set for the bakers this week were a batch of festival buns as the signature bake, Sicilian cassatelle for the technical bake and a Sarawak layer cake for the showstopper. Options two and three were both new things to me and both very quickly ruled out.

Cassatelle are traditional Sicilian pastries that are served at Carnevale. Half mooned in shape, looking a bit like a pasty, they are filled with ricotta and chocolate and deep fried. I’d certainly like to try them but for the moment the lack of a deep fat fryer in our kitchen ruled out making any.

Sarawak_layer_cake, otherwise known as Kek Lapis, is one of the oddest things that I’ve ever seen on Bake Off. A multi layered , multi coloured cake where each part is grilled rather than baked. A completely over the top creation where I can’t help thinking that the look might far outweigh the taste. To be fair I’m probably not doing them justice and as you can see from the link they are a cake with a fascinating history.

That left festival buns as my weekend bake. First thoughts were Hot Cross buns but I decided against them on a couple of accounts. Firstly because I’ve already made them and one of the best parts of doing these posts is trying and sharing new bakes. Secondly because I wasn’t too sure if the rest of the people I was baking for would approve. To briefly explain, my partner and her mother, nether of whom are particularly religious or church goers, both have an objection to Hot Cross buns other than in the immediate Easter period. I’ve never really understood this and often bake them long before or after Easter just to spark another lively discussion. However even I felt that perhaps October was a bit too long after.

So it was back to the cookery books and a trawl through the indexes looking for references to festivals recipes. I have a couple of books based on Scandinavian baking and they offered the best choices. In the end I opted for Swedish St Lucia buns, which are apparently a Christmas favourite. The texture and taste of the buns is very similar to brioche and the addition of saffron infused milk in the dough makes them something special. They are fine eaten cold but even better if you warm them under the grill first.

If you fancy having a go this is the recipe

Ingredients

250ml Milk

1tsp Saffron

50g Unsalted butter

500g Strong White Bread Flour

1tsp Salt

1x7g pack dried yeast

50g Castor Sugar

100g Quark Cheese

Method

Warm the milk is a saucepan over a gentle heat. When steaming take it off the heat and add the saffron and butter. Set aside for the butter to melt and the saffron to infuse the milk.
Mix the flour, salt yeast and sugar in a bowl.
Strain the saffron infused milk into the flour bowl, add the quark and mix together to form a dough.
Knead the dough for about six minutes until it’s smooth. Then set aside in a covered bowl to prove for approximately 90 minutes.
When the dough has proved knock it back to take any air out. Then split the dough into twelve pieces. Roll each piece into a 30cm sausage.
Bend the pieces into S shapes. Coil the end of each S tightly into a scroll. Place onto a baking tray that has either been brushed with oil or dusted with flour. If you are making 12 you will probably need two trays.
When the tray is full cover it and leave to prove for another 45 minutes.
Toward the end of this prove heat the oven to Gas 6 / 200C
After the second prove brush the buns with beaten egg and press a raisin into the scroll at the end of each S
Bake for 12 minutes. The buns should be a light golden brown

If I make these again I might be tempted to add some raisins into the dough rather than just as a final adornment. If you have difficulty finding quark, as I did to begin with, natural or greek yoghurt should work as a substitute.

Next time it’s pastry week. Something tells me that we might talking about pies next time.