David in the kitchen.

Back to baking

After a few weeks of chaos, things are slowly getting back to normal here. The kitchen refit is done, all that’s left now is to sort out some decorating for the few areas of the wall not taken up with cupboards and units.

It was always destined to be a lengthy project and discovering halfway through the electrical wiring was too old to support what we were planning to do hardly helped matters. Extra days and extra cost were the inevitable results, but we’re there now and all be it tentatively, baking has finally resumed.

To date, my entire kitchen life has been spent using a gas oven. Every success or failure happened in that elderly appliance and I will admit to being a little sad as I watched it go. Now there’s an all-singing, all-dancing electric fan oven with what initially appears to be a bewildering array of options. Gone are the days of just having an on/off control.

The first time I used it felt like going back to being a baking novice. I opted for the easiest recipe I could think of, a batch of fruit scones, and spent the twelve minutes they were baking in a state of nervous anxiety. The oven is now eye level and I must have peaked through the glass to check on their progress at least half a dozen times.

After the scones worked, as evidenced by how quickly they were eaten, I made a loaf of banana bread. That was a success as well and since then, with the basics out of the way, I’ve been getting a little more adventurous with each bake. I am finding things need a slightly longer baking time in the new oven. Maybe I’m not quite getting the gas to fan temperature conversion right.

By last weekend I was back to full indulgence mode with a cardamon, date and toffee cake, I’ll share the recipe next time I post.

This time it’s the banana bread. It may be a straightforward recipe, but when I put I picture of a loaf of this on Twitter last week it generated more interest and response than anything I’ve posted before. So for all those who liked it or contacted me directly about it. This is your chance to have a go and make one for yourself.

Ingredients

50g butter
75g muscovado sugar
100g self-raising flour
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg
1 banana – peeled and mashed
10g pumpkin seed
1tsp demerara sugar

Method

Grease and line a 450g baking tin. Preheat the oven to Gas 4/Fan 160c
Place all the ingredients, except for the seeds and demerara, into a bowl and beat with a handheld electric whisk until combined. Spoon the mixture into the lined baking tin.
Sprinkle the seeds and demerara over the top then bake for 35 to 40 minutes.
Once out of the oven, leave in the tin for 10 minutes then turn onto a wire cooling rack and peel off the baking paper. Leave to cool completely before eating.

Bake Off pastry week

Missing the chance to join in with Bake Off German week due to our ongoing kitchen renovation, was a disappointment. But if I have to miss out on Pastry week as well, it could just turn out to be a blessing.

It’s not that I don’t like pastry, my regular consumption of pies proves I do, just that I find making it the most difficult and daunting aspect of baking.

They say practice makes perfect, and although I’m a long way from that, I will accept practice is slowly improving my pastry skills. All be it for only certain types.

If I’m making a pie at home, be it sweet or savoury, my go-to is shortcrust and I’m now fairly comfortable with this. If a dessert calls for choux, I’m just about there. I will admit, it took a few abortive attempts to get it right, but the joy of a homemade, cream-filled eclair made it worthwhile.

Those two I’m ok with, but at the first mention of puff or filo pastry in a recipe, you’ll find me in the chiller cabinet aisle of the supermarket, hunting out the ready-made.

The one exception is if I’m making sausage rolls. Delia Smith might not be the most fashionable name in baking these days but her quick flaky pastry recipe has never let me down. Wrapped around sausage meat that has spice and dried fruit added, it works wonderfully. It won’t be long until I’m baking some for Christmas.

The challenges the bakers faced on this week’s Bake Off were to produce a batch of chouxnuts, a baklava and finally a decorated terrine pie

Chouxnuts , as the name suggests, are a choux pastry version of a doughnut. It’s a new concept to me but the bakers all seemed to know of them. I’d be interested to try one, my expectation is they’d be light and crispy, but the lack of a deep fat fryer in the kitchen rules out making my own.

For the baklava, the key requirement was making filo. As gorgeous as this sweet, pistachio filled treat is, the only way I’d attempt making one is with a box of shop-bought pastry by my side.

For once it was the show stopper challenge that caught my imagination. Everyone seems to love a pie, and these are truly a thing of beauty. The point where pie making becomes an art form.

Calum Franklin’s Pie Room cookbook has been on my shelf for a while now. I’ve flicked through it a few times, never quite plucking up the courage to make anything. Bake Off might just have provided the incentive to have a go.

Now all I have to do is work out how to use the new oven.

You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

When Joni sang ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’ she probably wasn’t thinking about baking.

The problem I have is that with our kitchen refurb underway, baking is gone, at least for the time being, and now it is all I’m thinking about. From Bake Off German week, with some fascinating challenges, the hugely disappointing shop-bought scone I ate at lunchtime, to the cookbooks beckoning on my shelves, everything is making me want to be in the kitchen, baking.

One of the social media responses I had to my last post about our kitchen, from someone I used to work with, suggested if I had nothing else to do I could always go and bake for them in their kitchen. I’m not sure how serious he was, but it did make me think perhaps I should become a baker for hire.

I’ve often had people on Twitter asking if I could send them some of the baked goods I’ve posted online. Admittedly the requests have tended to be predominately from the US so I’m not sure how viable an option it is. But if people in my home town are suggesting it, now might be the time.

The latest on the kitchen is that we should at least have the oven back by the weekend. The empty shell of Tuesday has been filled with the new base units and doesn’t look so scary now. Tomorrow should see the completion of the electrical work and this will enable us to limp through the weekend. They’re back on Monday to apply the finishing touches and then hopefully it’s all systems go.

My first thought when I heard we would have an oven by the weekend, was maybe I will be able to join in with German week after all. This was quickly followed by a second thought telling me not to be so ridiculous. In a new kitchen, with a new oven, it will have to be some very basic baking until I fully understand how everything works.

If I could have joined in, I would have loved to have a go at this week’s technical challenge and made a Prinzregententorte. If you click the link you’ll see this is a gloriously ornate, multi-layered, chocolate-covered cake. One of those bakes that’s a full-blown project. Something I look forward to devoting an entire Sunday afternoon to making. I’ll just have to have my German week a bit later than everyone else.

The thought of eighteen steps to a recipe and a seemingly never-ending ingredients list has got me pining all over again.

My name is David and I’m a baker.

A Baker Without A Kitchen

After much thought and prevarication, we’ve finally decided to bring our kitchen into the modern world. We’re expanding the workspace, improving the layout, and soon I’ll be baking away to my heart’s content, posting even more photo’s than normal on social media. But in the meantime, we’re living in chaos.

The cupboards and drawers were emptied over the weekend. Items that hadn’t seen daylight in years were retrieved from the darkest recesses. Some to be binned, others a pleasant surprise and will be used in future. Kitchen implements we were oblivious to owning were found. In some cases, we couldn’t even work out what they’d be used for. Over all, I’m sure there was more than double the amount of stuff either of us thought we owned.

The plan was to keep some logic to the kitchen emptying process, things would be boxed, labelled and neatly stacked. Inevitably, the reality is somewhat different. I’m perched on a sofa as I type, sharing it with piles of baking tins and mixing bowls, sitting in a room which feels like a poorly organised warehouse. Putting everything back will be interesting.

Fresh food supplies have been run down, as there’ll be no fridge or freezer for a few days. We’re without a cooker as well, so convenience eating looks as if it will have to be the order of the day.

The fitter and electrician have been here since first thing this morning and after a good start, it isn’t going so well now.

Dismantling took no time at all. Fifty-year-old units were soon prised out as the kitchen was turned into an echoey shell. The problems started as soon as the electrician arrived. Apparently, our wiring is so old, he had to Google it to understand how the wiring colours equate to their modern equivalent. There were a few worrying moments when it looked as if the installation would have to be postponed. But after much head-scratching a plan has been devised, he’s going to completely rewire the kitchen, then we should be good to get going again.

How long this will add to things is all a bit vague at the moment. Occasionally one of them puts their head around the door to update me and I suppose eventually I’ll have to pluck up the courage and go and have a look. Although the noises I’m hearing aren’t encouraging me to do that.

But for now, I’m staying where I am. A baker without a kitchen. A viewer as opposed to a participant when Bake Off reaches German Week tonight.

Bake Off dessert week

With the possible exception of bread week, there’s a case to be made it’s always dessert week on Bake Off. However this time it officially was. The week you can guarantee more than any other that every challenge is going to be sweet, sticky and indulgent.

My mum would have loved it. Whenever she ate out, dessert was the first thing she looked at on the menu. Then having made her choice she would work backwards through the rest of the courses. Always making sure her picks would leave sufficient room for the sweet treat she’d decided to finish off with. If there was a glass of dessert wine in the offing as well it was her idea of a perfect evening

Mum never made it to a Pudding Club evening, but something tells me she’d have been in her element.

She would have approved of this weeks signature challenge. The bakers were tasked with producing a pavlova. For me, this dessert has always been a favourite. The billowing meringue is crunchy on the outside but sticky in the middle, the cream filling flavoured with caramel if my choice, the fresh fruit on top adding a wonderful freshness in flavour and contrast to the sweetness of the other components. There were still two challenges to go but I’d already decided what my bake was going to be this week.

My go to pavlova is a Jens Jorgen Thorsen. Jens was a Danish artist who also directed films and was a jazz musician. This wonderful indulgence, inspired by his free form style, features in Trine Hahnemann’s Scandinavian Baking Book and has been a huge hit whenever I’ve made it for people. As Trinne explains in the recipe it’s a very free form concoction, the preferred fruit is figs but anything you have to hand will work and the melted chocolate can be splashed on however you wish. I’m not sure what the Bake Off judges would think, but I love it.

The week’s other challenges were individual sticky toffee puddings for the technical and a decorative imprime cake for the show stopper. I’ve never been a big fan of the former, as good as they looked on the show, toffee pudding always feels like a functional school dinner pudding to me. As for imprime cakes, they may look impressive, but my vote will always go for pavlova.

I like to think that mum’s sweet tooth lives on with me.

Bake Off bread week

Bake Off bread week feels as if it marks the point in the series when the basics have been covered. We started with cake, followed with biscuits and now bread means that the things we’re all most likely to bake at home have been ticked off.

Desserts and pies are the only bakes you can say with certainty are going to crop up at some point between now and the final. Other than that we’ll be in the hands of the judges and whatever challenges they choose to set the bakers. After Japan week last season, we could be going far and wide.

When I first started to bake, bread always felt the most daunting of undertakings. It looked easy on paper, a basic loaf has probably the fewest ingredients of any bake. But the kneading, proving and amount of time which had to be committed to it raised serious concerns.

Since then I’ve learned that despite all this there is nothing more rewarding than a kitchen full of the scent of baking bread and the moment of success when a well risen crusty loaf comes out of the oven. I won’t claim it works every time. But believe me, it is worth the effort.

For this weeks show the bakers first challenge was to produce focaccia of their choice. This soft, flat Italian bread is often served plain, just with a covering of drizzled olive oil and salt. In this case, the judges were looking for toppings and this greek inspired focaccia is an example of what they came up with. My only experience of focaccia baking was one topped with grapes and herbs. It was a success but I’d forgotten how this bread needs to be eaten on the day it’s made. My bread was far too large for the two of us to manage and quite a lot was wasted.

This week’s technical challenge was a batch of breadsticks. To me, breadsticks bring back memories of those brittle, cellophane wrapped, tasteless items you often found on restaurant tables when you first sat down. Invariably eaten before any drinks or other food arrived, they weren’t very nice.

Thankfully what this recipe produces couldn’t be further from that memory. These are mini ciabatta, dotted with olives, cheese, and should you choose to add them, diced onions.

I left the onions out of my bake as it felt like one flavour too many. The contrast between olives and cheese seems sufficient to my palate.

If you’re tempted to have a go at making some yourself, I have a few words of advice

The full recipe will give you an absolute mountain of breadsticks. I halved everything and we still have eighteen. Unless you’re feeding an army I’d do the same.
Don’t be tempted to make the individual breadsticks as long as they say in the recipe. Their suggested 30cm is far too long and it’s no wonder many of the bakers had trouble with them. I’d say no more than 20cm maximum.

Three shows in and I’ve made all of the technical challenges, can it last.

Bake Off biscuit week

For the third season running Bake Off had me making one of my childhood treats at home. Two years ago it was my all-time favourite, an Angel Cake. This confection consists of three layers of delicate sponge, one raspberry flavoured, another lemon and the third vanilla, with a layer of buttercream between each. No childhood special occasion was complete without one of these.

Last year it was a Battenberg. Another multi sponge creation, this time filled with jam and the whole thing encased in marzipan.

This time around it was a batch of raspberry jam and cream shortbread biscuits, or Jammie Dodgers as they’re commonly known in the UK. A melt in the mouth biscuit with tangy jam and sweet cream.

Looking back now I can’t help thinking the attraction to all these bakes may have been the fact you could pull them apart and in doing so make them seem to last longer on the plate. If you were really lucky, or some might say skilled, you were left with pieces of deconstructed cakes or biscuits that still had jam, marzipan or cream attached to every part of them. A feast for hungry boys of every age.

Another link between them is that before Bake Off prompted me to have a go, I’d thought of them only as shop-bought delights, rather than something for home baking. In all cases, I’ve been proved wrong and am happy to have added them to my repertoire.

As you’ve probably gathered it was Biscuit Week on the show this week and jam and cream biscuits were the technical challenge. Before them, the baker started with having to make a batch of filled brandy snaps. These brittle sweet tubes, almost toffee-like in texture, are filled with a cream favoured to your choice. As much as I’ve always enjoyed them, they didn’t feel like a bake I wanted to produce a batch of at home. To me, they somehow feel closer to a dessert than a biscuit.

The show stopper challenge was its normal bonkers self. This week the bakers were asked to produce a 3D interactive toy from their childhood, made of biscuits. All bar one opted for gingerbread as it’s always the strongest biscuit and lends itself to this sort of thing. My favourite was the snooker table with cues, balls and pockets that could be played. If I’d have been there I might have been tempted to have a go at a gingerbread Dalek, or maybe a Thunderbirds rocket.

If you’re tempted to have a go at making the Jammie Dodgers I will warn you, this recipe makes a dozen substantial biscuits. They are far larger than anything you’d buy in a shop.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a biscuit stamp. I don’t, and they’re purely for decorative purposes anyway. Equally, if you don’t have a heart-shaped cutter, use a star shape or whatever you have to hand. Because let’s face it, in the end, the taste is always going to be more important than the look. Just don’t let the Bake Off judges hear you saying that.

Bake Off is back.

There’s no surer sign of the onset of Autumn than the return of Bake Off.

As the evenings get darker and the curtains pulled earlier it just feels like perfect television for this time of year. A little bit of calm amongst the madness of rising gas prices, unnecessary petrol shortages and the many other depressing stories the news is currently full of. Even the unseasonably warm weather in the UK this week couldn’t stop me from sitting down with a cup of tea, a slice of cake and tuning in to the first show of the series last Tuesday. Eager to see which of this weeks bakes I was going to make.

Straight away we were back in the tent with familiar faces, baking challenges varying from straightforward to the ridiculous, and a remarkable camaraderie between the bakers. It’s the latter more than anything which I think sets this show apart. Even on week one, when they can’t have been together for long, there’s a bond and support amongst the bakers which makes you long to be a part of it. Always taking a genuine interest in what their fellow competitors are doing. I have had a couple of goes at applying in the past, neither of which got very far, but this week’s show already has me wondering if I should perhaps have one more go for next time around. Maybe it would be third time lucky.

The opening show was cake week and as always the bakers were presented with three different challenges before one was crowned star baker and another drew the short straw of being the first one sent home.

The opening challenge, or signature bake as it’s called one the show, was to make a batch of decorated mini rolls. If you’re not sure what they are, think of miniature Swiss rolls. For me, it’s a cake that will always conjure memories of Cadbury Chocolate Mini Rolls. A small roll of chocolate sponge, with a vanilla cream filling, the whole thing encased in thin milk chocolate. No childhood birthday party was complete without a plate of these and for me, the aim was always to try and delicately eat the chocolate casing first before moving on to the cake inside.

Next came the technical challenge and this week it was a malt loaf. A traditional fruit loaf that uses malt extract in the recipe, many of the younger bakers on the show hadn’t heard of it and were quite confused as to what it was. I’d never made one but do remember it as something which would often be on the table if I went for tea at my grandparents.

The generational split on this bake was confirmed when my partner’s mother, watching with us, said a malt loaf was one of her favourites as well. After that it was pretty obvious which bake I’d be doing…and I’m so glad I did.

It may have sounded a bit underwhelming when it came up on the show, the recipe looked a bit straightforward for a technical bake. But let me tell you, the mix of malt extract, muscovado sugar and black treacle gives it a wonderful flavour. Add in the tea-infused fruit and you have a cake to savour. An additional bonus is a gorgeous aroma as the cake slow bakes in the oven.

The show finished, as always, with the show stopper challenge. This is invariably my least favourite section as looks and aesthetics inevitably take precedent over flavour. This week was no exception as the judges were looking for gravity defying cakes. The one in the link is clearly a great achievement, but I can’t help thinking it’s as much a feat of engineering as it is of baking.

So I’m back in the Bake Off groove and already looking forward to biscuit week.

Apple cake with lemon, chocolate and fennel seeds.

We’re currently having a late burst of summer. A few days of glorious weather are raising the spirits and encouraging me to grab the last chance for some alfresco living, before autumn sets in. Hence the fact I’m writing this sat in the garden with a mug of tea and the last slice of the weekend’s cake by my side.

A clear sign that autumn can’t be far off is the fact that teaser trailers for the new series of The Great British Bake Off have started. Every year my first thought is surely it must be too soon, but one episode in I know I’ll be as hooked as ever and desperately trying to find time to bake as many of the challenges as possible.

Eating the slice of cake now was one of those should I or shouldn’t I moments. It’s far too hot to bother baking today, not something you’ll hear me say too often, so enjoying the last slice this afternoon means there’ll be nothing this evening.

As this weeks #TwitterBakeAlong challenge was #CakeWeek I took the opportunity to make one of our favourites. I’m sure if I was to scroll back over all of my posts there have been numerous cakes described as being one of our favourites, but I can honestly say this one gets baked more than most. The ingredients list may be relatively simple and the method straightforward, but there’s something about the contrasting flavours of sweet apple, bitter chocolate, tangy lemon and aniseed that make every mouthful a treat.

I found this recipe in the Honey & Co baking book and they take the flavour combination even further by soaking the apple pieces in whisky, as well as lemon. I’ve done this on a couple of occasions but the cake is still a success if you choose to think of the alcohol as an optional extra.

I like to use fennel seeds in savoury and sweet dishes as I find the hint of aniseed works in both. To make the most of their flavour I gently toast them in a dry pan and then crush them in a pestle & mortar, before they’re added to the dish. A bonus is they fill your kitchen with their glorious scent.

Ingredients

Zest and juice of a lemon
2 apples diced. The apples don’t need to be peeled
40g bitter chocolate
2 eggs
160g caster sugar
130ml vegetable oil…I use either rapeseed or sunflower
150g plain flour
1.5tsp baking powder
1tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp fennel seeds
pinch of salt

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 and line a 1kg loaf tin
Put the lemon zest and juice into a bowl and add the diced apple. This is where you would also add the optional 2tbsp of whiskey if using.
Chop the chocolate into slivers and put them in the fridge until needed.
In a large bowl or mixer whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and puffed up. Then, while still whisking, slowly pour in the oil until combined.
Use a spatula or wooden spoon to fold in the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, fennel seeds, and salt. Once these are combined fold in the diced apple, along with the juice it has been soaking in. Finally, fold in the chilled chocolate slivers.
Transfer the batter to the tin and bake for 35 minutes. Then turn the tin around in the oven and bake for a further 20 minutes.
When the cake is done your kitchen will be full of the smell of baked apple and a knife pressed into the centre of the cake should come out clean.

The fact I’m nibbling a slice three days after I baked it is proof that this cake can be stored for days in an airtight container. I’d even go as far as to suggest that the flavours get stronger. Maybe I should have left the last slice for this evening.

Coal dust, tobacco smells and Grandma’s egg custard

When I called my dad yesterday he told me he’d met up with his two surviving brothers earlier this week and spent a long enjoyable lunch reminiscing about their childhood days. Born and raised in a Yorkshire pit village, I know my dad left home at 18, which means the memories and stories shared over the lunch table will have been a minimum of seventy years old.

I wished I could have been there with them and it got me to thinking how integral that pit village was to my life as well. How visits to stay with my grandparents were like entering into another world. It also prompted me to share this.

Grandad was a coal miner, I can hear Dolly Parton singing that line, and all of my childhood visits were to their Coal Board owned house. As with the last sentence, coal was everywhere in Thurcroft. The giant slag heap at the pit head could be seen from my grandparent’s garden and when the wind blew it left a grey patina over everything. A residue that came off on your fingers if you touched something. It could be so bad I remember my grandmother would always check what direction the wind was blowing in before deciding on whether to hang any washing on the line. If she got it wrong anything white would be grey by the time it came in.

It wasn’t just the residue that coal left on everything, you could smell and almost taste it as well. Every house in the village used to receive free deliveries from the pit, these would be dumped on the pavement from a flat back lorry. There were no sacks, just a pile of freshly hewn coal which had to be shovelled into a wheelbarrow before being trundled to the coal bunker in the back garden. I’m sure if you lived there this was a laborious task and when you got home from the pit the last thing you wanted to do was move more coal. But if the delivery day happened to coincide with us staying there it was the most exciting thing ever. A chance to get ridiculously dirty as I helped to move it. Although looking back I’m sure I was more of a hindrance than a help as clambering up coal mountain always turned out to be more fun than shovelling. Coal moving always finished with a hot bath and another of the smells unique to Grandma’s house, carbolic soap.

In their house, they had an open coal fire with a cooker built into it and this is where Grandma worked her culinary magic, filling the house with enticing smells of the food we’d all be eating later. Coal fire cooking might conjure the image of an Aga but this was nowhere near as sophisticated. To this day I’ve no idea how you control the heat in a coal-fired oven but it was an art that Grandma had off to perfection. Roasting, baking, it all went on in there and to a greedy grandson’s mind they all came out tasting delicious. She knew I adored her egg custard, honed to just the right consistency, topped with a sprinkling of grated nutmeg, and there always seemed to be one on the table.

Mealtimes were always a big event in her house, but it’s only looking back I realise I seldom saw her eat anything. I’m sure she did but for her, the priority was all about feeding others. Making sure everyone else was happy and content.

Then there’s tobacco. I haven’t smoked for many years but I was watching a documentary the other evening about Miles Davis and getting completely sidetracked by just how cool some people can make smoking look. While I’d hesitate to claim coolness for my grandparents, it was a train of thought which soon led back to Thurcrofft again as everyone seemed to be a heavy smoker. Neither of my parents did, so the smell of tobacco was always a uniquely grandma and grandad thing, even more so when they enveloped you in it with a hug. There was always a slight difference in the smell they left behind as grandad more often than not opted for a pipe rather than cigarettes. The ritual of cleaning and lighting the pipe seeming every bit as important as the actual smoking of it.

To this day I can still see my mother’s disapproving looks at the ornate ashtrays they had around the house. My favourites were models of small cottages, they were hollow with a gap at the front where you either flicked the ash or placed your still burning cigarette, if you did the later smoke rose through the building and out through the chimney. If I ever saw one in an antique or bric-a-brac shop I’d be very tempted to buy one. Sorry mum.

It’s at least forty years now since I was last in Thurcroft. Both of my grandparents are long gone and I don’t think I’ve got any family left in the area. The pit has gone as well, it survived for a few years after the miners’ strike but finally closed in 1990. There are parts of me that would be interested to see what’s become of the village, but with no slag heaps and no coal mountains to climb it would be a very different place from the one I remember.

Even if I don’t get back there, I’ve still got the hope of one day making an egg custard that tastes just like Grandma used to make.

The photo with this piece was taken in Thurcroft around about 1950 and shows a shop that my great grandparents had.