For the Love of Baking

Baking is fun and can be therapeutic.  When I’m not feeling well or a bit crestfallen baking is one of the ways I lift myself from the doldrums – creative and aromatic therapy.  There’s nothing better than kneading a lump of bread dough around the table top.  You can get rid of all that pent up frustration by pushing, stretching and throwing the dough around the surface and a few hours later enjoy the finished result – a doorstep slice of warm bread, dripping in butter with a slab of cheese on top.  The taste buds pop and I drool at the thought!

It’s the same making a cake.  Doesn’t have to be anything more than a basic sponge recipe but you can add other ingredients and rifling through the cupboard gathering the honey, fruits and nuts, essences et al and lining them up on the work surface is exciting.  All those aromas escaping as you open the packets ... a delight on the senses as different and wonderful fragrances assault the nose mmmmm!  Once their mixed, placed in the oven then the power of cooking really comes into play.  Even as the cake is baking its enticing aroma wafts around the kitchen; you sit and wait imagining the moment you slice into it and devour your creation, alone, just you, the slice of cake, a dollop of cream and a cup of coffee ... baking bliss!

I have never been much of a roasting or grilling main meal sort of person.  I much prefer baking cakes and desserts and one thing I have always been good at is making pastry.  Plain old short crust made with flour butter, lard and eggs and for dessert pastry sugar too.  My domestic science teacher told me that to be a good pastry cook one needs cold hands otherwise the pastry becomes greasy and heavy.  Way back then I used to make it the long way, that is crumbling the fats and flour together by hand but she was right, good pastry needs ‘cool’.  Cool fats, cool hands, and cool work surface – it thrives on being cool (which is more than you can say about me these days)!  So I began to make pastry with the food processor – whizzes the ingredients together quickly and requires less liquid for binding AND it comes out in a ball ready for resting in the fridge – back to being cool again!

I love puff pastry but I reckon making my own is taking dedication to baking a bit far even for my standards where cold everything is an absolute must.  The constant rolling out, adding cold butter cubes in between resting the dough makes it time consuming too.  On top of which the end result isn’t always as expected.  So I buy it, organic naturally, and there’s no shame in that because according to one website’s glowing recommendation of their product, it is used by all the top chefs!  So, if it’s good enough for them ...

I haven’t attempted choux pastry.  I should - I could then indulge myself and make lots of chocolate éclairs.  I could also say goodbye to the size 12 jeans at the front of the wardrobe and hello to the larger drawstring things at the back of the wardrobe, there to remind me of indulgent, larger times!

A year or so ago I started using organic milled flour instead of supermarket branded and the end results are very noticeable.  The pastry is lighter, cakes are softer and bread is a totally different texture and more digestible.  The former two were not the reasons for changing but I’m glad I did and it makes baking far more enjoyable knowing the end results are better, not only in appearance and taste but on my health too.

Legislation on ingredients’ labelling means that bags of flour do not have to list everything other than stating wheat, preservatives, or ‘all natural ingredients’.  They do not have to list the breakdown of the term ‘natural ingredients’ and so now knowing what the contents are I use organic milled flour.

Previously I hinted that I don’t much care for savoury cooking, that roasted and grilled meat doesn’t really do it for me, but wrap it in pastry then you’re talking.  At the moment and because it’s winter I’m rather hooked on a pie containing chicken and leek with chorizo in a cream sauce.  This is a very easy pie to make as it only has a top crust, no base, so there’s no blind baking to do.   Another favourite is pork and prunes with walnuts.  This is a pie with a base and a top crust so it requires baking blind which is pre-baking the pastry base first for about for 10 minutes before adding the filling and the top pastry layer.  This really is where your own personal preference and how your oven operates comes in as not everyone bakes blind.  I do because I like the base to have a bit of firmness about it and my oven demands it.  Basically any meat and vegetable combination will make a pie and as long as the meat is cooked first you’ll know what size pie dish to use.  It also makes baking far more interesting and satisfying to adapt recipes to your own and your family’s needs.  Pies and puddings stuffed to the brim with meat and vegetables provide very filling meals; ones that make you feel as though you’ve eaten a hearty meal made with the appetite of a hungry miner in mind!

One pastry dish that you can’t go wrong with is steak and kidney pudding but it has to be a suet crust.  Originally made with beef and oysters in Victorian times - “Dickens' Sam Weller remarks, 'Poverty and oysters always seem to go together” – how times have changed; now we substitute with mushrooms, unless oysters are within your budget.

Savoury pies – far from gourmet but ideal winter sustenance, comfort food for the whole family, rich in calories and taste, to be enjoyed sitting around the dinner table with family, friends and lots of laughter.  With all their imperfections woofed down with eagerness, the ultimate thanks for all your hard work – well done!

Of course there is such thing as overload on pastry-based foods so after all those pies one should consider a light dessert like fruit and cream, but then again if you want to be totally satiated nothing less than a fruit crumble or pie or streusel cake will suffice.

I have been making streusel cakes with seasonal fruits for the past 3 years.  Same flour, sugar and butter based crumble mixture for the base and topping with different fillings throughout the year - sometimes with a hint of spice.  Luckily I grow rhubarb, blackcurrants, apples and quinces and all these make excellent streusel fillings.  At Christmas it’s made with homemade mincemeat.  My personal favourite is the rhubarb version with freshly picked pink rhubarb, the first of the year being made in February and because having three plants it can be enjoyed right through to October.  I know rhubarb isn’t at the top of many peoples’ favourite foods but the sharpness of the fruit compliments the sweetness of any sugar and butter cake or pie.  The blackcurrant and apple filling is the second favourite – oozing deep red bubbling sugar around the sides so when it is cut the red runs into the apples changing to pink.  It’s colourful as well as full of flavour.

Running a B&B furthered my baking ability and know-how.  I started off with batches of scones and they are still the main staple of the menu offered, but the streusel cake is becoming a firm favourite.  I stumbled upon a recipe about eight years ago for something called Angel Food Cake.  It’s dairy free, the raising agents are egg whites and the moistness is provided by rose water.  It’s a lovely cake to make if you want to impress, finished off  dribbled with icing and then covered with pink rose petals and chopped pistachio nuts; it tastes as good as it looks and remains moist for a longer period than a Victoria sponge.

Chocolate cakes are always popular with guests but they never last long as I have a passion for chocolate and I think more is eaten by me than I sell so it could be deemed a financial disaster, but the guest’s needs must be fulfilled so a variation on Sachertorte is my offering.

For me the supreme satisfaction from baking is seeing empty plates and for that I am eternally grateful to the appreciative customers that stop for tea and cakes ... thank you.  Of course, me being able to sit with a slice of cake and coffee comes a very close second.