A few months ago, gripped by baking fever, I purchased Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I quickly decided to embark upon a mission to bake everything in the book, and turn myself from an occasional baker into a bit of an expert. My Grandad Ern was a Master Baker by trade; the man responsible for introducing Danish Pastries to England in fact, and I wish it had occurred to me to spend more time learning from him, rather than simply enjoying the fruits of his effortless labours. This project is almost a way of making amends for that; I'd like to follow in his footsteps (if not in my career, at least as a hobby) and continue the proud heritage of baking in my family.
I credit my friend Rachel with the idea to write a blog about my baking exploits, hoping that there will be more successes than failures as I attempt all 213 of the Queen of Baking's recipes.
So as not to bore the husband with a monotonous diet of sponges, followed by weeks of biscuits, I've decided to tackle the recipes by selecting the first bake from each chapter, followed by the second recipe and so on. I'm not going to pick and choose; I'm determined to face my baking demons and learn how to do everything baking-related, even if the consequences are disastrous!
Everything will be photographed, with comment about how I found baking it, and a husband rating (to be taken with a pinch of salt as he has a very selective cake-tooth).


Thursday, 14 February 2013

36. Lime Lattice Cookies

Still working my way through the biscuit chapters, I baked these for some friends coming for morning coffee (tea for Rhonda). I thought I'd ring the changes from Fork Biscuits, although these were actually very similar; the addition of lime being the only difference. I grated the rind of two luscious limes, which filled the kitchen with their glorious scent and made our mouths water in anticipation. I did rush the mixture and bung everything in together, rather than creaming the butter and sugar together first, but I really don't stress about such things these days, now that I know what the subsequent processes entail. Something I found odd about this recipe was that there was no instruction to press the cookies down before baking. I had to roll them into walnut-sized balls and then use a skewer to make a lattice pattern on the top. I thought I'd bake 'by the book' and follow the recipe to the letter and see what happened. They were meant to bake for 15-20 minutes, but they were still quite anaemic-looking after 20 so I gave them another 5 minutes just to brown up a bit. We actually ate them still a bit warm (could wait no longer and the drinks were getting cold!) and they were nice and comforting and soft like that. Inevitably, they became more 'shortbready' once they'd cooled down. They need to be eaten within 3 days really - the last ones left were a bit on the stale side.
Baker's verdict: very simple to make; I'll press them down next time so they look better. Lovely tasting - never had lime biscuits before, but the flavours work really well. I always use salted butter; I could detect the salt, so I might see what they're like with unsalted butter another time.
Husband rating: 8/10 - amazing flavour of lime. Slightly bitter which went well with the sweetness. Almost like having lime cheesecake. Strangely, as good as they were, I only wanted one.
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1 comment:

  1. Darryl21 September 2013 at 17:18

    I had a go at this recipe (see http://gwentbirding.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/cooky-puss.html). An easy way to get the lattice pattern is to press a wire cooling rack onto the pre-cooked biscuits, it also results in the 'walnut' becoming more biscuit shaped.

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