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).


Wednesday 15 January 2014

54. Special Shortbread Biscuits

My first bake of 2014 and some very straightforward biscuits. I can't remember if I've said this before, but I really enjoy making biscuits because they seem relatively effortless and foolproof, especially now I know that the crumbs in the bowl do eventually come together to form something you can work with! Anyway, I've had to skip ahead a few bakes: I still have a bread and butter pudding and a pavlova to make, but these require occasions really.
The process for making these was the same as the other shortbread biscuits, only light muscovado sugar was used instead of caster sugar. This made them a bit toffee-like in odour as they were baking. The mixture was very short and took some patient kneading to get it to hold. Even when I was rolling it out, it was breaking up, but I persevered and used the weight of the rolling pin to help it to stick back together. It took several rollings to get the dough used up, but it was very easy to cut out the biscuits, with no sticking to the surface. I ended up with over thirty very attractive little biscuits.
The suggested baking time was 20-25 minutes. As usual, I went for the shorter time first, but when I checked them they were still very pale, so I let them have the remaining 5 minutes. They were quite 'golden' by that time, but I wonder if that was down to the sugar as much as the baking time! I could only just fit them onto the cooling rack, and actually sampled one warm. It was delicious. I can see why these are considered 'special' because they have a lovely, rich buttery taste and look like a lot of effort has gone into the making of them. They certainly went down well with my colleagues!
Baker's verdict: simple to make and very tasty. They had a nice 'snap'.
Husband rating: 7/10 - nice shortbread but too sweet for my taste really.
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