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).


Sunday 9 November 2014

66. Petits Fours aux Amandes

I've been trying to bake these for about four weeks and just not got my act together. One of the reasons was because the recipe required egg whites and not yolks and I wasn't sure what to do with the yolks to avoid throwing them away. In the end, I decided to have a quick flick through the book, thinking to make some rich pastry for the freezer or something, but discovered that the Melting Moments I've already made actually required two egg yolks. So I ended up making a batch of those as well! Good to know. So these petit fours were always going to be a bit daft; I'm not a massive fan of tiny cakes as it seems a whole lot of effort for a tiny mouthful. However, they were very easy to make, with very few ingredients and a simple bit of piping to do. They only took 10 minutes in our crazy oven and did look very sweet.
 The only grumble I have is that they stuck to the baking parchment I'd had to line the trays with, so some of them came off with a bit of paper attached to the bottom. I might try baking them directly on the tray next time. Anyway, they're tasty little things, which my little girl certainly enjoyed sampling!
Baker's verdict: easy to make, very tasty with the lovely almond flavour. The addition of the glace cherry on top made them a bit chewy.
Husband rating: 6.5/10 - okay, just feel like you're eating sweets rather than a baked product. Got stuck in my teeth a bit, but nice almond flavour and baked well.
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