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, 16 November 2014

67. Oat Rounds

I didn't intend to bake these this weekend. I was going to bake bread, but I got as far as the second proving and had a disaster (which I'll relate in my post about the bread) which resulted in said bread ending up in the bin. Desperate to bake something, and not go out to the shops for ingredients, I thumbed through the book and found these. I thought I had all the ingredients, but forgot I used up the last of my caster sugar for some charity buns last week. Fortunately I had some golden caster sugar kicking about, so I used that instead. These were super easy to make, but annoying. The biscuits call for softened butter, beaten together with sugar. Oats and flour are then added and once you've formed a dough, you're supposed to roll it out and cut rounds from it. However, softened butter and warm hands does not make for a pliable dough which can be rolled out. It simply stuck to the rolling pin! I resorted to beating it out with my hand and cutting some very uneven 'rounds' which I had to wriggle off the surface. Needless to say, I didn't find my baking pleasurable today. It felt like everything went wrong. I even put the wrong amount of sugar into my first mix so had to start again. Anyway, I eventually got them in the oven, at a lower temperature to compensate for the weirdness of our oven, and just kept an eye on them. They turned out alright in the end.
Baker's verdict: easy but irritating to make; a lovely texture and very buttery taste.
Husband rating: 7.5/10 - very nice and very well-baked, but Mary Berry's rich recipes are a bit too rich for me.
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