I had promised to bring some baked goods to work that day, as a colleague and I have been swapping baking recipes, and she has brought both rhubarb cake and zucchine bread to work, whereas I had brought nothing to show for my baking skills. Of course, the next day I forgot to actually bring my baked goods to work, so we (alas!) had to eat all of them ourselves during the following weekend, but I've got pictures to proof I actually made something.
Also, the fact that The Great British Bake-off has started again may have had something to do with my baking, as I of course used Mary Berry's Baking Bible.
Firstly, I decided to make millionaires' shortbread, because I love millionares' shortbread. Mary lists the following ingredients:
250 g plain flour
75 g caster sugar
175 g softened butter
100 g butter
100 g light muscovado sugar
2 tins of condensed milk
200 g plain or milk chocolate
She wants you to make the shortbread in a 33 x 23 baking tin. I happen to have only a 25 x 25 baking tin, and I felt this meant that my shortbread would become quite high (which would be a bad thing for something called 'shortbread'). So I halved all the quantities, and still ended up with a massive amount of shortbread (2 of the squares are still sitting in the fridge wrapped in cling film). Mary says the recipe will make about 24 squares, and even with half the amounts I still could make 24 pretty stomach-filling squares, so unless you need to fatten up for some reason, I'd suggest half the amount anytime.
Anyway, you make shortbread by rubbing the butter through the sugar and flour mixture. I've mentioned this before, I'll mention it again, I have a mighty loathing of this kind of dough, but surprisingly, it went quite okay this time.
When you have the magical 'fine breadcrumbs' stadium, somehow gather up the whole and press down into the baking tin (which you have either greased or lined with baking parchment). Prick with a fork so the air can escape and bake in a pre-heated oven (180 C) for 20 minutes, and layer one is done.
Layer two is a bit more of a challenge, as it involves boiling sugar without burning the pan. I did not manage to do this. I did burn the pan. Luckily, the resulting caramel magically did not have a burnt taste (only some burnt bits in it, which I scooped out as best I could).
Also, you'll notice that it says 'light muscovado sugar', and not 'white muscovado sugar' in the ingredients. I also managed to use white instead of the yellowish sugar, with the result that my caramel came out white rather than caramel-coloured. It still tasted good, though.
You put the butter, sugar, and condensed milk into a pan which you heat until the sugar has dissolved. You then bring it to the boil, and then reduce the heat and simmer "for about 5 minutes or until the mixture has thickened slightly. It is important to stir the caramel mixture continuously - if you leave it for even a second it will catch on the bottom of the pan and burn". You see, Mary did warn me, and I still managed to burn it. Anyway, once it's thickened, pour over the shortbread and leave to cool, before you pour over the melted chocolate for layer three. This cooling time will give you plenty of time to make the second thing I made: chocolate chip cookies.
Mary warns the reader that the cookies are not "as crisp as traditional biscuits", which is the tip of a whole American cookie vs. English biscuit divide that I won't go into right now, but which made me smile when I read it. Incidentally, did you know that the word 'cookie' comes from the Dutch 'koekje' (which is pronounced 'cookye', so pretty similar despite the (for English speakers) baffling spelling).
To make these, you need:
100 g softened butter
75 g caster sugar
50 g light muscovado sugar
1 egg
150 g self-raising flour
1 packet of baking powder
100 g chocolate chips
I altered the recipe somewhat, as it also calls for 'vanilla extract', but I have never used that in anything and won't start now. Also, I don't really trust my self-raising flour to still be self-raising after sitting on the shelf for half a year, so I added some baking powder. This may or may not have been a good idea, as you will see later on.
Pre-heat the oven to 200 C and grease or baking parchmentize your baking tray.
Beat the butter and two sugars together, then add the egg and beat well. Finally mix in the flour and stir in the chocolate chips.
Resist from eating the whole of the dough in one go (Ben and Jerry's ice cream flashbacks!) and spoon dollops of the mixture onto the baking trays, "leaving room for the cookies to spread". Sadly, Mary does not tell you how much room you should leave, only that the recipe "makes about 20 cookies". That means I put half of my mixture into 10 dollops on a baking sheet, and do the same for the other half. The result you can see below.
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| Chocolate chip cookie madness. |
Yup, that's basically one big cookie.
It may have been the extra baking powder I added, or it may have been the fact that Mary probably expects people to have normal-sized ovens and normal-sized baking trays whereas we're still living with a small-sized oven and an even smaller-sized baking tray.
Anyway, you bake the cookie dollops for 8-10 minutes, while you "watch them like a hawk, as the will turn dark brown very quickly". As a result, I probably took mine out a bit too early, so they are not really as golden as you'd like them to be.
Leave to cool on the baking tray until they are a bit firmed up and then leave to cool some more on wire racks ('wire racks' always has a hint of medieval torture instruments to me, but maybe I've been reading too many Hillary Mantel novels lately).
So that was my re-entry into the baking world. If the cold and rainy weather continues much longer, I will probably bake some more, although I do not have as much time for it anymore as I used to have. Ah well, we first need to finish the millionares' shortbread anyway.
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