As a child, I was fortunate enough to have three separate positive influences which set the seeds of my love of baking*.
The first was working through a wonderful book, Floury Fingers, which I still have and which I may even try a recipe from since I am in retro mode. Rock cakes, jam buns, butterfly cakes, jam tarts, in simple recipes aimed at young children, complete with drawings of the equipment needed and instructions to ask mummy to turn the oven on.
The second was Home Economics classes at school, from the first to third year of secondary school. We started gently with tea and toast in the first class then moved on to such gems as kedgeree. Shortbread (successfully!), Swiss roll and lemon meringue pie spring to mind as two of the recipes we attempted. We worked in a huge room divided into sets of two work stations, each fully equipped with a wide range of bowls, spoons, sieves, hand whisks and of course an oven. We worked in pairs, although I can't remember any crossover between my partner and I.
Some of what I 'cooked' makes me cringe now. I distinctly remember a salad which included ham rolled up with mayonnaise and grated carrot shoved in the middle. Looked pretty, must have tasted foul. The cheese, potato and tomato pie remains a classic and simply being taught how to be confident with everything from boiling an egg to whisking the perfect merringue was invaluable. We all trooped in with our ingredients in a basket (oh yes, we all had baskets) and whatever we had cooked went home for our families to enjoy. This removed the element of school competitiveness so for a blissful period each week you could just do your own thing and not be judged (unless of course you actually set something on fire, which would be hard to hide). The class stood me in good stead in the kitchen. It was segregated - girls did HE and needlework while boys did metalwork and woodwork - and at the time I wanted to do the boys' options instead. But while the most sewing I can manage these days is putting on a button, I still cook confidently whereas who knows the last time my brother made a wooden coat rack? Mind you, he is a superb cook.
Anyway, I digress. Although I suspect HE has been playing on my subconscious mind these days - hence my urge to make a Swiss roll following yet another bad batch of shortbread - the most relevant influence to my baking this week was the third.
My mother.
Like many of us in the 70s, I grew up in a house where my mother cooked every night. We sat at the table to eat together, my dad got the biggest proportion and every part of the Sunday roast was used, even running to fritters on a Tuesday or Wednesday if necessary. My mother was a really good cook and home made puddings and cakes were part of our lives. In particular, a sponge would appear for tea on a Saturday and Sunday and I still remember when she discovered Katie Stewart and her wonderful fudge icing recipe.
I was a girl guide and my pack met on a Friday night. My parents would often go to the library while I was there, dropping me off on the way and picking me up afterwards. Looking back from an adult perspective, although they were and are avid readers I can't helping thinking that two hours in the library would have been pushing it and suspect a trip to the pub may have been part of their routine as well.
On weekends we had tea and cakes at teatime and then a supper of bread and cheese. For this - and we are finally getting to the point now - my mother would bake bread. Two loaves of white bread to be precise. Made with little sachets of yeast, left to rise on top of the cooker with a clean cloth over, beaten back then eventually shaped into two mounds on a baking tray. The two would always stick together at some point along the side and pulling them apart then picking little bits of the resulting exposed bread to eat was a highlight of the wole thing.
I was also encouraged to get involved and can remember every detail of the kneading of the dough. The look as it stretched, the smell, the initial gooey texture becoming smoother and more pliable. I also remember taking the cloth of the risen dough, how smooth the top looked, stretched by the living mass below.
So this week, standing in the Co-op and looking at the yeast I found myself yearning to bake bread. Never one to resist temptation, I duly loaded up my basket and headed home to get started. Rather than wading through my books I started simple, with the recipe on the side of the yeast packet. It only called for one kneading and I was sure that we used to knead a second time, after dough had risen in the bowl and before shaping it on the tray, but I stuck with it. the resulting bread was OK but not right. It was too dense and I had shaped it in a way which left me with two high, round loaves.
Having established that the recipe only appeared on one of the two yeast sachets, my second attempt was made with the recipe on the side of the bag of flour. This ommitted the sugar and had a higher flour to water ratio, though my confidence had been retored by my first attempt so
I simply added the amount of water which felt right. This recipe also called for one kneading but this time I ignored that instruction, kneaded a second time then left the shaped loaves to rise on their baking tray.
The result was vastly improved. A lovely crust, a lighter bread. I suspect that I am now very close indeed to the bread of my chilldhood, and it is fine for certain purposes. It makes the most wonderful cheese on toast and would be great sitting on top of a bowl of homemade onion soup.
But this is not the bread of my dreams. Kneading the dough, smelling it once risen, cutting the first slice and enjoying that wonderful warm bread smell has been like a reawakening and I am keen to try a variety of recipes to find a bread for every occasion. Sandwich loaves, breakfast rolls, crusty bread for serving with a tomato pasta and salad - bring it on.
To fill the time while the dough rose with the first batch I revisited the ginger nut biscuits I unceremoniously burnt on Monday. Whipped them out after ten minutes and they were perfect. Fifteen minutes start to finish, simple ingredients - a wonderful example of how the home made version can not only look and taste better than the shop bought, but can also be more economical. I also bashed out a simple fruit cake for my husband to take in to work - lemon and sultana, a pale cake that does not need as long to cook as the denser Christmas-style and as a result can be easily fitted into a baking session on a work night.
Filling the time during batch two, I once again made a quick cake. The wonderful cup cake recipe I used for gifts at Christmas 2007 also makes the lightest Victoria sponge, and the vanilla icing recipe from the same website is glorious. A half-measure in the middle of the cake with a thin layer of blackberry and apple jam from a local market stall led to one of the best cakes so far this year, a light and airy treat. I cannot recommend this site highly enough and the receipes from it are now my official standby when a failsafe cake is needed.
*I also fondly remember making peppermint creams when in infant school, but then who doesn't?
