Butter is my favourite ingredient by far to use in baking. Its rich, full flavour is what makes caramels so moreish and ganache so smooth. I always use salted butter in baking unless otherwise specified. I find the saltiness is the perfect partner for sweet and savoury recipes and it’s what I spread liberally on my toast, so its something I always have to hand. Unsalted butter is necessary in some cases – buttercreams and delicate pastries can be overwhelmed by salt, so keep this in mind. Use the butter at the temperature that the recipe states – cold for pastry and room temperature for sponge or buttercream – as this can make or break a bake.
Milk
Many chefs specify whole milk for baking, but if you don’t normally have it in the fridge, don’t buy it especially unless the recipe specifies it. Whole milk has a high percentage of butterfat (a minimum of 3.5%) so can yield a creamier result, but semi-skimmed milk (1.5–1.8% butterfat) will still do the job. I often use semi-skimmed milk to make bakes, and it works perfectly.
Raising agents
Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda are the two raising agents I use to make bakes rise or spread out. For any chemistry geeks like me who want to know how they work, here’s a brief explanation. A reaction between an acid and a base creates carbon dioxide bubbles, which cause a cake mixture to rise. Bicarbonate of soda is a base, so an acidic ingredient needs to be present in the mixture for it to react with to create the bubbles. Lemon juice, buttermilk or cocoa powder, among many others, do the trick. Baking powder is a combination of bicarbonate of soda (a base) and cream of tartar (an acid), so both the acid and base required for the reaction are already present, and your bake will rise with no further assistance.
Salt
There are many different kinds of salt available, so it can be confusing to know what’s best for baking. Fine table salt is generally what’s called for, as its fine texture can evenly disperse throughout bread dough and cake batter. Sea salt has a better flavour and is perfect for adding a final flourish to caramels, breads and snacks.
Sugar
From clouds of white icing sugar to clumps of moist, fudgy, soft, dark brown sugar, there are so many varieties of the sweet stuff that, when used in baking, produce completely different results. Caster sugar is the most commonly used in this book as its fine texture and neutral flavour provide a great base for most sweet recipes. I try to buy Fairtrade sugar to ensure that it is grown and harvested ethically (it is rarely pricier than standard sugar).
Yeast
I use fast-action dried yeast (also known as instant, easy-blend or easy-bake yeast) in baking as I find it the easiest to work with. It doesn’t need to be activated with warm water or milk, it can just be added straight to dry ingredients and will work perfectly. Always check the use-by date on packs of yeast, as out-of-date yeast may fail to make your bread rise.
Flour
I use a mixture of self-raising flour and plain flour in this book, as I always seem to have a glut of both flours, and it seems a shame to let one go to waste. If a recipe specifies self-raising flour but you don’t have any, you can easily substitute it by adding 1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder to 100g plain flour and using this in its place. Strong bread flour is essential in bread-making and some pastries as it contains a higher level of gluten necessary for maintaining structure.
Nothing awakens a half-asleep body like a morning sip of sharp orange juice or soothes illness like warmed lemon and honey. A glass of ice-cold lemonade is all you need to feel summery, and an afternoon making marmalade in the Seville orange season in January and February is a midwinter ray of sunshine.
My grandma starts her day with half a grapefruit, cutting into it with a spoon and bursting through the segments, creating a spray of juice that showers everyone at the table. I once thought I could handle it, but the tart, tangy flavour was overwhelming for my young taste buds. I’ve since learnt that citrus juice can be variously mellowed, perhaps adding sugar to make drizzles for cakes or incorporating it into creamy cheesecakes or possets.
Slicing into citrus fruits reveals a complex network of brightly coloured, almost translucent segments packed with tiny juice sacs that glisten in the light. They are held together by geometrically satisfying strips of white pith, which allow the fruits to fall apart neatly when peeled and split into segments.
When selecting citrus fruits for baking, choose firm, brightly coloured specimens that feel heavy for their size, as they should yield the most juice. If you are going to grate or pare the zest (which I recommend, as it contains the citrus oils that characterise each fruit), be sure to buy them unwaxed, as the protective wax coating applied to fruits has a bitter flavour and tough texture. If you can’t find unwaxed fruits, remove the wax by washing them in hot water and scrubbing them with a brush. Before juicing fruits, roll them on a worktop. The pressure of rolling bursts open some of the segments inside, which makes them easier to juice.
Once you try making your own brandy snaps, they will no longer be condemned to the folder marked ‘difficult bakes’. These delicious retro treats are made with storecupboard ingredients and can be whipped up quickly if you make a small quantity. The key here is to be vigilant when you’re weighing the ingredients; being a few grams out really does make a difference in this recipe. I’ve paired the snaps with a limoncello cream because I love the way it brings out the citrus flavour in the brandy snap, but if you’d rather make alcohol-free brandy snaps substitute the limoncello for lemon juice or just dip them into plain whipped cream.
MAKES 8 BRANDY SNAP CURLS
PREP TIME: 10 MINS PLUS COOLING
COOKING TIME: 6–8 MINS
Oil, for greasing
25g butter
25g soft light brown sugar
25g golden syrup
Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon and 1 tsp juice
25g plain flour
LIMONCELLO CREAM
100ml double cream
1 tsp icing sugar
1 tbsp limoncello
1 Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4, line 2 baking trays with baking parchment and grease a rolling pin or long, thin bottle with oil.
2 Stir the butter, sugar and golden syrup together in a small saucepan over a medium heat until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice and zest, reserving a pinch to garnish the limoncello