I’m doing some unusually strategic for me at the moment, which is actually getting stuck into one baking book. This is the second recipe I’ve tried from Crumb by Ruby Tandoh. It’s the most recent baking book I’ve purchased and want to try to save it from being filed alongside all the others on the book shelf, never to be touched again. (I’ve got cook books I’ve bought and then forgotten – kitchen gods, strike me down.)
It’s such an aesthetically pleasing book, filled with personal reflections on recipe development and optional variations for those that like to venture outside the standard techniques and flavours. With two book mark tassels for messy bakers me who need a clearer page marker than a packet of flour…
I’d never worked with treacle before, and I’m not entirely sure what it is but it is pretty when it pours.
Ruby recommends, although it never quite lasts in her house, that you leave the gingerbread for a day or two for the best flavour. It was also unlikely to last in mine so I made two so I could do a taste test again in a couple of days.
Ruby managed to make this really simple bake look wonderfully rustic and homely. I don’t think I’ve mastered that yet. Instead, here we have Stout Gingerbread in 4ft of greaseproof paper in the tin. Boom.
Want the recipe? Buy the book. (Discounted link here courtesy of Guardian Bookshop.)
I was attempting to bake two recipes consecutively; Stout Gingerbread followed by Mince Pies. I had enough time and all the ingredients, what could go wrong?
I find it’s always when you’re really looking forward to something, along come amazing expectations, and it all just ends up being a big disappointment. My first attempt at mince pies were just that.
No recipe for you because it was wrong. All wrong.
I generally don’t bake too badly, but when I do… it’s real bad.
Visually, they were a sure disaster. I was getting frustrated that my dough was too hot and sticky, which led me to just shoving the circles of dough in and poking the lids onto the edges somehow. I then slammed them into the oven and waited until I smelt burnt butter.
The spirit of Julia Child must have been watching over me because they were shockingly nice. No soggy bottoms either!
I’ve come to realise that a lot of bloggers and Instagram foodies will have a few attempts at recipes, obviously if they are their own, then post the best ones. I think I do really enjoy trying to make new things, even when they go wrong. I rarely go back to re-make or perfect a recipe, but rather just move on to a new one. Mince pies can not be that hard, so I will be trying again. Hopefully this Christmas, but maybe next. Or maybe one random afternoon in the middle of the year when I feel like it… because I can.
UPDATE: I did make them again last Christmas and they came out wonderfully, check out my much neater mini mince pies here.
