Everyone loves the IDEA of baking at home but in reality not everyone has the patience, time, or commitment. I always think to myself “I’m gonna get up earlier tomorrow and bake before work,” It rarely happens, but should I have any spare time I will bake, cook or scoff something using the store cupboard ingredients I bought when I had more spare time. (2 years ago???!!!). The baking powder, the bicarb, the mixed dried fruit, and the bags upon bags of flour. I’m pretty sure that the fast action yeast in there is older than my child. And when (and why) did I buy all those walnuts????? I will write the recipe for my stem ginger Florentines on here at some point.
I used to bake with my mother most weekends and, at around age 11 could easily make pastry, cookies, and other bero book goodies. I recall there was a coconut and almond meringue thingy (that always tasted more of the baking tray than anything else). Enormous banana and chocolate cookies (that would cause the mixer to make horrific groaning noises when combining the ingredients), and of course quiche Lorraine. Its clear now that I had a little obsession with quiche.
Home economics class at school taught me pretty much zilch. We would be given a topic and told to cook whatever we wanted.
Pastry week – Quiche
Dairy week- Quiche
Meat-free week – Veggie Quiche
Quiche week -you get the idea!!
I left secondary school with pretty average grades and a passion for baking/cooking. I just knew that I would end up working with food. I qualified in the 3 years after that and thought that I was ready to take on the culinary world…..
….I wasn’t!
Stem Ginger Florentines
2oz of the following-:
Butter
Demerara Sugar
Golden syrup
Plain flour
Then a total of 5-6oz of mixed nuts, zest, dried fruits and finely diced stem ginger.
8oz dark chocolate.
Method
Put the first 3 ingredients in a pan until the butter has melted. Then off the heat stir in everything else. Dollop 18 equal blobs on a lined baking tray and bake at around 170oC for around 10 mins. Leave to cool.
Brush or dip with the melted dark chocolate.
To get a more glossy, professional finish melt half the chocolate, over water to 52oC. Take off the heat and grate in the remaining chocolate and stir it until it cools to 26oC.
Brush or dip the Florentines as above
It's a chef's life! 