Everybody Loves Shortbread....

...don't they? I do, give me a tartan tin of it and I'm a happy boy (to be fair, a tin of pretty much anything keeps me happy). When I began baking a few months ago shortbread was the first thing I made, and it was a bit of a disaster. I rolled the pastry quite thinly, meaning when the biscuits spread in the oven they were more like crunchy biscuits instead of thick, crumbly shortbread.

So, round two. I looked at a few recipes and I think I've cracked it. Firstly, the butter (200grms). Very soft, and I gave it a good old beat before I added any sugar, so it looked like this

Next I added 100 grms of vanilla sugar in about 4 batches, making sure each batch is well beaten. Normal castor sugar would do just as well. then once its all well beaten in, it should look pale, creamy and fluffy.

Now, there's a number of differing views about what you should add next, all are in agreement that it shouldn't just be flour, but should you add ground rice, or rice flour, or semolina? Well, I use semolina, simply because it's all they had in the first shop i went to, and it seems to work well (adding either of these gives the biscuits a nice, crumbly texture). so stir in 260gm of plain flour, 40gm of semolina and a good pinch of salt. gently bring it all together until it just begins to form a ball, then turn it out, roll into a sausage, about 20cm long, wrap tightly in cling-film and chill for 30 minutes, until nice and firm.

Once its nice and firm slice it into about 20 pieces, then place on a greased baking tray and bake for 20 minutes or so at 170c, until golden and firm (you'll probably have to do this in two batches, unless you've got a massive oven. I then dipped them in chocolate and toasted almonds, but to be honest I doubt I'll do this again, they're better plain, but William liked them anyway!

Corned Beef and Potato Pie

My mum bought round a load of corned beef. No idea why, I despise the stuff in everything apart from Greggs corned beef pasties. I was at home looking after William, so while he had his nap I decided to make a pie with it, rather than chuck it out!

I made a pretty basic shortcrust, 300gm flour, 100 butter, 75 lard and an egg. I also made some sort of filling with potatoes, onion leek and carrot, and of course the beef. No idea if it was right or wrong but just went with what looked right...

When I watch cookery programmes their pastry is always rolled out in perfect shapes, I have no idea how they do this. mine resembles a particularly rocky and craggy coastline, meaning I spend 20 minutes patching up holes and adding to the sides to get an even coverage. anyway after a lot of messing about I ended up with this...

...Which I was quite happy with. The butterflies, I had a bit of pastry left over, and my wife has a never used butterfly cutter, so I thought I'd stick a couple on.  I doubt you'll be seeing them at Greggs anytime soon.



So, bit of egg wash, in the oven for 40 minutes (190C by the way) and this came out...

I'm happy with the colour, not so happy with the shrinking or the big hole (a legacy of my dubious rolling skills) and its sagged, due to not enough filling. But overall I don't think it's a bad first attempt.

It went down well at tea too, I'll probably reduce the lard for the next time, the only reason i used it was I was short on butter...

The beginning...

I've just began to bake. I've always been interested in cooking, and recently baking has pretty much taken hold of me. This blog will chart my progress as my baking hopefully improves.

I've always wanted to write a blog, but my other hobby, cycling has been done to death, and how interesting is reading about training miles every week? not very!