Becky Bakes…

It’s a question I’ve often been asked and sometimes I can remember exactly where I found them. One of those is the Flapjack recipe. I was working at a school in Hertfordshire, job-sharing with a lovely lady called Judith. In those days we taught commodities – meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese etc and methods – creaming, rubbing-in and melting. The pupils brought their ingredients from home and so flapjack with syrup often finished up on the floor of the oven after an almost volcanic eruption. Reading the daily newspaper I came across a recipe for Oat bars which looked promising – melted method but flour to stabilise it all. Judith tried it, then continued to make it for her family for the rest of her life ! Other recipes are clearly from magazines. Prima in autumn 1997 gave me some wonderful Christmas recipes and my old cookery notebooks from my school days yielded the fork biscuit one. So you see they come from so many different places, but I keep going back to the tried and tested ones – there’s a lot to be said for reliability. I still have some precious recipes which I’m reluctant to share – foremost is Granny Pat’s chocolate cake…I promised some young people I’d keep that just for us – sorry !

We were lucky enough to be living in northern Italy and found wonderful shopping opportunities – silk factories, Armani outlets and the Alessi factory , which required a car ferry across Lago d’Orta. There we had a chance to survey all the wonderful kitchenalia, mostly stainless steel but some plastic. On the bottom of each was a coloured sticker – in stock/out of stock/available as a second etc. So, there were many friends and family members who received gifts from there and of course I took advantage of it for myself and the ubiquitous lemon squeezer is one of those pieces. It’s sometimes seen in glossy magazines and on the occasional TV advert but is also in several museums around the world as an example of elegant design and engineering. And it works very well, too.

Over the period of the lock down it has been difficult to find supplies of flour. We know that is down to problems with packaging in small quantities for domestic use – there’s plenty of flour being produced. What has amazed me is the variation of ingredients in short supply in different parts of England. A friend in the northwest has found butter unavailable in her nearest large supermarket ; another friend couldn’t get baking powder or chocolate chips. Then the yeast ran out. I’ve been putting dessert pastry on my list for weeks as I want to make a particular dish to show you. I wonder if we have , truly, become a nation of bakers ? I remember when Delia made a chocolate pudding using liquid glucose, only available from chemists in those days. Our local pharmacy resorted to a large sign on the door announcing they had none, so don’t even ask ! Are the shortages related to popular chefs creations this time ? Maybe we will find out what is happening, when this is all over.

In my last school, Friday afternoons were devoted to “activities” for the senior pupils – and of course one of those activities was Cooking. Over the years these mixed-age groups requested some interesting recipes and we had fun making pasta, pancakes and profiteroles to name just a few. One particular merry band was keen to find the very best Brownie. So each pupil made a different one, from the bottom-of-the-range packet mix to, you guessed, the ultimately successful one that I still make today. We sat and tasted our way through all eight of them to discover this was the one and it took me a very long time before I ate Brownie again !

During this period of lockdown we have been making two videos most weeks, so we have several ready to share with you over the coming weeks. What that means though, is that there is often quite a lot of cake in our kitchen. Clearly we have to taste it, but I can assure you we don’t eat it all. For several weeks, friends and neighbours have been sharing in the “tasty morsels” as I described them to the daughter of an aged friend. I welcome comments from the recipients and some don’t hold back ! There is a list of dishes still to make and I expect there will one or two requests amongst them, particularly for a “self-saucing” lemon pudding – remember that one ?

While we were filming another video this week, my trusty Kenwood Mini hand mixer began to make the most dreadful high-pitched whine and the beaters started wobbling in their housing. Very quickly I decided it was beyond redemption and waxed lyrically about the machine. Then it dawned on me – I’ve had it since 1983 ! It’s 37 years old, so it owes me nothing and has been a good friend. Finding a replacement was quite a challenge though. Both JLP and Argos could only offer high-end Dualit or Kitchen Maid for almost £100 – that’s not what I want. Eventually “ao” appeared to have just 3 at the £30 range so I snapped one up (Since then they’ve sold out too) and it arrived 2 days later. You’ll see it in a couple of weeks, as we have a number of videos “in the can” as lovely Joan so aptly described it !

…….is a much more glamorous way of describing all the equipment we use in our kitchens. Like most people I have favourite pieces which are used time and time again, so they need to be robust. Baking trays will need to be almost treated as disposable unless you can justify the investment of really hard wearing alternatives. You will find these on sale in Lakeland – or at least on their web site – and Hard Anodised are the key words to search. These are not suitable for the dishwasher though as the surface will spoil quickly It’s always good to protect trays from scratching by lining them with greaseproof paper or Magic non-stick liner sheet . The latter can be cut to fit your trays and then hand washed to use again – for many years. Wooden spoons are considered unsuitable nowadays and have been replaced largely by silicone in all it’s glorious colours. I still prefer an old fashioned pastry brush though, as they are easier to use and just work better !

The early strawberries are so delicious and well worth waiting for. I look for Malling varieties or Sweet varieties, like Sweet Eve. They are picked carefully, snapped off at the stem to protect the fruit from being squeezed by the picker, then they just need to be trimmed and washed. We have a lovely old strawberry strainer, so can run the cold water over them and sit the strainer on the matching plate while they dry off. Delicious sliced on a scone, with cream, but also cut small add another dimension to Muffins, with left over blueberries too !

Although I’m not going shopping at the moment, it seems that flour is still in short supply. Word has it that the packaging for domestic usage can’t yet match the demand – we’ve become a nation of bakers – excellent news !

If you need to convert Plain flour to Self raising, add 1 rounded teaspoon of baking powder to every 75g Plain flour. Don’t be tempted to pile up the teaspoon (thinking you’ll get a better rise on your cakes..) because you’re likely to finish up with a burnt mess and an oven to clean !

There isn’t a lot yet, but we’ve been cutting the asparagus for a week or so now. The flavour is wonderful – it’s taken a few years to establish but well worth the wait !