Heaven Scent: Cooking up a Baker’s Dozen
Whilst at home and with more time on her hands than usual, Amanda in our Marketing Team has been cooking up (several) baker’s dozens at home. Baking runs in her family (with a famous aunt who is a cook and a food tech teacher mum) and her mixers & oven have been working overtime as she and her two teenage girls vie to produce the best bakes! Most of her recipes come from Mary Berry, Instagram and the BBC Good Food website and a few are shared below. She’s been baking two or three bakes each week (we’re all wishing we lived at her house….).
Cook a long with Amanda below, read her tips and prepare for tummies to rumble when you see the pics!
A few tips:
In an effort to control the waistline make a traybake instead of a traditional round tiered cake. A traybake is much easier to cut into smaller pieces and you only need icing on the top rather than in the middle as well! That way you can have cake every day!
Buy some silicon paper from Amazon that can just be washed each time you use it. Amanda has cut one to fit her most used traybake tin so she doesn’t have to cut baking parchment every time.
And if you’re struggling to find that most difficult to find ingredient (flour!) we have plenty in our online click & collect grocery stores (Great Fosters even has bread flour).
We’re hoping that she’s going to continue baking when we all return to the hotels so we can sample a few ourselves!
Welsh Cakes Amanda is lucky enough to have a cast iron griddle handed down from her granny but a heavy based frying pan works just as well. Top tip – you need a medium heat not a high heat.
Coffee & walnut cake – Amanda made this in a 20 x 30cm tin and it turned out perfectly. Hers was hoovered up before a photo was taken though! No Tia Maria? Just use coffee instead and half the icing if making a traybake.
Lemon Drizzle Cake – Amanda makes hers in a loaf tin with pre bought liners (makes cleaning so much easier)
Pecan & Cinnamon Whirls – really yummy warm. Amanda used a breadmaker for hers & froze half to use later in the week.
Coffee & Walnut Millionaire Bars – Amanda’s favourite. She made 32 smaller pieces instead of the recipe’s 18 as it’s super delicious but also super rich!
Chocolate Fudge Crinkle Biscuits – The internet is full of these and they are quick & easy to make and scrummy straight from the oven. Chill the mixture before shaping into balls (makes for a less messy job).
American Cherry Berry Pancakes – the best pancake brunch ever and a firm favourite with Amanda’s family. The recipe makes quite a few but the leftovers freeze perfectly for anyone with hungry teenagers in the house as they microwave from frozen in a few seconds.
Passionfruit Cake – you can’t really taste the banana in this thank goodness (we’re not fans of banana) and Amanda omitted the coconut. Easy to make in a rectangular tin with ½ the amount of icing and kept beautifully moist in the fridge for a few days.
Muffins – Amanda’s eldest daughter made these and they were delicious. When rolling out the dough aim for 1.5cm as otherwise as the muffins rise they get too thick and don’t quite cook.
