"Baking is happiness made edible"
Tuesday 10 April 2018
Anne Artis gave a very warm welcome to members and friends. It was super to have Ruskie Hall full for the April meeting.
Tonight we were treated to a demonstration of baking with Christine Taylor of Strathallan SWI making pancakes, potato scones, griddle scones and welsh cakes. Christine explained what was important (clean utensils, a good knife and whisk and getting the right griddle temperature) and what mattered less (budget flour and blended “butter” or swapping for gluten free products should give as good results as premium ingredients … although she did recommend proper butter for competition bakes!) As Christine demonstrated each bake we were amazed at how quick it is to produce tasty treats, and also curious about how thinly she rolled her tattie scones and griddle scones (thinner than any of us expected!)
During the conversation Christine revealed she uses a pan lid to cut her griddle scones to a perfect round; that it is not essential to sieve flour for these bakes; and you need to add salt to tattie scone mix even if the potatoes were salted while boiled. It has been suggested (in an old Rural recipe book) that mixing the flour and raising ingredients the night before (and/or leaving pancake batter to “thicken” before cooking) produces better results.
Christine also showed us how to ice and finish empire biscuits to competition standard – boiling water for mixing with the icing sugar, a hot wet knife to spread it on the top of the biscuits (sandwiched “bases together” with seedless raspberry jam) to ensure a good shine and glazed finish to the very edge of the biscuit, and a tiny piece of glace cherry – a single cherry should be cut into small enough pieces to top 12 biscuits!
Christine’s recipes can be downloaded here on the website.
In spite of tasting the sample bakes we still managed to do justice to a super Ruskie tea provided by Sheena Gibson, Janice Milne and Christine Hamilton.
Competitions:
3 Savoury Scones – Mrs Parlane Trophy - 1) Norma Brewster 2) Liz Black 3) Sheena Gibson
Favourite cookery book - 1) Isobel McGuire 2) Norma Brewster 3) Liz Black
