Herman
Herman is now dead, I baked him into a cake and split him up to give some away. The only issue with Herman is that not many people are too keen on the idea of having a living, seething, growing bowl of cake in their kitchen so the bowls sat on the staff room table for a few days. It was a fun experiment but I shan't be repeating it anytime soon. The cakes weren't particularly sour either, maybe I'll have more luck with bread if I try that again.
I have got photo's of Herman being baked, but for some reason, they aren't coming up in my iphoto folder even though I did import them so this will be a photo free post. I'm sorry, I know that photo's really help with a baking blog.
Anyway, I have had some exciting baking developments recently. I visited Outsider Tart in Chiswick, having bought the book written by the owners. I took a friend along to sample their treats and was not disappointed. Having gone to Cox Cookies and Cakes anything would be better really.
The owner was working that day and my friend and I sat at the bar inside, despite it being a sunny day, I wanted to chat baking with him and it was a great conversation. I ate a snickers brownie and she had a pecan cheesecake, and we talked about the best way to make brownies fudgey and to get uniform sized whoopie pies; take the brownies out of the oven early and use an ice cream scoop for the pies. Also sat at the bar was a radio DJ who had just interviewed Ed From last years Bake-off, which was a very cool coincidence and I was able to talk about the show and my experiences too, overall it was a great visit and I heartily recommend you go and visit.
When I got home I made the Hepburn brownies form the book along with banana whoopie pies (which I filled with a slightly cinnamon cream cheese frosting). They were very delicious and the brownies turned out very well, I took Dave's advice and took them out of the oven before they overcooked and set them over night in the pan in the fridge. The next day they came into work with me and were demolished by my co-workers and they were amazingly fudgey!
Baking books I own and recommend
Baked Explorations: Classic American Deserts revisited.
This book has some extremely tantalising dishes in it, I've yet to try them but when I look through it I get lots of inspiration. It's well written and the recipes are mouth watering.
Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
By the same authors as the other Baked book, again I've not explicitly used the recipes contained in it, but they do inspire me. Much the same as the other book.
The Whoopie Pie Book
This book started my journey into baking whoopie pies and the basic chocolate pie along with the marshmallow filling were the recipes I chose. Whenever I've picked this book up I've been inspired. It's truly great and all the recipes work.
My thoughts on whoopie pies are that basically any cake can be made in to them, just use an ice cream scoop to portion the batter onto a baking sheet (it helps them stay uniform in size). I have a grand idea of developing a shop where you can choose which flavour pie halves you want to put together with a choice of filling, a make-your-own pie shop... One day I'll get there. Perhaps I'll bake a huge batch of multiple flavours and then open a market stall in Bromley.
Bourke Street Bakery
Everybody needs to own this book. Extremely comprehensive recipes and techniques, this book taught me the secret of good pastry and meringues both of which got me through to the final audition stage of the Bake-off. I just wish the bakery it was written out of was in London not Australia, but then again that's an excuse for a visit.
Kitchen
Nigella's cookbooks are always a good buy. Her recipes really work and my favourite from this book is her chocolate chip cookie recipe. I've yet to find one to best it and they come out looking exactly as they do in the pictures. I've even mixed up the flavour combo's in them and they still work well. The book has recipes other than baking ones and these other dishes turn out just as well.
Hopefully next time the photo's I wanted to upload this time will work.
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