baking
An interview with Dan Lepard
Dan Lepard is one of the world’s most respected authorities on baking and we are fortunate enough to have him teach our sourdough classes here at Cookery School.
Aside from teaching, Dan is also an award-winning food writer and photographer and was a judge on The Great Australian Bake Off, series 1.
We asked him a few questions…
Q:What is it about baking,
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We Love
RECIPE: Our fail-safe scones
We make a lot of scones here at Cookery School and have honed our recipe over many years to create the perfect scone. Below is our recipe which you can adapt to suit you, by adding herbs, cheese or sultanas as you wish.
INGREDIENTS
300g/2 cups flour – use organic white or a mixture of white and brown flour if preferred
3 teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
1 egg beaten with sufficient milk to make up about ¾ cup liquid
3 tablespoons rapeseed oil or butter
(If butter is used then it must be rubbed into the dry ingredients –
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Recipes
RECIPE: Spicy hot cross buns
The daffodils are out, the lambs are a leaping and it is definitely time for a hot cross bun… or five! This is our extra spiced version. If you want to jazz it up further, you can add stem ginger or sour cherries – it’s totally up to you!
INGREDIENTS
Buns
400g/1 lb plain flour
50g/2 oz caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons each cinnamon and nutmeg
12g/½ oz dried instant yeast
125ml/4ozs milk
125ml/4ozs water
50g/2 oz melted butter or olive oil
1 egg
75g/3 oz currants,
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Recipes
What goes into planning a class at Cookery School?
A good example of this exercise is our Ultimate Baking class which we called ‘The Ultimate’ because we consider it to be just that with so many different techniques and flavours to enjoy.
Putting a class together is tricky as it involves much thought and choice making but is even trickier when overwhelmed by the wonderful treats within the British bakery repertoire. We approached it by asking ourselves what foods we would like to eat on a typically British High tea and what worthwhile techniques we would be acquiring.
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Classes
Is the baking craze here to stay?
Every time I open the paper I read something about the Great British Bake Off, now in the fifth series, with six million viewers it seems the craze is here to stay. It is an exciting time for pastry, cakes, pies and artisan breads, which in particular, have seen a rise (!) in popularity, with more and more people taking classes and courses, opening independent shops and pop ups and even pushing the big supermarkets to stock more speciality breads.
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Classes
RECIPE: Honey-spiced cupcakes with ginger cream
This is our founder Rosalind’s recipe for delicious cupcakes, full of spices like cinnamon, ginger, allspice and nutmeg, and topped with a beautiful ginger cream.
If you want to hone your baking skills, cupcakes and otherwise, check out our upcoming baking classes. Or if you really want to get serious, check out our four-day short course in baking. Now, on with the recipe…
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Recipes
RECIPE: Cheesecake
As with so many of the recipes that we do at Cookery School, this one comes from Rosalind’s mother. It was always a firm family favourite because it is cheesey but also light and not overly sweet.
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Recipes
A short course in baking
by Rosalind Rathouse
I was born into a family of cooks and from a very early age was allowed into the kitchen. In Johannesburg, where I grew up, there was an annual agricultural show and each year my mother, my aunt and us kids, entered cupcakes, scones and cakes into the show and waited with baited breath to see whether we had won a prize. As I became a more accomplished as a cook,
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Classes
