Cooking & Baking inspiration

[EmilieT]

Hey guys, 

After watching all the episodes from the 7 seasons of the Bake-Off that were recently added to Netflix, I thought it'd be interesting to start a tasty thread to see if we could share some tips and tricks 

Being French, I've always been quite an avid cook, trying to find new meals to try and whip up as often as possible. The Bake-off made me want to spend even more time in the kitchen, and I found myself spending hours googling recipes and ingredients. The hunt for good websites and ideas has taken over a lot of my time now 

Do you guys have any apps or websites you turn to when it comes to recipes or kitchen inspiration? Any book that you find yourself going back to over and over again? 

[Anonymous]

7 seasons of bake off.. blimey.. I’d be in a coma.. I don’t understand the fascination.,

As for recipes.. I just google it & try.

Recently been making Chia, Hemp & mixed nut flapjacks for a mid biking snack.. not turned out too bad if I do say so myself!

[Cleoriff]

I'm not a great cake baker @EmilieT My sister held the prize for that and produced the most wonderful cakes and pastries

I am better at savoury meals. The book I use is stored in my head. It is called The Book of Recipes from my Mum. Sounds silly and I know everyone thinks their mother is or was the best cook in the world. My mum really was.

Brought up in the war years she spent hours making tasty nutritious meals out of the most basic ingedients.

When rationing ended it was wonderful. She loved cooking for the family and many of her grandchildren used to video her. Never used a pair of scales at all, just just knew instinctively what was needed.

Obviously I have moved on from then and loved to experiment. However, when you are a family of four and they all like different meals, that put the experimentation to bed. Nowadays it's easier to be cooked for than take on the the challenge to suit everyone. My Sunday Roast dinners are requested often though..:smileywink:

[Glory1]

I also use a lot of my mum's recipes and my dad's - he was a very good cook and a brilliant baker. His strawberry shortcake was to die for, as was my mum's lemon meringue pie.

I'm better at savoury dishes than cakes and puddings. I don't have a particularly sweet tooth so cakes and puds are wasted on me. I much prefer a dish of ice cream, if honest.

My specialties are Italian dishes like lasagne, spaghetti and meatballs and veal parmesan (Italian American) which I cook for friends. For myself, on my own, it's quick, easy meals usually salads. Cooking for one is boring, unless I'm trying out a recipe before I let it loose on my friends 😊

[EmilieT]

@Anonymous 

Those flapjacks sound great - did you improvised or get the recipe somewhere you could share? I’ve made cookies, chow, eclairs, cakes and such but never flapjacks!

@Cleoriff

The Book of Recipes form your mum doesn’t sound silly at all, I have a few memories of my grandma’s greek recipes and they’re great, it’s part of family heritage. Your sister sounds like a baking genius, I find it so hard to eyeball ingredients and not mess it up 

@Glory1

Yum, strawberry shortcake! That’d be perfect for this weather  Have you ever tried making your own ice cream if that’d be your dessert of choice?

[Anonymous]

Salut Emilie mon petite choufleur... 

I guess my biggest influence was Albert Roux, who along with his brother is the godfather of modern British cookery. I'm not alone as he taught the guy who taught Gordon Ramsey. Albert had a newspaper column called Cher Albert for people to write in and ask questions. One was a recipe for Maron Glace...He started with the words "Are you sure you want to do this?"

The godmother is Elizabeth David who influenced everyone cooking professionally , in the less formal style, in the English speaking world. Her book French Provincial Cookery is arguably the most influential cookery book ever written, apart from Auguste Escoffier: Guide to Modern Cookery.

Escoffier was the Father of modern cookery globally, pretty much invented it and certainly codified and modernized French Haute Cuisine. He was head chef at the Savoy in London, and the Ritz I think. The influence of big Hotels like the Rirz & Dorchester on cookery can't be understated - Paul Hollywood was head baker at the Dorchester which currently houses one of the four three star michelin restaurants in the UK :Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester.

The others are Waterside Inn at bray (Founded by Michel Roux,) Restuarant Gordon Ramsey and the Fat Duck - Heston Blumenthal whoes major influence was Ferran Adrià who invented molecular gastronomy. Adrià basically codified elements of catalan and spainish regional cookery which is the least codified and written about modern cuisine in the world.  Mainly as many ingedients are local or regional so dishes cant authentically be reproduced. Nick Butcher in his seminal work and highly influential to me, put it best in his recipe for Paella Nuestra - "Our Paella" - He wouldnt do one for Pallea Valencia as the snails and other items needed just can't be obtained elsewhere. Other influences for me were Ken Hom for Chinese and Madhur Jaffrey for indian

I rarely watch cookery shows as my feeling is that cookery takes the length of time it takes .. up to a week for maron glace - and the TV production constraints inherent in creating a half an hour show dont mesh well with the realities. It doesn't help that most successful head chefs and restauranters are driven egomaniacs in a horrible competitive world  who will fo anything for free publicity, including trying to make an omlette in under 10 seconds on live tv. What makes them thnk they are qualified to teach, judge or host TV shows is beyond me. You dont get YoYo Mah doing the Great British Cello off, where aspireing chellists compete to win a plce in the great man's orchestra ffs!!!

I love Italian cuisine, too, probably more than any other but quite why is way too complicated to expain here, suffice to say the Italians invented coffee as we now drink it, use bronze to make pasta shapes for better texture and have laser rice grading machines to grade individual grains for rissoto . Bellisimo!

And this from 5 mins!

Hasta Luego peque!

[Anonymous]

My Aunt (Bless her) tried and tried to get me interested in baking when I was a kid but I never was.

She produced the most wonderful melt-in-your-mouth pastry I've ever tasted and then there was her biscuits and cakes.....

In my case it's "all the gear but no idea"

Bake off has never held my attention but nor does Masterchef though used to like the ones in the 90s with Loyd Grossman and of course Vic and Bob's famous sketch.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My Aunt (Bless her) tried and tried to get me interested in baking when I was a kid but I never was.

She produced the most wonderful melt-in-your-mouth pastry I've ever tasted and then there was her biscuits and cakes.....

In my case it's "all the gear but no idea"

Bake off has never held my attention but nor does Masterchef though used to like the ones in the 90s with Loyd Grossman and of course Vic and Bob's famous sketch.

Love the phrase 'All the gear but no idea' @Anonymous

Both my grandma's were good cooks

from my Grandma Hilda = the smell of bread from the coal oven & making toast by the coal fire on a brass toasting fork, rabbit stew

from my Grandma Dorothy = seed cake (for Easter), Summer pudding using real fruit from Grandad's allotment, cooked breakfast on a morning when we went to stay ... & ... not a worktop in the kitchen = she worked off the wooden table + ginger pop in the larder

I can bake, but why for 1 ? ... I cooked with my son & when I was part of a family of 3 ... I have Delia's book on Cooking for 1, but it is no fun

Could never do pastry as my hands are not cool enough

I do like to eat though 

I don't watch any cookery programmes now, as I'd want to eat the proceeds  

[Glory1]

@Glory1

Yum, strawberry shortcake! That’d be perfect for this weather  Have you ever tried making your own ice cream if that’d be your dessert of choice?

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No @EmilieT too lazy.

Much prefer to buy it ready-made and stick it in the freezer.

[jonsie]

Today I managed beans on toast without burning either the beans or the toast......just ask if you want the recipe.....