Saturday 15 June 2013

Thank You Baking


 

I've had the greatest week professionally. I had the opportunity to become involved in a leadership carousel so I spent the week working at a different school. The staff and students welcomed me with open arms and made me feel like a part of their team. I learnt new skills and saw new ideas - all in all, I got my mojo back. So, on the last day (yesterday) I really wanted to say thank you to everyone so I made some fairy cakes and Cornish fairings (biscuits). Here are the recipes...

Fairy Cakes (based on Nigella Lawson's recipe)


125g marg or butter
125g caster sugar
125g self raising flour (I ran out part way through so had to use some plain flour with a bit of baking powder)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsps water 

Put everything except the water in the food processor and mix well. Add enough water to reach dropping consistency. Spoon into 12 muffin cases and bake at 200 degrees centigrade for 15 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool completely then ice. I just used plain glace icing made with icing sugar and water. I even used icing that I had freezed and it worked. I made two batches of the fairy cakes to take in for staff and they seemed to be appreciated. By breaktime, they had completely disappeared - there wasn't even a wrapper in sight. 






Yesterday, I woke up before 6am and I couldn't get back to sleep. I don't know why but I decided it would be a good idea to make individual cookies for the team I had been working with all week. They had been really supportive and gave up their time to help me. I used the Cornish Fairings recipe from the River Cottage Handbook on Cakes. It worked a treat. I hadn't made it before and I was really pleased with how it worked out (again I doubled the mixture and made 12 cookies - 2 for each person).

125g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground mixed spice
50g caster sugar
50g butter or marg
2 tbsp golden syrup

Put the first 5 ingredients in a bowl, mix well and add the sugar. Add the butter and rub in so the the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Add the golden syrup and bring the mixture together to form a smooth dough. Form into 6 large walnut sized pieces and place on a baking tray with enough room to spread (and they really spread - I put 4 on each baking tray). Flatten slightly with the back of a fork.





Cook at 200 degrees centigrade for 6-7 minutes. You need to keep a really close eye on the time as you don't want to over bake these. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack. This is what they will look like - yummy.



I packaged them up, two in each packet, as a thank you which seemed to be well received.





I want to say a big thank you to all the staff and students for looking after me so well all week. I'm looking forward to working with them again and I know I'll really miss them. Now, off to some extra training in London today (on a Saturday I hear you all cry!) so no baking today. I hope you all have a lovely day.




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