yes, I know it's been a year and no, I haven't disappeared. the baking continues - there is much of that to report. But to celebrate the return of the bakery, you can hear us on BBC Radio 4 no less, until Sunday 6th Nov the "listen again" feature will work for the Debbonaire debut of baking radio!
Last Thursday I read the Broadcasting House email (must have had a deadline) and they were asking what we were going to do with the extra hour of the clocks going back. Amongst other suggestions, they mentioned making the perfect meringue. Which, as any baker knows, you can't do in an hour, oh no.
So smug girl here emailed them, kindly pointing out that fact but also mentioning that I can make a perfect tart in an hour, including making the pastry from scratch and baking it blind. I emailed it off and thought nothing more, till the next morning, when the producer of Broadcasting House rang and challenged me to do just that.
eek! of course the pastry won't be completely perfect as there isn't time to chill and firm. However, consulting the pages of this blog, I found my trusty leek tart recipe and invited my baking side-kick, the divine Imogen Debbonaire, to bake with me. We had a couple of dry runs (more like floury runs) and by the end of Saturday night were replete with tarts (she: lemon and syrup, me leek with homemade onion marmelade, also made within the hour - no end to my smugness today is there).
Come Sunday, a lovely radio man called Peter parked his Outside Broadcast vehicle outside the Thangam Bakery, to the delight of my neighbours, who did the equivalent of rustling their net curtains (coming outside and demanding an explanation, followed by demanding some tart when it was finished). He, Imogen and I spent a hilarious hour doing some sort of bakery maypole dance with headphones beaming the show in our ears, wires linking us to the radio mike box and two tart-making queens racing through their timetables.
If you want to listen, we are on at the top of the show, then about 20 minutes in, 30ish, 50ish and at the end (57ish) when I managed to say "I am now stuffing my face" after an hour of decorous bakery talk.
If you want to bake along, we did the pastry using the Bakery blog recipe and the contents of the leek tart are also here. Imogen's syrup and lemon tart recipe follows shortly.
Bake on. More soon. Peace out.
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| Imogen helping the radio man test the kit |
So smug girl here emailed them, kindly pointing out that fact but also mentioning that I can make a perfect tart in an hour, including making the pastry from scratch and baking it blind. I emailed it off and thought nothing more, till the next morning, when the producer of Broadcasting House rang and challenged me to do just that.
eek! of course the pastry won't be completely perfect as there isn't time to chill and firm. However, consulting the pages of this blog, I found my trusty leek tart recipe and invited my baking side-kick, the divine Imogen Debbonaire, to bake with me. We had a couple of dry runs (more like floury runs) and by the end of Saturday night were replete with tarts (she: lemon and syrup, me leek with homemade onion marmelade, also made within the hour - no end to my smugness today is there).
 |
| Imogen with some of the finished products |
If you want to listen, we are on at the top of the show, then about 20 minutes in, 30ish, 50ish and at the end (57ish) when I managed to say "I am now stuffing my face" after an hour of decorous bakery talk.
If you want to bake along, we did the pastry using the Bakery blog recipe and the contents of the leek tart are also here. Imogen's syrup and lemon tart recipe follows shortly.
Bake on. More soon. Peace out.
