If you’re new here, hello and welcome! I’m Mark - and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing in the kitchen. I’m documenting my journey to become a better cook and food photographer. To learn a little bit more about me (and my dog Hiro, who’ll you see a lot of!), the below post is the best place to start:
Hello, friends - and welcome back.
Today we’re celebrating the arrival of June (my birthday month!) and with it, the promise of a hot summer once again. I am definitely not built for the heat, and neither is Hiro - we share the same colouring. Needless to say, we’ll be sun-dodging as much as we can over the coming months. Considering we plan to move to warmer horizons (France or Italy) in the not so distant future, you’d think we’d enjoy the hot weather. The irony is not lost on me.
A huge thank you to everyone who commented or sent a message last week sending Hiro well wishes following his intimate rendezvous with a bee! As you can see he has now fully regained his handsome looks and is back to giving everyone he meets the infamous side-eye treatment.
My birthday is coming up in 2 weeks and 35 is fast approaching. We’ll be celebrating by spending a long and peaceful weekend in a remote cottage somewhere in Somerset - enjoying some much needed R&R. (And drinking lots of wine, no doubt!)
I also plan to make myself a birthday cake! I’m not fond of chocolate *gasp*, so I’m thinking something fruity. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way!
This week I wanted to try something a little more conversational and dive into attempting some recipes from those lovely new cook books that I mentioned last week. And boy did I choose a couple of doozies to get started with…
Page 208 - Lemon Basque Cheesecake: from ‘Sift’ by
Basque cheesecake is cheesecake or people who love cheesecake but don’t like the faff or stress associated with water baths. The mix is simple and baking it on a high temperature gives you a dreamy browned crust that plays beautifully with the soft centre. - Nicola Lamb
I’ve been wanting to make a cheesecake since I started baking; it’s hands-down my favourite dessert of all time. I think that’s why I was so tentative about giving it a go, because I didn’t want to mess it up.
However, picking up Sift has been a complete game-changer for me. Not only are the recipes super easy to follow - you also get the theory behind the techniques you use for each bake. As someone who likes to know the why as well as the how, this book has really blown me away.
That said, I did find this whole process quite nerve wracking! I can’t seem to shift the habit of thinking that something isn’t baked enough yet. With basque cheesecakes you do have to take it out of the oven ‘underbaked’, for it then to carryover cooking and then cool. It was coming up to 2 hours since it left the oven and I was conscious of the danger zone, so I popped it in the fridge whilst still in the pan to fully chill out.
I’m not sure how I mustered the willpower to leave it in the fridge overnight, but I did!
Honestly, my heart sank when I took the cheesecake out of the fridge, unclipped the pan and a splash of water hit the worktop. I thought I’d mucked up putting it in the fridge too soon and this was the result of all that collected condensation. But to my surprise, after unwrapping from the baking paper and leaving it on the side for 15 mins - it was totally fine! More than fine… it was delicious!
It doesn’t look entirely like the example in the book - but I’m going to take this one as a successful bake all the same!
A glorious unification of two elite foods: cheese and cake. You can’t go wrong really, can you!
I will most certainly be giving this recipe another go in the coming weeks to see if I can improve - as I have a sneaky feeling this could be quite a hit at dinner parties!
Page 8 - Pear and custard tarts with heather honey: Gather Magazine Issue 2
Woody, fragrant and the colour of caramel, heather honey is a Scottish delicacy. Bees are brought to the moorlands where the heather blooms for just a short time each year. The perfect combination of wild flowers, wilder weather and the hard work of skilled beekeepers yields a special honey that’s just as delicious on its own as it is brushed over pastries.
Although not technically a cook book, I have recently subscribed to the new Gather magazine which is a celebration of food, nature, community and creativity. The recipes found in their pages are so good and tie brilliantly into stories of where they come from and why they are special.
I wanted to attempt another pastry bake this week to carry on that upward momentum of success I had with the quiche last week - and this one, well - it was bloody fun to make.
I went in to approaching this recipe with the complete mindset of just trust the process, follow the instructions step by step, and you’ll be fine! (Don’t forget to preheat the oven, Mark)
Bake the pears. Make the pastry. Prepare the custard… That can’t be too hard, right?
The pears and pastry - piece of cake. Or rather, pastry...
I’m still yet to buy baking balls - so I opted for the ‘rice’ method again for blind baking, which seemed to work fine. The custard however, completely threw me!
Whisking egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a pan made me feel like I was making some sort of sweet scrambled eggs - but I trusted the process and after adding in the milk/cream, I could see it slowly coming together!
As you can see they look like they’ve turned out well! I’m patiently waiting for the custard to set - then I’ll be tucking straight into one. I’ll report back next week on how they tasted.
Unfortunately I was unable to track down the owner of this recipe in order to thank them for sharing. But if I do, I will update here and pop a message on Notes!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the slightly more conversational style post this week. For next week’s issue, I’m thinking pizza, salad and ice-cream sounds like a winning set of recipes to try. Suggestions always welcome!
Until then, friends - thank you for reading. As always, it’s very much appreciated.
-Mark
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Love both of your bakes here, I could kill for a bite of each right now!!