Bakes and Wee Treats: Part 2
Cherry Scones, Empire Biscuits & a Key Lime Finale – Cook the Books
Hello friends and welcome back to Cook the Books, the series where I’m finally working my way through that growing stack of cookbooks by actually, you know, cooking from them.
We kicked this series off with Bakes and Wee Treats by Jonny Murphy, and in Part 1 I made my way through flakemeal biscuits, a fruit bannock and Nanny’s boiled fruit cake. You can catch up on Part 1 here »
This week I tackled three more recipes: cherry scones, Empire biscuits and wrapped things up with a key lime pie. These were meant to be my contributions for my neighbour’s VE Day garden party… which I was unfortunately unable to make in time due to the oven blowing up.
Speaking of… Hope, the new oven, is an absolute dream to use. Not only does she actually reach the temperature you set her to (which honestly, feels like a novelty), but there’s lots of little features that I’m finding are making quite a big difference! An internal thermometer so you can see the temp in real time. A quick preheat mode that only takes a couple of minutes to reach your set temp. And what’s turning into my favourite… the fan turns off when you open the door, so you don’t lose all the heat. Amazing!
It’s all the stuff you don’t think you need until you have it – and now I can’t imagine going back!
To keep track of this ever-increasing collection, and to catalogue the recipes I’ve made from each of them, I’ve built a couple of databases in Notion. One which will contain a list of my cookbooks and another which details the name of the recipe and page you can find it on. I’ve also included a ‘free from’ column to help with identifying any recipes that are vegan / vegetarian / gluten free / etc.
If you’re curious or want to follow along, I’ve made my setup public »
And so, with a working oven (finally), I think it’s time to crack on with the rest of the bakes!
Bake #4: Cherry Scones
As my aim for the next batch of bakes was to make them for the garden party, I knew scones had to be on the list. So cherry scones it was for Hope’s maiden bake!
Now, one of the things I love about baking is that just when you think you know how something should be made, along comes a recipe that makes you rethink it all. This one for instance, uses softened butter. I always thought scones had to be made with cold butter - and colder the better, in fact! So I was super curious to see how these would turn out.
And as it turns out, the softened butter in this makes them incredibly soft! They’re almost spongey in texture, rather than the flakier scone you’d usually expect using cold butter. Different, but still very delicious.
Butter aside, I did find that when making the dough it was very wet. So wet that I thought I’d completely scuffed up the measurements. But after triple checking (and then checking again), I hadn’t. I ended up adding another 30-40g of flour to bring it closer to something I could actually shape into a recognisable scone dough, rightly or wrongly. But they turned out great nevertheless!
The glacé cherries added such a good burst of flavour that, brace yourselves, I only had mine with butter. No cream, no jam. Just butter.
I genuinely don’t know which I prefer now. I think I’ll just have to do a lot more research to make up my mind, obviously…
And I’m glad to report that my neighbour was definitely a fan! She had two after dinner and two more for breakfast the next day! Which I’m choosing to take as high praise.
Bake #5: Empire Biscuits
I’m not usually a fan of two-tiered biscuits as I find them a bit of a faff to eat. But wow – these were bloody good.
They’re very much in the ‘jammy dodger’ family, but like most things that are homemade… tasted so much better! The biscuit had a lovely shortbread-like snap to it - buttery, crisp and just sturdy enough to hold the jam and icing without falling apart mid-bite. I used raspberry conserve for the filling (after picking out the big bits of fruit!) and it added just the right amount of sharpness.
They also looked very apt for a party – iced, topped and I think quite retro looking, too! The recipe said to decorate however you liked, so I topped mine with Jellytots and Smarties. Two elite choices, I’m sure you’ll agree!
What would you top yours with?
Now, the recipe suggested rolling the dough out to 5mm and cutting 48 single biscuits, which you’d then sandwich together… but I’m pretty sure I only managed about 40. Most likely down to my rolling pin having a 6mm guide, which I didn’t think would make that much of a difference. Seems I was mistaken!
Still, 20 finished biscuits was more than enough in the end - and they were just as delicious, which is the main thing.
And the good thing about these is that they’re the kind of bake that looks like you’ve made loads of effort, but they actually come together really easily!
Bake #6: Key Lime Pie
The plan was to make something else, but as soon as I saw the key lime pie, I knew this would be the one to finish up with. I’m a huge fan of citrusy desserts and this felt like the perfect way to round things off: refreshing, a bit indulgent and again, something that would’ve been ideal for the garden party.
Especially with it still so hot here in Devon - and it’s not even summer yet!
Most of you will know that piping is not exactly my strongest suit, so I was very chuffed that I managed not to stuff this one up. I think I might of finally cracked the trick to preparing the piping bag properly, too! I saw a video where you fill the piping bag, snip a line down the middle and then tie it up in a double knot. This stops the filling leaking out the back, which has always been my downfall, and lets you concentrate on piping. I think it looks pretty good!
The pie itself came together really easily – a nice crumbly base, creamy lime filling and just enough tartness that makes you pull your lips together like a fish! The hardest part was waiting 5 hours for it to chill before tucking in.
And of course, you know we’re going to use our new fancy cake forks every chance we get!
Wrap up & Review
This felt like the perfect book to kick off the series with. Bakes and Wee Treats is full of recipes that are both familiar and fun to make. The sort of bakes you can actually see yourself reaching for on a Sunday afternoon. There’s a real sense of heart throughout too, with the stories that Jonny shares behind the recipes making it feel like more than just a collection of instructions.
My top bake has got to be the fruit bannock! It was great to put some of what I learned at River Cottage into practice, and I loved that I could use it for another recipe too (hellooo, French toast). It took no time at all to make and is something I know I’ll be baking again.
A very close runner-up goes to the cherry scones: soft, buttery and apparently, breakfast-approved by my neighbour!
Speaking of: softened butter in scones… Mind blowing! I for sure know that I’m now going to be wanting to try scone recipes in batches of 2 - some with softened butter and some with cold.
If you like straightforward bakes with a strong sense of home, heart and heritage, this is a cracking book. It’s great for beginners but also satisfying for more confident bakers. Will definitely be baking from it again – and there are loads of recipes I’ve already earmarked to try!
And there we have it - a great start to Cook the Books, I’d say! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have baking my way through it. I’ve got a great book lined up for our next one, too.
If you’ve got any cookbook suggestions you think I should try – or perhaps you’ve written a cookbook and want to see it featured – drop a comment below. My arm doesn’t need much twisting when it comes to adding more to the collection!
My Dad used to take us to Florida and Key Lime pie was always on the dessert order... a wonderful childhood memory. Yours is beautiful!
You had me at softened butter. 🤯