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We hear from expert baker, Heather Brown on some of the science of baking and the top tips she’s picked up during her career. Plus, she’s given us a delectable recipe for scones too!


hen you simplify baking down, it's just a series of combinations


of a small group of ingredients: fat, sugar, liquid (eggs/water/ milk), flour and a raising agent of some kind. Simply varying these ingredients results in a series of different bakes – which is remarkable! For example, a cake is equal parts butter, sugar, eggs and self-raising flour. Biscuits are equal parts fat and sugar to double the amount of flour. Cookies are double the amount of sugar to fat and flour. Basic bread is flour, yeast, a little sugar and water. Pastry is flour, fat and water (where the ratio of flour to butter varies the pastry type). Recipes differ to add in flavour and vary texture, but these ratios largely remain the same.


It is so easy to look at Instagram and feel the pressure to bake the ‘perfect’ item but when I realised how simple it is, I relaxed into experimenting with ratios and tweaking to add in all kinds of tasty flavours.


My mum has been baking for as long as I can remember and learnt her way around the kitchen from her mum, but my mum recently baked a cake with double the amount of flour than she should have done (by mistake). Rather than throwing the ‘ruined’ cake away, my Mum and Dad still enjoyed what she baked because the result was actually a very large biscuit! Still completely edible – and tasty – just


16 | THE WEST COUNTRY FOODLOVER not quite what she’d had in mind.


Tere are two things that can greatly help the success of a bake; heat and air bubbles. Most raising agents start becoming active when they touch moisture so for bread, this allows the bread to rise and creates those lovely air bubbles and the yeast gets to work beautifully when placed in a warm place.


For cake, the best place for this reaction to happen is when the cake is in the oven. So, ideally as soon as the flour is folded into the rest of the ingredients, carefully put the mixture in your tins and then straight into the oven. Tis allows the cake to rise, creating the tiny air bubbles needed to keep the cake tender and light.


Opening the oven door too quickly (which shoots a whole load of cold air into the oven) or knocking the trays as you move them, can work against those delicate air bubbles and cause bakes to sink. So, once you have created those little air pockets, they need to be treated gently until they have been fully baked.


Scones, however, can be quite resilient because they are designed to be soſt on the inside, but quite crusty on the outside, especially when fresh from the oven. Just be aware of over handling when cutting the shapes. Tis recipe includes some fresh fruit to compliment all the cream and jam that inevitably will get loaded on top. Yum.


HEATHER’S SCONES MAKES 8-11


8oz self-raising flour 2oz butter (soft) 2oz caster sugar Milk Egg to glaze Fresh raspberries and blueberries


1 Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180Fan/Gas 6.


2 Add the flour and sugar to a large bowl. With your hands, add in the butter and rub it between your fingertips until the butter is worked in and the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.


3 Add the fresh fruit and mix through. Then pour in milk a little at a time. Stir the mixture with your hands and continue to add the milk until the mixture forms a soft dough. You don’t need to knead the dough.


4 Tip out onto a floured surface. Gently press the mixture so that it is about 1 inch thick. Using a cutter (or just a knife), cut out the scones and place on the lined trays. If you want the scones to rise straight up, don’t twist the cutter as you press it into the dough.


5 You can reform the dough and repeat the cutting until all the dough is used up.


6 Beat the egg in a small bowl with a fork and then brush over


the top of the scones. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown on top. You can leave them to cool, but they do taste fantastic straight from the oven.


www.heather-brown.com


Baker's Tip The secret to making scones is to do it quickly, working the dough as little as possible and cooking them straight away.


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