Trust me, I’m a BAKING DOCTOR

I’m James, and I was once on a show called The Great British Bake Off. Being on that show has afforded me the opportunity to write about what I like writing about. Like almost all of my living costs, this mostly relates to food and drink.

I’m also a medical student at the University of Glasgow. In fact by the time you read this I should be a fledgling doctor, or thereabouts. It has been observed that all this cake-evangelism might make me a busier clinician in later life. We’ll see.

Everything in my new recipe book is simple. I bought every ingredient from my local, medium- sized supermarket. I’ll remove all the steps you don’t need and tell you why you don’t need them. My recipes are for everyone who thinks baking should be fun. It’s for those who want to chuck things in and see what happens. The basics are broken down and explained – not just the ‘how’ but the ‘why’, so you’ll know what you can change and substitute, and what you can’t. If anything goes wrong, we’ll look at what it could be, why it happened and what you can do to stop it happening again.

Here’s to getting it right first time.

How Baking Works (And What To Do When It Doesn’t), by James Morton; photography by Andy Sewell (Ebury Press, £20).

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PEANUT BUTTER BROWNIES (pictured above)

Makes enough for one 8in square tin

• 100g softened, unsalted butter
• 150g crunchy peanut butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 100g self-raising flour
• 50g unsalted peanuts
• 100g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas mark 3. Put a ripped-off square of baking paper into an 8in square tin.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, crunchy peanut butter and caster sugar together until paste-like. There is no need to cream it as you would for a cake.

Add the beaten egg and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Again, there is no need to develop air.

Add the flour, peanuts and chopped chocolate, stirring gently to combine. Dollop the mixture into your cake tin and spread it out to the edges, for it should be quite tough.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown on top and moderately resistant when pressed. A skewer inserted should come out clean.

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GLAZED FRUIT TART

Makes one 10in tart or six 4in individual ones

• 1 x quantity sweetcrust pastry
• 1 x quantity crème pâtissière 
• fresh fruit, such as blueberries, strawberries or raspberries
• apricot jam

For the sweetcrust pastry (this is best made the night before)

• 125g salted butter, at room temperature
• 75g icing sugar
• 1 medium egg
• a dash of vanilla extract, optional 
• 250g plain flour

For the crème pâtissière

• 500g whole milk
• 6 egg yolks 
• 45g cornflour 
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (or seeds from 1 vanilla pod)
• 120g caster sugar 
• 50g unsalted butter

For the sweetcrust pastry, weigh the butter and icing sugar into a large bowl. Beat them together with an electric mixer or wooden spoon until soft and pliable.

Add the egg and vanilla, if using. Beat until the mixture is smooth.

Add the flour and fold it in with a large spoon, switching to your hands when necessary. Be as gentle as you can.

Wrap your pastry in cling film and rest it in the fridge for at least half an hour, and preferably overnight.

Now carefully roll out your pastry. I’d use cling film for this: lay a sheet out flat on a work surface, plonk your unwrapped pastry on top and lay another sheet of cling film on top. Roll out until it is no thicker than a £1 coin, and even from front to back. Crouch down to the pastry’s level to check. You can also use two sheets of baking paper to great effect.

Grease your tart tin or six individual tart tins with lots of butter. Don’t use baking paper. Your tart tin should be loose bottomed and made of metal. Peel off the top layer of cling film and transfer the pastry to your tin or tart tins (cutting out if necessary) and tuck in carefully. Patch any areas that look a bit perforated. Leave at least a centimetre hanging over the edge. Prick the pastry all over with a fork. Cover the pastry case with a sheet of baking paper, weighting it down with baking beans or some loose change. Chill for at least a further 15 minutes before baking. While the pastry is resting in the fridge, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas mark 4.

Remove the tart case(s) from the fridge and bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove the paper and bake for another 10-15 minutes until golden brown and crisp. Trim off the excess pastry with a sharp knife and set aside until ready.

While the pastry is baking, make the crème pât. Weigh out the milk into a pan, then place on a medium heat. Keep heating until just starting to simmer.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, cornflour, vanilla and caster sugar until completely smooth. You can do this while the milk is heating.

When the milk is hot, pour half of it onto your eggy mixture and whisk to combine. Then pour this milky-eggy mixture back into the pan with the remaining milk.

Keep whisking (or stirring with a wooden spoon, if you prefer) until the crème pât is thick. You’re not whisking to incorporate air, but to stop it sticking to the bottom.

Once it is as thick as it will go, keep stirring and cooking for another few minutes, just to cook off any starchy flavour. Then remove the pan from the heat and stir for another 30 seconds or so to stop the crème pât sticking to the still-hot pan. Now you can stir in the butter until smooth.

Transfer to a jug or bowl and cover with cling film to stop the top drying and a skin forming (it will keep for up to two days if chilled). Or, you can sprinkle it with icing sugar and pour it, still warm and gloopy, into your pastry case and leave it to set, or you can pipe it in once it’s set.

TIP A ‘crème pât’ must be sliceable, pipeable, smooth and un-jelly-like. The key is to keep stirring and keep cooking: you don’t want the taste of cornflour in the final product, and you don’t want it to burn.