Baking Guides

Header picture: illustration. Every December I make one big Christmas pudding, carry it to the table with a bit of ceremony, and then eat most of it myself. I've got three kids and not one of them …

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I rolled out a whole batch of gingerbread men last December, cut them out one by one, and pulled them from the oven twelve minutes later as a tray of puffy blobs. One had lost an arm. The kids sai …

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Header picture: illustration. I want to give a few Christmas cakes away this year, and baking five full-size ones for five front doors is not happening. Nobody wants to be handed a foil-wrapped brick …

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Header picture: illustration. The marzipan always escapes. Every stollen I've baked on a flat tray has come out with a dark sticky puddle at one end where it leaked and welded itself to the tray li …

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Every December I tell myself I'll sort the mince pies early, and every December I'm rolling pastry at ten the night before the school do with a jar of mincemeat and three kids asking what's for tea. …

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Every parkin recipe I've ever looked at wants a 20cm square tin, and I haven't got one. What I've got is loaf tins, because I sell them. So last autumn I gave up hunting for the square tin and made i …

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