How To Be A Domestic Goddess: Baking And The Art Of Comfort Cooking Quotes
"Cake baking has to be, however innocently, one of the great culinary scams: it implies effort, it implies domestic prowess; but believe me, it’s easy."
"Not all cakes come out perfectly or even the same each time, and not all cakes are equally easy to bake, but if you follow any one of the recipes below, you can be sure it will work."
"Baking is somewhat different: it’s chemistry first, poetry second."
"You must remember three basic things: all ingredients should be at room temperature when you start; the oven should be at the required temperature when you put in the filled tin; finally, that tin should be of the dimensions specified."
"There’s something about seeing such elemental change, that flour, butter, eggs, sugar could become this – and more, that you’ve brought it about – that’s so satisfying."
"This is baking at its simplest and most elegant."
"I don’t know if I ever ate Madeira cake as a child, but just the sight of this golden-yellow loaf with its long crack down the middle makes me feel satisfactorily nostalgic."
"I’ve said it’s easy to make a cake, but this doesn’t convey the depth of achievement you feel on making one."
"In build, this is much the same as the Madeira cake, but it tastes very different."
"There’s something very satisfying about making such good, plain fare as oatcakes – as if you’re doing something sober and basic and not entertaining yourself with fripperies."
"Whisk the egg into the cream, and pour into the flour mixture a little at a time, using a fork to mix."
"If it helps with the rest of your cooking, or life in general, you can cover and refrigerate them now for up to 2 hours."
"The shortcakes should be eaten while still warm."
"I love these American-style with passionfruit in place of the strawberries."
"When you make them yourself – and they are the easiest things in the world to make."
"In a quarter of an hour, give or take, you will have a kitchen full of baking smells and a plateful of muffins on the table."
"I know this sounds like a mad idea, but I came across it in a ringbound book I bought off the Net in the middle of the night called The Joy of Muffins."
"I think of these more as teatime muffins than breakfast ones, but please don’t feel constrained by my prejudices."
"There is something about a pancake, a breakfast pancake, that has domestic goddess stamped all over it."
"A pie is just what we all know should be emanating from the kitchen of a domestic goddess."
"The truth is, however, that the less familiar pastry-making becomes, the harder we believe it to be."
"But like the first kiss, it’s the first pie that counts."
"Perhaps the greatest joy of pastry-making is that it’s mud-pie time; you get floury, sticky, wholly involved."
"Put the flour in a shallow bowl, add the cold, diced fats and stir gently to coat."
"I long for leftovers too, eaten standing by the fridge’s open door the next day."
"This is just what I want to eat for supper when it’s dark early and I’m tired."
"Pizza rustica is not a pizza in the way that we’ve come to understand it."
"I use my free-standing mixer, or processor."
"I know I have never been much of a friend to the small-portioned, but these are, for all that, lunchtime favourites at my house."
"I always cook the meat filling a day or two in advance: the flavours deepen wonderfully and the whole thing seems less of a performance."
"It should occupy some notional territory between solid and liquid – you’re aiming for what Jane Grigson calls ‘bulky whiteness’ – so be careful not to let the cream become too thick or, indeed, to go further and curdle."
"It looks beautiful – the white, the gold, the amber, the green – and it tastes just how you might imagine it would: light, comforting, fragrant."
"The contrast of textures is wonderful because for some reason which I can’t quite fathom meringue doesn’t freeze."
"Trifles do need a certain amount of attention, but this can be spread over days if that makes life easier."
"But not but what – as my stepfather always used to say – this is just right as it is, so there’s no onus on any of us to search anxiously for substitutions."
"This is the plainest of plain loaf cakes – but that doesn’t convey the damp, heady aromatic denseness of it."
"The easiest variation is the expected one: fill the profiteroles with some whipped cream and pour over them chocolate ganache."
"I think of it as a larder-standby because I tend to have all the ingredients in the house at any given time and if I don’t the local corner shop stocks them all."
"I could pretend this is to make the pudding more compatible with modern eating habits but it would scarcely be the truth."
"And funnily enough, although it is very much in composition and appearance a swaggering pièce de résistance, it’s easy to make."
"Pinch off pieces of dough and roll them into walnut-sized balls in your hands."
"Although in cooking I resist strongly the idea that there is such a thing as children’s food, as distinct from ‘real’ food, in baking I have, I suppose, to lighten up."
"So much of children’s baking isn’t about what they can be left alone to get on with, but about what you do together."
"I love hanging around the kitchen with the children, stirring mixtures, licking out bowls, baking fairy cakes or cutting out and icing biscuits."
"It’s also incredibly important to me that that doesn’t usurp everyday cooking."
"I’m hopelessly negligent and never actually do much with my children other than cook."
"Butter just won’t soften quickly; the Stork you can bung straight from fridge to processor."
"Choosing the patterns and sticking down the sugary cubes is entirely absorbing without being in any way demanding."
"There is something about the melted butter and sugar that they’re turned in while still warm that makes them irresistible."
"The whole point is that the mixture must not be too vehemently or smoothly combined."
"There is something about the dripping blanket of royal icing that lends a seasonal touch."
"The miracle of the oil is celebrated culinarily by using it in great vats into which are dunked, splutteringly, latkes, doughnuts, batter-wrapped pieces of chicken, fritters."
"I like them with cold meats but they are perhaps at their best palate-skinningly hot with cold, cinnamon-infused apple purée dolloped on top."
"Eating latkes – desirably stodgy little potato cakes – is the commonest British way of marking Hanukkah."
"They have the virtue, too, of not being yeast-leavened and therefore requiring less time to make."
"Pour the oil for frying into a wide pan to come up to about 4cm."
"Just make sure you’ve got everything for the choux weighed out and to hand before you start."
"You may not need all of the egg, so go carefully, until you have a smooth, gleaming dough."
"Taste as you go along (make that sacrifice) to check the insides are soft but cooked."
"There’s something so warmly reassuring in knowing that soon this cinnamon-sweet smell of baking and oranges will come to signify Christmas morning to them."
"You can concentrate on loaves which don’t rely on a crackly crust."
"But it’s very hard not to feel better after kneading dough."
"The idea of making a raised-crust pie is a daunting one, I know."
"There is only one word to describe the colour of this fabulous, astringent but velvety curd: magenta."
"Put the raspberries and sugar into two separate bowls; I use pie dishes, so the fruit will be spread out rather than piled up."
"Put the pan on a low heat and, stirring every now and again, bring to the boil."
"Let boil for about 5–8 minutes, depending on the size of your pan."
"When you’ve reached this point, leave the pan to cool for 20 minutes before decanting into the cleaned, prepared jars."
"Keep the jam at a rolling boil until setting point is reached."
"Pour into warmed, cleaned jars and close."
"Put everything in the pan, and let the sugar dissolve on a gentle heat."
"Bring to the boil, boil for 10 minutes, then test a little on the cold saucer."
"Pour the grapefruit back into the saucepan, and add the sugar and lemon juice."