Home baking is rubbish

[AmperoBlue]

Full of the joys of spring I decided on a whim to make Belgian Buns for the kids to eat at half term.
I have had to buy ; strong flour, yeast, sultanas, icing sugar and lemon curd. From the pound shop mostly but that’s still a fiver.

Then I used from my supplies of caster sugar, milk and egg. So they’ll need replacing now.
I have literally spent all day waiting for dough to rise (twice),kneading for 10 minutes, cooking time, cooling time and then icing.

And they are shit. Dry, not sweet enough, not enough lemon curd or fruit in them.I could have picked up a packet of 2 for £1.20.
Now I have 12 lumps of slightly sweet bread in icing to (throw out) do something with.

Baking with a good result is more of an art than a lot of people think, it takes a lot of practice and to know your oven...

The icing on that video clip was awful! Palette knife all the way and less watery icing gives a much nicer result. I hate icing dripping down over paper cases. Sloppy!
(P.S. Old-fashioned creaming method used by me also, to make fairy cakes and Victoria sponge. I make tea bracks using the all in one method though, and I never bake with yeast. My excuse is that I don’t have an airing cupboard capable of proving the dough thanks to how well-insulated the hot water cylinder is.

Packet mix cakes and cookies...still get the lovely smell and just-baked taste but without having to buy a million different ingredients

How is flour, sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate chips and cocoa powder (for cake or cookies) 'a million different ingredients' or expensive when they cost hardly anything, OK except the cocoa powder and butter and you'd have in the first 4 ingredients anyway? .

How is flour, sugar, butter, eggs, chocolate chips and cocoa powder (for cake or cookies) 'a million different ingredients' or expensive when they cost hardly anything, OK except the cocoa powder and butter and you'd have in the first 4 ingredients anyway?

They're expensive when compared with the cost of buying a packet of cookies. I can make plain biscuits ( half a packet of butter alone is 70p for the cheapest before I've even factored in other ingredients) ...or I can buy a plain packet of biscuits for less than 50p.

I know this is derailing slightly but anyone who has had trouble with bread:

400g strong white bread flour (but throw in an extra table spoon)
1 ½ teaspoons of salt.
350ml tepid water
¼ teaspoon of dried yeast

Mix the yeast into the water, then mix it in to all the dry ingredients with a knife until the flour is incorporated, you end up with a really shaggy dough. Cover with cling film and leave for 12 hours (I do mine before bed and bake in the morning).

It rises up and looks like a bit wet bubbly mess. Whack the oven up as high as it will go with a casserole, lid on, heating up with it. Flour a surface and turn the bread out and fold over so the wet bit is all inside and you have all the floury bits on the outside. Put the cling film from the bowl over the top.

Once the oven is really hot put the dough in the casserole and bake with the lid on for half an hour then ten to fifteen minutes with the lid off. Take the bread out and let it cool.

You end up with the most AMAZING crusty white loaf and the house smells amazing. Honestly it’s never failed me.

I have long suspected that about allotments oyster

All that effort for some carrots (compared to 7Op for a big bag in Sainsburys.) My aunt always had a hundred tonnes of runner beans to offload as well - so much work for an actually problematic amount of veg that neither you nor anyone else wants.