Live webchat and baking session with Dan Lepard, Fri 8 Jan, 12-2pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We've got a Mumsnet first this Friday - award-winning baker and food writer Dan Lepard is our guest for a bake day and live webchat. Should be just the thing to counter wintry gloom and warm up your kitchen.

Dan's involved with the World Marmalade Festival, which promotes all thing marmalade-y and supports the charity Hospice at Home. So he has chosen Ponymum's muffin recipe and given it a citrus-y twist. Full details, ingredients, plus all Dan's variations on the recipe are here.

Please choose the version that tickles your tastebuds and join us to bake along with Dan on Friday. He'll be online from noon.

While your (and our) culinary creations are cooking, Dan will answer questions and swap tips about baking, bread making, marmalade making and the like.

Once your muffins/pudding/traybake are out of the oven, please share a picture of the finished result on your profile. We'll put up pix of our efforts here.

And, of course, if you can't make it on Friday but have a question you'd like to ask Dan, please post here.

[Ponymum]

Clearly I am not going to get DD into bed in time for this to start. Will do my best to catch up shortly.

Also thinking that I should have name changed as I actually haven't made these for ages and it all might go horribly wrong. Now very scared of TeamEdward!

[OpheliaPain]

gerry

your teeth are very shiney

you are the simon cowell of mn teeth

[OliviaMumsnet]

Guimave, can't you mug a snowmn?!

[GeraldineMumsnet]

oh good grief

[DanLepard]

Hi everyone on mumsnet,

Have been watching the goings on here for a while, been very moved by so many of the posts ? particularly the threads about bullying at school and the campaign against advertisers twisting the minds of young viewers with guilt about their perfectly fine bodies ? so I?m glad to be a part of it. Even if it?s just to encourage anyone who wants to bake, and to drum up some support for our Marmalade Festival in Cumbria early next month.

If you make marmalade, tell me about it. Otherwise, let me know how you're doing with your baking. I?m here making a batch of muffins, but I?ve just discovered a bundt tin in Carrie?s cupboard so I?m going to wing it and see how the mixture bakes as a big cake. So be creative.

[OpheliaPain]

she flosses i think

[OpheliaPain]

lol at " goings on"

[OpheliaPain]

lol at bundt in carries cupboard

[DanLepard]

Hi CMOTdibbler (Tue 05-Jan-10 14:39:24)

You asked about making a better gluten-free shortcrust pastry

Gluten-free pastry:

This is what I use for sweet (for savoury leave out the icing sugar, keep the almonds - that helps the flavour - and add a little pepper and additional salt) . It freezes unbaked well, just bring it to cool room temperature before rolling:

500g gluten-free plain flour
75g icing sugar
75g ground almonds
pinch salt
300g unsalted butter, softened
4 egg yolks
50ml ice cold water

Sift the flour, icing sugar and salt into a bowl. Break the butter into small pieces and rub this through the flour until it vanishes. Beat the yolks with the water, and stir this into the flour and mix to a very soft and smooth dough. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes before using as it needs time to firm up.

[Guimauve]

LOL at mugging snowman!

[DanLepard]

Hi MmeLindt (Tue 05-Jan-10 15:35:27)

You asked about how to make a great soufflé. I will write a recipe for the Guardian based on my Christmas one (I had the same idea). Made excellent mini Grand Marnier Orange soufflés for Christmas pud, and I'm sure the depth of the bowl and baking it in a water bath help. Also added a pinch of cream of tartar to the egg whites and I think that helped it stay 'up' for longer out of the oven.

[midnightexpress]

Bakealongadan or go and fetch my children from nursery?



Oh well. Will catch up with this later. Happy baking y'all.

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Dan says if you don't have carrots - courgettes or parsnips are absolutely fine and give it a good flavour (he's just added the salt to the flour).

He says Pollymum's recipe is really good because has lots of carrots (v healthy).

[midnightexpress]

Misread souffle advice as 'baking it in bath water'

really must go.

[snigger]

Can I just say baking and typing and reading simultaneously are not conducive to a calm unruffled soul?

Hello Dan - do you have any marmalade tips for someone whose every effort results in an oxford style burnt umber coloured gel of palate searing bitterness?

I've tried twice, and DH (who loves marmalade) has asked me not to try this year.

[CMOTdibbler]

Thank you Dan - if it works, I will buy every book you write, and worship you from afar.

It would be fab if you added allergy alternatives to your recipes - for a man of your cookery intelligence it should be a nice challenge to do gf/df/ef alternatives, and would be very much appreciated.

Now for the tough one - can you do a nice GF bread ?

[Guimauve]

But no eggs now, no eggs!
All the eggs are gone!
Perhaps there is some WW2 style egg-substitute I can use. Though the oven is cold, so I'm really rather behind

[DanLepard]

Hi midnightexpress (Tue 05-Jan-10 21:34:45)

For anyone rushed off their feet and wanting to, sometimes, bake a great loaf without too much faff there is this easy one:
www.danlepard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2593
About 3 - 4 hours tops. But for a very quick one:
www.danlepard.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2693

I'm posting links rather than recipes here as there are lots of reader questions and photos there that make the links much more helpful.

[MmeLindt]

DC are grating carrots and orange peel

I thought I might go with my name and make orange and Swiss chocolate muffins.



hope DH has not eaten it all

[Guimauve]

I shall 'bake' toast with marmalade instead, so as to keep within the correct register.

Except I don't really like marmalade on toast, so I'l be replacing that with jam.

[CarrieDaBabi]

hello dan
nice to have you here

what are your views on swan meringues?

retro cool or totally naff?

[GeraldineMumsnet]

Dan's grating the carrots (doesn't peel them) into a separate bowl and next going to add the apple (grates whole thing and stops when he gets to the core - he says it's v quick and easier on the fingers, grating-wise).

Next he's going to beat 2 large eggs into the carrot/apple mixture and adding the oil.

[MmeLindt]

found some choc

how much should I add?

can I trust the DC to grate/chop up chocolate?

[DanLepard]

Hi onebatmother (Wed 06-Jan-10 01:16:25)

Does packet yeast sometimes work and other times?well?? It could fail sometimes, so that's why making a batter (what cooks used to call a 'sponge') with a little flour and warm water from the recipe and the yeast, and leaving this for an hour, will help. Try mixing this sponge with very warm water, hot bathwater temperature, and see if that helps. Also, I have less trouble with the instant yeast type in the sachet. I'd take it back to the shop and make a fuss.

[CarrieDaBabi]

oh ps can i kake bread out of plain of self raising flour?
i have no strong in, and the local shop doesn't sell stromg flour?
and it's too icy to drive