Baking through the UK Seasons

I confess to being a little disappointed in the 2020 Great British Baking Show/Bake Off cookbook; it was pretty and had recipes from the bakers and judges, but very little that wasn’t show stopper-y, as in it would take all day at least and only in large quantity, and not keep well. I am happy to report that the 2021 installment, A Bake for All Seasons looks much more promising.

As the title might suggest, this one is organized based on the principle of seasonality and some tradition. After the expected introductory chapter and the guides to baking essentials, the four main sections are: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, at least as the UK experiences them. I live in the Southern US, so I suspect that the seasonality aspect might work a bit differently for me.

I’m going to use the Winter section to discuss since that’s what’s currently in season. To my point about do-ability, Maggie’s contribution is a lemon and orange tiered cake involving a lemon and an orange sponge (so 2 types of cake, but the base is pretty much identical), lemon curd (store bought is mentioned, but so is home-made but there’s no recipe provided), and a buttercream. I’m ignoring the decorative bits here, since I would be skipping that myself, and it’s standard stuff like sugar paste flowers and meringue puffs. This is a special occasion cake to me, but it’s doable in a few hours. Paul’s contribution here actually looks pretty good with one big issue; it’s a traditional-ish looking baklava which would be pretty accessible except that Paul apparently expects me to make my own filo pastry; yeah, right. I’m not sure why there’s a pot-sticker recipe in here since that’s not exactly baking (then again, neither is piccalilli which is also present, in an earlier chapter, although it is tied to a pastie filling but I don’t think you’d need the entire recipe of the piccalilli for that, and what else would you do with it), but the beef and potato mini pies looks pretty approachable except that it seems to think that I’m going to have individual size pie tins (I do not in fact have these); I’m guessing should I want to do that one, I might end up using a muffin tin. Some basic equipment substitution, and I think most things could be done pretty readily with that one.

One thing I also appreciate here is that the ingredients lists are followed by equipment lists; not all baking books include that, and it’s greatly appreciated for preparation purposes. One thing that I don’t understand is the occasional appearance of ‘platinum grade gelatin leaf’. Maybe it’s just where I live, but gelatin is sold powdered, not in leaf form, and there’s no instruction on potential conversion. I realize that kind of thing can be found on the internet, but the expectation that it’s readily available is still a bit annoying since that’s not something common even in Morrisons, although I admit it’s been a few years since I’ve been to the UK, so I could be mis-remembering that. One other smallish complaint is that I kind of wish that baker and judge recipes could have been labeled as to when they appeared in the series; for example, Prue’s Sablé Breton, which was a Technical Challenge I think, is here but not credited as to how it appeared in the actual show.

Overall, each chapter does focus on seasonality and includes a reasonable range of types of bakes, including sweet and savory, cake, pastry, bread, and pie. I’m excited to get started.