A Taste of the Past

Historical and Traditional Cookery

Home
Contact
Links
Day-long Cookery Courses: Basic Bread Making | Further Adventures in Bread | Jam and Curd | Basic Baking | Sour Dough and Sponges | Fancy Breads | Mediterranean Breads
Evening Cookery Club: Christmas Treats
Other Services: Talks and Demonstrations | Recipes for Forty Hall | Catering

Basic Baking in a Day or Tea Time Treats

Large maids of honour
Large maids of honour

This course is aimed at complete beginners and people who would like a little practice at basic skills.

Lunch will be included in the cost of this course and is likely to be home-made soup with bread rolls, salads and a small dessert. Please indicate any food allergies or strong preferences on your booking form.

Tea time treats is a one-day course that will give you the basic recipes and techniques to make a range of traditional Sunday tea time favourites. Once you can make these basic elements of home baking – bread, cake, pastry and scones – then you can experiment with lots of different recipes and expand your repertoire. The only limit is your time and imagination.

We start with the famous Welsh tea bread, bara brith. This is a yeasted cake or bread cake that was traditionally made with the left over bread dough to which some dried fruit and spice was added as a treat. We will be making a recipe kindly given to me by a lady I worked with in Wales that uses strong tea, lots of fruit and a dash of spice. You can serve it either cold or toasted with butter.

Then we will make a large, family-sized version of maids of honour. Somewhere between a cake, a pie and a Bakewell tart, these are tasty little treats that allow us to try out different skills and recipes in one go. I must admit that here I have not followed one single, traditional recipe but put several together to make a luxurious version of a jam tart that matches strong, fruity jam flavours with a crisp pastry crust and a soft, almond-flavoured sponge topping. It takes a bit of time but for a one-off treat it is worth the effort.

Lastly we will make a batch of scones. I will bring cheese and fruit so you can choose whether to make sweet or savoury scones. Scones freeze well and can be reheated from frozen very quickly, certainly in time for unexpected visitors.

Scones and jam
Scones and jam

Booking and Other Information

To find out more information about any of the courses or catering on offer please call Claire Passaris on 07999 871 053.

To book a course please send a booking form and cheque to Claire Passaris, A Taste of the Past, 80 Orpin Road, Merstham, Redhill, Surrey. RH1 3EY. I do require payment in full at the time of booking as I have to pay for everything before the course. However I will not cash your cheques until I have enough people to run the course. Please give me your e-mail address or mobile phone number and I will send you a message a couple of days before I cash your cheque. I will also use it to tell you of any changes to the course details.