I must confess, the husband and I have been binge watching The Great British Baking Show for several weekends now and have come to the conclusion I don’t bake enough. I am fascinated with the show to the extent I even start to think with a British accent. So, true to Magical Mess fashion I am now immersed in trying each and every bake I’ve seen.
This actually started out to be something the husband and I could partner in together. We figured it would be a great hobby win,e could participate both the baking and savoring. But, as it turns out, this Magical Mess doesn’t want to share her kitchen. Nor does she want to be redirected into doing things his way. Yes, the Mess has a problem with being told what to do. And the husband has a problem with keeping his thoughts to himself. AND, in the kitchen I apparently reign supreme. So the husband is regulated to sitting at the kitchen table and slyly making comments under his breath. I tolerate this to a point and then banish him to the family room to watch Green Acres, which I can barely tolerate because who in their right mind can?
But, back to baking. I started out my quest by making an Apricot Frangipane tart. I really didn’t know what Frangipane was, but found out it’s a goo made with butter, sugar and ground almonds. (This mixture is soooo good that this Magical Mess would like to spread it all over the husband and lick it off. Oh boy, did I digress inappropriately there.) Pair this with apricots in a short bread crust and Bob’s your uncle you have a dessert fit for company. As it was our first foray into completing our quest of baking every single thing ever baked on the show, we did it together. Also, at the time I was not aware of the discord baking would cause in our marriage.
Now, keep in mind the 60” screen TV on which we view these wonderful concoctions being made is in the family room which is not part of the kitchen. And keep in mind there is no TV in the kitchen. I printed out the recipe, read it over several times and realized there were steps I saw on screen that were not on my recipe page. I wanted to make it just like they did on TV. In order to do this we needed to run to the family room, queue up the portion of the program that dealt with the tart, view the next step and then run back to the kitchen. The husband loyally followed me with every step until he didn’t.
Which, as it turns out, worked to my benefit and made me realize I didn’t want to be physically in the kitchen with him while baking. After that he took on a purely advisory role, a supervisor so to speak, sitting at the kitchen table … which then made me realize I didn’t want him to speak at all.
But, back to the start. There were many steps involved which included mixing and baking the short bread crust, (a lot of butter involved in this), poaching and cooling the apricots, (I’d never done that before), mixing up the Frangipane, baking the tart again and finally arranging the apricots in a pleasing manner topped with apricot jam for the glaze. And it was delicious. I know because we ate it all weekend. We ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That tart became a part of us in more ways than one. And with that glorious triumph under my belt I started to plot out the next challenge.
As this entry will be very descriptive but long I choose to post it on a different blog. See “How bread can be so right and yet go so wrong.”
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