@lisa    That brand of flour is not generally available in the UK, although no doubt it could be ordered on line, via Amazon.  It sounds broadly similar to Allinson Flour, which is what I use.  Allinson offer two grades of both wholemeal and white bread flour – ‘strong’ and ‘very strong’ and I use the latter, because it produces bread which i…[Read more]

@Arbutus   The problem with baguettes baked outside France is that they are seldom made with the right kind of flour or in the right kind of oven.  Whereas bread in England, North America and (I presume) Australia, is made with ‘strong’ flour, high in gluten, French bread is made with flour from local wheat, which is relatively low in gluten, mix…[Read more]

@ichabod     That ‘lemon meringue cake’ sound unutterably disgusting.  Here in Norwich (that’s the original Norwich, in case you were in any doubt) we are fortunate enough to have at least two specialist cake shops producing delectable confectionary.  At one of them, I swear, they must have someone on permanent duty wiping the drool off the displ…[Read more]

@purofilion   The griddle I am talking about is like a heavy cast iron frying pan, but flat.  It is heated on the stove top, greased lightly, and the batter is dropped on to it, about a tablespoonful for each drop scone, to form discs around 6cm to 8cm diameter, according to the size preferred.  When one side is done you flip them over (much l…[Read more]

@purofilion

What happened to food being something nutritious you ate just to get on with the rest of Real Life?

But isn’t a leisurely meal of good food, well prepared, eaten with congenial friends and/or family members and accompanied by good wines and good conversation one of the great pleasures of Real Life?

Anyway, I like cooking, and if…[Read more]

@janetteB  @purofilion    Where I come from drop scones and pikelets are different things, though both are made on a griddle.

Drop scones are made with a batter which is slightly thicker than ordinary pancake batter and slightly sweetened, but otherwise similar.  The batter for pikelets contains yeast and the finished product looks like a large…[Read more]

@pedant

That’s because you forgot the bacon and scrambled eggs.

I didn’t forget the bacon, but that tasted sweet as well

I generally pass on scrambled eggs, because they are almost always overcooked.  And the very thought of scrambled eggs with sweet pancakes and syrup is enough to induce nausea   😮

Interesting about the beer; I always wond…[Read more]

@ichabod

in most of the US, sugar is added to EVERYTHING

Yes, I did find it curious that so many things which were supposed to be savoury tasted sweet; and cakes were so tooth-achingly sweet that I avoided them altogether.

I think that it must go back quite a long way.  Someone once gave me a book of traditional North American recipes, and I was…[Read more]

@ichabod   Pancakes are another source of transatlantic linguistic confusion.  Over a period of eleven years during the 1970s and 1980s I spent between two and four weeks every summer working on an excavation in Derbyshire.  During the latter part of that period we were assisted by American volunteers recruited through the Earthwatch org…[Read more]