So I was somehow roped into a friendly baking competition with the ladies in my pod at work. Dubbed “Tea at 3”, the rules were as follows:
- Bring a baked item to work for ‘afternoon tea’.
- It must be homemade, you cannot buy it.
- The theme is ‘British’ so it must be a distinctly English dish.
My first thought was to attempt the humorously-named “Spotted Dick”. However after researching various recipes, I came to the conclusion that it was well above my baking skill. Keep in mind that the extent of my baking involves muffins, boxed pancake mix, and boxed Betty Crocker brownie and cake mixes.
I asked for some input from my Mother, who (in my opinion) is one of the best bakers I know. She threw this recipe my way:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Congresbury-Ginger-Shortcake
The “Congresbury Ginger Shortcake”. Looking at the ingredients, it seemed fairly simple. I mean come on – how hard can it be to mess up flour, baking powder and butter? Throw a dash of ginger into the mix and you’re good!
Well, it WAS that simple! It turned out much better than I was expecting, lightly browned on the top with a hint of ginger in the cake. The glaze also turned out well; a mixture of icing sugar, golden syrup, ginger, and buttery goodness.
I had to improvise when mixing up the batter itself. It seemed that there wasn’t enough liquid in the recipe so the batter had a consistency more akin to a cheesecake crumb base. I added a couple ‘glugs’ of milk to fix this.
Let’s just hope it stacks up well against whatever marvels the other ladies bring in.
