Home baking with the family is on the rise

by Cathy Owen, South Wales Echo
Home baking is rising in popularity thanks to programmes like The Great British Bake Off. Cathy Owen, ahead of National Baking Week, speaks to families who love to bake together
Baking with children is great family fun. It might make a mess of your kitchen and not taste exactly as Mary Berry intended but who cares?
And home baking is enjoying a big revival at the moment.
Factors include the current squeeze on household budgets - forcing lots of families to start cooking more to save money, a craving for a simpler life and the popularity of programmes like the Great British Bake Off.

John Lewis has reported that since the BBC2 show began in mid-August, sales of cake tins and muffin trays rose by15%, and cookie cutters and cake stands by 10%.
Most of us have a memory of cooking with mum or gran when we were children and the food and smells can evoke really strong emotions.
And many of us have recipes that have been handed down through the generations.
A recent survey actually found that modern mums are better at cooking than their own mothers.
They are more adventurous in the kitchen and know 25% more recipes. Modern mums also think it is really important for their children to try as many different foods as possible.
Whilst our own mothers perhaps had one trusty recipe book and clippings of family recipes passed onto them, today’s mums have bookshelves full of celebrity recipe books.
Cook Katy Ashworth, of Cbeebies I Can Cook, says: “Baking is a strange alchemy of butter, sugar, flour and heat.
“It’s a popular rainy day school holiday activity, but does making biscuits and cupcakes really teach children how to cook?
“When I ask my best friend’s seven-year-old daughter Pheroza what she likes best about baking, her reply is short and sweet: “It’s fun!”
“A simple, yet perfect, answer as to why we should bake. But too few people make the time.
“They work, they’ve forgotten how, they don’t know what to make or where to start, and, well, then there’s the mess.
“Bring it on – we all need to have more fun and we should definitely be a bit more messy. Children have a lot to teach us and Pheroza has hit this nail on the head with this one.”
Following recipes also helps with reading and maths, weights and measures – useful skills in and out of the kitchen. Baking also helps children develop motor skills, listening and concentration.
And it offers a chance to talk about food and where it comes from.
We spoke to two families who love baking together and the recipes that have been passed down the generations.
Cardiff baker, Suzanne Carter, 29, from Cathays, Cardiff, loves making homemade cakes and treats for her business Little Suzi’s Kitchen. Her gluten free white chocolate and raspberry cupcakes were shortlisted at this year’s National Cupcake Awards. She has fond memories of learning to bake with her mum Margaret, 66, as a little girl.
“Many people who come to my home, say they love the smell when they walk through the door. My fresh cakes remind them of home or popping over to a nan’s or aunt’s as a child so I want to recreate that experience.
“I remember making cakes with my mum all the time as a little girl, on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
“We would mostly make fairy cakes or coconut cakes but shaped as butterfly cakes.
“And Christmas was amazing in our house. We used to make these delicious mince pies, that would fill the house with Christmas smells. My mum showed me how to make the pastry and the mince. We would make them together and had a little assembly line going with one person doing the cutting out of shapes and one person adding the filling and putting the tops on.
“One Christmas my mum bought me a little toy mixer and it had a banana loaf recipe. To this day it is one of the best banana bread recipes I’ve ever used. The mixer was pretty impressive too!”
BANANA BREAD
INGREDIENTS
2oz unsalted butter
5oz caster sugar
2 medium eggs
3 ripe bananas
8oz self-raising flour
A pinch of salt
METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 170C.
2. Grease and line a small loaf tin with greaseproof paper.
3. Cream together the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy using a mixer.
4. Beat the eggs together then add slowly to the sugar and butter mixture.
5. Mash the bananas and fold the sifted flour and salt into the mixture.
6. Bake in centre of the oven for 45-55 minutes until golden and a knife will come out clean when tested.
Emma Morgan is new product development manager at Brace’s Bakery. She loves to bake recipes passed down from her grandmother and mother with her seven-year-old daughter Carys.

“My mum Maureen was a home economics and food science teacher, so we were always trying out new recipes and baking at home.
“It is where my love of food and baking comes from.
“And now my mum loves to bake with my daughter Carys too.
“They are in the kitchen continuously and love making puddings and fairy cakes.
“There is also a fantastic gravy recipe and drop scone recipe that has been passed down through the generations.
“But there is a whole selection of food that we all love making like a boiled fruit cake in a saucepan and there is a farmhouse cookbook that we use that can always be relied on.
“My grandmother Nancy Williams, who is 91, has a recipe book that we have all used. It is a fantastic tradition and I am so pleased that Carys enjoys being in the kitchen as much as the rest of us.”
SNUFFLE BISCUITS
INGREDIENTS
2 oz margarine
Half a tin of condensed milk
3 level tablespoons of cocoa or drinking chocolate
3 level tablespoons of icing sugar
2 oz of coconut
METHOD
Put all the ingredients except the coconut in a saucepan on a gentle heat for 10 to 5 minutes making sure you stir all the time.
Leave to cool.
Beat in the coconut and roll it in coconut and shape.