Is that from the Complete Cookery Course? Just having a look at the recipe now... margarine! Ugh!
I generally leave pastry making to my wife, because she is good at it, but I’ve decided it’s a skill I need to learn. And so I’ve been trying my hand at proper puff pastry. It’s actually not that difficult. You just need to be careful and patient. Keep everything very cold and handle as little as possible. I believe these principles apply to pastry making generally.
As well as St Delia, my reference sources include Prue Leith’s Cookery Bible and Michel Roux’s Pastry. The Frenchman doesn’t even admit of the existence of flaky pastry. Must be a British thing.
My gran made the best Eccles cakes. After she died, I went up to her place with my mum to help sort out her affairs. I was doing fine, emotions wise, until I found a tin of Eccles cakes in the larder that she’d made the morning she died. That just tipped me over the edge.
