CHAPTER 6

MASTER RECIPES

Master recipes

The following recipes for traditional sauces, pastries, cakes and biscuits are used in many recipes throughout this book. To get the most satisfying result from these recipes it is important to use the best possible quality Ingredients. Good fresh butter and cream, free-range eggs and the best bread you can afford or make yourself.

For those of you living outside of Britain, or even far removed from the West Country – also known as ‘Clotted Cream Central’ – you will be happy to know that I have included a recipe to make this most divine buttery cream yourself. You don’t need a cow, you don’t need special bacteria or an open fire, just good thick cream, a tray, time and the recipe on these pages.

I won’t be disappointed in you if you do buy ratafia biscuits or lady fingers (savoiardi); we don’t always have the time to make these biscuits ourselves. You can save your efforts for special occasions, for those guests who will appreciate the trouble. There are a couple of good Italian biscuit brands out there, so look out for those.

Sponge cake, however, is best made to the recipe in these pages, because store-bought sponge cake can often be too sweet and too dense. (I’m not even considering that mass-produced sponge cake often contains more artificial Ingredients than you might imagine.)

A pudding is a proud thing, and deserves to be made from the best possible components, so see what is possible for you.