Friday 3 March 2017

Salt Dough Bakery

I have incredibly fond memories of running a salt dough bakery with my Nan. It's just one of those things that has stayed with me. One of those wonderful sensory memories where the smells and the processes transport me back to a time and place where I felt really happy. It's a rich and complete memory and one I treasure. I remember making cottage buns and jam tarts. I remember the hollow sound they make when they're ready and I remember painting them once they were cool. I can remember playing with them in our shop in Nan's bedroom and I can remember continually sniffing them, which is something I still do now!

I now love doing the same thing with Jessica. We use a standard salt dough recipe - 2 parts flour, 1 part salt and 1 part warm water. We have started added some spices into the dough too, just to give it an even nicer smell. We particularly like cinnamon. I bake it pretty much at whatever temperature I feel like on the day and for however long I forget that it's in the oven for! I suppose I usually do somewhere between 150 and 180 degrees Celsius for a couple of hours. It's pretty forgiving stuff, particularly if you're going to paint it afterwards. We use acrylic paint to decorate our bakes and Jessica has been known to break out the glitter on occasion too. Here are some of our recent products from our salt dough bakery...

Anyone for a scone, millionaire's shortbread or bakewell slice???

I coated these bread rolls with some acrylic varnish to seal them from moisture once they had cooled.

Jam, chocolate and lemon tarts available in fragrant cinnamon salt dough cases...

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