Edd Kimber - One Tin Bakes Easy: Foolproof cakes, traybakes, bars and bites from gluten-free to vegan and beyond

TO MIKE AND WESLEY

CONTENTS

HOW TO USE THIS EBOOK

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INTRODUCTION

Easy does not have to mean boring. In fact, a recipe that requires little equipment or only a few ingredients can be just as exciting or delicious as something more complicated. It also has the advantage of not taking a lot of time. This came home to me in 2020, the year that Covid 19 forced itself onto the world and we all went into lockdown. Suddenly being stuck indoors meant I had time for projects, time to experiment, and I relished the opportunity to spend days in the kitchen playing around with new ideas and new recipes. Quickly, though, I found that being stuck at home changed the way I looked at baking, at least for a while. I wanted instant gratification. I craved easy baking.

In this book I want to show you how to bake incredible cakes, moreish cookies and delectable desserts that youll want to curl up with in front of a fire, and without breaking a sweat or making a disaster zone out of your kitchen. There are recipes that need just five ingredients, one bowl cakes that youll have in the oven within minutes, no bake recipes for when you cant even be bothered to turn on the oven, cookie recipes to feed a crowd, and desserts for when comfort is the order of the day. In each chapter there are also recipes for gluten-free and vegan baking, so no matter who you are baking for, youll always find a recipe to suit.

Why, you might ask, does the book cater for such a mixture of dietary preferences? The simple answer is choice and popularity. Over the last few years, the demand for gluten-free and vegan options has grown incredibly quickly, and while I am neither a vegan nor on a gluten-free diet, many of my friends are, and having an arsenal of recipes that I can make for anyone is incredibly useful. Its also because I am in neither of those camps that I have tried to limit the number of specialist ingredients needed. Most of the items required in this book will be familiar to you, and widely available. The small handful of replacement ingredients I call for, such as vegan eggs and gluten-free flour, are also easy to find these days.

Baking is very often about sharing and celebrating with others, and the recipes in this book, and in the original One Tin Bakes for that matter, were written with those moments in mind. Building on the successful formula of baking everything in the same 23 x 33cm (9 x 13in) tin, I have also included a guide for those times when you want to bake a smaller version for just a few people, or for those occasions when you are baking just for yourself (and why not?).

I have written about baking for over ten years, and while my enjoyment and fascination with the subject have never diminished, the recent times of isolation and stress, of lockdowns and restriction, have once again shown me that baking can be more than the end product we eat it can be the joy, the excitement, the bright spot in our day, even if right now we need things simple and quick.

THE TIN

When it comes to choosing the right baking tin for the recipes in this book, there are a few things to bear in mind. I tested many brands and types of 23 x 33cm (9 x 13in) tin and it quickly became apparent that theyre far from being all the same some are a little wider, some a little shorter. To account for these variations, its crucial to use a tin that is at least 5cm (2in) deep and all the recipes will fit without any issues.

With this style of tin you also have a choice between metal, glass and ceramic, plus a variety of different finishes, including enamel and non-stick. For the broad range of recipes in this book I recommend a good-quality aluminium tin, a classic bakeware choice that will happily stand the test of time. Apart from being lightweight and easy to look after, the metal is a good conductor of heat and helps to ensure even browning. My favourite version comes from Nordic Ware, one of the oldest and best bakeware manufacturers in the world. The one style I would avoid is a non-stick tin with a dark or black coating. These tins are also prone to getting scratched, but, even worse, distribute heat more quickly and often unevenly. This can lead to recipes browning too fast and sometimes even burning. If you already own such a tin, be aware of this drawback and either slightly reduce the oven temperature or check for doneness a few minutes before the stipulated time.

HOW TO LINE THE TIN

There are four main methods of preparing the tin:

1. Simply greasing the tin without a parchment paper lining used for recipes served straight from the tin.

2. Lining the base with parchment paper used for recipes that are portioned inside the tin, as the parchment helps to prevent the base from sticking.

3. Using a strip of parchment paper that overhangs the long sides of the tin and is held in place with metal binder or bulldog clips used like a sling when a cake needs to be lifted from the tin after baking.

4. Lining the whole tin with a large single sheet of parchment paper or foil that fully covers both base and sides used when the recipe has a tendency to stick to the sides, making it harder to remove.

SCALING DOWN

When the first One Tin Bakes was sent to the printer, it happened to coincide with finding ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic. Baking was used by many people, myself included, as a form of comfort, a type of self-care, but because we couldnt see friends and family in the usual way, we couldnt share our baking. We were baking for a crowd when only a few were able to enjoy it.

While I hope the world is back to normal by the time this book is released, I am including some general guidance on making smaller versions of the recipes that appear in this book, which can also be applied to those in the first for that matter. When using the smaller tins mentioned below, the baking times should be altered as suggested, but these are only a rough guide, so dont forget to check for doneness by using the visual clues given in the recipe as well.

GLUTEN-FREE NOTES

FLOUR AND SPECIALITY INGREDIENTS

Gluten-free baking can be daunting, as gluten helps to hold recipes together, and the gluten that is developed when using wheat flour is hard to replicate. People on a gluten-free diet commonly have a plethora of speciality ingredients on hand to create custom flour blends. But if youre not gluten-free and are simply baking for someone who is, you might not want to stock up on ingredients youll rarely use.