Andrea bakes it off, part 2: Ginger, like me

Bourke Street Bakeoff wrap up, part 2 of 3

The books were a week late arriving (I’ve never had a book from a publisher arrive on time) and we had four days to choose a recipe and make it. The original requirement was to make a test batch and blog about it but this became optional. Thumbing through the 350 thick pages of this softcover book for the first time, I was struck by its heft and photos.  Contemplating recipes with four days to go and little free time, I obviously had to reject anything involving starter, a 3 week process. I considered chocolate sour cherry biscuits (page 312), Pan au chocolat (page 173), flatbread (pages 126-130), dark chocolate raspberry muffins (page 329) and gingerbread (page 333).

All had their pros and cons.

• Croissants seemed challenging and impressive and chocolate seems like a clear winner. However, I wasn’t keen on making something that required prepping ferment in advance and the croissant dough ferment has to sit overnight to 3 days.
• Although flatbread was savory and part of me wanted to do something savory to distinguish myself, it didn’t instinctively feel right.
• As autumn settles into its cooler months, gingerbread felt seasonal and I was attracted to the fact that I hadn’t done that kind of baking in years. I don’t generally roll things out and usually pass over any recipe that requires a stand mixer. However, was a cookie too easy?
• I wanted to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone, but cookies and muffins seemed too safe to me. At the same time, I didn’t want to overwhelm myself, especially given the time constraints.

At one point I thought I’d settled on the croissant.

Despite my hesitation to bake cookies, gingerbread won after a discussion with a trusted friend.  David granted me use of his Kitchen-Aid Professional stand mixer. He also offered some advice (“Here’s how I’d do it, but you do it how you want…”) but was very hands off. I solicited his help for using his appliances (removing the bowl from the stand is not intuitive) and finding things in his kitchen, and also to validate some of my hunches, but that was about it. I took some of his advice but made sure that in some cases I specifically didn’t and ensured that I knew why I was or wasn’t doing what I was doing. I always want to have an  answer to “why” I did something. I also got to hang out with his then 9-day old daughter while the cookies were baking.

Seriously, on a fall day it doesn’t get much better than the smell of gingerbread in the oven, good friends and an adorable, cuddly baby who’s at the age where all she does it sleep, eat and use her diaper.

Part of what makes me feel more inclined to cook than bake (other than necessity) is the ability to improvise in a forgiving medium. I knew that I didn’t want to make gingerbread people. I didn’t even know if I wanted to use shapes. I wanted to infuse some of my personality into it. I also felt that the gingerbread recipe in the book didn’t have enough ginger. If you’re using ginger, you can’t be timid.

My only modification to the ingredients was therefore a triple hit of ginger: The ground ginger that it called for, minced candied ginger, and grated ginger. I made sure that any juice that dripped off the grater went into the mixing bowl. My confidence wavered a little bit with the proportions. It’s hard to tell when going bold with flavour is ballsy and when it’s just too much but like I said, you can’t be timid. I wanted to enhance the flavor, and make it dramatic without being too dramatic.  Too much ginger burns.  In retrospect, I could have added more ginger. What would be great too is infusing honey with ginger in advance or adding fresh ginger juice.

I stopped following of the directions after removing four discs of dough from the fridge. At this point I rolled them out quickly, thickly and more haphazardly than intended (see photo above, the result of not wanting to form a new ball and re-roll), baked them, and took four large gingerbread cookies home to freeze overnight (to keep them fresh and also moist), thaw all day, and finish by warming them up and cutting them in the kitchen at The Drake Hotel. Everyone likes warm cookies.