From Paul Hollywood’s book “How to bake”. A piece of posh, expensive French butter was purchased on Friday specifically for this recipe and I started yesterday after lunch.

Dough nr 1 was made out of 500g of strong bread flour, 10 g of salt, 80 g of caster sugar, 10 g instant yeast ( I even had some!!!!), 2 eggs, 90 ml of water and 125 ml of warm milk. Kitchen aid worked it for about 7 minutes, then it rested in the fridge for an hour.

Posh French butter will be handled more carefully next time- straight from the fridge, otherwise it gets warm too quickly and is messy to handle; also next time I’ll roll in out on the baking paper and save myself some swearing. 🙂

The rolling out and folding the butter stuff is all nicely illustrated in the book, it was fun to make and I enjoyed learning new stuff. Last night there was a lovely block of Danish pastry resting in the fridge, 4 times rolled and folded, loosely wrapped in cling film- loosely, as it did rise quite a lot!

This morning I took it out, rolled out, shaped 3 ways and left to prove once more, while the nicest creme pat ever was cooling in the fridge. Creme from the same book, particularly delicious and creamy. Will be using this method from now onwards. 2 egg yolks, 50 g caster sugar, 20 g cornflour nicely whipped together, while 250 ml of milk and vanilla paste were heating up. Hot milk slowly added to the eggs, then returned to the heat and when thick and beautiful, 20 g of butter added. Yum!!!!!

Pastries, when doubled in size were topped with creme pat and some bluberries, the other ones were rolled with cinnamon, sugar and sultanas and baked in 200 degrees for less than 14 minutes, they did brown quickly.

I waited the whole 2 minutes after taking them out, before stuffing one down my gob with a sigh of pleasure. Butter. Butter makes everything tastes good.

We gave Simon and Keava a plate of pastries, the other ones sit on the island and are pinched every now and then by whoever passes by.

10 out of 10, worth every minute and every effort.