July 2010 - An Interview with........

For this month, July, we have the pleasure to meet Sue from her beautiful blog Mainly Baking

I first became acquainted with Sue over at the BBC Food Messageboard sometime ago where her Chocolate Brownies have made quite an impact on everybody, Especially me. Now, I'm no baker, but I just love Sue's Brownie recipe. I asked Sue if she would mind if I published a blog post on her chocolate brownies recipe & she kindly agreed. Shortly afterwards, she began her own blog & wow has she been busy.

In fact, Sue has so many brownie recipes, see them all here

Well, without further ado, you can read all about sue below....

Please join me in thanking sue for her hard work in putting together this interview, & don't forget to check out her blog Mainly Baking
Debs Q - When did you start your blog & why?

Sue A - It was really only a bored moment on a Sunday afternoon, about a year ago, which started me blogging. I’d heard about blogging, obviously, and seen how it was becoming an important medium of communication, so just wanted to see if I could do it, without needing a high level of technical skill. Once I’d started, I felt that linking to one of my blog posts was a better way of recommending recipes to others, especially with the BBC food messageboard becoming fussier about the source of posted recipes. Relating my experiences with a recipe, whether or not it was successful, could also give more information than a short post on a messageboard. I wasn’t really interested in reaching a wider audience than the people I ‘knew’ on the messageboards I used, so acquiring ‘followers’ has been an interesting bonus for me.

Debs Q - What encouraged you to start baking?

Sue A - Baking featured a lot in my childhood. I was a child of a poor family during the mid-50s, when meat was relatively expensive. Filling the family with stodge played a part in most meals – the main meal always had a dessert based on flour, fat and sugar and often pastry, dumplings or Yorkshire pudding as part of the meat course, as well as potatoes. The other 3 meals (we always had a late evening supper) were based on bread and cake. Snacks were often sweet and usually homemade – biscuits, flapjacks, jam tarts etc. My mother wasn’t a very good cook in general, but she did bake well, and it was one area of cooking which I was encouraged to help with. There was a period after I first left home at 18, when I didn’t bake for a while, but as soon as I married and had a home of my own I started again.

Debs Q - Tell us about your famous chocolate brownies. I say 'famous' because it appears everybody on the BBC food site raves about them (including me)?

Sue A - I’m not sure why this took off as ‘the’ recipe to use for brownies. It certainly wasn’t the only one recommended when I first responded to a request for a recipe, and it still isn’t. At the time, the BBC wasn’t as rigorous about posted recipes being original, and I don’t think I’ve ever claimed that this one was totally original. It is in fact based quite closely on a recipe from Good Food magazine, from the late 1990s, if I remember correctly. The first time I made them, an American friend told me they were as good as any he’d had ‘back home’, which sealed it for me as a recipe to keep! I think it’s so successful because it can be cooked to varying levels of ‘gooiness’, depending on personal taste, and even when well cooked they are still very tasty.

Funnily enough, since I started paying more attention to my baking, and reading more blogs, I’ve found several recipes which I prefer now.

Debs Q - Do you have any funny baking stories to share with us?

Sue A - I learned the hard way that springform baking tins are not watertight. Even if they don’t leak cake batter out, they will still let water in! I was making a chocolate cake which needed to be baked in a bain-marie. Thinking only about the ease of eventually getting the cake out of a baking tin, I used a springform tin, and didn’t think any more about it until taking the cake out of the oven. The test to see if it was done was OK, but it just didn’t look right. When it had cooled enough to handle, I could wring water out of it! It gave a new meaning to the word ‘sponge’ when applied to a cake!

Debs Q - Aside from baking, what are your other favourite dishes to prepare?

Sue A - I’m often bored with the prospect of cooking meals every day, but I think cooking a full roast dinner, with roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, gives me the most satisfaction.

Debs Q - What is your favourite cuisine & why?

Sue A - As a cook, I think my style is still quite traditionally British, with a just a sprinkling of regular dishes from other cuisines – lasagne, curries and tagines for instance. As a restaurant customer, I think my favourite cuisines are those from the various Asian countries, mainly because I don’t feel confident about cooking those dishes well myself, so only eat them in restaurants. We often look for Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants when we eat out.

Debs Q - When eating out, what is your favourite restaurant & why?

Sue A - We only eat out regularly while on holiday, so it’s impossible to have a favourite, as we rarely return to the same places.

Debs Q - What's the worst meal you've eaten out & why was it a bad experience?

Sue A - I remember going into a seaside café and ordering fish and chips for the whole family. The four pieces of fish were all the same shape and covered with lurid orange breadcrumbs; obviously straight out of a catering pack of frozen preformed fish pieces, not even whole fillets. They weren’t inedible, but it was a great disappointment to not get a good quality piece of fresh fish, in a bubbly batter, at the seaside!

Debs Q- Are there any baking recipes you'd like to try but have thus far not had the courage?

Sue A - French macarons are definitely high on the list of things I want to make. What’s putting me off trying is both the waste of ingredients if I fail, and the fact that I think I’ll need more patience to do them well than I usually have. I’d rather make one large cake, or a tray bake to cut up, than fiddle with small biscuits or other individual baked goods.

Debs Q -Who do you aspire too most with regards to baking?

Sue A - I have a book called ‘Desserts’ by Michel Roux, Senior, which has the most amazing restaurant-quality dishes in it. I would love to have the time, skill and patience to recreate some of the more complicated multi-stage recipes in the book.

That's all folks......