#danlepard

Halva - Well I couldn't eat a whole one

Sunday's baking session demanded something a little bit different. Dragged down by the chocolate and cake of the season, I couldn't help but want to try something new, something a bit more exotic. I was taken by Dan Lepard's recipe for Halva, one of those treats rarely found and I couldn't help but expect a freshly made batch to beat the dry mixes you occasionally find in the supermarket.

Adapted from Dan Lepard's recipe (reproduced below).

Sesame Ginger Halva

This makes a sweet halva similar to the sort you see in Middle Eastern stores - wrapped in foil and sometimes studded with pistachios, or a combination of chocolate and vanilla halva swirled together - and is technically a kind of fudge. The texture produced by this recipe is very creamy, without the sugary flakiness found in shop-bought. This is because the syrup the ginger is packed in contains glucose, which slows the formation of sugar crystals as it cools and gives the halva a creamy texture. Perfect cut into little squares to have with short black coffee and arak after dinner.

250g tahini

100g stem ginger, strained from its syrup

200g caster sugar

50ml water

50g of the syrup

Spoon the tahini and the oil separated from it into a bowl and beat with an electric hand whisk until it is smooth and emulsified.

Chop the ginger into ½cm cubes. Line the base of a 2lb loaf tin or similar with a buttered sheet of foil.

Place the sugar, water and 50g syrup from the stem ginger in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until a drop of the toffee hardens when popped into a glass of cold water, and can be squeezed with the fingers into a soft ball.

Next, add the ginger cubes and heat until the toffee boils again, then remove from the heat and add the tahini. Beat until the mixture thickens, then tip into the foil-lined tin. Cut into squares when warm.

This week's #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Saffron peach cake pg 137 (an earlier challenge resulted in some useful tweaks); what Dan styles the "'Sophia Loren' of cake: four layers of orange sponge cake filled with a simplified Sicilian cassata mixture and drizzled with a light orange syrup", pp 132-3; option three was a deep-flavoured Butterscotch banana cake, pp 126-7. It's been an interesting selection of bakes that has generated questions about cakes with dome tops, what variety of cinnamon is commonly available in South Africa, and why a period of fast and abstinence has a cake associated with it. [The opening photograph is @joellybaby's banana cake.]

This week's cakes have felt uncannily family and nostalgia related. Because of the saffron, the Saffron peach cake nods toward traditional associations with Mothering Sunday and, for me, the Butterscotch banana is reminiscent of childhood toffee smells. Looking at #shortandtweet-ers' Orange cassata cake, there's a sense that if we did not quite reach the acme of Sophia Loren, we brought to mind a glamorous aunt who somehow manages to wear a frilly-tiered outfit with panache. Monday 19 March was St Joseph's Day (celebrated as Father's Day in some countries) and in Italy, this is celebrated with regional food (this is Italy, what isn't?). When I was at school, I had a weekend job in a pizzeria that was owned by Sicilians: so, from my n=1 experience, Sicilians (and others) celebrate by making and eating Sfinci di San Guiseppe (also pasta topped with breadcrumbs to recall the carpenter's sawdust). Anyone who had been following #shortandtweet would have been able to do this because it involves frying choux puffs and filling them with a custard or creamy filling that is very similar to 'Sophia's Cassata' filling. I was charmed to learn that @tomasi_carla made these traditional pastries and we've storifyed her account: @tomasi_carla's Sfinci di San Giuseppe.

@underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked two cakes: Short and Tweet: 'Butterscotch Banana' and 'Orange Cassata' Cakes. There were some hiccups with both: "I can say straight up that neither would win “Prettiest Cake in Show” but taste-wise, there were varying degrees of success". In an entertaining mix of personal preferences and interesting adjustments to allow for the impact of baking a sponge at altitude, @underthebluegum has a number of grumbles and misgivings about the Orange cassata cake. "Given my cake’s stunted stature, cutting it into three gave me a queasy moment but it was just about manageable. However, even after padding it out with the ricotta filling and giving it a drizzle of orange icing it looked a bit squat and lopsided..In the recipe intro, Dan refers to this dish as the ‘Sophia Loren’ of cakes. I am not sure what decade he was talking but my cake was certainly no sixties screen siren. I guess with a squint and in the right light it could possibly pass for today’s septuagenarian Ms Loren but that is probably being generous." Remarkably enough, despite the low expectations: "I was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed this cake".

@north_19 of North_19 kindly sent along her account of making the Orange cassata cake. I've storifyed her experience but reproduced some of it below because it highlights some common problems.

"To be honest, with my consistent lack of ability to bake sponge with a flat top, I should have known I would never have resulted in the poster-child of layer cakes. I should have baked just one large one and sliced it up, rather than two with their very domed tops (see ‘wonky cakes’ pic.")

"On the day it was baked, the cake was ok. Ricotta filling lumpy, and strangely textured...The after-taste was a little sharp and peel-y (my brand of candied peel?). However, the next day, something rather splendid had happened. The ricotta filling gently leaked into the sponge, mellowing the flavours beautifully, creating something far greater than the sum of its ingredients. I would make it again, to relish the next day."

"Oh, and I could do with some practise (advice?!) at creating the perfect flat-top sponge."

Please read @north_19's full account on Storify (where I've made some comments) and chip in with any advice. My additional suggestions are mundane and remedial rather than a pointer towards flat-top sponge perfection. It's possible that the cakes rose unevenly because: i) the batter wasn't level in the tin (an offset spatula might help to rectify this); ii) the oven isn't level; iii) the oven has temperature zones that cause one side of the sponge to rise/set more rapidly (rotate the cake tins halfway through the cooking time; heat a bake stone in the oven and place the cake tins on that to reduce the temperature imbalances).

Domed tops can occur for several reasons. One of the likeliest problems is uneven transmission of heat so that the outer walls of the tin conducted the heat quickly and set the outer edges of the sponge while the centre of the sponge mix heated more gradually and then rose higher than the sides. In recipes with chemical leavening agents, the gases can't escape from the cake mix once the crust has formed around the edges and they crowd towards the weakest spot (the unset centre) and push that up more. Domed tops can sometimes be fixed if you act quickly: as soon as the cakes are out of the oven, keep on the oven gloves and, using a clean tea towel, gently press down to flatten the dome and level the cake (watch out for steam as it can scald). Alternatively, when the cakes have cooled enough to be removed from the tin, invert the cake onto its top so that the top flattens under its own weight while cooling on the rack. This is helpful when slicing a cake into even layers for sandwiching.

It is at this point that I should mention that my Best Beloved succumbed to the siren promise of the Sophia Loren description and baked the Orange cassata cake. This was an ambitious choice for somebody who has never previously baked a sponge cake and so it was, perhaps, inevitable that at various points there were moments that resembled The Great British Bake Off in drama and emotion. The cake was fragrant and tasted delicious but a too-hasty turning out of one of the cakes, in combination with inadequate preparation of the sponge tins, meant that at one point we considered converting the presentation to an orange sponge and cassata trifle.

My Best Beloved removed the two cakes from the oven, and, giddy with success, turned one of them out before it had cooled enough. A section of the cake stuck to the silicone pan, and some of the part that did release broke up: despite the recipe instructions, neither tin had been lined. At this point we had nothing to lose as plan B was to serve it as a trifle so we placed the still warm sponge topside down onto some clingfilm, drizzled it with a small amount of warm sugar syrup, scraped the remaining sponge out of the pan and matched/patched up the holes, then gathered the clingfilm together to create a slight tension and gently slid the whole cake back into the still warm pan and left it to set (topside still down). We twisted and pegged the clingfilm to provide a gentle pull to encourage the cake to stick back together. (If the cake tin had been metal rather than silicone, we would probably have just folded the excess clingfilm flat and put a plate and suitable weight on top of the sponge to press it together but the silicone is flexible enough that it might have bulged.) The sponge was coaxed into sticking together well enough that it formed a sound base for the cake (we didn't attempt to slice it into layers and the topside remained at the bottom) and held together without falling apart when it was cut and served. The final cake was just two layers of sponge, sandwiched and topped with the ricotta filling. It lasted 4 days in the fridge and matured delightfully.

I feel as if I'm highlighting the mistakes that my Best Beloved made rather than celebrating the fact that most of the procedure was correct, the cake crumb was light and it was delicious. It's the more impressive that this was a lifetime first attempt at baking a sponge and it feels mean to detail the errors. However, it's sometimes useful to have some back-up plans for taking remedial action and I've offered the above description of 'how to stick a sponge cake back together' in that spirit. Nonetheless, I'm conflicted precisely because I think that a number of home bakers are discouraged when their own attempts don't look as fabulous as the photographs in a book or because other people criticise their mistakes while ignoring how good something tastes. None of the bakers who attempted it has any criticism of the taste, but none is wholly content with the appearance of their very first attempt at baking this cake. If none of the cakes achieved Sophia Loren status, I still think that we have a baker's collection of aunts, wearing frilly outfits with panache.

I'm pleased to welcome back @joellybaby of Joelle McNichol. Her photographs and comments are storifyed: @joellybaby bakes Butterscotch banana cake. Go and admire the photographs, you might well think you can smell the caramelised banana just by looking at them.

As mentioned above, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked two cakes: Short and Tweet: 'Butterscotch Banana' and 'Orange Cassata' Cakes. In her account of the banana cake @underthebluegum speculates whether the taste of the delectable caramelised banana was smothered by her substitute spicing and wonders if other bakers had a similar experience (from the other accounts of this cake, it doesn't seem as if this is a common problem). My own observation is that cinnamon is notoriously tricky to judge in recipes from other countries because it's rarely clear which variety of cinnamon the recipe writer is using (eg, a floral or hot variety with varying strengths). Eg, we purchase Sri Lankan cinnamon in the UK; the commonly available cinnamon in the US is Indonesian cassia: it would be interesting to know which cinnamon is typically available in South Africa.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking has a helpfully illustrated account of various stages of the recipe: Butterscotch Banana Cakes - Short and Tweet. The write-up includes several useful tips. "Verdict? Great recipe - quite time consuming in terms of making the caramel, cooking the banana in it and then leaving to cool but once that bit is done, it's plain sailing...[One] of my colleagues said that she thought these were possibly the best cakes I have ever taken to work!"

@BakerHay likewise baked the Butterscotch Banana Cake and had good intentions about giving them to her neighbours although it's murky as to how many managed to make the handover. Her assessment is: "oil based cake light, moist and delicious".

@lapindor of Lapin d 'Or and More gave us: Reasons to be cheerful Jill's variation on the Saffron peach cake substituted frozen nectarines for the peaches (in keeping with the desirable gold colour). Jill has some wisdom from Prue Leith and some praiseworthy reasoning on the health virtues of cake that contains fruit, nuts and saffron. Jane's post triggered a series of questions from a visitor. Condensing the Q&A, I mention the following as it seems arcane to some people. Saffron has traditional associations with Mothering Sunday and Simnel Cake in the UK. Although Mothering Sunday is part of the Lenten calendar in the UK, and therefore a period of fast and abstinence, it has a cake associated with it because there is an official relaxation of Lenten observance to allow a day of celebration, also known as Refreshment Sunday.

It's apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn't always show everyone's tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I'll update this compilation.

I propose that we close the month with Light spelt rough puff pastry, pg 497. Dan Lepard notes that, "A smidgeon of baking powder softens the pastry and helps to gently aerate the tender buttery flakes as they bake". This is a fairly free-form recipe as Dan suggests using it as you would puff pastry (lids for pies, or bases for tarts); as a wrap-around for items such as Pigs in blankets, or simply prepped for nibbles.

However, pp 498-503 have some excellent "ideas for individual savoury tarts": be sure to read the additional baking notes for First-class tarts pg 498. The tarts can be as small or large as it suits you and the toppings can be simple or sophisticated. They're flexible and allow a range of toppings to be baked at the same time (useful in families where people rarely agree on a single dish). For smaller households, the pastry freezes well and defrosts without mess for fast pie tops or tarts.

If you blog about your experience with one of the above recipes, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 25 March or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

Thank you for sharing your cakes. I look forward to our spelt rough puff pastry, whether whether it's acting as a pie top, tart bottom, wrap-around, or nibble.

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77; Simple bagels pg 61; or Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. The opening photograph is from Carla (see below) because, as ever, I'm in awe of her tidiness and am smitten by her kitchen.

I'm not a bagel enthusiast, mostly because I find the supermarket versions to be clammy and dense. For no particularly good reason, such bagels remind me of acres of sun-starved goosepimpled flesh in a park on the first sunny day, slathered with sun-screen or drenched in a tanning oil to accelerate the burn. I was therefore delighted when Dan Lepard gave headnotes on how to tweak his bagel recipe to adjust the chewiness and crumb. @lapindor of Lapin d'Or and More rose to the challenge of: Simple bagels. This is a good, illustrated account of shaping and poaching the dough. I like the summary and concur with the crumb sentiment: "I am no bagel expert so am not sure if I should have retained a bigger hole in the centre and if they should really be a bit flatter in shape...[Inside, you can see that] I have a few big air holes and I suspect a more open crumb than a traditional bagel. No complaints though as they were delicious and I was actually quite proud of them".

Although she was stricken by a nasty bug, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree baked her way through the bagel recipe twice: Short and Tweet: Bagels. Go along for the useful notes and the briefly alarming digression into "poaching beagles".

Although Bialys aren't strictly related to bagels, the chew and the crumb are likewise important so I'd point people towards @Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes's post: Bialys for Mellow Bakers. There are some good hints and tips here for additional toppings and serving ideas that might be adapted to this bagel recipe. It is also via the ever-helpful @Zeb_Bakes that I found these How to shape & bake your bagels videos.

Most of us opted for the pita bread challenge, egged on perhaps by the enthusiasm of those of us who've made them before ("almost qualified for the title of ‘the easiest bread in the world’") and been taken aback by the difference between these and what is typically available in supermarkets. There's also a whiff of kitchen excitement with pita bread. The baker arms-lengths a thin piece of dough into a searingly hot oven, and within a couple of minutes the heat turns the water content to steam, puffing up the dough to the point where nervous watchers suspect that the tension will be too much and it will burst and deflate, only somewhat less spectacularly than a over-stretched balloon. When the bread cools it relaxes and deflates but the pocket remains, waiting to be opened and stuffed.

@Misky of Misk Cooks offers a picture of Elmo Gnome alongside a description and shots of her ideas of how to stuff them: Dan Lepard's Perfect Plain Pita Bread. There are clever suggestions for how to roll the dough out to the correct depth, how to move the bread with tongs and plenty of enthusiastic appreciation. "So, will I make them again? Yes. In every language recognised by the human ear, I say “Yes!”

Will I ever buy store-made pitas again? Not by the hairs on your chiny-chin-chin."

There's interesting discussion in @Misky's comments. I'm one of those who confesses to finding Short & Sweet to be both a remarkable baking resource and a fountain of benign domestic tyranny as the vast difference between home-made versions of items such as pita bread and that which is commonly available means that it's unlikely one would voluntarily purchase them again.

@BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking sent along a well-illustrated account of mixing dough and baking: Perfect Plain Pittas. "Tender and chewy, these are a million miles from the long-life excuse for pitta bread that you find in the supermarkets...[It's] quite fun to keep seeing them pop out all puffed up! My one regret is that my oven has a solid door so I can't see the magic happening!"

@Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog joined the WI not long ago and used their recently launched flour to bake her delightful breads: Pita.

@tomasi_carla tweeted a very helpful series of photographs and comments about making these pita, griddling them (rather than baking them in an oven) and serving suggestions: Dan Lepard's Perfect Pita. There are helpful notes about cooking them from frozen. Update: Carla cooks the pita on both sides when she griddles them.

@BakerHay tweeted some pictures and comments about her experience in baking both the plain and garlic, thyme & lemon pita: @BakerHay bakes Dan Lepard's Perfect Pita Bread.

@Choclette8 of Chocolate Log Blog tweeted her semi-wholemeal pita, baked at 225C. These pita have more colour than those made wholly with white flour and the pattern reminds me of reticulated seed pods.

My Best Beloved baked both the plain pita and, in the sweet flush of success, the double-corn bacon muffins. The pita were a light-crumbed triumph. In a (perhaps) poignant commentary on our lives there was lots of excitement derived from staring through the glass door of the oven to see the pita swell and then suddenly expand (see first photograph).

The Double-corn bacon muffins tasted fine but were a tad claggy in the centre (the empty case shows how damp the muffin mix was even after standing when first removed from the oven). This is possibly because Best Beloved's reservoirs of patience had been sapped by the keen attention to detail paid to executing the pita bread recipe well so parts of this recipe went awry. Not least, grated aubergine had to substitute for the courgette and a misunderstanding meant that far too much of the aubergine was added. I suspect that the surfeit of aubergine accounted for the muffins being cooked and golden on the outside at the end of the baking time but claggy within: we returned the muffins to the oven for an additional 7 minutes which improved the texture (albeit the centre was heavier & damper than I like) but over-baked the top and darkened the colour.

This week's challenge recipes are: Mini coffee Paris-Brest pg 418; Rhubarb and custard buns, pg 422; a third option is to use the sweet choux paste as a pie crust, as Dan outlines, pg 525. If you have any sweet choux paste left over, then if you adapt Dan's recommendation for Soup choux, pg 524, and pipe/bake tiny blobs of it, you might sprinkle them on top of a stewed fruit dish (with or without tossing them in a dipping sugar of, eg, cinnamon and icing sugar). It looks very special and far more complicated than it is: it also offers a good texture contrast. (There are additional notes in the Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge).

If you blog about your experience with one of the above recipes, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 11 March or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It's apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn't always show everyone's tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I'll update this compilation.

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for meringues in various guises. Eg pg 445 (plain, Double chocolate or Lemon sherbert) to be served plain or teamed with suitable available preserves (eg, chunky marmalade as a good contrast to the chocolate meringue shells); Apricot meringue tart pg 451; sunshine in a jar with the easy lemon curd (pg 342) and eating that with individual meringues or using it to prepare either the Lemon meringue sundae on pg 452 or Sue Lowenbein's suggestion on the same page for an ice-cream gâteau. [The opening photograph is @underthebluegum's Lemon meringue sundae.]

There are so few ingredients in a basic meringue (egg white and sugar) and yet so many ways for the unwary to go awry. In some households, it has to be said, this may be attributed to a failure to read the useful headnotes for the recipe, or the blithe assumption that large and medium eggs sizes are equivalent and thus specifying that detail in a recipe is a charming foible on the part of the author. My Best Beloved's lifetime first attempt at both meringue and lemon curd is pictured below. Both of them tasted fine. Nonetheless, I should draw attention to the relatively poor volume of the meringue and blobby shape that indicates the sugar was added a little too early, when the egg-whites were not quite at the soft peak stage. The lemon curd was as easy to make as the recipe promised. This version was too liquid at room temperature, yet in the fridge, it set more like a very good soft spread butter than a curd: I feel this may reflect that my Best Beloved used medium eggs rather than large which makes a difference when the recipe involves 5 egg yolks and a large egg.

Harold McGee is the sort of investigator who poses questions such as, Why whip egg whites in copper bowls? and researches the answer (if you're interested in an updated answer to this question and would like to know far more then read Chapter 2 of McGee on Food & Cooking). Meringues are a friendly science lesson in the kitchen and teach a lot about the effect of whipping on unfolding proteins and incorporating air to create a foam. The addition of fine-grained sugar helps to stabilise what McGee describes as a "fragile egg-white foam into a stable, glossy meringue": he has some interesting notes about the different effect of beating or folding sugar into the foam (folding in the icing sugar makes the meringue more tender).

Last week Claire, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree, baked five pies as part of her domestic renaissance of the pie. This week Claire prepared another fine abundance: Short and Tweet: Lemon Meringue Sundae, Double Chocolate Meringues, Coconut Meringues with Roasted Pineapple. Her summary: "All three recipes bring meringue kicking and screaming into the 21st century and yield such fabulous results that meringues are definitely going to be included at my dinner table from now on". The following photograph is of her chocolate meringues: go and read her observations and experiences about all three.

@Misky of Misk Cooks has a rather playful account of her meringue baking: Dan Lepard’s Double Chocolate and Lemon Sherbet Meringues. Along with the photograph of the chocolate meringues (below and notice the difference between these and Claire's above) there is shot of the empty bowl that the lemon sherbet meringues had been mixed in: Misky made the latter with Half Spoon Granulated Sugar rather than sugar and has some helpful notes about both the baking and texture of that in the finished meringue.

@lapindor of Lapin d'Or and More almost didn't participate in this challenge: " I was checking back through the challenge options and grumpily announced to my husband 'it's meringues' expecting him to look bored, but a hopeful smile ran across his face and after checking he had actually heard what I had said I realised he would quite like some meringues, thank you. So meringue prejuduces aside I went into the kitchen.

Well, they were very easy and very delicious, delicate crisp outer shell and soft mallowy centre, what more can I say". As it turns out, she has a bit more to say about meringues, blood oranges, fruit salads, biscotti and bergamot marmalade: Nearly didn't make them, glad I did. I like this shot of the meringue texture and recommend you enjoy the colourful photographs on her blog.

As for us, we tested the first batch of meringues (shown above) which were caramel chewy in every mouthful when fresh (a little drier after an overnight stand, but still chewy). The second batch were prepared with greater attention to the recipe (we had to scale it down as we didn't have enough eggs) and we were rewarded with a thick and glossy meringue mix. We should probably have checked more carefully after 90mins as the meringues were slightly cracked after 2hrs. However, these meringues had much greater volume, and were crisp on the outside and fluffy inside with a slightly chewy centre. They were lighter in colour and I suspect that the first batch were more caramelised because the sugar bonded with the water in the egg-white in a slightly different way and because the icing sugar was whisked into the meringue mix rather than folded.

This week's challenge recipes are: Perfect plain pita pg 76 or the Garlic, thyme and lemon version pg 77. These breads are only vaguely related in taste and texture to the ones that are commonly available from supermarkets and are worth trying. Dan Lepard says: "Pita needs very little yeast, as the rolling and the very hot oven create the lift. So if your oven doesn't get hot enough, you'll have to make them at a friend's house". This is true - you will only get the full benefit of this recipe with a suitably hot oven. You will need very good, long tongs or superb oven gloves. You have been warned (but please make them as they are a revelation if you've not had fresh pita recently). Simple bagels pg 61 offers a very relaxed way of preparing a recipe that had always seemed fraught with complexity when I'd read about it elsewhere. There are notes to tweak the texture by altering the quantity of water or modifying the length of time for the rise. Again, unless you're near a very good source for them, it's remarkably different to make your own and discover that the result is not intrinsically heavy. For anyone who didn't bake last month's North-South cornbread pg 53 or who did bake it and wants to use up some of the polenta or yellow corn meal, then I suggest the Double-corn bacon muffins pg 533. These are an excellent hearty lunch or tea-time item (works well with firm cooked mushrooms for those who don't want bacon): I've heard that they're good for brunch but I tend to have a punitive attitude to that institution (only within my own household and only if I'm the one responsible for preparing and serving it).

If you blog about your experience with one of the above recipes, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 4 March or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It's apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn't always show everyone's tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I'll update this compilation.

This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for light cream cheese pastry as a pie topping for: Chicken and mushroom pies, pg 488; Shin of beef, chorizo and pinto bean pies, pg 489; Pork and parsnip pies, pg 491; Leek, smoked haddock and Lancashire cheese pies, pg 491; or Broccoli, Stilton and potato pies, pg 492. The opening photograph is from @Misky of Misk Cooks who baked it for her wedding anniversary dinner (further tribute to the excellent nature of these pies is almost superfluous).

There's a shared nostalgia about pies that evokes an affection that seems at odds with pie consumption amongst #shortandtweet -ers (nobody confessed to a Gregg's habit or regular visits to a take-away). When discussing pies on Twitter it seems that a number of us hadn't baked or eaten them in years. None of us seems entirely sure why although I suspect that several of us had rarely baked them because of apprehensions about the fat content or the calories in combination with the perception that pastry is inconvenient and fiddly (Sustainable Table offers an overview of the history of pie and changing perceptions of it). So, I'm pleased that pastry's reputation has been redeemed by this effortless recipe for light cream cheese pastry. The pastry stores well in the fridge or freezer and it is easy to roll. This pastry means that it's easy to transform left-overs into a delectable pie which is a boon on any one of those evenings in the week when culinary ambitions were high, right up until the realisation that the journey home would take 3 hours rather than 90 mins or that somebody has the sort of homework that doesn't allow for attention to be split between a maths-averse child, a large knife and several burners. Now that #shortandtweet -ers have re-discovered the delight of pies some of us plan to include them in our repertoire of regular recipes and meals.

Claire, @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree, is leading the way to the domestic renaissance of the pie: she made all 5 of the pies despite some hiccups relating to the availability of ingredients in Johannesburg: Short and Tweet: Savoury Pies with Light Cream Cheese Pastry. Go and learn how she coped with the absence of some ingredients and substituted others; what her tips are and what won out in the overall taste stakes. Claire's summary is wholly positive: "It really is the perfect pie crust: quick to prepare, easy to roll, cooks to a nice crisp on top whilst being rich with pie juice underneath. I also found that the dough keeps well for up to two days in the fridge. If not eating in polite company, then it is lovely to break off chunks of pie crust with your fingers and use it to scoop up the succulent filling beneath".

@Misky of Misk Cooks provides a delightful report: Dan Lepard’s Chicken and Mushroom Pie with Light Cream Cheese Pastry–Short and Sweet Challenge. "I served Dan’s Chicken and Mushroom Pie for my 32nd wedding anniversary dinner. Now that’s a testament to how confident I am about the recipes in “Short and Sweet”. It never lets me down; never disappoints, even on an occasion like a wedding anniversary. Husband declared it delicious." I've included an image of how the dough looks after it's been kneaded smooth.

@Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog enjoyed her: Pie. @Mitchdafish offers good advice for anyone who doesn't have pie plates: "Decided to make the pies in cereal bowls as that is all I had, here are the snaps: The dough was a dream, no sticking or crumbling. Went brown. Tasted delish. Perfect".

@jerronimissus of Jerronimissus is gaining in confidence from week to week: Light cream cheese pastry for pie tops. Nicky declares, "This pastry is brilliant!": and, "Everyone thought it was really tasty (yes, including Little E who I promised could have left overs the next day as she was most put out I was having friends round for dinner and she wasn't joining us!) and it was an economical way to make a big tasting pie". Nip across and admire the cute pie funnel.

@tomasi_carla and zeb share a dislike of the soggy underside of a pastry lid (a strong reason as to why some people don't like pies, it seems). Nonetheless, intrigued by favourable reports of the pastry, Carla, opted to make up the pastry with her own tweaks (to make it flaky) and use it for a delightfully light pasty. I've Storifyed Carla's account of leek, mushroom, spinach & parmesan pasty.

@Zeb_Bakes of Zeb Bakes likewise tweaked the recipe to produce a Quark Felin Ganol pastry pie that sounded delightful (Felin Ganol is the mill that produced a flour with which @Zeb_Bakes is experimenting).

My pies will remain veiled in obscurity until I can wrangle the camera's memory card.

Overall, this pastry has been a substantial hit and may well become bakers' preferred pastry for savoury pies.

Next week's challenge recipes are just as comforting in a sweeter vein: choose one of the meringues on pg 445 (plain, Double chocolate or Lemon sherbert) which can be served plain or teamed with suitable available preserves (eg, chunky marmalade is a good contrast to the chocolate meringue shells); Apricot meringue tart pg 451; create your own sunshine in a jar by making easy lemon curd (pg 342) and assembling either the Lemon meringue sundae on pg 452 or Sue Lowenbein's suggestion on the same page for an ice-cream gâteau that uses similar ingredients (substituting crème fraîche for ice-cream).

If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 26 February or as soon thereafter as practical.

Schedule for the #shortandtweet March 2012 challenge.

It's apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn't always show everyone's tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I'll update this compilation.

This week's #shortandtweet Top tea cakes challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet (pp 88-9) gave a spicy Winter baking scent to our home and I daresay that of our immediate neighbours. I selected the Top tea cakes recipe because it's not something that I would ordinarily bake (and, as matters turned out, I didn't - not really). It seems that BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking felt likewise so was pleased that the challenge served as a push to getting round to it. The challenge write-up usefully details the substitutions, cutting the quantities to a third of the recipe and reflections on reducing the oven temperature because of the rapid browning of the sweet dough mix. It also seems that we think as one on the topic of mixed peel: ready-chopped from baking aisles = typically vile but chopping candied peel = very successful.

Carla Tomasi showed typical flair in baking this week's most stylish tea cakes. Apparently it is the 'mother' recipe, not the panettone variation that Dan Lepard suggests, but she baked it in "baby panettone cases because [she] doubled [the] recipe and needed vertical space". I'm not sure if there's an additional glazing on these tea cakes or if I'm seeing them through a craving-filtered lens of my own. Having seen Carla's I'd like to try these out with the panettone variation that Dan Lepard suggests for this recipe. Update: Twitter conversation reveals that there is a plain icing glaze on these stylish lovelies.

Tony Inga of Pane Artigiano called his write-up, Top Tea cakes, Top Recipe which pithily sums up the experience of most of us this week. There's a charming description and photo of the dough and it's with understandable pride that Tony declares: "they were absolutely delicious, the ingredients magically combining to produce a teacake with a depth of flavour which I had never experienced before".

Jo of Zeb Bakes ran out of time for a full write-up but kindly sent along some photographs and notes of her variations. Jo substituted "crystallised pineapple for the chopped peel and a few sultanas for the fruits and used cocoa butter which worked very well". I'd been wondering about cocoa butter as the 'white fat' so this is particularly helpful information. I like the lump sugar (that's probably not the correct term) that tops these tea cakes and would probably try and do that on the next bake. Update: Jo says that these are topped with pearl sugar (Dan Sukker) from Totally Swedish in London.

Good crumb shot (these are particularly useful in the write-ups to which I've linked and I'm rather envious of them).

The neighbours to whom we gave (most of) the tea cakes after the photographs actually clapped when they saw them. There's something about the glossy tops and warm fragrance of tea cakes that causes all and sundry to advise you to open a Tea Shop. Which would be very flattering except that I was the supervising (and occasionally intervening baker) this week, overseeing the household's baking novice who volunteered to bake this. A small misunderstanding meant that the dough had 250g of dried fruit and 50g of mixed peel (a shame as we're not lacking in jars of very chunky marmalade which is the suggested substitute for mixed peel). The tea cakes were baked in the gas oven and Mark 7 (verified by oven thermometer) seems to have been a little too fast for that oven as the dough browned very quickly despite some nimble shelf swapping (as with most yeast preparations, we didn't want to open the door for the first 10 mins but should probably have the trays on the shelves at the 7 minute mark rather than 10).