Great children’s books author bake off!

There's something of a glut of books with a central theme of baking around at the moment, so we thought we'd organise our very own bake off gallery – including mouthwatering photographs, notes and recipes from the authors involved. Which one gets your vote?
  
  


Bake off: Katy's lemon pie
Katy Cannon: Check out this Lemon Pie! It's from the recipe at the heart of my debut YA novel, Love, Lies and Lemon Pies. It's the recipe the Bake Club gang have to make in the big competition, the one that really brings them all together for the first time. At the launch party for the book, the bakery providing the catering actually followed my recipes from my book, and towards the end of the event – after speeches and toasts – I cut into the Lemon Pie at the centre of the table, almost like it was a wedding! Seeing my recipes, professionally baked, and all my friends and family enjoying them - I think that was the moment the book finally felt properly real to me. Photograph: Katy Cannon
Bake off: Katy's lemon pie 2
Katy Cannon: This is a picture of me actually cutting my lemon pie at the launch party of my book Love, Lies and Lemon Pies. It tasted absolutely delicious! Photograph: Katy Cannon
bake off: Lemon pie recipe
Katy Cannon: After all those tempting photographs I'm guessing you might want the recipe for my Lemon Pie? Well, your wish is my command. Here it is! It's just so delicious! Photograph: Katy Cannon
Bake off: Katy's brownies
Katy Cannon: Mac's Chocolate Chip Brownies in my book Love, Lies and Lemon Pies are a variation of the brownies I've been making for the last ten years or more. I used to bake them to bribe my boss into letting me come in late, or because it was someone's birthday, or just because I needed cheering up. They were the first thing I ever baked with my daughter, and she's been nagging me all week to make up a batch this weekend! The scent of brownies baking always smells like home to me. Photograph: Katy Cannon
bake off: chocolate brownie
Katy Cannon: and here's how to make them! Absolutely delicious I guarantee. Be careful not to overcook when I say gooey, I mean gooey. Photograph: Katy Cannon
bake off: Sarah baking apple tart
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald: One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother’s hands rolling out pastry dough on a floured surface. When you’re very small, cooking happens at eye level. That close up view has had a lifelong impact on me, and because of it, baking conjures up sweet memories of companionship and security. A giant jar always sat on the shelf in my nan’s kitchen. It had blue and white stripes and FLOUR printed on the outside. Such a plain, ordinary substance – capable of creating great wonders of deliciousness. When I was little, I thought that jar was magic. My new novel, The Apple Tart of Hope was inspired by the alchemy and the comfort that I’ve always associated with baking. In my novel, Oscar Dunleavy’s instructions for apple tart contain echoes of some of the things I learned from my grandmother. Photograph: Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Bake off: Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald: Here are a few more secrets that can make a difference: Grate your butter. This allows you to keep it very cold and still be able to mingle it quickly with the flour – which I think may be one of the key success factors when it comes to perfect pastry. Oh, and by the way, just in case there’s anyone out there who thinks that any form of butter substitute will work: it won’t. Honestly, don’t even think about it. No good pastry has ever been made in a hurry. Put on some music. Turn off the phone. Breathe deeply. Done properly, pastry kneading in particular has a calm, meditative karma about it. If you have a choice between brown and white sugar, I’d always go for brown. Oscar recommends freshly ground cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. But you could of course go completely crazy and throw in a pinch of ground clove, which will bring an additional Zanzibarian hint to the whole affair. Photograph: Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
bake off: Apple Tart of Hope
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald: Of course, you don’t have to follow any of this advice – you can create and discover your own secrets. Whatever recipe you choose, the main thing is to have a go. You’ll develop your own particular form of baking confidence that will astonish you. It might bring siblings out of their rooms and get them sitting at the table; it could start new conversations that might otherwise never have happened; it might cheer someone up just when they need it most. And in years to come, maybe your apple tarts will become the stuff of your own family’s legends. Photograph: Orion
bake off: Cathryn Dresser
Cathryn Dresser: Hello. You may have seen me in the TV programme The Great British Bake Off. I love baking with my children and they truly love it too, so creating a baking book especially for children, that they will really be able to get stuck into has been the most perfect and exciting opportunity. So that's why I have created Let’s Bake!, a collection of tasty recipes that were created with huge amounts of love for all budding little bakers to try and have fun with! Photograph: Kate Christer/Orion
bake off: Cat Dresser Honey
Cathryn Dresser: These honey bee biscuits were always popular as my family and I love honey, but they really became a firm favourite from the book whilst doing the photo-shoot. My two gorgeous peanuts came along to help out with some of the recipes and photographs, as did some of their friends. We all had so much fun making and eating these biscuits along with their little fondant bumblebee adornments - this really encapsulated exactly how I wanted the book to feel and what I want it to do! This recipe is taken from Cathryn Dresser's book Let's Bake. Photograph: Cathryn Dresser
bake off: Cat Dresser
Catherine Dresser: This recipe for White Rabbit cake is probably my favourite in the book; it is a genuine crowd pleaser! It is simple to make, fun to decorate and most importantly; delicious to eat! It makes the most wonderful bake for Easter time, but similarly it is the perfect recipe for a Tea Party (Mad Hatter’s ideally)! It is simply a playful tasty twist on a regular carrot cake, the white chocolate and sour cream frosting is the perfect slightly tangy yet sweet accompaniment to the soft spiced carrot cake…yummy! This recipe is taken from Cathryn Dresser's book Let's Bake. Photograph: Cathryn Dresser
bake off: Cathryn Dresser Let's bake
Cathryn Dresser: There are 52 recipes in my book – one for each week of the year, and the book is divided into the fabulous four seasons, so there are some things that may be perfect to bake on a cold winter’s day, or to create for a special festivity. There are all kinds or bakes within these chapters, some sweet, some savoury, some super simple and some a little more tricky. You will find that there are some classic recipes- shortbread, scones and brownies for instance, but then there are recipes for things you won’t have baked before, but will want to bake time and again. One of the greatest things about the book is that there are step-by-step instructions and photographs for all of the recipes plus tricky bits explained, so for example; you will know if your mixture is looking right or whether you’ve kneaded your bread dough quite enough. I hope, whole heartedly, that my book encourages much kitchen merriment. Photograph: Orion
bake off: Ellie Simmonds
Paralympian gold medalist Ellie Simmonds OBE revealed her baking talents on The Great Comic Relief Bake-off last year. Ellie is also the author of the Ellie's Magical Bakery: Best Cake for a Best friend about a girl who receives a special cookery book where the recipes magically on the page, find out more here. Seen here on the right plate are Ellie's classic cupcakes: I like to experiment with the icing colours and decoration and for these cupcakes I have gone for a garden theme with pink and green icing for flowers and grass, a to try! Check out Ellie's recipe for a Best Cake for a Best Friend the next slide! Photograph: Ellie Simmonds
bake off: Ellie recipe
Ellie Simmonds on her Best Cake for a Best Friend recipe: this is a classic recipe and so tasty – it’s a great one for sharing with your best friend. Thanks for sharing Ellie! Photograph: Ellie Simmonds
 

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