Food book: 'Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding', by Justin Gellatly - need we say more?
Susan Jung
My husband doesn't often mention new cookbooks to me, because he thinks that if he does, I'll run out and buy them (he's right), and that I have too many already (he's wrong).
So when he said that the Bread Ahead bakery, in London's Borough Market, made great doughnuts, and added that the chef had a cookbook out, I knew it had to be for a reason: he wants me to bake from it.
Being an obliging wife, I took the hint and bought the book.
Although I haven't yet made anything from it, I know the first recipe I'll try will be one of those given for doughnuts. They all use the same basic dough, but when it comes to the filling, my husband would vote for crème chantilly while I'd prefer a classic crème patissiere. The caramel custard with salted honeycomb sprinkle sounds like something we'd both love.
Justin Gellatly was the pastry chef at St John restaurant in London before he and a partner opened Bread Ahead, where they also run a baking school. In the introduction to the cookbook, he writes that "Bread Ahead stands for British baking", and, indeed, has a very British air to it, with a few nods to France, Italy and other parts of Europe.
There are recipes for pikelets, lardy cake, sausage rolls, scones, hot cross buns, croquembouche, mince pies, rum baba and bread pudding with butterscotch sauce.
