The Art of Baking Blind

by Sarah Vaughan

  ‘I’m afraid building up your baby is your work now.’

  She must have looked crestfallen for he softened.

  ‘You can write from your bed but no baking. No getting up and going down to the kitchen, or even sitting at a desk. You must remain propped up in your bed or largely supine. Your baby’s health comes first.’

  She had smiled at that. She had long since stopped viewing herself as an individual, as someone whose needs should be considered while she got on with the vital work of carrying a baby. She was a vessel whose sole role was to nurture a new life. And she was happy with that. What could be more important than keeping a child safe, especially an unborn one? Nothing was more important, or, for her, it seemed, more difficult.

  Still, she was going to write. Propped against four pillows, her notepad perched on her knees, she honed her descriptions of succulent pies and the lightest of pastries. Mrs Jennings helped: baking to her instructions and bringing the results straight up to the bedroom to discuss pitfalls.

  ‘You should be my co-author,’ she had half joked as they sampled quiche.

  Mrs Jennings had been flattered but dismissive. ‘Oh, my dear’ – she had finally stopped calling her Mrs Eaden, at Kathleen’s insistence – ‘I don’t have your way with words.’

  So the time passed. And, of course, she had visitors. Charlie popped by, incongruous and embarrassed in his sister’s bedroom; and Mary came with the children, who brought home-made butter biscuits, painstakingly written cards, and – in Susan’s case – her favourite cuddly toy.

  During their visits, staying in bed was bearable – even, occasionally, enjoyable when Susan curled alongside her, badgering her for a story; or James perched on the end of the bed and, legs swinging, lined up his latest Matchbox treasures. They improvised an assault course in which the cars raced up and over her legs, in and out of the slippery folds of the eiderdown. Briefly, her bedroom pulsed with childish laughter.

  Still, perhaps she had done too much.

  Eight weeks later, she had woken to find her thighs drenched in blood, the white cotton sheets bowed under the weight of a crimson puddle. Her womb tightened then throbbed.

  For long, slow seconds shock muted her cry. When she finally wept, the sound was alien. Primeval.

  She had not known that was the true sound of grief.

  Pies & Pastries

  It is often said that pastry is the test of a good cook. For, while the ingredients – flour, fat, air, an egg yolk or water to bind – could not be simpler, the baker must practise to acquire the desired lightness of touch.

  As in all areas of baking, there are rules to follow; and, here, I may seem more exacting than most. For the basic principles – handling as little as possible; resting between rollings and before baking – are absolutely crucial if you are to attain perfection.

  Nowhere is this more evident than when baking blind: a technique that ensures you may pull off the seemingly impossible: a delicately cooked filling surrounded by a crisp pastry case. A leap of faith is required – for you will not know if the pastry is soggy before you release it from the tin – and careful attention to detail. But, get it right, and you will have achieved a culinary Holy Grail.

  Having mastered this trick, the clever housewife can produce such treats as crème pâtissière-filled French tartlets and tarte au citron, or reinvent British classics. Try creating a crisp-bottomed treacle tart or using home-made egg custard in a feather-light custard pie.

  Of course, you may prefer to bake savoury pies: the ultimate comfort food for a hard-working husband or a gaggle of hungry children. Steak and kidney; chicken and mushroom; rabbit with bacon, cider and cream. There can be no more loving way to greet your family on a cold winter’s night; no better meal after a vigorous walk in the country. Just the smell of the buttery shortcrust and succulent meat as they come back home will remind your loved ones of just how much they are adored.

  For a lighter meal, a spring luncheon perhaps, try a French savoury tart. Or save your pastry for the pudding and delight your family with a Bramley apple pie, the fruit fluffy and coated with cinnamon, or the ultimate in sophistication – a lemon meringue pie.

  Pastry is unforgiving: no other area of baking is as good a test of your skill. But persevere and you are guaranteed to thrill.

  Kathleen Eaden: The Art of Baking (1966)

  22

  When making quiche, try to marry flavours and colours that will create an exquisite picture. This is food for women: almost too beautiful to devour. Though quiche can be hearty, my favourite are savoury tartlets: rich with eggs and double cream but sufficiently small to be delicate. You may wish to guzzle large quantities of pastry but moderation is sometimes called for.

  Mid-April, and spring has sprung with vigour, determined to spurn the threat of frost that lingers, jubilant at having survived the ‘big freeze’. Primroses carpet the ground: gold and white crocuses thrust up, their buds bursting open. Bluebells burst through a soft palette of white, yellow and green.

  In the competition kitchen, Karen gathers together ingredients for a quiche and watches as Dan ambles towards her.

  ‘Not for real men,’ he quips, gesturing at the recipe.

  She had forgotten his wit could be so pedestrian. Not like Oliver’s, she thinks.

  ‘So, how’s your pastry been going?’ He seems gratifyingly reluctant to leave.

  ‘Fine. Though I’m in need of running it off.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it. Ten K tonight, after a two-pie challenge?’

  ‘If you’re sure you’re up to it?’

  ‘Oh, I’m up for it.’ He grins, and his eyes flicker over her body.

  She rewards him with the rare brilliance of a true smile.

  * * *

  ‘The quiche, or savoury tart, was something that Kathleen Eaden championed,’ explains Harriet. ‘She had eaten it in Paris in the fifties and had loved its simplicity. Served with a well-dressed green salad it was far lighter than the standard diet of meat and two veg she had grown up on in Britain. It took a while for Eaden’s to stock them but Mrs Eaden introduces a recipe in her The Art of Baking. Not the smoked salmon and watercress she loved – that would have been a step too far for customers – but a hearty bacon and onion one that was her take on a quiche Lorraine and that she hoped would be palatable for husbands. And she served exquisite savoury tartlets at her lunches for her girlfriends or as starters at the more relaxed of her dinner parties.’

  ‘We want you to take Kathleen Eaden’s basic recipe as your inspiration and show us what you’re capable of,’ Dan takes over. ‘Salmon and watercress; quiche Lorraine; or perhaps a purely vegetarian option?

  ‘We want to assess your skill at blind baking. Can you give us a crisp case that’s perfectly coloured before adding your filling? We don’t want pale, insipid pastry – but neither should it be browned beyond golden. We want a sumptuous filling that doesn’t leak and we’d like you to aspire to prettiness. Kathleen Eaden was famed for her exquisite use of colour: tiny broccoli florets with flaked salmon; beetroot with white goat’s cheese; sliced tomatoes with courgettes; even butternut squash with Stilton. We’d like you to be equally artistic and innovative.’

  At the front of the kitchen, Jenny works swiftly: poaching salmon and sautéing shallots for her filling, then beating together eggs and cream. Blind baking should be the means of acquiring a perfect pastry case, she muses. A technique for ensuring the pastry remains crisp and lightly golden; as delicate as the food it holds inside. Yet so much can go wrong. The pastry can bubble up or shrink away from the sides; the filling can seep through the fork pricks; one baker’s light golden is another’s undercooked. Despite the best of intentions, it doesn’t always lead to perfection. If she fails to concentrate, it can be as unpredictable as the rest of life.

  Which leads her to Nigel. The Paris marathon is tomorrow and the past week has seen them live increasingly separate lives: Jenny more than matching his running hours with hours labouring
over pastry and pies.

  A phoney war has been played out in their family home: both fortifying their trenches; neither prepared to throw the first grenade to blow apart their marital limbo. Neither has mentioned Gabby or where he disappeared for ten hours on Easter Sunday. It had been a relief when he set off for Paris four days later.

  Like the good wife that she is, though, she is conditioned to be supportive. And so she had sent a text message this morning: a cheery greeting for the day before the race; a good luck message. There has been no reply.

  She still feels guilt at not being there to cheer him over the finishing line, and doubt: would Paris in the springtime have been the setting for some sort of reconciliation? She doesn’t think so but hates to feel she has not seized every opportunity. They have not made love since December. Did the affair with Gabby start after this, or beforehand? Was it at the Gibsons’ Christmas Eve party? Or was he briefly screwing – she winces at the word – them both?

  She beats her cream and egg savagely, air bubbles forming then bursting. Was that last, unsatisfactory, coupling spawned of duty or pity? Did it just confirm their incompatibility – both sexual and non-sexual – and send him hurtling back into Gabby’s arms?

  She has a sudden memory of a hazy afternoon in a cornfield, the wheat crushed by their bodies, stalks scratching her bare skin. Her body was firm and peachy, not yet irrevocably altered by childbirth, and she had a confidence, born of pride at working on a children’s ward in a large hospital and knowing she was making a difference. Nigel, young and eager, was clearly smitten. Bathed in stultifying July sunshine, she had watched him trace the curve of her breast with his lips then bite her nipple. She shivers as if savouring such pleasure. Such memories belong to a different time.

  The timer pings: high-pitched and insistent, and she brings her tart case out of the oven. It’s too pale; it needs a minute longer. She brushes it with egg wash before putting it back in again. She focuses; readjusts the timer; reassembles her ingredients to make more pastry. Just in case her blind baking fails.

  To the side of her, Vicki has no such worries. Her quiche Lorraine is to be a masterpiece for she has practised this recipe three times and is fired by the certainty that she is too well-prepared to fail.

  ‘There’s quite a lot of your mum in you, you know,’ Greg had commented as he had consumed the third quiche the previous evening.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she had snapped, though she guessed the answer.

  ‘Well, your perfectionism; your determination; your clear-sightedness. Your teacherly love of preparation. When you want something, you really go for it.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

  ‘Well, you went for me, didn’t you?’ He had grinned through a mouthful of crumbling pastry.

  Then, more seriously: ‘They can be good qualities, yes. They can make you bloody annoying – but they could also make you win this competition. They’ll make you go far.’

  Claire, however, shares none of her focus. Indeed, she is distracted by the figure of Karen, standing straight in front of her. Dan appears to have been taking an excessive interest in her technique, questioning if the pastry case is sufficiently golden, suggesting she brush it with egg white.

  She tells herself to concentrate but his behaviour smarts like a thorn from a bramble, jabbing into soft flesh, marring blackberry’s fun. I am envious of her, she realises. Of her confidence. She would have known how to behave with Jay. She would have used him – not broken away, confused and embarrassingly tearful. And she would have had him begging for more.

  * * *

  At the coffee break, after Karen has presented her winning smoked mackerel and horseradish quiche, garnished with pea shoots and a side salad of baby spinach and watercress, Claire’s sense of inadequacy threatens to overwhelm her.

  Seeking distraction, she finds Vicki and Mike.

  ‘Didn’t you see them?’

  Mike is nonplussed; Vicki intrigued.

  ‘Who? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Dan and Karen. He’s helping her. I’m sure he is. Advising her on how long she should cook the pastry; suggesting she uses egg white not yolk; hinting she should check the oven.’

  ‘How do you know all this? Weren’t you busy with your own quiche?’ Mike is bemused. ‘I didn’t notice anything. Too busy keeping my head down.’

  ‘I thought he was chatting to her quite a lot – but he always does.’ Vicki is pensive. ‘He always seems quite drawn to her but he can’t help her cheat, can he? What’s in it for him?’

  Claire raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh … no…’ Vicki gives a nervous giggle, excited by the prospect of salacious gossip.

  Mike moves off to read a paper, raising his eyes in disbelief.

  ‘There’s something going on,’ Claire continues. She needs to open up to someone and Vicki, the closest to her in age and the most approachable despite being a bit of a posh girl, seems the most likely confidante.

  ‘How do you know?’ Vicki is intrigued.

  ‘They went for a run together on our last weekend here, and there was some pretty heavy flirting going on.’

  Vicki snorts with laughter.

  ‘I know it’s none of our business but I can’t help being a bit jealous. Not at the thought of flirting with Dan Keller, just of having the confidence to do that. I could never do it.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Really?’ Claire is surprised. She had assumed Vicki, resolutely middle-class, determined, focused, beautiful, the clear star of the Eaden’s Monthly feature as she sees it, could do anything she put her mind to.

  ‘God, no. I’m hopeless. I’m all right standing in front of a class of little kids – though sometimes I have to psyche myself up for that – but I’ve been terrified in this competition. And I certainly wouldn’t dream of joking – let alone flirting – with a judge. I just don’t have the self-confidence. The mere thought of doing anything spontaneous, anything risky like that, freaks me out completely. When it comes to them, I really have to steel myself to speak.’

  Claire feels stunned.

  ‘I just assumed – you just seem – so together. I mean, apart from the Victoria sponge…’

  ‘What a disaster!’ Vicki laughs. ‘I suppose I’m quite good at putting on an act. Teaching forces you to do that. But you try being at home with a small child who doesn’t do anything you say all day. That soon saps the confidence out of you. Oh … I’m sorry. Perhaps you experienced that with Chloe?’

  ‘Not really. She was always a really good little girl – still is.’

  ‘Lucky you! Well, that’s a testament to your good parenting. Perhaps that’s why you always seem strong.’

  ‘Who, me?’

  ‘Yes, you. Just look at what you’ve achieved.’

  Claire gives a laugh, embarrassed and incredulous.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Bringing up a child on your own. From what – eighteen? Such a young age.’

  ‘I just had to get on with it. That’s life, isn’t it? And I had my mum’s support.’

  ‘But not your partner’s, from what you said?’

  ‘Well, no. He was worse than useless.’ She wonders whether she should open up to Vicki. ‘Still sniffing around a bit, to be honest. Don’t know if I should give it another go.’

  ‘Oh, Claire, you mustn’t.’ Vicki looks horrified. ‘I know it’s none of my business but I really wouldn’t. I always think you have to leave bad mistakes behind and not be held back by them. Just try to move on. Onwards and upwards. Not that I’m very good at it, myself.’

  For a moment, she looks sad as if remembering a particular incident. Then she gives herself a little shake and looks kindly at Claire.

  ‘Going back to what I said about you achieving so much, I don’t think I could have coped with being a teenage mum. Well, no, I know I couldn’t. I was still a child myself: far too emotionally needy, far too angry with my own mum, far too immature to have been res
ponsible for anyone but me.’

  Claire looks at her in surprise. The conversation has taken a shift, and Vicki sounds as if she might be speaking from experience.

  For a moment, she looks as if she is about to launch into a confession. Then she smiles.

  ‘We’d better get back. They’ll be starting without us.’

  And the moment is gone.

  Kathleen

  She is back in James Caruthers’ consulting rooms, George beside her, as the gynaecologist details his treatment plan.

  The day before she had undergone yet another internal examination under general anaesthetic and this time the doctor had inserted metal dilators inside her to assess what he persists in calling the competence of her cervix. She suspects she is incompetent.

  Thankfully, he comes straight to the point.

  ‘As we suspected, there was no resistance before insertion of a Hagar 8 dilator and that leads me to diagnose incompetence of the cervix.’

  ‘And that means, doctor?’ George, a man who fought as a teenager in the war and commands silence in the boardroom, looks petrified at the diagnosis.

  ‘It means Mrs Eaden’s cervix is abnormally weak. It dilates – opens up – before the baby reaches full term which accounts for the habitual abortion.’

  She wishes he would not keep using that term.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Her voice is controlled though her insides plummet.

  ‘Well, yes. A fairly modern, and, because of its novelty, somewhat controversial technique: the McDonald suture.’

  The doctor looks more animated than she has ever seen. ‘We can insert a stitch at the neck of the cervix, seven or eight weeks into the next pregnancy and then remove it once baby has reached an age at which it can be born – at around thirty-six weeks.’

  ‘And will it work?’ She surprises herself with her scepticism but this third loss has made her harder, as if the kernel of hope she had managed to nurture throughout this last pregnancy has shrivelled and turned into dust.