Edmond's Best of Baking

It is my great pleasure to be part of the Edmond's Best of Baking Blog Tour.  Edmonds is a rather iconic New Zealand name. Easy to use and sure to rise is the motto! Many of their recipes are on their website.

I grew up in a household of ten children in the 50's and 60's and baking was very important. From the time I was about eleven my sister next to me - Anne or I, baked every evening. Yes  99% of it was from an Edmond's cook book. Er...I think Anne did more baking than me, she says she did anyway and she just might be telling the truth.

There were many family favourites. Anne was always looking for a hiding place for the night's baking, our younger siblings assure me to this day there were no unfound hiding places! Anyway all seven girls can bake well, most cook well too but I am not among them! 

I am delighted to see Albert Squares on the cover of this book. It is a cake like slice and very yummy. I remember coming home from church on a Sunday and sitting down to morning tea with a piece of Albert Square, a hot cup of tea and the smell of the Sunday roast in the air. I still bake it every so often and decided to  bake it  for knitting night with my knitting buddies.

Afgans is another favourite and just last week I baked those to take to a 'farewell afternoon tea' a week ago.  Very scrumptious too.

Yesterday, Wednesday night I was hosting our knitting group, so I decided to bake two things from the book. Firstly Albert Squares, well because they are a favourite of mine! I set myself up with my iPad and a podcast on quilting with Pat Sloan and got ready to enjoy my morning. 

I had out two versions of the recipe, one from a previous Edmond's book. I was impressed by the more detailed instructions from the Best of Baking book.

With the Albert Squares in the oven I decided I was also going to try out the Date Loaf. This has walnuts in it as well - a very tasty combination.

Some of the loaves in previous books I've enjoyed but this one I hadn't tried. I dived right in.

Big mistake!  Oops! Soak some ingredients for an hour! What! My whole flow is broken. I never read the whole recipe through to start with. I should have done this before I started on the Albert Squares. Oh well any excuse for a cuppa and a short reading time with a great book. 

I didn't quite do the soak for an hour, but hopefully it won't be too much of a difference. The dates were soft anyway. And so in no time the date loaf was ready to go in the oven.

Of course I had to do some quality testing at afternoon tea time to make sure it was all good to go for the supper in the evening when my knitting buddies would turn up!

Mmm that date and walnut loaf tasted really good! I'd better take some of the Albert Square down to my 91 year old Dad. I am sure he'll like a bit of home baking.

EVERYTHING ELSE..

I'd like to thank Hachette NZ and Edmonds for the book and some of the Edmond's goodies that came with it.

Do visit some of the other blogs on the Edmond's tour - I have been entertained by their stories and drooled over their baking.

Check Out the International Giveaway.
Tall, Short & Tiny has a giveaway for the book.
Closes though on the 24th NZ time 8pm. Highly recommend you take a shot at it!

Blog Tour Posts

dorothy nada: June 20

Tall, Short & Tiny: June 21

The Bubbalino Kitchen, June 22

The Book Date, June 23

The Market: June 24

Planet Bake Life: June 27

The Little Housewife,  June 28