Short and Tweet Challenge

Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet is tempting more people to explore the rich world of home baking, whether as absolute beginners or experienced bakers who are always on the look-out for tips to improve their skills.

A number of us have been enthusing about the book so it seemed logical that at some point we’d want to bake the same recipe and compare notes and experiences (whether by Twitter or on a blog). So, after asking Dan Lepard’s permission, we now have #shortandtweet - a Twitter weekly bake-in of an agreed recipe. We’re very fortunate that Dan Lepard agreed and ask people not to reproduce or share the recipe.

Overall this is an opportunity to bake a recipe and see what others did with it. Seeing other people’s attempts might either leave some of us feeling quietly satisfied with our performance or determined to see if we can improve. I will admit upfront that I am a very poor photographer with no instinctive grasp of picture composition or lighting and I’m pleased to be prompted to do something about this. 

We’re just experimenting with the format at present but this is what we have in mind:

  • Theselected #shortandtweet recipe will be tweeted on Tuesday and announced here: the recipe is available in Dan Lepard’s  Short & Sweet.
  • Participation is as you wish and will depend on your interest in the suggested recipe and whether you have time or enough family and friends to accept your goods.
  • Please post a picture of your bread/cake/biscuits/sweeties to Twitter with the hashtag #shortandtweet by 8pm on Sunday.
  • If you have a blog and write up your experience, similarly hashtag a tweet with the picture and your URL (NB, as above, we won’t include posts that reproduce the recipe) and tweet it by 8pm on Sunday.
  • I’ll compile a post of the photographs and links and post it on Monday.

For this week, I suggest we bake the Chocolate and Almond Fudge Cake on pg 142 as I’m curious about the texture of a cake with oatmeal and ground almonds.  

Good luck, good baking and please tweet your efforts on #shortandtweet

Update: some of you had interesting anniversaries and other events that claimed your oven time so the chocolate and almond fudge cake challenge has been extended to Sunday 30 October. A proposed 4 week schedule of bakes shall be posted separately to enable people to pick and choose the items in which they’re interested and organise their shopping lists.