Shane Smith, Chef and Author of ‘Loaf Tin Bakes’

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The Claire Byrne Show 10 min 3 speakers 6 chapters transcribed 3 months ago

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Claire Byrne 0:01

The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.

Unknown 0:09

I'm totally distracted because all I can smell is the wonderful cake that Shane Smith has brought in. I have strawberry and chocolate. I have honeycomb on top of the chocolate. There's fresh cream. Is that fresh cream, Shane?

Shane Smith 0:22

It's a cheesecake filling.

Unknown 0:24

Listen, it's just divine. I can't look at you. I've got to look at the cake. So please forgive me. It's fabulous. This is from your new book. It's called Loaf Tin Bakes, which I love because Loaf Tin Bakes as a title makes us all feel like we can do this.

Shane Smith 0:39

There was lots of names being thrown around and we were thinking of it. Live, laugh, loaf, all of these. But we decided at the end to keep it simple and go with loaf tin bakes. But again, that's the whole idea behind the book. It's family focused. It's fuss free. And hopefully, well, people have been responding great to it, but it's easy. And again, I always laugh. My brother does always ring me in a panic. Like there's a bake sale on tomorrow. The kids literally told me, what can I do? So it's like easy recipes like that that you can throw together.

Unknown 1:01

Yeah, and I think when you hear loaf tin, you do believe that you can do it. But you're doing, you have everything in the book from the really simple sort of lemon drizzle all the way up through to the fancy stuff.

Shane Smith 1:12

Yeah, if you want to, again, that's why if it's for seasoned bakers and you want to push yourself a little bit more, just like this little loaf here that we have here, it's a cheesecake loaf. So if you want to have a plain vanilla loaf, that's perfect.

What inspired Shane Smith to write 'Loaf Tin Bakes'?

Shane Smith 1:20

But if you want to go one step further... And we kind of scoop out the middle and I fill that with a lovely strawberry cheesecake filling. So there's there's bakes there for everyone, as I said, simple kind of porridge breads up to chocolate babka loaves, you know. So, again, if you want to push yourself and do more of a weekend bake, hopefully there's something in there for everybody.

Unknown 1:34

What happens? What goes wrong when they sink in the middle?

Shane Smith 1:37

Okay, so it's so funny. There's many questions, I guess. That is one of them. Why do my cherries sink in the Madeira cake? And do you know Neville McGuire? They're the three top ones I always get asked. So the sinking in the middle really comes down to either overmixing initially, getting too much air in there. So you've created such a light sponge that it kind of collapses in on itself and also having too much raising agent. Again, that it rises too fast. It becomes a little bit unstable and then it dips in the middle. It's still going to taste fine, but you might just have to put in a little bit of an extra. That's where the toppings come in handy, whether it's cream and fruit. You can kind of hide that little dip in the middle, yeah.

Unknown 2:11

Has it anything to do with the oven?

Shane Smith 2:13

Oven, yes. So again, if your oven temperature is too hot, then your cake can kind of rise too fast initially and then it can kind of dip down and sink in the middle as well. If you open your oven door midway through baking, then that's going to allow hot air out, cold air goes in and then your cake does dip in the middle. So you're always better to pop it in and just forget about it.

Unknown 2:32

Okay. And you can use the light, of course, to check whether the top... But you do feel sometimes, well, if I gave that, if I turned that around now, it would be in a more even bake.

Shane Smith 2:39

Yes, exactly. I kind of find with some ovens, if it's a gas oven especially, there can be hot spots in the oven. So sometimes you'll figure out, oh, the back right-hand corner tends to brown a little bit more. So if your cake takes about 35, 40 minutes to bake, you can open the oven about five minutes before or so it's due to come out, and then you can do a little bit of turning at that point, just so the structure of the loaf will hold together, that it won't dip in the middle on you, but definitely not within the first 10, 15 minutes.

Unknown 3:01

You better answer that question about the cherries in the Madeira.

Shane Smith 3:04

And I do know Nevin as well.

Unknown 3:05

You know Nevin, right, that's confirmed.