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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
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?
It's a cheesecake filling.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Shane Smith to write 'Loaf Tin Bakes'?
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.
What happens? What goes wrong when they sink in the middle?
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.
Has it anything to do with the oven?
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 3: What types of recipes can you find in 'Loaf Tin Bakes'?
So I always cut the cherries in half, sometimes even in quarter. They have this kind of a syrup that's on them, the glasshead cherries. So I always wash them in lukewarm water and dry them off. And then you just toss them in a little bit of flour and that helps to stop them from sinking.
But if your butter is a little bit soft for the initial part of the mix and your Madeira cake is a little bit looser in consistency, your cherries naturally will tend to sink.
So what I do is you can add a little bit more ground almonds in there or what you can do is put three quarters of the cherries into the mix, mix it around, keep some back and sprinkle those over the top just before you bake it. So if they do decide to kind of drop a little bit, they should be submerged in the middle. OK, that's very clever. It's a bit complicated, though, isn't it?
Those ones are. There's certain recipes that like there's a jam coconut sponge and it's literally all the ingredients into the bowl, mix it and bake it. But when you're kind of making additions, so if you're adding in the glass head cherries, for example, that is one that you just have to be a little bit careful about. And really, I always say it's a-okay to make mistakes.
It's all part of the fun. Like it's not open heart surgery, you know, where you're just baking at home. So if the cherries do sink to the middle or to the bottom, excuse me, then it's just, I suppose, what I'd like for people to do is have the knowledge of understanding why that happened and maybe changing something.
Because sometimes when I put chocolate chips into muffins or buns or whatever, they can sink as well.
To the bottom, yeah.
Yeah, that's very disappointing when that happens.
It is very. Well, again, it depends when you're slicing it. You get one layer of chocolate on the bottom. That can be down to either the chocolate chips can be sometimes a little bit too big and they can sink down. But again, if your initial cake batter is a little bit on the softer side, they will be more prone to sinking on the bottom.
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Chapter 4: How can beginners successfully bake with loaf tins?
Do you want to talk me through the strawberry one with the cream cheese?
So this is a very simple vanilla loaf cake. So your simple butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, flour, nothing in there, cupboard staples. But what I've done here, just to elevate it a little bit more, is once it's baked and I let it probably bake it the day before, I then take it and I scoop out the centre part.
Chapter 5: What common baking mistakes should you avoid?
I cut out a little bit in the middle and I fill that with a cheesecake filling. So there's silence.
Fine.
Keep talking.
I used delicious Clark strawberries that are in season now. Lovely Irish strawberries. And I've just mixed that with some full fat cream cheese.
Nevin's mad about the Clark strawberries now as well.
We love a Clark strawberry. They're very good. It's a Cavan thing maybe. I don't know. We're getting together on it. But yeah, cream cheese, icing sugar, a little bit of vanilla. So your basic components of a cheesecake and you're filling the centre of the loaf with that. So it's a little surprise when you slice it you have the centre of your loaf then as well.
So what do you do with the middle of the sponge that you took out?
That's comfort eating. That's...
I say put that into the fridge or the freezer but you can eat it as you're decorating the cake and I have lovely little McCormick's they're based in County Mead as well edible flowers and they just add such a lovely flourish of colour to the top of all your bakes as well they just take it a next step up I'm just surprised to hear you say that you bake this the first day and then you go back then and you do the scooping out and the decorating because I always thought that a cake like that you have to gobble it up the minute it comes out of the oven almost
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Chapter 6: How do you prevent ingredients from sinking in baked goods?
And that'll have it on it as well, or grease proof.
Invest in your liner.
Invest in your liner. Spend that extra 20 cent.
It's worth it. The book is out how long now?
Oh, I think about five weeks.
And it's doing really well for you?
Yeah, the response has been absolutely amazing. You always hope and dream that people will get behind it and get behind the concept. And they really have. I've been blown away. It was number one bestseller of the week that it was published, which was completely amazing.
blown my mind but it's been a fun couple of weeks travelling around meeting loads of people and I've always said this when someone sends me a picture online of a bake that they've made there's nothing more humbling than that it's just lovely.
But I think it's because it is so accessible you know if you think of a loaf tin you think I can probably manage to do
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