History Bakers: Miss E. Colbridge’s Almond Slice (The Great British Bake Off – Week 4 – Back To School)

History Bakers: Miss E. Colbridge’s Almond Slice (The Great British Bake Off – Week 4 – Back To School)

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off this year staff at the History Centre have decided to gather historic recipes and try them out. This week’s category was Back To School. I decided to interpret ‘Back To School’ quite literally as my own return to baking after a long period of not baking regularly. This blog focuses on my relationship with baking and the first historic recipe I made for the return of History Bakers.

I did a reasonable amount of baking at school as Food Technology was a mandatory subject up to GCSE level and I chose to study it for GCSE too, though admittedly only because we had to choose a technology option. After leaving school, I did little-to-no baking in my shared student kitchens and just as little baking when I was living with my mum over the Summer. I only really returned to baking when I moved in with my current partner who is an excellent, though sporadic and frenetic baker. 

Immediately before I started working at the History Centre I had two jobs, one of which was packaging Yorkshire puddings at the Aunt Bessies factory on Freightliner Road and the other was working as a barista at Hangout, a small bakery and cafe on High Street. I was not really trusted to do any baking in my first year of working there—I was barely trusted to make coffees—but I did get to observe some very talented bakers making some very tasty food: fresh bread, blondies and brownies, cakes, pasties, and the like. Over time I was gradually given a few more baking responsibilities, but I left that job after being moved to a location in the newly refurbished House of Hammonds, which had none of the charms of the little bakery on High Street.

Some years ago, I must have gotten it into my head that baking is overly difficult or not worth the effort, especially when you can buy tasty ready-made baked goods from most decent shops. I won’t pretend that baking is easy, though it really can be sometimes, but it is definitely rewarding and the food is generally so much nicer than anything you can buy in a normal shop for a reasonable price.

Since I started working at the History Centre and long before we brought History Bakers back, a number of staff have brought in delicious food for everyone to try, food that they took the time to bake by hand—Kirstie's brownies and Laurel’s cheesy sausage rolls come to mind. I thought this was such a lovely gesture and one that I have not experienced very often in previous workplaces. Now I have it in my head that learning to bake is also learning to give, because it is difficult to imagine somebody baking a whole pie or a loaf of bread just for their own use. I think that in the absence of a commercial incentive, practically everybody would be baking with little more in mind than the idea of creating something nice and sharing it with people they like.

Image: Miss E. Colbridge’s Almond Slice recipe, C DCE/848/9

Almond Slice

I chose to make an Almond Slice, which I found amongst The Records of the Hull (East) Circuit of the Methodist Church under the reference C DCE/848/9—Kingston Wesley Church souvenir recipe book, 1962. I feel slightly guilty about choosing such a recent recipe from a collection that stretches back to 1810, but I wanted to choose something with simple instructions and relatively few ingredients—and which sounded tasty. We have Miss E. Colbridge to thank for this recipe, so on the off chance you can get word to her, please offer our thanks.

Below you will see a list of all the ingredients and a photograph of most of the ingredients—I forgot to include sugar in the photograph but thankfully remembered to add it to the recipe. I used roughly twice the amount of ingredients listed below to make sure there was enough to go around.

Image: Ingredients used in the recipe(minus 
the sugar)

After I had changed the measurements from imperial to metric, I noticed that the pastry needed egg yolk and the filling required egg white, so I separated two eggs and measured out the rest of the ingredients. To the egg yolks, I added the flour and the margarine and then mixed this all together. The result was too powdery for my liking, so I separated a third egg and mixed the yolk into the pastry, which finally gave it a texture I was happy with. I spread the pastry on the bottom of the dish at roughly half an inch of thickness.

Once I had evenly spread out the pastry with the back of a large spoon, I turned the oven to 180 degrees and began making the filling. I added the icing sugar and ground almonds to the egg whites and mixed them all together with a whisk. When I was happy with the consistency of this mixture, I set it aside and spread a thin layer of raspberry jam over the pastry using a tablespoon. Next, I slowly poured the filling on top and tilted the dish gently from side to side like one of those handheld marble maze games.

 

With the filling evenly spread out, it was time for the final touch, split almonds. My interpretation of split almonds was to chop a bunch of whole almonds up into roughly three pieces per almond and liberally sprinkle the results over the dish. This ultimately made it quite crunchy and difficult to slice up. My partner suggested that what was meant by split almonds is what she calls ‘flaked almonds,’ she also suggested toasting the almonds before I use them as a topping next time. 

Image: Ready to bake ingredients.

I put the result into the oven for 30 minutes, and after checking it over, decided it could do with another 10 minutes. 

Image: The finished Almond cake ready for slicing.

Reviews

Household:

Dilara – “That was nice. Gooey and crunchy, good combo.”

Gemma – “Nice and gooey and the almonds on top add a nice crunch.”

Sofya – “These are really good. Crunchy but also gooey.”

Staff:

Sarah – “Nicely almond-y with just enough jam. Lovely!”

Laurel – “Lovely – would make myself. Sweet, tasty + almond-y.”

Kyle – “Very tasty, the chopped almonds are a little too chunky for me but the raspberry jam is very nice.”

Caoimhe – “Delicious! Right ratio of jam to almonds.”

Nick – “Very tasty.”

Graham – “Very tasty, moist, recommended! Reminds me of my youth 😊”

I must admit I was surprised by how well it came out and how well it was received as I have not baked anything from scratch for a long time. The flavour reminded me of an old-school raspberry jam tart with almond flavourings. I plan to make it again as it was relatively simple and very tasty, and because I can’t think of what else to do with the rest of the ground almonds.