Launching our new baking sheet

At the Ludlow Food Festival in September (2017), we met up again with Val Stones, a star of the 2016 Great British Bake off series and well on her way to becoming a national treasure.

Val has more energy than most hyperactive 5 year olds and as well as all her fantastic baking, she devotes a great deal of time to charity fund raising.  As I write this, she has just come back from walking an arduous section of the Great Wall of China in aid of NSPCC and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust

She posted some wonderful clips on her Instagram feed, please take the time to go and have a look.

But back to Ludlow.... we had a chat about a product that Val wanted and couldn't find; a decent, heavy duty baking sheet with a sensible lip at the front to help lift it our of the oven.
Never one to shy away from a challenge, our creative genius knocked up a sketch, confirmed that it was what she had in mind and hey presto, a new product is added to the range.
The prototype went to Val, after a brief sojourn in the Netherton kitchen to put it to the test.

                                    

I made a batch of shortbread biscuits, which lasted as long as snowfall in summer and Val did a more rigorous like for like test, baking scones on her old baking sheet and her new Netherton one.  you can see her results on Instagram.

Delighted to report that the Netherton baking sheet passed with flying colours - send the creative genius to the top of the class and give him a gold star.

The heavy duty baking sheet is now in production.
What's more, for every one sold £2.00 will be donated to the MS Society, £1.00 by us and £1.00 by Val.

So what better excuse to spend a wet and windy Saturday in a warm kitchen, creating lovely new baking recipes for our lovely new product.

Here's the first one.

Beetroot scones
8 oz self raising flour
2 oz butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp caraway seeds
½ tsp celery salt
1 medium size cooked beetroot, peeled and grated
1 tblsp natural yogurt
Milk - approx 2 tblsp.

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC 
Place the baking tray in the oven to warm - this is a trick I learned from Val.  If the tray is warm when you put the scones on to it, they start to rise straight away and you get a great bake.

Put the flour, butter, salt, celery salt, caraway seeds and beetroot in a food processor and mix until it all resemble pink breadcrumbs.  Alternatively, put all those ingredients, except the beetroot into a large bowl and rub the fat into the flour until you reach the same stage, then stir in the beetroot.

Add the yogurt and just enough milk to bring it together into a stiff dough.

Roll out on a floured surface to around ½" thick and cut into 9 or 12 scones, dependent on the size of your cutter.
Remove the baking sheet from the oven and place the scones directly on to it - no need to grease or line it.
Pop them back in the oven for approximately 20 minutes.

Take them out of the oven and transfer to a cooling rack.
Serve warm.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017  ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk