Yesterday, I spent two hours making the chocolate tart in the photograph below. I share this earth-shattering news, not to brag (mind, it was 10 out of 10 delicious) but because it led me to wonder, if I only had six months to live, would I spend two hours of it baking? I suspect I wouldn't, for - and this is quite a thing for the editor of a food magazine to admit - I have decided that life is too short for beating, creaming, whisking and whipping (in the kitchen at least, ahem!).
I'll whip up a Victoria sponge or apple crumble because they take only a few minutes, and I always make a Christmas cake because it's an excuse to swig the cooking brandy, but elaborate confections drive me to distraction. I mean, the tart was nice, but was it two hours and five separate culinary processes on a sunny day nice? No, frankly, particularly when I could have nipped up the road to the patisserie at Vallum, bought something fabulous and passed it off as my own.....
