Saturday, October 18, 2014

The last ship's biscuit and other baking experiments

Two years ago inspired by the BBC TV series the Great British Bake Off (#GBBO for those double screening - and if you do check out the suggestions for #MaryBerryHarryPotterTitles) I baked the humble ship's biscuit.

Since then I have been undertaking an experiment on its durability. Would it really be edible to a hungry crew undertaking a circumnavigation in the great days of sail months if not years later?

The answer at four months, six months and then one year were all positive: the biscuit might be tough and lacking in flavour but it was sustaining and enduring.

So how about after two years? Well just now I ate the last of that batch and it tasted as bland as all the others had, so I guess that counts as a success.

There are no more ship's biscuits left, that tin is empty, and to be honest I'm not planning on repeating that experiment.

There are other more interesting things to bake:

But its good to know I could bake for a long offshore sail should I have to.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting. Post a recipe please.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I found it! Lazy me.

bonnie said...

Fun experiment!

JP said...

In addition to the ship's biscuit recipe, the pavlova was one of Delia's, the ciabatta from Paul Hollywood and the sough dough from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

bonnie said...

All beautiful but the pavlova...mmmm

JP said...

It was indeed mmmmm....