Bakeography by Abi Broughton

Bakeography

Bakeography Abi Broughton

Contents Introduction........................................................1 Experiment One Gingerbread Biscuits.................2 Experiment Two Sugar Cookies...........................6 Experiment Three Chocolate Sugar Cookies........16 Experiment Four Puff Pastry............................26 Experiment Five Puff Pastry Two.....................36 Experiment Six Victoria Sponge Cake................46 Conclusion.......................................................56

Introduction This is the journal that I have been writing for the last six weeks, during my experimentation into the world of creating edible typography. I considered a number of different mediums, fruits and vegetables, pizza toppings and chocolate, but eventually settled on using baked goods. I had initially planned to just use biscuits, but later decided to branch out into other aspects of baking, and decided to use pastry and cake as well. I did consider using bread, but it spreads out far too much when baked so I decided not to use it for this project. The baked goods that you will find in this journal are: ginger bread biscuits, sugar cookies, chocolate cookies, two uses of puff pastry and finally a victoria sponge cake complete with jam and sprinkled icing sugar. This journal chronicles my successes and failures as I attempt to bake my way to aesthetically pleasing and delicious type.

The First Experiment

Gingerbread Biscuits

For this first experiment, I will be baking the word ‘edible’ using gingerbread biscuit dough. I have chosen to use gingerbread as I think it has a really nice colour that will look good when baked. I’m using both Gill Sans and Lobster, both set in 250pt. I am going to print the words onto plain copy paper, which I have a feeling will be too thin, but I’m going to try anyway. I will cut the letters out of the paper and then place them on top of the rolled out biscuit dough as a stencil. I’m a little worried that some of the letters might be a bit too thin and will break, but I will see after I have baked them.

300g plain flour 1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda 2 level tsp ground ginger 100g butter or block margarine 4 level tbsp golden syrup 1 egg, beaten Grease three baking sheets. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Beat the syrup into the egg and stir into the bowl. Mix to form a dough and knead until smooth. Divide into two and roll out on a lightly floured surface to about 5mm (1/4 inch) thick. Cut out to desired shapes. Bake in an oven at 190 degrees celcius for twelve to fifteen minutes, until golden brown. Cool slightly, then place on a wire rack to cool.

Evaluation I was right with my initial thoughts, using copy paper for the stencils didn’t work very well at all. When cutting, the paper tore on any curved line and it curled very quickly when it came into contact with the greasy dough, which made it hard to keep in the same place to get the right shape for the letters. For my next experiment I’m going to use card to use for the stencils, as I think that it would work much better. Before baking I thought that the Gill Sans letters were too thin and would break once baked, however I was clearly quite far off with that. As you can see the dough spread out a huge amount during the bake, and as I had the letters relatively close together on the baking sheet they all merged into one. I could have avoided this with the Gill Sans letters as they’re not joined like the Lobster ones, however they still would have spread out to an unrecognisable shape. Before I do my next experiment I’m going to do some research and see if I can find a recipe that will hold it’s shape much better than this whilst it’s being baked, rather than just going for a recipe with a nicely coloured dough like I have this time. I do really like the colour of these biscuits though, they seem quite warm and inviting, like you should pick them up and try them.

The Second Experiment

Sugar Cookies

After my first attempt at making edible type didn’t go quite to plan, I decided to look up a recipe that wouldn’t spread out as much as it was baked. The recipe I found was an American one, for something called ‘sugar cookies’. The website specified that this particular dough was good for making shaped biscuits as it held it’s shape whilst baking, which meant that you didn’t lose the crisp edges of your biscuit designs to an unrecognisable shape. I’m going to use some thin card that I had already to create the stencils for this attempt at making edible type, and I’m hoping that it will be easier to cut around than the copy paper that I used when making the gingerbread biscuits. The phrase that I’m baking today is ‘Good enough to eat’, and it is set in 350pt Didot. I’m hoping that the dough holds it’s shape well, as I think the thin strokes in this typeface will look really good once baked.

250g Butter (warmed) 320g Sieved plain flour 125g Sieved icing sugar 1tbsp Milk 1tbsp Vanilla extract Heat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and add the warmed butter. Cream the ingredients together until light and fluffy. Add the milk and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Sieve the plain flour into the bowl and mix the ingredients together to form a firm dough. Roll out dough, cut to desired shape. Bake in oven for twelve to fifteen minutes. Cool slightly, then place on a wire rack to cool.

Evaluation The card that I used for this experiment worked much better than copy paper. It cut much better, didn’t tear on the curves and was easier to get a straight line. It also worked better as a stencil as it didn’t curl up as it started to soak up the grease. Sadly I didn’t have enough of it to do all of the letters, so I had to use copy paper for a few of them. The sugar cookie dough did, mostly, what it was supposed to do and held it’s shape on the bake. A few of the thinner curved strokes fell over in the oven, so they didn’t hold up quite as well as the edges on the thicker parts of the biscuits did. A number of the biscuits snapped when they were being moved, again where the strokes were thinner. In future I need to be more careful when moving them. Whilst I like Didot, I think for the next experiment I will use Lobster again as it’s a fat italic but it still has some thinner strokes, although not as thin as Didot so hopefully they will hold their shape. Whilst I like being able to see the browned edges of these biscuits where they have started to catch in the oven, I think that the overall look of them is too pale, especially compared to the rich colour of the gingerbread biscuits from the previous experiment. For my next attempt, I’m going to use the same dough but add some cocoa powder to give them a richer colour.

The Third Experiment

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

For this third experiment I’m going to be using the same dough as I used last time, but I’m going to add cocoa powder. I have read that cocoa powder soaks up moisture, so if you add some to a mixture you also need to increase the liquid, but I’m going to leave the liquid measurments as they are as I think that this will make a slightly thicker dough which will be easier to cut my letters from. The phrase that I’m using for the experiment today is ‘This really takes the biscuit’, and it’s set in 250pt Lobster. This week I’m also using 240gsm card to cut my stencils from, so I’m hoping they easy to cut around and that they don’t curl.

250g Butter (warmed) 320g Sieved plain flour 125g Sieved icing sugar 2 tbsp Sieved Cocoa powder 1tbsp Milk 1tbsp Vanilla extract Heat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl and add the warmed butter. Cream the ingredients together until light and fluffy. Add the milk and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. P flour and cocoa powder into the bowl and mix the ingredients together to form a firm dough. Roll out dough, cut to desired shape. Bake in oven for twelve to fifteen minutes. Cool slightly, then place on a wire rack to cool.

Evaluation As careful as I was when moving the biscuits from the baking sheet a few of them snapped, if the letters weren’t joined up I don’t think that they would break. However, I like the typeface and so just need to be extra careful. The card that I used worked really well. It was harder to cut through (this could have something to do with my new craft knife which doesn’t seem to be very good), but the stencils worked really well. They didn’t soak up grease straight away, they sayed flat and they gave a firm edge to run the knife around for a clear edge on the biscuits. I have now done this experiment four times. The first batch were eaten by everyone at university when I took them in for a critique, so I re-baked them. Sadly the second batch, due to the wind, ended up in the river in Hitchin. The third batch when well and everything was fine, however my memory stick broke and I had no access to my backed up files and so I had to make them a fourth and final time.

The Fourth Experiment

Puff pastry

For this experiment I have moved on from biscuits and decided to try out pastry. I’m using ready made pastry for this, but I have included the puff pastry recipe that I would have used if I was a better baker, however it’s one that I haven’t yet managed to master. I have decided that as puff pastry expands whilst baking I should just try to bake on word, rather than a phrase, so this week I am baking the word ‘puff ’, set in 935pt Gill Sans. I’m hoping to get a really nice three dimensional type from using this puff pastry, and I think that it will look interesting and there will be certain aspects of it that will photograph quite well.

500g Unsalted butter 500g Strong white flour Pinch of sea salt 1tbsp Lemon juice 250ml Water Mix one third of the butter with the flour and salt, add the water and lemon juice, then mix into a firm dough. Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for about an hour. Roll the dough into a rectangle between 5 and 10mm thick. In a plastic bag beat the remaining two thirds of the butter with a rolling pin into a rectangle just a little bit smaller than half the rectangle of dough. Lay the butter on the dough, leaving a space at the end. Fold the unbuttered half over the butter and fold the edges over to make a parcel. Push together and pat into a square, wrap in clingfilm and allow to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes. Roll it out into a rectangle. When the pastry is 1cm thick fold both ends in, one over the other, so that the centre third is completely covered by the two outer thirds. Press the whole lot together and pat into a square. Allow to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Evaluation When cutting out the letters the pastry pulled along with the knife and so the shape of the letters wasn’t exactly the same as the stencil. Next time I will make sure to be really careful when cutting the letters out, to try and minimise the pulling of the pastry from the knife to get a cleaner shape. I really like the way this has baked. It looks full and like it has some life to it, which is something that the biscuits lacked, because whilst they had depth they didn’t have texture like this pastry. As the second ‘f ’ didn’t fit onto the sheet of pastry pushed all of the leftover bits together and rerolled it so there would be enough. However, this second ‘f ’ didn’t puff up as much as the other letters did, so I won’t do that again, if I need more pastry I will use another pack. I was worried before baking that these letters would expand a huge ammount, and so I made quite large letters so that the form wouldn’t get lost. Whilst they did expand, they didn’t expand quite as much as I expected them too, and so I think I could try smaller letters next time. I like the colour of this bake, it looks rich and interesting, compared to the colour of the biscuits in the second experiment that I did.

The Fifth Experiment

Puff pastry

The first time that I tried to do this fifth experiment I managed to slice through my finger and my nail whilst cutting out the stencils, and so I had to wait for about a week before trying again as it hurt to put pressure on it. For this experiment I am again using puff pastry (ready made and ready rolled), but I’m going to make the letters much smaller. I made them large last time as I thought that through expansion during the bake they would lose certain character qualities, however I think they baked well and so I’m going to try them smaller. I’m going to be baking the words ‘puff pastry’ out of 200pt Helvetica. I hope that at the small size they still keep their shape.

500g Unsalted butter 500g Strong white flour Pinch of sea salt 1tbsp Lemon juice 250ml Water Mix one third of the butter with the flour and salt, add the water and lemon juice, then mix into a firm dough. Wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for about an hour. Roll the dough into a rectangle between 5 and 10mm thick. In a plastic bag beat the remaining two thirds of the butter with a rolling pin into a rectangle just a little bit smaller than half the rectangle of dough. Lay the butter on the dough, leaving a space at the end. Fold the unbuttered half over the butter and fold the edges over to make a parcel. Push together and pat into a square, wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes. Roll it out into a rectangle. When the pastry is 1cm thick fold both ends in, one over the other, so that the centre third is completely covered by the two outer thirds. Press the whole lot together and pat into a square. Allow to rest in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Evaluation When I finally managed to do this experiment it went okay, not as well as the previous one. I found it difficult to try and cut the letters out of the pastry, and as I took longer the pastry became warmer and more sticky and started to stick to my knife and to me. Again I had some problems as well with the pastry getting pulled along by the knife as I cut through it. I over baked these letters a little bit. I cut the cooking time by half from what was suggested as the individual letters are obviously much smaller than a whole sheet of pastry, however a few of them still caught a little bit and started to go too brown. However I think that rather than ruining this experiment, it adds a little bit of extra character to the letters.

The Sixth Experiment

Victoria sponge cake

For my final experiment I decided to use one last type of baked food; cake. This is the only experiment that I have done where I will be baking the medium that I am using before turning it into typography. I have decided to use the recipe for a victoria sponge, because I think that the cake will have a good depth and having a layer of jam in the middle will make it look more interesting. I’m going to be baking the phrase ‘a piece of cake’, and I’m interested to see how easy it is to get a smooth and even edge when I cut the letters out, because the cake will be much thicker than the biscuit dough and pastry that I have used before. I will be using 350pt Intro for this last experiment.

175g butter or block margarine, softened 175g caster sugar 3 eggs, beaten 175g self raising flour Jam Icing sugar, to dredge Grease and line two sandwich tins. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold in half the flour, using a metal spoon, then fold in the rest. Divide the mixture evenly between the tins and level with a knife. Bake in the oven at 190 degrees celcius for about twenty minutes until they are well risen, firm to the touch and begining to shrink away from the sides of the tins. Leave in the tins for ten minutes, and then turn out and cool on a wire rack. When the cakes are cool, sandwich them together with the jam and sprinkle the top with icing sugar.

Evaluation The first cake that I made for this experiment wouldn’t come out of the tin (I think I didn’t let it cool in the tin for long enough), and when it did only the middle of the cake came out and the rest stayed in the pan. I re-baked my cakes and the next two worked out fine. I found it harder with this experiment to cut the letters out and make them resemble their digital forms. For startes the cake is a lot deeper than the other mediums I have used, so I found it harder to get a straight edge. Secondly the top of the cake was uneven, so certain parts of the letters are higher than others. The cake was also very crumbly, which meant that every time I cut a section off other bits seemed to fall off with it. I also found cutting the counter of the A out quite hard, as it was difficult to pick the letter up as the cake was very moist. Overall I’m quite happy with this experiment, however I preferred the lost outcome that I had before my memory stick broke and I had to bake it all again.

Conclusion type that you can interact with, whether it’s by sight or touch, or eventually consuming. I think that the idea of physical typography is something that I would like to continue, and am therefore considering it as a proposal for my final major project in the new year.

At the end of this six week project, I’m quite pleased with what I have created. Whilst there have been some problems, like biscuits that wanted to swim and cakes that just didn’t want to leave their tin, I think that it’s safe to say that I succeeded in my quest to make edible type that not only tasted nice, but also looked good. I think that the type I created from biscuits is the neatest and looks most finished, however compared the the type I made from puff pastry and victoria sponge cake it lacks depth, texture and personality. If this project went on for longer I would love to experiment more with both of these two mediums, and see if I could use more complex typefaces and phrases to really bring the type to life. I think that if I had more time there are two routes that I would go down with the project. Firstly I would see if I could create type that somehow showed the ‘personality’ of the medium I was using, for example the word ‘puff ’ showed the life of the puff pastry that I was using. Secondly, I would try to see if there was a certain typeface that would showcase the interesting qualities about the baked medium that I was using, for example the golden edges of the plain sugar cookies that caramalised slightly when cooked. I feel like my journey into the world of edible type isn’t over yet. I have really enjoyed creating