With the latest series of Great British Bake Off (GBBO) underway, Peter spoke to Express.co.uk about his brand new cookbook, Peter Bakes, which was released earlier this month. The book is full of Peter’s favourite recipes, but two in particular stand out for him.
“It’s just one of those that I gave to a loads of friends and their response was always just ‘wow’. It was a really special thing.
“It’s always lovely to get that sort of feedback from friends and family.”
Peter explained that his book covers “a wide range of challenge”, with one of his chapters dedicated to beginner bakers.
“It covers really simple stuff – the stuff that I started out baking with very little knowledge. But I still bake those things now.
Speaking about scones, Peter shared his “top tips for a simple scone”.
“I don’t really think there is a perfect anything – I think bakes live on a spectrum and it depends on what your personal tastes are,” he said.
Peter went with his own preference when writing the scone recipe in his book, saying: “I wanted to create the texture and results that I like the most.
“A couple of top tips that I would follow if I were making scones are, number one, you want to create a slightly wetter dough than you might necessarily think.
“Not super wet, but if you have more moisture in the dough it’s going to get a bigger rise in the oven and it’s going to be light and fluffy.
“If the dough is too dry it’s going to end up being dense and hard when it comes out of the oven.”
The GBBO winner added: “Number two is to not work the dough too much. If you work it too much then it’s going to become a bit tough – you’re going to create some gluten development and you’re not going to have that nice soft pull-away scone texture that I certainly look for.”