20% off Silverwood: Every Tart Tin should have a Silver Lining

It’s Jeanne here this week. If you read my emails about my nerve racking, once in a lifetime experience of trying to get out of Sri Lanka sixyears ago then you may remember that I ran out of space to talk about one of my well-loved tarts.  The tart I was going to talk about was my Pear and Frangipan Tart, but better late than never. The secret ingredient to make this stand out is Amaretto… plus a few other things. Here is a link to our website for the recipe. I've included a pretty detailed method, to help those that need the extra bit of info, if you aren’t very confident in baking but wanted to give it a go. If you do, then eating it on its own is great but add some vanilla ice cream and it just gives it that little extra “je ne sais quoi”.

One of the keys to this recipe is using a good flan tin, and over the years my personal preference has always been one from Birmingham based manufacturer, Silverwood and coincidentally last week I was in the warehouse doing product training on Silverwood with our bods that pack all the online orders. So, Silverwood was founded back in the 1960s by a guy called Alan Silverwood. What drew him to making high quality bakeware, I do not know, but thank God he did. Some years later his son, Simon, loving the brand and manufacturing, joined the business too. Simon had three kids but none of them were attracted to the business like he was, so when Simon sadly died from cancer in 2018, it was sold to a lovely chap called David Jacks.  However during David’s Silverwood  was really struggling and went into liquidation. It was heart-breaking news, and I knew I had to treat my Silverwood bakeware like it was gold dust and maybe hide them in a safe!

Some months later the company was bought by Steve Lawlor (I believe).  What a relief and how delighted I was when we got our first delivery since liquidation, and put them back on our shelves.  The products are still made in the same factory in Birmingham with the same machines that are at least as old as the company itself.

One of the things I brought up in the training session was the difference between the quiche and flan/tart tins.  Quiche tins have very large flutes and are much deeper.  Silverwood just used to make quiche tins and we must have used these to make tarts as well, back in the good old days.  Whilst my Dad was probably crawling around as a toddler, Elizabeth David (British cookery writer and cookware supplier) used to import proper French flan/tart tins (they have smaller flutes and less depth compared to a quiche tin) and we used to sell those, as no English company made them. The reason why flan/tart tins have smaller flutes and are shallower is that the smaller flutes give it that extra finesse and delicacy. Then the shallowness is key because with a traditional strawberry tart, in a deeper tin, the crème pat wouldn't hold its shape. So, if we made a strawberry tart in a deep quiche tin, when you cut a slice and start to pick that slice up, it would loose its shape and fall everywhere.

Anyway, going back to the story, Mum and Dad built a very good relationship with Simon Silverwood over the years, and one day Mum asked Simon if he could make shallow flan/tart tins and being the persuasive woman that she was, Simon said yes. So, Dad sent him all the sizes of flan/tart tins that we got from Elizabeth David, and that is how the these tins came to Silverwood.

Another thing I brought up in our training was how quickly Silverwood bakeware bakes things compare to other brands. I did a test one day with an old brand of non-stick bakeware that we used to sell, I already disliked this brand but came to despise it after the results that came out of this test. What I did was make a simple sponge mixture, used the same size tins, weighed the mixture in both tins, put them on the same shelf in the oven and then checked the results.

Although this test was eight years ago, I clearly remember the Silverwood tin baked the sponge a few minutes quicker, so it came out of the oven earlier than the other tin. There was a tiny difference in colour and what was blindingly obvious was the height of both sponges! The sponge that came out of the Silverwood tin was maybe about a 1cm higher than the other and the Silverwood version was lighter and airier in texture. It was like night and day. As I said, I was really not a fan of this other brand and when Tala performance bakeware came to us maybe about 5-6 years ago, I was sceptical too and thought it would be just as bad. But when Nick Squire (owner of Dayes that supply Tala) tried to convince Dad to take Tala bakeware, he knew that one person who needed convincing was me. I was given a few pieces to play with and when I did my test again, I was happily surprised by how good Tala bakeware is. Silverwood still took a minute or so quicker to bake but when I had both sponges side by side, the differences were markedly less.

So, moral of the story is this that Silverwood is still at the top when it comes to bakeware, there's none better than them. Tala is good but they have a non-stick coating and unfortunately coatings never last forever. Silverwood is instead silver-anodised with no coating, but the anodising makes the aluminium a better heat conductor.  Without a non-stick coating Silverwood is a buy once and never replace purchase (sorry Nick).

It's not just the Silverwood flan tins I love, the sponge tins I like a lot and frequently bake with the loaf tins especially for Banana bread.  The pizza trays get constant use in my house, and perform as well as ever.  If I'm looking for a different shape for my flans then the Tarte Maison is a long rectangular shape, so easy to portion into rectangular slices, currently out of stock but signup on the Tarte Maison product page to hear the moment it comes back in.

I could go on, but we have more than 100 Silverwood lines.  So, whether you are a starting baker or a baker with experience looking for that speciality piece, Silverwood delivers consistent quality and performance in products that you'll only ever need to buy once.    

This week use code SILVERWOO! to get 20% off two items or more.

Sign up to be notified when back in stock, and we'll honour this discount when stock arrives.   The discount code will work for a month or so which should be plenty of time to buy online or let us know if coming into the shops.   

Have pleasant and peaceful weekend.

Warm regards,

Jeanne