Baking with Fortitude: Winner of the Andre Simon Food Award 2021

Baking with Fortitude brings together 90 recipes focused on natural flavour, built around quality ingredients such as fruits and spices. Written by artisan baker Dee Rettali, the collection reflects a lifetime of baking and a commitment to techniques that emphasise intense taste through traditional craftsmanship.

Created for Dee’s London bakery, Fortitude Bakehouse, these bakes are positioned as an alternative to generic cakes made with heavy sweetness or artificial flavours. Many recipes are designed as straightforward one-bowl mixes, combined by hand without the need for specialist equipment. The book also introduces a method of resting batter in the fridge to encourage slight fermentation, with the aim of heightening natural flavours and reducing sweetness, while allowing preparation ahead of baking. Some recipes use a sourdough-like starter as a base for seasonal flavour combinations, influenced by Dee’s roots in Ireland and Morocco.

Key details

• Includes 90 recipes
• By artisan baker Dee Rettali of Fortitude Bakehouse, London
• Recipes highlight natural flavours using fruits and spices
• Features one-bowl mixes made by hand, without fancy equipment
• Includes optional fridge fermentation and sourdough-like starter methods
• Winner of the André Simon Food Award 2021

Synopsis

This baking collection centres on bringing out intense flavour through quality ingredients and traditional techniques. Alongside simple hand-mixed batters, it explores resting mixtures in the fridge for slight fermentation and using a sourdough-like starter as a flexible base for seasonal additions. The recipes draw inspiration from Dee Rettali’s Irish and Moroccan roots, with combinations including white grape and rosemary cake, Marrakeshi mint and orange peel sourdough loaf cake, and chilli-soaked date and oat loaf cake.