Squid Ink & Sesame Baguettes with Homemade Harissa Butter

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Charcoal coloured bread is offset by a pat of bright harissa-spiked butter

Black. Not a colour we necessarily associate with wonderful food. Especially those of us who are keen bakers where, unless you’re talking black treacle, black bottomed cupcakes or black cherries (of which I’d argue the latter are really brown and purple respectively), black tends to signify something that has been in the oven too long; in other words burnt.

Try to think of a black food and you’re likely to conjure one of two ends of the culinary spectrum. In the losing category come the burnt items; over baked bread, lasagne left in the oven too long, black bits of onion in a pan that should be caramelized or the singed tips of an otherwise snow-white meringue. At the other end of the scale, black seems to signify something altogether more luxurious; tiny pearls of caviar, dusky black truffle, exotic black garlic or the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of a stick of licorice.   Continue reading

Rhubarb & Blood Orange Ice Cream Melting Hearts

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Sweet, sharp rhubarb & orange ice compote stirred through a cool, creamy custard 

One of the books I’ll turn to time and again when in need of some recipe inspiration is A Year in My Kitchen by Skye Gingell. Inspired by the seasons and full of interesting yet accessible flavour combinations, it manages to be both sumptuous and simple at the same time, and with dozens of beautiful recipes based on a ‘tool box’ of core basics – stocks, spice mixes, flavoured oils, custards etc – it’s something I can’t imagine ever getting bored of. Skye’s enthusiasm for food and avoidance of any overtly cheffy pretension are what really make this book, and my regular use of it is evident in the well-thumbed, slightly spattered pages and rapidly weakening spine.

Surprising, then, that until last weekend I’d not made a single dessert from this book. Looking at my blog you’d likely assume that something sweet would be the first thing I’d want to road test, and while this is often the case – my natural inclination is to scour the index of a new book for sections on sweets and baking – with A Year in My Kitchen I just haven’t felt the inclination. Perhaps it’s the fruity nature of the desserts on offer – I have a somewhat unhealthy in-built radar for anything of a chocolate, caramel or sticky-sweet persuasion – but it could well be that the other recipes have been simply too distractingly good to allow me time to pause and consider pudding. Continue reading

Honeyed Peanut Ice Cream with Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

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Dark chocolate cups encasing rich peanut ice cream & studded with peanut butter pieces

If I ask you to describe your most memorable ice cream experience, what immediately springs to mind?

To start off, you might want to put it in context – a European holiday, the lazy heat of a summer’s afternoon, a long queue snaking down the street as you wait patiently for the ice cream van or a stolen after-school treat, still solid from the freezer and stuck to its flimsy paper packaging.

Flavour is likely to come next on the agenda. You might be a plain vanilla kind of person, a die-hard chocoholic, or someone with a preference for all things fruity. The ice cream in question might be smooth and simple, or packed with bits – chocolate, nuts, flakes of this, flecks of that and swirls of sticky sauce. Continue reading

Pear, Pecan & Brown Butter Tart with the Darkest Chocolate Ice Cream

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Crisp pastry, nutty caramelized custard & soft sweet pears – the perfect dessert

With Christmas just a distant memory and Spring still a fair way off (despite the bizarrely unseasonal arrival of  daffodil or two), it feels like comfort food should be firmly on the foodie agenda. I was therefore excited to discover that over the coming weeks The Guardian will be giving away a series of 36 collectable recipe cards tackling this very subject. With contributions from seven stellar chefs including Yottam Ottolenghi, Angela Hartnett and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the recipes on offer look set to be a little more exciting than your standard soups and stews, promising to inject some serious flavour into the dark, cold evenings ahead. Continue reading

Marbled Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies

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Marbled chocolate chunk cookies – two different doughs swirled together for maximum chocolate impact

What is it that makes grown adults go all gooey over chocolate chip cookies? Plain, humble and based on the most basic of ingredients, they are nonetheless held on something of a pedestal by people all over the world. Pop those three simple words into Google and you’ll return no fewer than 32 million pages, while professional chefs, journalists and home bakers alike appear to be on a constant quest to find the perfect recipe.

Perhaps it’s sheer simplicity that gives the cookie its clout. Anyone can make at batch in their comfort of their kitchen, and even if  your technique and timing is little out, it’s hard to go completely wrong with what is essentially a slab of chocolate, butter and sugar combined. The nostalgia element is also key – mere mention of a chocolate chip cookie conjures up images of wholesome fun, of sunny afternoon snacks, comforting kitchens and reaching into a giant all-American fridge-freezer for that vital glass of cold, cold milk. Continue reading

Dan Lepard’s Sesame Seed Slider Buns

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Sesame-topped bun rich with soft, sweet onions & packed with flavour

When was the last time you left something in the oven for too long?

Something where timing really matters, that is. I don’t mean slow-roasted shoulder of pork or a melt-in-the-mouth stew – dishes which work well with the odd inattentive slurp and stir every half hour or so – I’m talking food that is measured in minutes, where ‘too long’ can result in a complete catastrophe and clouds of smoke billowing from the cremated contents of your oven. Cakes and cookies, biscuits and bread – let’s face it, pretty much all baked goods – fall within this category; just a few minutes too many can mean the difference between a feather light sponge and piece of cardboard, a lovely loaf and a lump of lead.

The best example I’ve ever seen of something being left to bake for too long involves my Mum and a (now infamous in my family) hot cross bun. When I was little, we’d often have rolls for breakfast on the weekend. Rather than putting them in the toaster we’d warm them in the oven; the bread stayed soft but the butter would melt instantly on impact, making a simple yet indulgent change from the usual toast of the working week. Sometimes we’d branch out – croissants from the local bakery if we were feeling fancy or special seasonal produce such as hot cross buns, but only a few weeks either side of Easter. You might see where I’m going with this story when I tell you that the hot cross bun in question was discovered at some point during the Christmas holidays . . .

Ginger & Coconut Banoffee Pies

Spicy biscuit base & unctuous caramel topped with sweet banana & coconut cream

‘I am the woman who believes most anything can be solved with butter and sugar’.

So begins an article in the latest edition of Made with Butter magazine written by Joy Wilson, a baker – aka Joy the Baker – who has taken the US by storm with her irreverent attitude, quirky charm, scrumptious recipes and ability to create sheer magic using such simple ingredients as flour, butter and sugar.

Quite apart from a string of amazing accolades, her own catering company and a cookbook coming out next month, the proof that Joy knows what she’s talking about when it comes to baking is really in the pudding. Her puddings to be more precise. If you’re not already familiar with her blog, I suggest you head over there now. We’re talking brown butter banana bread, double-dipped doughnuts, chewy molasses chocolate chip cookies and more incredible cakes and bakes than most people could make or eat in a lifetime. Although I’d be willing to take up the challenge on that one . . . Continue reading

Cookies & Cream Peanut Butter Blondies

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‘Is it true…blondes have more fun?’

Since this provocative line to promote Clairol home hair colour was penned by US ad exec Shirley Polykoff back in the 1950s, the idea that blondes have a better time has become part of global consciousness. Blonde = bubbly, fun and frivolous. Brunette = natural, sophisticated but sensible. And every time a celebrity changes the colour of their hair the same old research – most likely commissioned by a hair dye company – is wheeled out as the age old debate continues.

Which do you prefer? Continue reading

Pear, Maple & Pecan Bircher Muesli

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Buttery pears, smooth pecans & sticky syrup make the perfect winter breakfast

This recipe started life as something really rather different.

It began on New Year’s Eve when I offered to cook dinner for my boyfriend and his family up in Yorkshire. Knowing that on New Year’s Day we might be nursing various degrees of hangover, and that the shops would be shut – or operating on minimum opening hours with a likely lack of any fresh produce – we hit the local market to stock up on ingredients. Fresh fish, bread, cheese, vegetables and various spices secured, my attention (surprise surprise) turned to pudding. Continue reading

Ferrero Rocher Ice Cream Cones

Simple & delicious – homemade filled ice cream cones

Ice cream and Italy go hand in hand. It’s almost impossible to imagine an Italian holiday without a visit to the local gelateria, long minutes spent staring at the dazzling array of colours and flavours on display and agonizing decisions to be made before being handed a crisp cone, rich with anticipation and dripping with deliciousness.

I’ve been lucky enough to taste more than my fair share of Italian ice cream over the last twenty seven years. My parents have a house in Italy, and every summer we’d spend weeks there as a family, swimming, sunbathing and sightseeing to fill the gaps when we weren’t eating and drinking. Pasta and meat dishes reigned supreme, and when it came to sweets, any trip to the nearby towns invariably involved an ice cream pit stop (more often than not to bribe a grumbling little loaf to participate in tours of the latest art exhibition or the fifteenth frescoed church of the day). Continue reading