Everyone wants to be happy. Whether it’s that lifelong happiness that comes with from great friendships and falling in love or a fragment of joy found in the briefest of moments, if you’ve ever wondered what life is all about, this is it. Happiness is what you need, guaranteed. Continue reading
Edible engagement rings made from modelling chocolate
This weekend just gone, we celebrated our engagement for the second time in as many months (with a big group of people, that is, I can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve raised a glass in smaller circles), inviting just over sixty of our favourite friends to drink, dance and generally make merry whilst using our upcoming wedding as the perfect excuse to do so. Continue reading
Creamy peanut butter, crunchy biscuit & crisp feuilletine
This post started life as something very different. Very different and infinitely more virtuous.
While the content of this blog will most likely have helped you arrive at the correct conclusion that I’ve got a very sweet tooth, eating healthy food is also important to me. At the weekends I’ll bake with abandon, often experimenting for meals with family and friends or rustling up the ultimate in comfort food to ease us back into the working week come Sunday. The other five days I’m a little more restrained, as likely to enjoy a bowl of Greek yoghurt and honey or something simple and fruity as anything more button-bustingly flamboyant. I’m therefore always on the look-out for interesting ideas for sweet treats to enjoy mid-week: recipes that are wholesome enough to eat every day but every bit as delicious as their more calorific counterparts. Continue reading
Crisp biscuit, creamy marshmallow & glossy chocolate
Being at University does odd things to your eating habits. Having always eaten dinner at about eight in the evening while I was at school, moving into catered halls with sittings at 5.30 and 6pm was almost as much of a shock as the nearly inedible food with which we were presented. Midnight pizza or chocolate cereal for supper became the norm, anything left in the communal fridges a free-for-all and pasta, pesto and peas a student staple based on the fact that it was quick, filling and green (so it must be stopping us from getting scurvy, right?).
Crisp little cookies packed with milk & white chocolate chunks
One of the things that makes me happiest is a big baking project. Whether it’s a birthday, researching recipes for this blog, a celebration cake or a big family party (for recipes from our recent engagement do, click here and here), I love everything about the process from planning it all in and thinking up new ideas through experimenting in the kitchen to the look on peoples’ faces when they taste my food.
When people ask about our upcoming wedding, one of the first things they always want to know is whether I’ll be baking my own cake. Although it’s something I did initially consider, I’ve since explained my reasons against the idea so many times that I’m pretty positive that I’ve made the right decision not to. Continue reading
Squidgy chocolate cake with creamy peanut butter frosting
David Lebovitz once said that the best thing about being a pastry chef is that your kitchen colleagues have to be nice to you 364 days a year. Why? Because on the 365th they want you to bake them a birthday cake. While I’m no pastry chef and have never worked in a commercial kitchen, when it comes to baking cakes for friends, I know exactly where he’s coming from.
One of the things I love most about baking is being able to share what I make with those around me. A cake can be a talking point, a celebration in itself and (for me anyway) often a better way of expressing love for the person in question than any other present might be. Birthday cakes are particularly personal, the one opportunity each year to take centre stage, to call the shots, to cut yourself the biggest slice, eat seconds and thirds and lick off extra icing if you should so choose (not, of course, that I’d ever do something like that . . .) Continue reading
Crispy edged & squidgy middled – everything a brownie should be
This is a recipe for anyone who has ever fought it out over the last crispy-edged piece from a pan of brownies.
I appreciate that this may not apply to everyone. Some people prefer the middle slice, an altogether more uniform and yielding experience, devoid of any edges, contrast and – dare I say it? – character. Of course I’m not going to judge you on your brownie preferences (ok, maybe I am), but they do say that variety is the spice of life and there’s something about the contrast of texture as crisp, chewy crust melds into smooth, fudgy middle that makes a brownie pretty much perfect in my eyes. Continue reading
Rich chocolate sponge, condensed milk & whiskey buttercream, chocolate ganache
We’ve just got back from two days in the beautiful county of Rutland celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday. With the recent bout of unexpected and unseasonally warm weather, he couldn’t have picked a better weekend for us to spend outside and out of London (or Leeds, where he lives), enjoying each others’ company, soaking up some sunshine and drinking in the country air.
I don’t really need to tell you that I offered to bring a birthday cake. That goes without saying and is pretty much what you’ve been waiting for, right? Continue reading
Chocolate mousse. Two words, a hundred variations, a thousand different expectations.
Ever since I made this favourite little dessert on holiday in Italy, I’ve wanted to write about it on the blog. My usual recipe for chocolate mousse is simplicity itself, rich and elegant, steeped in childhood memories and consisting of just two ingredients: chocolate and eggs. It’s the ultimate store cupboard recipe (don’t tell me you’ve not got chocolate on your shelves, I don’t believe you), and involves minimum effort for maximum impact, making it an easy go-to recipe to have in your repertoire.
Perhaps a little too easy. Continue reading
Raspberry cupcakes topped with a chocolate ganache swirl
Aga toast is probably the best toast in the world.
Other than that, and the occasional slow-cooked one-pot wonder, I’m not an enormous fan of agas. Aside from the fact that I’d boil to death were we to install one in our tiny London kitchen (that is, if it’s great weight didn’t cause it to fall through the floorboards to the foundations below), they can guzzle enormous amounts of gas and slightly scare the obsessive baker in me with their lack of precision dials and just four basic oven temperatures.
But they do make seriously good toast. Continue reading