Yesterday, we celebrated my Mum’s birthday. There was a meal at The River Cafe, sunshine in the sky and sunshine on our plates in the form of these grapefruit and ginger cupcakes. The time slipped away with me and I’m afraid there’s no recipe today, but I’ve got something up my sleeve for next time. Until then, have a wonderful week. Continue reading
Roasted Cashew Nut Butter
This weekend just gone, we had a mini-heatwave in London. The sun shone, we ate a lot of ice cream and I turned on the oven just long enough to make this buttery milk loaf and roast a tray of cashews for nut butter. Continue reading
Three Years Blogging + Cake
Last week, reading this post, I realised that I’d managed completely miss my blog birthday. Again.
On 23rd February 2011, I published my very first post. Three years later, although there’s so much more I want to learn about photography and recipe writing (and life), I’m extremely proud of how far I’ve come. Those original photos make me cringe just a little (look them up, you will laugh), my enthusiasm for what is clearly not the lightest of loaves is unbounded, but it’s a record of where I was, a marker for where I am now, and for what, in three years’ time or more, I could be. Continue reading
Dark Chocolate Jaffa Cakes
Apologies straight up: I haven’t got a recipe for you today. As I mentioned in this post, things have been a rather busy round here of late and it doesn’t look likely to let up until we sort out our new flat and various other things. Busy in a good way though. There’s lots of smiling.
One major cause for smiles is the fact that we have a new oven. Just a cheapo unit to tide us over til the house move, but the temperature gauge works and it doesn’t leak over 50% of it’s heat directly into the kitchen. In celebration, I made Jaffa cakes. Recipe’s still in development, so just photos for now. Wishing you all a wonderful week. Continue reading
Five New Recipes & An Update
Things have been a little hectic round here of late.
There’s the possibility we might be moving house. I’ve been working on a food-related project for a while (details of which I’m hoping to share with you soon). And on top of all that, the dial on our oven is irretrievably broken. That’s not to say I haven’t been baking – if you follow me on Instagram you’ll have seen the usual sort of snaps – but I don’t trust its accuracy enough to write up a blog-worthy recipe this week. Continue reading
Jam Doughnuts
If you visit this blog on a regular basis, you’ll know my kitchen works around a principle of everything in moderation. Including, as both Julia Child and Oscar Wilde once said, moderation.
After posting a recipe for baked churros with chocolate sauce a few weeks back, today I’ve decided to ditch my oven and jump on the full-fat band wagon with strawberry jam-filled deep-fried doughnuts. Continue reading
Pomegranate Parfaits with Popped Amaranth, Pistachios & Almond Cream
Today we’re talking breakfast (again). Breakfast and whole-grains to be more precise: the subject of a beautiful new book which hasn’t left my kitchen counter since it arrived last week.
Wholegrain Mornings is, at face value, a book of breakfast recipes from food blogger, Megan Gordon. But it’s also so much more than that. Like her blog, A Sweet Spoonful, the book is understated yet compelling, an honest insight into Megan’s life: from the way she thinks her way around a kitchen to running a granola business to a long-distance love story with a wonderfully romantic ending. Continue reading
Spicy Black Bean Breakfast Tostadas
‘Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast’.
I’m hoping Oscar Wilde was referencing the conversation not the cooking because I, for one, love a little bit of brilliance at breakfast time. Continue reading
Rhubarb & Ginger Bakewell Tarts
When I was a little girl, before the house move I mentioned last week and over twenty years ago, I begged my Mum to paint my bedroom pink.
I can’t remember my exact age at the time (I’m sure I’ll get a fact-confirming phone call or email from my Mum as soon as this post goes live) but I do remember pink being the talk of the playground, my absolute favourite and the go-to colour of choice for everything from pencil cases to t-shirts to bedrooms (and everything in between). Continue reading
Baked Churros with Maple Chocolate Sauce
The first time I moved, I was nine years old. Our family had outgrown the house where I was born and my parents had managed to find a new one just around the corner. Or three corners, less than half a mile away and still within walking distance from the local sweet shop and bakery, to be precise to my nine-year-old self. Continue reading