Summer is coming to an end.
While the last few days have seen warmer temperatures and clear blue skies, there’s an autumnal note in the air. Darkness draws in earlier each evening and there’s a coldness first thing in the morning, a reminder of frosts to come in the not too distant future. Holidays in Spain and Italy are fading to a distant memory of long, lazy days, hazy heat, bare limbs in the evening breeze.
But I’m not letting go without a fight. 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
Flaky pastry, sweet, smooth filling & cool, creamy ice cream
For the last few days we’ve been eating our way around a small portion of the North of England. Our helping sizes, on the hand, have been rather large.
It all kicked off with a family wedding in Yorkshire on Thursday. In the unexpected (but wonderful) warm weather we feasted on three courses of stomach filling stuff – think greedy servings of soufflé, rare roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and thick lemon tart – before retiring for an afternoon of champagne and sunshine followed by an evening of even more food (in the form of dainty canapés, think crispy bacon scallops, miniature meringues and everything in between. Continue reading
The dense, damp, syrupy crumb makes this cake utterly irresistible
This might just be one of the best cakes I’ve ever eaten.
Those of you who read this blog on regular basis will know that this is not a comment to be taken lightly. I love cake. I eat it a lot. I live and breathe baking. On our recent holiday in Italy in a round of Articulate the clue ‘Kate loves this’ resulted in an immediate and resounding chorus of ‘cake’, and change one letter in my name and I’d practically be named after the stuff. Cake is very important to me.
Pretty much every year I make my own birthday cake. Before you start feeling sorry for me, it’s absolutely out of choice. I love doing it; the magic of mixing together ingredients, transforming flour, butter and sugar into something that looks and tastes delicious, experimenting in the kitchen, sharing my birthday joy with friends and family and condensing it into a single slice.
Rich, creamy & laced with chocolate & vin santo: the ultimate Italian pudding
If you’ve never eaten a seriously good tiramisu, you’ve not really lived.
Unfortunately if you’ve eaten a seriously bad one, you’re not alone.
Despite, or perhaps because of, its reputation for being delicious, Italian food is something that continually suffers from major misrepresentation around the world. But rather than focusing on flabby pizza or pre-shaved parmesan – don’t get me started on savoury, I could rant all day – I’m turning my attention today to all things sweet (surprise, surprise). Continue reading
Brutti ma buoni – ‘ugly but good’ hazelnut meringue biscuits
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Despite this age old idiom, evaluating things by their appearance is sadly second nature in so many circumstances in life. Appearance influences the big decisions – it is said that in an interview, you have just seven seconds to make a good impression – but also the little ones: the quality of an apple, the content of a book, how delicious a dessert is going to be.
I’ve talked before on this blog about the pitfalls of style over substance when it comes to food. Incredible wedding cakes covered with beautifully crafted decorations concealing bland or dry sponge; slicks of sauce on a plate so small as to make little contribution to flavour; an artfully placed sprig of mint that you have to push to one side without eating.
Smooth strawberry ice cream encased in dark chocolate & toasted pistachios
While I’ve not quite reached the age where I’m ready for children, I often wonder what it will be like to have them around: how I’ll bring them up, how their personalities will develop and, importantly, what I’ll feed them.
I want my children to understand where food comes from, how important it is, to realise that meat doesn’t just arrive pre-packaged and devoid of all fat and sinew and that the investment of just an hour or so a week can produce better bread than you could ever buy pre-sliced and stacked sky high on the supermarket shelves. Continue reading
Light, flaky puff pastry layered with crunchy sugar & cocoa
Three years ago Carnivorous Boyfriend and I moved into a proper, grown up flat. Not halls of residence or a dodgy dive in an ‘up and coming’ part of the city; no enormous numbers of people, fighting over fridge space or arguing about whether a cleaning rota should be created; just our very own oasis in the heart of all the madness that is London.
While I’d lived away from home since finishing university, it never felt properly permanent. A few essential items would always travel with me – clothes, cookbooks, my favourite photos and the small selection of items purchased at Ikea that I imagine haunt every university graduate until they can afford to invest in something a little more exciting. Continue reading
Smooth malted milk ice cream layered with hazelnut wafer in a shiny chocolate shell
As I write this post, I’m dreaming of summer sun, balmy breezes, sandy beaches and the beautiful city of Barcelona.
When you read this post, I’ll be there.
Writing this now from my flat in London, it feels a little more like autumn than the beginning of June: wind rattling round the flowerpots outside and rain scratching angrily at the skylights. When the weather’s like this, it’s hard to imagine a place where people live their lives outdoors, where carrying an umbrella isn’t compulsory, and where the sun can be seen without a thick shroud of ever-darkening cloud banked up against the brightness of its rays. Continue reading