Hot Cakes It is Salford’s sachertorte, Bury’s brioche, Bolton’s baklava and Chorlton’s croissant. It is the Eccles cake, a deceptively simple Manchester-made confection that ranks with the world’s best baked goods. In 1793 James Birch’s shop on the corner of Vicarage Road in Eccles began selling small, flat, raisin-filled cakes. They sold, quite literally, like [...]
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Bush Tea Beginnings Cake, of course, goes so terribly well with tea and has a universality that straddles the bush/China divide. Mma Ramotswe’s Cookbook (Stuart Brown) With a couple of overripe bananas sitting in my fruit bowl, what could I do but bake banana bread? I was about to trawl through my vast collection of [...]
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Oranges & Lemons “Oranges and lemons” say the Bells of St. Clement’s “You owe me five farthings” say the Bells of St. Martin’s “When will you pay me?” say the Bells of Old Bailey “When I grow rich” say the Bells of Shoreditch “When will that be?” say the Bells of Stepney “I do not [...]
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Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and then eat just one of the pieces. (Judith Viorst) Nigella Lawson’s now somewhat famous Quadruple Chocolate Cake is one of my all time favourites, both for the baking and the eating of it. Baking wise, it couldn’t [...]
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After taking a couple of months break from the Daring Bakers (due to work commitments & having a domain change) I am glad to say I’m back in the group of participants; and what a lovely challenge I returned too. The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free [...]
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Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi is a classic Italian cookbook that is written with passion, humility, irreverence and humour. It was a great milestone in Italian cookery books, being the first one to combine a collection of the fundamental recipes from all the regions of Italy. Until [...]
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Normally by December 1st I’m brimming with the spirit of Christmas but somehow this year I haven’t had the excitement and joy of years gone by; why I do not know. One Christmas activity though is guaranteed to get me in the festive mood, and all the better if Christmas music is playing softly in the [...]
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The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. Cupcakes may seem to be the flavour of the moment but us foodies are always on the hunt for the next best thing, we are [...]
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The addition of beetroot to chocolate cakes and brownies seems to be a very trendy move at this moment in time. Whilst I like to keep up with the current trends I’m not one for doing something purely for the notion of food fashion, rather, I combine my ingredients for maximum flavour and to get the best I can [...]
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After Pear Cafe began discussing on Twitter the fact that it is National Chocolate Week this week, I decided I would just have to bake something. How could such a week go unnoticed, especially by a chocaholic such as myself? Autumnal weather always leads me on to thinking about Bonfire Night (5th November) and the associated food [...]
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Blondies are a non-chocolate variation of the traditional chocolate brownie. They are baked in a baking tray in the oven in a similar manner to how traditional brownies are baked. The name ‘Blondie’ comes from them having a ‘butterscotch’ yellow colour, a reference to the hair color, blonde. Despite the popular misconception that brownies are far [...]
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