Yesterday I achieved a culinary first for me – I made a clafoutis. It’s not that they’re difficult to make or incredibly complicated with numerous steps to a multiple page method, just that I don’t really do ‘eggy puddings’ and that is essentially what a clafoutis always seemed to be. I’m so glad I decided [...]
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The June Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart… er… pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800′s in England. Bakewell tarts…er…puddings combine a number of dessert elements but still [...]
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So here I am once again, writing about another Daring Bakers expedition. This month we had a challenge indeed – strudel. Now I’ve never made a strudel before so it was both rather challenging and rather fun too, although I did run into a major problem along the way – lack of work-top space – but more [...]
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The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. April Challenge? Well it can mean only one thing, Daring Bakers time again! What a lovely challenge we had: Cheesecake! The difference here was that we had free reign, given a basic recipe for a [...]
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Big Chef = Heston Blumenthal. Little Chef = Me. By now I suspect you’re wondering what the heck I’m twittering about, aren’t you? Well,I’ll tell you, last Thursday was my birthday and my main gift was the glorious The Big Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal. I’m not really one for playing too much with my food by way [...]
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Rachel Allen states she tasted a cake rather like this in Italy years ago, served with a small glass of amaretto liqueur – divine, well what do you know so did I and she’s right it is divine. I’d been trying out a few recipes both of my own and well known writers but none of [...]
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There’s a saying in the United States “As American as apple pie” but the roots of this pie lay firming in British soil. There are documented references to apple pies going back to the time of Chaucer. In one instance, a 1381 recipe lists the ingredients as good apples, good spices, figs, raisins and pears. The holding of the recipe [...]
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Or chocolate for the non Irish speakers amongst you, sometimes you just need a chocolate fix don’t you and Thursday was one of those days, after the chaos of the previous couple of days — floor fitting, new patio doors, work; oh yes I needed chocolate and it had to be chocolate cake. So I set off [...]
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It’s challenge time again, this time it’s the turn of Violets Pantry and the current run of Nigella Expresschallenges; further information about which can be found here. This time setting the challenge lay with Nickki who posts on The Claytons Blog which came about so that several of the non blogging Violets Pantry members could participate in [...]
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It’s a fair while since I made a cake and I thought it about time I got my act together and got baking. I decided to turn to The Good Granny Cookbook: Traditional Favourites for Modern Families (Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall) which is full of ‘old fashioned’ recipes which remind me of my grandmothers baking and times gone by. Hidden [...]
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There really is nothing to fear about choux pastry (honest), even though it’s the pastry that even the most confident of cooks seem to worry the most about. I think that’s because the choux method is so unlike any other pastry method, no rubbing in, no rolling out, etc etc, the only one it comes [...]
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