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Pita Bread

January 17, 2012
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I make pita breads regularly, usually at the request of oldest daughter, make a large enough batch to put some in the freezer and keep her happy for a while.  Making pita breads or bagels puts the baker into a production line, once you’ve mastered the recipe you’ll fall into a rhythm between pre-shape, rolling […]

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Why Start A Food Blog? And Can You Make Money Out Of It? Part II

January 8, 2012
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This post is following on from Part I here. Blog Envy & The Godivala Syndrome If you want to start one, do it, it’s free, make it your own but be prepared to put the hours in if you want it to have a certain regularity, it really does not feed itself. I’ve had moments […]

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Why Start A Food Blog? And Can You Make Money Out Of It? Part I

January 5, 2012
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Why?  Because you want to. And the next answer is no, you can’t make money out of a food blog, or to be more precise, you can’t make a living directly.  Not as things are, whether it will change or not, that I don’t know. I’ve been blogging for just over 2 years and in […]

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Banana Tarte Tartin, Passion Fruit & Banana Sorbet

December 23, 2011
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This is Gregoire’s Banana dessert from his Never Skip Dessert  book, which is unfortunately out of print!  Easy tart to make and made from ingredients usually in the house; butter, flour, sugar and bananas. The first time I made it was last weekend for Emily  and husband Andrew, it was a hit.  I baked it […]

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Amaretto Wheat Variety 10.5% from Felin Ganol Watermill

November 29, 2011
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After writing my last post on Low Protein Flours Make Great Bread, It’s All About the Flour I said I would write in detail how I made my loaves using Anne Parry’s Amaretto white flour from her watermill in Wales.  A flour currently being sold as All Purpose because of its low protein content, 10.5%. […]

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Chestnut & Almond Cake – Gluten-free, Dairy-free

November 19, 2011
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It has taken longer than I intended to post this recipe because cake number two and three didn’t turn out as planned when experimenting and I wanted to make certain by the fourth one I had ironed out problems. The cake has a lovely mousse texture, very soft, although in photos it appears solid, it’s […]

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Spelt Apple Cake (dairy-free)

October 7, 2011
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It occurred to me to try spelt flour in a cake when I came across a bakery in St Albans, Hertfordshire,  selling a huge range of baked products using spelt flour.  The other reason was because I have English white spelt flour in the cupboard that is pretty poor quality for bread (I had bought […]

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Focaccia

October 3, 2011
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I’ve been experimenting with focaccia dough using a little potato flour but to disastrous results, I have a fickle relationship with potato flour in bread, use it successfully in allergy kid’s loaf but other experiments the dough collapses on me.  I’ve also experimented with a 100% sourdough focaccia but hasn’t so far resulted as good […]

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Gregoire’s Light Scones

June 17, 2011
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I’m grateful for bumping into Gregoire through twitter because not only do I have great banter with him, he’s an incredibly generous person with his advice and to top it all he has wonderful recipes like this one, beautifully light scones.  It’s not too sweet, the perfect receptor for cream and jam or the luxurious […]

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How to Make Choux Pastry

April 14, 2011
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I had no intent of making a post on how to make choux pastry but after making 4 or was it 5 batches of choux that’s what I’ve ended up with.  I’ve made probably more savoury choux than I have sweet ones over the years.  I went to the book I always refer to for […]

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Clementine Pavlova with Rhubarb in Orange Flower Water

February 22, 2011
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This is a gorgeous combination, you have clementine zest embedded throughout the pavlova, making what otherwise is a dull sweet shell taste strongly of citrus, it gives you a zing, topped with the cream and the sharp rhubarb mildly flavoured with orange flower water, giving the sweet meringue a necessary sharpness. The forced rhubarb has […]

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How To Make: Genoise Cake

February 9, 2011
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Génoise and the Whisked Sponge or Fatless Sponge cakearrive at the same destination; light airy cake, dull unless strong flavours are added.  It’s a perfect light texture to sandwich or cover with rich cream filling.  Here I added 2 teaspoons of clementine rind and 4 tablespoons of clementine juice to the sponge.  I then drizzled […]

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How To Make: Whisked Sponge, Fatless Sponge

February 9, 2011
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 After this post I will be posting the traditional Génoise cake method as well.   You’ll  see how they are similar, with the differences of the Génoise method being whisked over a bain-marie but has no raising agent. To be a little more pedantic about the differences, in a Genoise because the eggs are cooked […]

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Liquid Glucose – The Answer to Perfect Ice-Cream and More

January 17, 2011
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Maybe it was reading recently about Heston Blumenthal opening up a mid-price range restaurant in London where his famous liquid nitrogen ice-cream will be served that jolted this quest of mine; how to make ice-cream at home that stays soft.  After reading Kavey‘s post about an ice-cream shop in Camden Town, London, serving liquid nitrogen ice-cream, […]

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Light Hazelnut Cake – Two Ways

December 20, 2010
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This is a very light hazelnut cake.  I’m in love with this cake.  I’m very happy eating it plain and humble with no make-up, perfect for me with a cup of coffee, the nuttiness of hazelnut comes through with a lovely texture from the not-so-fine ground hazelnuts.  I’ve been wanting to experiment with a chestnut […]

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