From the category archives:

How To

Salted Caramel Chocolate Truffles

December 3, 2010
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Salted Caramel Chocolates have been on my mind for the last three months, maybe because I had a tin of dulce de leche in the cupboard and wanted to make something suitable for the Christmas holiday.   These chocolates by the way are delicious and I’m speaking as a non-caramel eater, this was also the […]

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Easy Chocolate Truffles

December 3, 2010
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For the little effort of boiling some cream adding chopped chocolate, stir until melted and refrigerate you can make chocolates.  It doesn’t get more complicated than that.  Once your chocolate is set just scoop it out using a teaspoon and roll them in cocoa powder.  It’s incredibly impressive to serve chocolates you’ve made.  Make these […]

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Why Does My Pastry Shrink? Step-by-step Guide to Shortcrust Pastry

November 26, 2010
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Your pastry shrinks because it contains liquid which will evaporate during cooking. There’s a lot of advice out there to tackle the problem with shrinking pastry.  Advise given is usually along the lines that your pastry is being overworked, let your pastry rest, make sure you blind bake, don’t over roll it, working fast, keeping […]

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Chocolate Slabs – The Perfect Christmas Gift

November 19, 2010
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Here it is.  I’ve had this idea now since last year and it has finally made it to fruition.  A few years ago when I saw these type of chocolate slabs in Hotel Chocolat I was immediately drawn to them on the sheer scale of chocolate they contain…greedy guts…you don’t need to tell me…but they […]

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How To Make Easy Sourdough Starter – Dan Lepard

November 16, 2010
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Since I intend to carry on baking sourdough and post about it I wanted to make my own starter from scratch to make sure I was capable of producing it and show how easy it is.  If I can…anyone can produce some.  For a sourdough novice like me when I first received my hand-me-down leaven […]

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Easy Wholemeal Loaf using the no-kneading method

October 24, 2010
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I had mention on my reply to Becca on the How To Make: An Easy Loaf post I was trying out a wholemeal loaf using the same method and here it is.   I made the second batch yesterday trying out the mixture with more liquid because the first time around wasn’t quite there.  This isn’t […]

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How To Make: An Easy Loaf – My EveryDay Bread with No Kneading

October 19, 2010
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This post has become far far bigger than I first thought it would, I’m trying to cover as much detail as possible to give the biggest chance of reproducing what I can in my little kitchen; a tasty easy loaf to fit around your busy day.  That’s my criteria here if like me time is […]

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Pears in Red Wine by Heston Blumenthal & Paul Bocuse – Which Was Best?

October 17, 2010
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Paul Bocuse and Heston Blumenthal are not two chefs I think of putting together but that’s how it happen this week.  In the past when I’ve cooked pears in red wine I have followed Paul Bocuse’s recipe from his book “My Classic Cuisine” published back in 1989.  A book which now amongst the cookery book […]

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Fresh Fig Tart with Crème Pâtissière flavoured with Orange Blossom

October 10, 2010
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Just before entering the gloom of our winter when the summer fruit trees go to sleep I can still buy the last of the autumn’s fruits; plums and fresh figs, by November we’ll be back to apples, pears and tropical fruits.  There’s some good offers on figs which is great for some indulgence and making […]

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Poaching Peaches

August 25, 2010
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The amount of times I look at a pack of peaches, they can look so attractive with dark peachy colour, fooling you into a sense of ripeness and of course they’re not.  If you’re lucky enough and they ripen at home they still won’t have the natural sugar they should have if they were tree […]

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Semi Sourdough White Bread – My Family’s Favourite

July 20, 2010
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This has become a regular loaf in our household, middle child loves it, and Bikerboy asks for it.  If I  haven’t baked any bread, I get a puzzle look from him to say, “why?”.  Today oldest child rang from the field across our house where she was chatting with her friends, to ask if they […]

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Dan Lepard White Sourdough using No-knead Method

June 30, 2010
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Using here Dan Lepard’s white sourdough recipe from his Handmade Loaf book which I find quite wet.  Something I’ve had to get use to.  I who was comfortable making dried yeast doughs has had to forget everything I know about making bread when I embarked on my journey of sourdough 4 months ago.  Dan’s white […]

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Dan Lepard White Sourdough Modified using no-knead method step-by-step

June 30, 2010
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I’ve been baking a lot of bread lately.  Baking dried yeast breads is addictive once you start to produce a decent loaf, but there’s something about baking a good sourdough that becomes obsessive.  I’ve lost count of the amount of white sourdoughs I’ve baked, with an adjustment here and there, seeing how reducing the liquid […]

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How To: Make Light Muffins

May 31, 2010
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If like me you learned how to bake over 20 years ago in the UK then you probably learned how to whisk or cream cake mixture really well, making sure all the ingredients are all well amalgamated giving it lots of air.  I had to relearn how to make muffin-style cakes and stop myself from […]

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How To: Charring Peppers & Roasting Peppers

May 14, 2010
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I roast pepper most weeks, have them covered in a little olive oil in the fridge and use them in sandwiches, put them in casseroles, rice dishes, tomato sauces, they’re a great source of sweetness to a dish. Charring Peppers The best charred peppers are ones cooked over charcoals on the bbq but since in […]

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