Baking

Apple bread, baking for cold weather

Apple bread, from Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul by Diana Henry

It’s nearly December, so all the apples are in and off the trees now.  That leaves an annual problem…dealing with gluts. Luckily, I don’t have any gluts to deal with, but I do have friends who need to deal with theirs, leading to a slight over-abundance of Bramley apples.  Apple pie? Too predictable.  Baked apples? [...]

Food & drink

Maple syrup, walnut and pear cake

Maple, walnut and pear cake by David Lebovitz

This last week or so have been quite tough, and the coming ones aren’t shaping up particularly well, either. What to do? Well, baking a cake often helps. So, that’s what I did today, cashing in half a day’s holiday tucked away for a rainy day and heading off home in the wind and through [...]

Food & drink

Gingersnap biscuits

Gingersnap biscuits or cookies

These biscuits didn’t really come out as they were intended. They should have been thinner and much more fragile, but the slightly thicker and heavier versions I ended up with have a good heft to them. They’re not what they were meant to be, but they taste good and that’s all that really matters. Beat [...]

Food & drink

Foosteeyeah, or sesame and peanut slices

Foosteeyeah, or sesame and peanut slices from Nouha Taouk’s Whispers from a Lebanese Kitchen

It’s often said that simplicity in cooking is a virtue, that ingredients should be allowed to speak for themselves. This recipe has just four ingredients, and at a push, you could drop one of those, but they’re carefully combined into something quite exceptional, something that won’t hang around for very long once it’s cooled. The [...]

Food & drink

Rhubarb and ginger cake

Rhubarb and ginger cake

We’ve got a North facing garden, shaded by next door’s garage and four stories of Edwardian brickwork. There isn’t a lot of light back there, and the ground has a tendency to hold too much water because of the high clay content.  I can successfully grow only two things – those Jurassic style ferns that [...]

Food & drink