Posted in Baking, Cake, Dessert, Fruit, tagged Autumn, cake, custard, nutmeg, plum, roasted, spice, vanilla on November 21, 2012|
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More cake today. This time with fruit which totally makes it healthy. And with big gooey pockets of custard which makes it more healthy. Custard’s good for you right? Lots of calcium, good for strong bones. Ahem. The idea for this cake has been kicking around for a while now going through various transformations in my head before it ever even hit the mixing bowl. The first seed of inspiration came from Dan Lepard’s Short and Sweet, an encyclopaedia of all things good, which has a recipe for apple and walnut cake dotted with custard. I pinched the custard element and reduced the sugar since his recipes always turn out too sweet for my tastes. The cake is a basic sponge made with both caster and soft brown sugar for a caramel depth and spiced with nutmeg, the traditional and perfect flavour pairing for creamy custard and a good match with plums. (more…)
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Posted in Low effort, Lunch, Salad, Side dish, Vegetables, Vegetarian, tagged carrots, fennel, hazelnuts, honey, roasted, salad, vegetarian on July 24, 2012|
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This recipe was one of those off-the-cuff type things which I threw together one evening when I spent a little to much time wondering what to do with a bag of dinky little Chantenay carrots. Happily enough it turned out to be rather nice and I have repeated it since turning my salad into a lunch dish by mixing the sticky-sweet roasted carrots with a heap of lentils and topping them off with a crumbling of salty feta. The earthy flavour of the carrots is lifted by a sharp mustard and lemon dressing which also serves to cut through their concentrated honeyed sweetness. Toasted hazelnuts lend a some textural interest and their buttery taste plays along well with the rest of the dish. (more…)
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Posted in Low effort, Lunch, Packed lunch friendly, Party food, Side dish, Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian, tagged almonds, apero, cinema, lemon, nibbles, olive oil, roasted, salt, snack, wine on March 26, 2012|
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A few weeks ago I went to the cinema (a rare occurrence for me) to see The Artist before it was too late. Making the most of Orange Wednesday my mum and I headed out to the cinema early to make sure we got our two-for-one tickets then headed up to the cafe/bar to have a drink while we waited (thus totally undoing the saving we’d made on the ticket price!). While ordering a (ahem) pot of tea for two, mum spied an interesting selection of snacks for sale at the bar and decided buy something to try. She plumped for roasted almonds flavoured with lemon and sea salt which were utterly delicious. Crunchy, sharp and savoury – a perfect nibble to go with wine or beer. Or tea. On the walk home talk centred around Jean Dujardin, Uggie the dog and those almonds, at which point two things became clear to me: 1) I had to find a way of making some at home to save coughing up another £2.50 for a handful of nuts; 2) I want a slightly shaggy Jack Russel who follows me everywhere.
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T and Cake 