• Blog

    Light Fruit Cake

    9 March 2024 - By 

    This is Nigel Slater’s gooseberry crumble cake (minus the gooseberry and the crumble) and 260g of soaked dried fruit. And it’s great. I skewed the ratio of flour to almond another 30g towards almonds. And I chopped up the glace cherries before soaking them in rum with sultanas and raisins, and I wouldn’t skip the cherries, the flavour they add is excellent. This cake always takes longer than the suggested 1 hour for me. This had around 1hr 15mins and this was too much, the outside being a little singed. Would love to add some cinnamon, try different alcohols.

  • Blog

    Corn Chowder

    23 February 2024 - By 

    Tried to omit the cream initially… But this may depend on the creaminess to add body as I wasn’t impressed until I added some single cream, which tied it together. Perhaps using a really good chicken stock rather than the stock cube I used here might mean you can go without the cream… Worth trying. it’s also possible that yoghurt could be used. I think the green chilli is also important to punch through the starchy, sweetness. In fact I also added the juice of a lemon after cooking which I think helped it along. From Milk Street Fast and…

  • Showdown

    Croissants: flour showdown

    15 February 2024 - By 

    On test: Plain flour, protein 11.3% Bread flour, protein 12% 00 flour, protein 12.5% Plain flour is surprisingly excellent for croissants, takes a good bit of kneading, and this isn’t exactly a fair test with the others as I used a different folding technique (1 x book fold, 2 x letter fold was used with the plain flour croissants) and I didn’t control the proof well, so it took several hours to reach triple the size. But these are just lovely and short… Not exactly authentic, a bit shorter than a typical croissant but quite delicious. The following were made…

  • Blog

    Goa fish curry

    11 February 2024 - By 

    A form of molee, really, but a teeny bit more rich, at least in the heavily modified version I was able to create here. Using ground spices and coconut cream rather than doing the grinding for yourself… Which though doable really does extend the cooking process. Also using more passata and less water to thin the paste than suggested. Very, very nice. Solid instructions, easy to modify, well banaced spices in the quantities suggested (roughly). It suggests you can use fish or prawns or chicken. I decided to use prawns and basa fillets, because I’m a maverick like that. Very…

  • Blog

    Jam Sponge Pudding

    5 February 2024 - By 

    Honestly I just don’t know that it’s possible to make a steamed pudding look refined in any way. I wasn’t really trying in fairness, I’m not even sure if I care… but this looks an absolute state and that flies in the face of the fact that it was utterly delicious and frankly confirms to me that steamed puddings are incredible and under-rated in world wide cuisine. Non-sueted version, as I decided that I would aim for a light and airy squishiness. And starting life as a Burn’s night whisky and marmalade pudding, with the marmalade and whisky removed. The…

  • Blog

    Roast cabbage with chana dal and sauerkraut

    29 January 2024 - By 

    Wholesome and tasty. Added some extra sauerkraut and a sprinkle of Hungarian paprika to finish. Would love to keep the cabbage more whole. Perhaps just by cooking it for a little less time or cutting the wedges into quarters rather than sixths. From www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/20/roast-cabbage-chana-dal-swede-carrot-bulgur-preserved-lemon-lentils-butternut-squash-feta-yoghurt-yotam-ottolenghi-winter-vegetable-recipes

  • Full Recipe

    Tangzhong Bread

    29 January 2024 - By 

    Ingredients Tangzhong Dough Instructions 1. For the Tangzhong, mix 40g bread flour with 200g water in a saute pan. Turn on medium heat and keep stirring until mixture thickens to a paste. 2. Refrigerate for 6 hours. Bring out to room temperature 1 hour before use. 3. Add bread flour, sugar, salt, dry yeast, powdered milk to a mixing bowl and mix gently with dough hook attachment. 4. At low speed, mix in milk and egg and Tangzhong so that no flour is visible. 5. Add in room temperature unsalted butter and mix at low speed. 6. Slowly turn up…

  • Blog

    Pomme Dauphinoise

    1 January 2024 - By 

    This recipe feels authoritative. Not experimental, not “here’s a quick stab at it“. More “this is how you make a pomme dauphinoise“. From the wording, including story of it being something he made tens of each and every day as a young chef, to the clear instructions and most importantly in the tasting… Absolutely wonderful, savoury and fudgey. I suppose I wonder if a more roast potato-esque brittle crisp could be achieved on top rather than the slightly firm thing here. A little more fat on top, or perhaps a parboiled layer just for the top.. But it’s still extremely…

  • Blog

    Dresden Stollen

    25 December 2023 - By 

    Excellent, would do again… But I would add the central marzipan rod… It may or may not be traditional, but I missed it here. The quantities given here are huge, easily enough for 3 large stollen. German Baking – Jürgen Krauss, Pg. 164

  • Showdown

    Cupcakes – rise and crumb testing

    28 October 2023 - By 

    Using the new ambient temperature oven thermometer and feeding in ideas from the CupcakeJemma video, this is a comparison of my favourite recipe vs hers.‌ It’s following on from the initial investigation: Initial note is that my version of her recipe looks like her under mixed batch with a slightly pointed dome rather than a more even, gradual one, so perhaps I didn’t quite mix enough, however i’d say they are actually extremely difficult to separate and either method works perfectly well. Right is Peyton & Byrne creaming method, left is CupcakeJemma all in one. The thing that interested me…