• Blog

    Vanilla Fairy Cakes

    3 June 2020 - By 

    Excellent, airy fairy cake recipe, and a remarkably smooth butter cream that works well in the context on the whole, and even more so with an added, sliced and macerated strawberry on top.  However I might just find it too buttery; it borders on the side of being a little like eating a sweetened pat of butter.  But then maybe I just spooned an overly luxurious quantity onto the cakes… Either way, I think I might be tempted to try an alternate butter cream next time. From British Baking, Oliver Peyton, pg.?

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    Bream with Celery & Avgolemono Sauce

    3 June 2020 - By 

    Wonderful way to cook bream, a lovely, firm flavourful and unavoidably spiky fish.   The avegolemono sauce is a creamy one, achieved in a carbonara like fashion, delicate flavoured the braised vegetables create a very pleasing melange to fill it out. Although possibly a potato wouldn’t go a miss. The fish can take a little more heat, a, a little more golden, at the start than I gave it credit for, and the sauce would benefit from thickening a little, I think. Otherwise lovely. From Venice to Istanbul – Rick Stein, pg. 209

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    No-Bake Cheesecake and Red Berry Coulis

    3 June 2020 - By 

    An extremely nice recipe I would happily try again.  Although not exactly on trend there is a part of me that is beginning to suspect that I simply prefer non-baked cheesecakes… Further investigation required before the statement can be made definitively though. The cheesy mix is a delight and I’d change little.  The base was a homemade ginger nut, which is one of my favourite biscuit recipes.  Perhaps Graham crackers are not sweet, but certainly what I can say about this is that the extra sugar when crumbling the base is not required. The red berry coulis is a wonderful…

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    Trout and… flaked almonds?

    29 May 2020 - By 

    Many of the listed ingredients were missing when it came to it, one of the two title ingredients of almonds being chief among them.  And those that I had were not quite as called for (whole trout as opposed to a filet).  One must be flexible, I suppose. The skeleton was the same: new potatoes, boiled, chopped, fried.  Shallots (read onions with added garlic for this mangled version) and peppers sautéed.  Fish floured, fried.  But a whole fish requires a little extra involvement… fry both sides until golden, pop on a tray and bake for a few minutes.  I took…

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    Pancit Canton

    29 May 2020 - By 

    Wonderful quick noodle dish, made luxurious with nice, big, juicy expensive prawns, but these could be substituted for a more economical version. Used matchsticked leeks in place of ripped cabbage and it worked beautifully. From Noodle – Terry Durack

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    Greek Chicken Pie

    26 May 2020 - By 

    This is such a magnificent pie, and I can only dream of how wonderful it would be had I not forgotten to leave out the jellied stock that I so carefully boiled down for oh so very many hours. Must do again.  It is flavoursome (even without a key flavour enhancing element), juicy and crunchy. From Rick Stein – Spain to Istanbul, pg. xxx

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    Almond and Lemon Cake

    26 May 2020 - By 

    I adore this cake.  It’s plain, it’s simple, it doesn’t rise in any notable way, I was skeptical.  But it’s beautiful, dense and fudgy and lemony. I modified the icing to use lemon juice rather than water and I wouldn’t change that.  The idea of using warm water (in this case warm lemon juice) to help the process of smooshing the icing sugar is a good one. Important correction for future indulgences: the bake timing of 40 minutes given was too long for my oven and my cake tin.  Check after 30, but 35 is probably about right. From Master…

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    Pasteis de Nata

    22 May 2020 - By 

    It’s not often you find the perfect recipe for what you’re making first time, but this is pretty much it. Just outstanding. Only change is consider is perhaps a little more care with the pastry, perhaps cooking between butter layers in an attempt to up the flakiness. From https://leitesculinaria.com/7759/recipes-pasteis-de-nata.html