Dear, glorious sunshine, I never want you to end.

Hazy, lazy weekend afternoons with wine on the lawn.

The friendly, smiley faces of  the other-wise reserved Great British people.

Long, light evenings with laughter and a perpetual holiday feeling.
In keeping with the orange theme; oh yes, there's a theme, please find herewith, for your delectation, The Sweet Orange Roll.

 
 
Though you may be forgiven for wondering, after baking this Sicilian dessert cake.

As the intoxicating aroma of sweet scented oranges and olive oil fill your home, you'll wonder.

Whole oranges are gently cooked in syrup until soft, and form the basis for this cake.

Olive oil is your fat of choice here, it's not weird at all, just utterly exotic and so perfectly complimentary to the orange flavour. 

One word; heady.

So easy to put together, a child could do it, but be under no illusion, this is one seriously grown up dessert.
Read on for full recipe, and prepare to feel like the domestic god(dess) that you truly are.

 

On Eggs

04/05/2012

4 Comments

 
I know Easter is long gone, and I did eggs recently, with these delicious suggestions, but I LOVE eggs, and something egg-related I keep seeing lately is bugging me, so you're going to have to put up with some further yolk talk, and I'll try to keep it brief.

Eggs, there are rules, one of those rules is that eggs used should be at room temperature, which of course they should; eggs are complex and delicate and cooking them from cold will impact upon the end result, plus eggs are really porous, you don't really want them rubbing shoulders with other high-flavour things.

What has been bugging me is that lately, 'advice' has been appearing on how to bring your eggs to room temperature. I would like to counter this, with my advice: do not store your eggs in the fridge. I keep mine on a counter-top, I've never stored eggs in the fridge, I've chilled them once or twice for recipe purposes, but my default  egg position is out in the kitchen. 

Now I don't know if this eggs-in-the-fridge thing is new, or if I've just noticed it, but I get my eggs from a local chicken keeper, and there are no storage instructions, and the eggs don't go near a fridge prior to me getting them.

I get a bit cranky when I see that boxes now have 'refrigerate after purchase'.

And buy your eggs free-range, local, and as fresh as you can get. 

Better still, buy a chicken or 3 and have the BEST eggs ever. 
Read on for one of my favourite sandwiches, Eggy Butty extraordinaire (invented title fresh from my own brain).

 

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