Boo.
These moist marbled cupcakes are flavoured with orange zest and chocolate, there's nothing scary about that.
These moist marbled cupcakes are flavoured with orange zest and chocolate, there's nothing scary about that.
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 It's probably something to do with the sudden plummeting temperatures we just experienced here in the North of England, but I had the urge, to not just bake, but bake something substantial, there is something very comforting about bread-making at every stage of the process; having a bowl of live yeast in your airing cupboard or kitchen, or filling the house with wholesome aromas of baking dough.
And then there's the eating.  It's October, there are pumpkins. It's the weekend; make soup to counter the over indulgences and feel healthy again. This soup is pure pumpkin, it's nutritious and cleansing, if you want it to be less cleansing, add cheese on toast croutons. After all, being too healthy is just plain odd.
I know what you're thinking. Salad? In Autumn? But this is truly autumnal, I promise. Its an easy, different midweek side that has big flavours and goes well with pizza, quiche and other cheesy things as well as with a chop, steak or piece of fish simply pan fried.  
Autumn is my favourite season by far - the food, the weather, the mood; everything is good. There are mushrooms to pick and pumpkins to carve, we can start thinking about Christmas cake and mincemeat. 
I've taken some of my favourite photos in Autumn, the light here is amazing at this time of year, so beaches and sunsets don't get much better. 
A lazy Sunday breakfast should ideally include bacon, and today was no exception. I had an urge for a pancake that was somewhere in-between American and English; small in diameter, light in texture, but thicker than a crepe.   Ever since Remy (remember him, cute little rat who makes his way as a master chef in Paris…bore NO resemblance to the one sewer rat I’ve had the pleasure of encountering, wouldn’t touch HIS Mediterranean vegetables with someone else’s fork) showed us how it should be done, ratatouille became the victim of its own success. It used to be chunks of aubergine in overly concentrated tomato sauce, now we are faced with attempting to achieve something that resembles, quite literally, a Disney/Pixar production.
Fear not, I have it all figured out.  I got given these James Greaves apples a few weeks ago, they stored successfully for a few weeks in a cupboard, but I got worried my kitchen would smell like cider and so decided to make those bad boys into something special. I wanted some kind of a strudel flavour, so I used some crushed walnuts to line the bottom of the pastry case, and added rum soaked sultanas to the mix. Et voila, a strudel pie was born.
The thing about pastry is that people think its faffy, but actually it just wants to be left alone. Two things that ensure a good, flaky texture are: Coldness Flat, rather than crumbed,fat During this instruction you will notice a lot of returning to the fridge, rolling out, and not touching. You may not be used to using the method I have adopted, but trust your inner baker and everything will turn out super. You can go with all butter with no ill effects.   Thankfully Fred the weatherman got it totally wrong today, and the rain did in fact stay away until noon, which suited me just fine, as that’s when I was all farmers marketed out. Aside from ogling purple carrots and buying pumpkins far bigger than my head, I also: - Nearly got a kitten - Took a photograph of a photograph of James Martin, British celebrity chef  Let me just clarify that the kitten was not at the market, no, much worse than that, he was in a glass box in a pet shop. He was black with green eyes and I think it was love at first sight. But I have rules, and one of them is not to buy kittens.  The photograph of James Martin was at the market, next to a box of pork pies. I cropped the photo out of the photo, it seemed too surreal. I bought far more than I needed, including the cutest courgettes ever, aren’t they just adorbz?  |
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