Category: Desserts

Sweet potato cake with maple cream cheese frosting

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This cake is perfect for autumn. It’s just slightly adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe for carrot cake and you probably wouldn’t know it was sweet potato if I didn’t tell you but it’s the maple frosting that makes it. I had a glut of sweet potatoes lying around and I figured there was no reason why I couldn’t use them in the same way as carrots. This frosting is much sweeter than your basic cream cheese frosting so you don’t need a big slice when it comes to eating, but who am I to tell you how to eat your cake?!

It is crumbly without being dry and has the right balance of sweet and spice. As with all cakes, I recommend a strong coffee. Continue reading →

How to: Swiss meringue

I didn’t get nervous about the Swiss meringue until I saw the polyester sleeve of my mother’s dressing gown dangling perilously close to the flame flying out of the blowtorch.

Let me start at the beginning. When we decided to make cakes for my mother’s birthday, I went with my usual method of imagining something and deciding to leap in without being fully sure of my method. It sounds like a reckless process when I write it down like that, but “Eh, I’ll learn by trying” has served me pretty well so far.

What I didn’t realise when I pictured a cake topped with fluffy meringue, piped tips torched golden, is that Swiss meringue is notoriously finicky. Thanks to reactions between proteins that I don’t completely understand and definitely can’t pronounce, Swiss meringue can be both unstable and less fluffy than you’d hope. It can weep. It can collapse. If I’d known this, I might have been nervous earlier than when I had visions of my hand flying off to the left and setting the kitchen on fire.

Thankfully, using this method, the meringue – and I – did not weep or collapse. Instead, it came out glossier than a show horse, and once I’d moved that pesky sleeve out of the way, turned the most glorious golden colour after being kissed by a blowtorch.

Continue reading →

Masala chai scones

It’s a blessing and a curse, being with someone who loves food as much as you do. A curse because of the inevitable weight gain that results from eating a lot of cheese; a blessing…for so many reasons. You know — brie, camembert, weird Wensleydale varieties.

Our story is a long path studded with pubs and restaurants, coffee shops and stores filled with local produce and good beer. It took a while, with months of not talking, then hours-long phonecalls, both of us too idiotic to know the other’s feelings. It featured a lot of chai teas, and these days a lot of scones. We got there in the end.

I’m not sure why I expected making chai scones with our story in mind to be a smoother process.

Two recipes, both alike in dignity, in fine Norwich, where we lay our scene… Continue reading →

Super gooey espresso cheesecake brownies

I think there are two categories of brownie, dessert and snack. Dessert brownies are messy and probably need to be eaten with ice cream and a spoon. Snack brownies are the ones you can wrap in foil and sneak into your handbag for emergency brownie situations – these situations arise almost daily for me. I place myself more on the dessert end of the spectrum, I find a dry, cakey brownie just about the most disappointing thing that could happen to me in a world of baked goods. Continue reading →

Prosecco and mint panna cotta

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My fridge has been full of various attempts at panna cotta for days. Shelves full of tea cups and ramekins and every mini container that might hold a panna cotta. I never expected my first attempt to go well, it set but it was rubbery and far too boozy, the alcohol seemed to double overnight. It’s all about balance with these flavours, one attempt had too much prosecco, one had too much mint, I finally cracked it and I think these are perfect for a festive dinner party. They are smooth and creamy but also really light and a lovely way to end a meal.

I’m a big prosecco fan, I insisted with order extra for the wedding because I love it so, and I know some of my bridesmaids do too. We had a few bottles as gifts so Nick and I had a few fizz filled evenings in front of the TV with a takeaway. We also went through a couple of glasses leftover from the bottles used for this recipe. I have a soft spot for bubbles in my wine glass.

Prosecco and Mint Panna Cotta

(recipe adapted from The Kitchn)

  • 240ml whole milk
  • 3 teaspoons powdered gelatin
  • 70g caster sugar
  • 360ml double cream
  • 120ml prosecco
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 mint leaves, finely chopped (plus extra for garnish)
  1. If you want to be able to turn the panna cotta out, rub a tiny bit of oil around the dish.
  2. Pour the milk into a medium to large saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin on top. Leave to soften for 5-7 minutes.
  3. Turn the heat on to low and gently warm the milk, stirring regularly until the gelatin has all dissolved. Don’t like the milk boil though.
  4. Stir in the sugar and heat until this has dissolved, still keeping the milk from boiling.
  5. Whisk in the cream, prosecco, salt and mint and pour into your moulds.
  6. Place in the fridge and leave to set for at least 4 hours.
  7. Serve straight away or to remove from the moulds, run a slim knife around the top edge and hold the mould in a bowl of warm water for 5 seconds. Turn upside down and give it gentle shake to release it. If it is a little stubborn hold it in the water for a 3 seconds at a time.
  8. Place a little mint leaf on top to serve.

Rhubarb and rose tea cakes

The problem with these tea cakes is that it’s really easy to keep eating them. There’s no muffin case getting in your way and all these pretty little tea cakes are just lying around whispering ‘ooh [insert name here] why don’t you put the kettle on and eat us all?!’.

What? You mean your cakes don’t talk to you?

I jest of course but cake definitely finds a way to call to me in some way. I know how to be stronger and resist. If I make sure I get more sleep and eat well in the day then I can turn cake down but if I’m tired and hormonal then it’s every cake for himself.

These are the perfect no frills tea cakes. Whipping up the egg whites separately means the batter is much lighter. Rose and rhubarb is a wonderful flavour combination and one of my favourites. Continue reading →

Lemon shortbread

Well, this is quite a ride, isn’t it? Waking up to political chaos, walking into work while it rains and taking a lunchbreak in the sunshine. I mean, it would be quite a ride, if turmoil and multi-season days hadn’t become the new normal for a British summer over the past few years. I’m excited to see what we’re going to vote on next June.

Another classic reaction to stressful situations in the UK is biscuits, and so today we return to shortbread, via fingers plunged into butter, bits of dough snuck into mouths before it can hit the oven, and the scent of freshly zested lemon.

Continue reading →

Almost Virtuous Waffles

“I,” I declared to my flatmate, four and a half years ago, “am going to get a waffle iron, to celebrate moving to London.”

Spoiler: I did not get a waffle iron. Until this month, when my lovely colleagues bought me one. I am an idiot, and it is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. Admittedly, I once said that about a pod coffee machine too, but we have all been young and foolish (and then older and foolish).

Anyway, a waffle habit is a hard one to sustain, due to the fact that a lot of the recipes out there use a load of butter. I mean…enough butter to make a 12-person cake with, some of them. A horrendous quantity.

So! Waffles, made fluffy with egg white, with minimal, and even then, optional, butter. A lil bit of sugar. A good basis for fruit and yoghurt, or avocado and eggs, or cheese, under the grill.  Continue reading →