In Season: October

“GUYS. Look at all those apples. Bloody hell I love apple season, look at them all!”

It was October 1st and I was way too excited about apples, wandering around Borough Market with Sophie and Em as part of what Timehop shows to be an annual get-together, trying to spot a wild Delbard Estivale (apple type, not Pokémon). I’d blame being slightly delirious on the fact that I’d been stung by a huge wasp – unprovoked! – a couple of hours earlier*, but I feel like it’s justified – it’s a great month for English apples, meaning we can branch out beyond the supermarket standard breeds and the madness that is importing from New Zealand and the USA.

So for In Season this month, we’re looking at the classic early-autumn fruits, apple and blackberry. Continue reading

In Season: December

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ontrary to the December diet I described in my last post, there are plenty of vegetables that are in season in December, as well as, you know, biscuits, cakes, and meat wrapped in more meat.

Admittedly, fruit is thin on the ground – at this point we’re mostly importing or living on booze-soaked dried fruit. No complaints here! Continue reading

In season: October

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‘ve been putting this post off in hopes that I’d have a recipe to put up, but the broken oven in our flat has thwarted me. I managed to make a birthday cake in a kitchen fairly foreign to me – a towering chocolate affair, with whisky buttercream and caramel ganache – but the recipe needs tweaks before it can appear here. Instead, a yawning content chasm has opened.

The fan and element have both blown, and by the time the new parts are fitted, it will have been three weeks since the bad news was delivered via WhatsApp. Three weeks of mentally planning meals and then remembering they’re an impossibility. Three weeks of being desperate to bake something to use up the 40 eggs I bought last weekend. A slight surplus, but worth it – they taste different in a way that’s hard to pinpoint. Richer, perhaps? Either way, they’re part of the dearth of creative cooking, lately. It’s all eggs on this, eggs on that. (Really, it’s a pretty good problem to have.)
Continue reading

Autumn spiced shortbread

Autumn spiced shortbread | The Littlest Bakehouse

It’s baking season and I’ve lost my baking mojo.

I’ve had a number of flops in recent weeks, which is why it’s been quiet around here – I’d rather not post than post a recipe that I didn’t feel was quite right. I’ve tried sifting my flour, and I’ve thrown out anything on the baking shelf that was out of date. The next thing to try is using an oven thermometer, to see if the temperature knob is lying to me. Continue reading

Spiced pumpkin & maple rolls

I think I’m being trolled by a season.

Spiced pumpkin & maple rolls | The Littlest BakehouseOn Monday morning, I stepped out of the front door and it smelt like the summer finally turning to my favourite season. There was an edge to the air, the temperature a little cooler. “At last,” I thought, “Autumn’s arrived. Not long till I can crack out the tweed jacket again.”

And by 1pm I was cursing wearing three quarter sleeves and trying to convince myself that it wasn’t really obvious that my entire face was sweating. What the hell, autumn? You’re teasing me. Continue reading