Wednesday 30 November 2011

Christmas Madness!

It's that time of year again when you are invited to so many parties, that a night in seems like a treat instead of the other way around.  And the choice of venue is not always one you may have chosen for yourself!
This was the case when I ate at Kitchen Italia in Covent Garden on Friday night.  I have always said that it's pretty impossible to spoil Italian food - they just use the best simple ingredients and cook them as simply as possible, right?  How wrong could I be.  Out of about twenty of us I would bet there were possibly only two or three plates that went back to the kitchen cleared of food (and these would have been the plates belonging to young strapping male rowers who, to be perfectly honest, will eat pretty much whatever you put in front of them!).  And on top of that the service was pretty appalling too.  Why do people eat in such places, especially in London where you have the choice of thousands of restaurants?
But then on to Monday night, when a friend and I choose to eat at The Glasshouse in Kew.  Wow, what a difference - neither of us can understand why this restaurant does not have a michelin star - the food was out of this world (but I do think the decor lets the place down).  My starter of smoked eel with beetroot and blinis, and desert of bread and ricotta pudding could not be faulted.  And best of all, it's local!

So now we have to start thinking about Christmas gifts, and with my allergy to shops, and really shopping in general,  the best option always is to make food gifts.  Up to date I've not had any complaints!
So, having just finished a photography shoot where we needed lots of limes, I thought I would test my lime curd recipe - it obviously won't last until it's time to give as a gift, but that means I get to eat this batch then make more again later!

Lime Curd 


Makes 2-3 jars (depending on size)


4 med eggs
zest and juice of 4 limes
350 g caster sugar
225 g unsalted butter, diced

  • Place the eggs in a pan and whisk together.
  • Add the remaining ingredients and place over a very low heat.  
  • Whisk continuously until the curd starts to thicken - don't try to rush this over too much heat or you will have lime scrambled eggs on your hands.
  • Pour into sterilised jars and leave to cool before covering.
  • Keep chilled.
If you want to make lemon or orange curd, stick to the same principle, just be aware that oranges give more juice, so maybe use less of them.





Wednesday 23 November 2011

Tea at Harrods

What a lovely start to the day - breakfast at Harrods!  But no ordinary breakfast, this was an invitation to sample what is on offer at the new Tea Room on the second floor, so cakes were available in abundance.  I had thought it far too early to be sampling these, but it didn't take long for me to crack.
Harrods' new novel idea is to have a kind if pick-and-mix with the cakes (this is after you have sampled their savories obviously) - you can decide what arrives on your three tiered cake-stand.  This is accompanied by the tea of your choice, from a 20 tea list, some of which we tasted this morning, made and poured by Yousef Serroukh, their tea and coffee buyer, who then gave us instruction on how to make the perfect cup of tea -




  • always use well stored, top-quality loose tea
  • a small china teapot will allow you to control the infusion of the tea much better than bigger pots -no large than 300ml
  • be generous with the tea - around 5g for a 300ml teapot
  • use filtered or bottled water for a better taste
  • water temperature is crucial - white and yellow teas are best when infused at 40-60C, and black teas are better with near boiling water
  • time your infusion - 3 minutes is the recommended optimum time
Yousef told us we should treat tea as a ritual, and in my mind this ritual should be accompanied by a big log fire, delicious cakes and close friends.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Back to Baking, and the Blog

I can't believe a month has gone by since I last managed to fit in time for my lovely blog.  I don't like to complain about having too much work, but when it totally takes over your life, it can't be good!
And when it stops me from cooking things I want to cook, that's also very frustrating.  Having just completed a book of Italian recipes (all 360 of them), plus twenty recipes for The Dukan Diet, I was just itching to do some real baking at the weekend.  And just to ensure I did, I invited my lovely neighbours over for Sunday tea.
This recipe comes from a lovely lady in Devon, Isabel Tomlin who, with her husband, runs Northam House Bed and Breakfast in South Molton, Devon.  On our mammoth cycle ride from Lands End to John O' Groats back in May, Northam House was our second night stop.  We had no idea what we had let ourselves in for, but after 11 hours of cycling up the steepest hills I have ever seen, we finally reached the B&B and were met by Isabel and given a piece of cake to try to revive us.
Having failed to remember to take a piece with us the following day, my dear friend Liz then emailed to ask for the recipe, and finally it arrived last week!  I felt I had to make it to see if it really was as good as I remember, or was it just the 11 hours cycling that had heightened my taste-buds?!
This recipe also reminds me of one we all used to make as chalet maids when I worked the ski season a few years ago - having no scales in those remote alpine chalets, but having to cook a different cake every day, we all used a yoghurt pot to measure everything - it always worked a treat, and to vary it you would just use different flavouring and a different shape tin every day!

Boiled Apple Cake


1 mug sugar
1 mug dried fruit
1 mug water
125 g butter
1 des spn ground cinnamon
1 des spn ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 mug wholemeal self-raising flour
1 mug self-raising flour
1 egg, beaten


1.  Preheat the oven to 190C (375F) Gas Mark 5.  Grease and base line an 18 cm loose-bottomed cake tin.
2.  Place the sugar, dried fruit, water, butter, spices and apple in a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.
3.  Stir in the flours and egg, then pour the mixture into the tin and cook for around 1 hour.  The cake is ready when a knife inserted comes out clean.


This cake is really delicious and so easy to make and as Isabel told me, will come out different every time!