Rhubarb & Ginger Ice Cream Tart

I wanted to make something with rhubarb and ginger, and I was feeling inspired by the DB tian last month. I still had some of the pastry discs leftover (they keep really well), so I decided to make something a bit similar.

I stewed a little rhubarb, and then stacked this with plain ice cream (not vanilla, plain. It's amazing.) stem ginger and one of the pate sablee discs.

Rhubarb & Ginger Ice Cream Tart

It wasn't the prettiest dish, but it was so tasty. I loved the texture of the crispy pastry against the soft the ice cream and rhubarb. The spiciness of the ginger balanced nicely with the ice cream, and the tartness of the rhubarb.

None left

Orange Tian - March Daring Bakers

This month's challenge almost totally passed me by, and it was only last week I remembered I had to do it!

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

Again, I didn't feel very inspired by this recipe. As a child, I always thought my Dad was strange for not liking creamy desserts, but in the last few years I've started to agree with him. Whipped cream in particular sets my teeth on edge. (I still love clotted cream though, no worries there.) This particular challenge contained a rather large whipped cream element.

Anyway, on I ploughed. The whole point of Daring Baking is to try something you wouldn't otherwise. First up was the pate sablee. This is basically an enriched shortbread, so it forms a very crumbly, crispy pastry when baked. This came together pretty easily, although I had to chill it for over an hour before it was strong enough to work with. As I only wanted to make a couple of tians at most, I halved the recipe, cut out 4 large circles and cut out several smaller circles to make petit fours with. As soon the pastry came out of the oven, I recut it with the plating ring to ensure it was the right size and hadn't spread too much.

Pate Sablee: tian discs at back, petit four discs at front.

We had to make marmalade to use as a layer. I'd already made some Seville marmalade earlier in the year, so I melted some of this down with extra sugar and juice to create a slightly sweeter version that was more suitable for the dessert.

Sweetened Seville Marmalade

Next was the caramel. I have yet to make a successful caramel. Although this one didn't burn, it was way too runny, and was a little bitter. One day, I will conquer caramel. Not today though.

The bit of this challenge that I found most useful was learning how to segment an orange before. A video showing how was posted, and after watching AWT mumble away I managed to do a pretty good job. This is actually quite a useful skill for me, as I love oranges but often avoid them as I hate the pith. (Weirdly, my favourite dessert as a child was orange segments with Cointreau cream. My Mum thought this was ok but watching ITV wasn't. She obviously stopped reading the parenting book before the booze chapter.)

Finally the dreaded whipped cream. Gelatine was added, along with some sugar to stabilise the cream. I didn't find the cream much different, except now the texture was gluey as well as foamy. Ick. We were meant to fold in some of the marmalade at this point, but I opted for a shot of Cointreau instead. If anything was going to make whipped cream with ground up beef bones better, it would be booze.

Orange Tian

The final stage was assembling the dessert. Orange segments went on the bottom, then cream, then a pastry disc spread with marmalade. The whole thing went in the freezer for 10 minutes to harden up a little. Once inverted on to a plate, a little caramel sauce was drizzled over the top.

The final verdict was mixed. I loved the orange segments, and the crispy pastry was a nice contrast to the rest of the dessert. It was let down by the slight bitterness of the caramel and the sickly cream; I ended up being glad that I'd only made one. In future, I'd replace the whipped cream with Cointreau ice cream, or a thin layer of clotted cream. I like the tian idea for desserts in general, and it was quite fun assembling it upside down.

You can see the full recipe here.

Spiced Apple Compote with Buttermilk Pancakes

I am possibly the least sporty person ever, and I can name the sporting events I follow on one hand: The Boat Race and the Winter Olympics. (I don't think Dancing on Ice counts as a sporting event.) I've been to a rugby game at Murrayfield a couple of times, but I just don't get sport.

I attempted to stay up for the opening ceremony of this year's games in Vancouver, but there was no way I was going to make it. So instead, I decided to watch the highlights while tucking in to a Canadian themed breakfast.

Buttermilk makes all things better and pancakes are no exception. That magical acidity reacts with the heat, flour and eggs to get things really light and fluffy. Buttermilk is traditionally the leftover liquid from churning cream in to butter, but most stuff you can buy on the high street is made by adding bacterial cultures to milk. You should be able to get buttermilk at any large supermarket, farm shops, delicatessens or healthfood stores. However, if you can't find it, you can substitute it for milk soured by 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per 250ml of milk. I've also subbed plain yogurt diluted with milk to a thick pouring consistency, with similar results.

Buttermilk Pancakes with Spiced Apple Compote

Normally I'd want these pancakes with berries and yogurt, but fresh berries just don't seem right in February. Instead I made simple spiced apple compote to go with my pancakes. The spices give it a warmth, and I used vanilla sugar to give the apples a bit of extra oomph.

Spiced Apple Compote
Serves 2

2 eating apples
A good lump of butter
2tsp cinnamon
0.5tsp cloves
4tbsp vanilla sugar (alternatively use caster sugar and a dash of vanilla extract)

1) Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat, and peel, core and roughly chop the apples.
2) Add the apples to the melted butter, along with the spices and sugar. Stir everything up, and cover with a lid.
3) Gently cook the apples for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The butter should start to brown, and the apples will be soft enough to cut with a spoon, but still retain their shape.

Spiced Apple Compote

Canadian Buttermilk Pancakes Makes about 12 medium pancakes

150g plain flour
130ml buttermilk
0.5tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 eggs

1) Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt in to a large bowl, and make a well in the middle.
2) Dilute the buttermilk with 75ml water and pour this in to the well. Gently whisk in to the flour.
3) Add the eggs one by one, whisking until you have a thickish smooth batter.
4) Heat a large non-stick frying pan on a medium high heat, and coat with vegetable oil or butter.
5) Pour a small ladleful of batter into the pan, and cook for around 1 minute on each side. The pancake should puff up and be nicely browned.
6) Serve immediately.

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie

Like a lot of food bloggers (and certainly a lot of Scots) I like to start my day with a pint. Luckily for my liver, it's usually a pint of banana and peanut smoothie.

Bananas are probably one of my few textural phobias. I don't mind when they are ripe, but if they are over or under ripe they set my teeth on edge. Just thinking about that starchy mushy stuff is making me shudder.

Despite this, I can't bear to throw them out, and there's only so much banana bread you can make. Instead, I blend them up with milk and peanut butter to make a rather delicious smoothie. (Prepare yourself for some of the dullest photos I have ever published.)

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie

While this is a bit of a fatty combo, it does make for a pretty healthy start for the day. The banana is one of the 5 a day, plus it's a great source of potassium. The peanut butter has lots of vitamins and minerals, including selenium. One of the few interesting facts I still remember from my dissertation is that low selenium consumption in a population can be linked to the prevalence of HIV within that population. As I am not really a big consumer of dairy products, I also like having the milk in there, it's probably the only calcium I get.

The banana's sweetness really comes out in this drink, but it's balanced by the saltiness of the peanut butter. Putting it through the blender makes it very foamy, which adds a creamy richness that shouldn't really be there with semi-skimmed.

Mmm, foamy.

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie
Makes 1 pint/550ml

1 banana
1 generous tbsp of smooth peanut butter
350ml milk

Put everything in a blender and mix thoroughly.

For an extra twist, add ice cubes or chop and freeze the banana before blending.

Raspberry & Whisky Porridge

I can't say I'm a major porridge fan. I didn't eat it as a child, and have been put off as an adult by poor catering porridge as suffered in various youth hostels and halls of residence. However, it is cheap and filling, so I do give it a go every now and then.

I'm always looking for new ways to pep it up. Chocolate and ground hazelnuts are always nice, as is dulche de leche and dried fruit. Today I tried a variation based the Cranachan porridge served by Stoats.

Raspberry & Whisky Porridge

I cooked the oats in a mixture of half milk and half water, and sprinkled in a pinch of salt and a fair bit of sugar. Then I added dried raspberries, which softened up as the porridge cooked. If you had fresh or frozen raspberries they would be even better. While rummaging through the cupboard for more Scottish ingredients, I found a whisky miniature. In it went.

Gloopy & Boozy

The porridge was a bit looser than I would have liked, and some of the dried raspberries were a little bitter. The whisky added some nice warmth to the bowl, which was welcome in this weather. I lasted a good 9 hours on this, so it was a good start to the day, although maybe not if you have to drive to work.

Tarte Tatin

For New Year, we had T's brother, and 2 of their cousins staying in the flat. We had tickets for the outdoor concert in Princes Street Gardens, and the temperature was forecast to be -5C that night. With a few extra mouths to feed, and a warming meal needed, I decided to make a roast dinner followed by tarte tatin.

I attempted a tarte tatin last summer. It didn't go well. The pastry was undercooked and underwhelming, and the caramel wasn't sticky enough. I was determined that this one would be better, and decided to go with trusty old Leiths' recipe.

The first thing I noticed is that the pastry wasn't puff, or even ordinary shortcrust. It had rice flour as well as wheat flour. The pastry came together quite easily, who needs a food processor when you have a pastry blender? I rolled it in to a large disc between two sheets of baking paper.

Tarte Tatin

While the pastry was resting in the fridge, I chopped two cooking apples, and melted sugar and butter together in a frying pan. Leiths said to add lemon zest, but I decided a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg would be a bit more seasonal and warming. I layered the apple slices around the pan, and tried my best to make them look neat and even, but the in the end my presentation efforts were thwarted by my short attention span, and unwillingness to dip my fingers in boiling caramel.

Once the caramel had cooled slightly, I put the pastry lid on, and left it in the fridge until we'd finished our roast dinner. Once it went in the oven, the smell of the apples and caramel, with a hint of the spices, was wafting around the flat. It smelt great, but would the pastry be cooked? Would the caramel be ok, and would the cooking apples still be sour?

Mmmmm, leftover tart...

When it came time to turn the tart out on to a plate, it was obvious the pastry was cooked. The apples looked soft and sweet, and the caramel looked dark and glossy - success! Except, the very caramel in the centre of the tart was a little burnt. So not quite perfect, but near enough.

It was delicious served warm with a scoop of natural ice cream (plain cream flavour, no vanilla. I bought it by accident once and am now converted.) The spices warmed it up even more, and the caramel was almost right (apart from the burnt bit). The apples were soft, but still retained their shape and a bit of crispiness. We got through most of it that night, but I've been enjoying the leftovers reheated with ice cream. Or on their own.

Lemon Sundae

Generally I am fairly organised in the kitchen, and like to have all my ingredients and equipment out before I begin. I found some lemons in the cupboard that were on their last legs, so I decided to give a recipe for lemon biscuits a go. As I'd never tried this recipe before, and it looked a bit tricky, I went super-overboard on the mise-en-place. As well as getting my ingredients out, I pre-weighed them all, and left them out for a couple of hours to reach room temperature.

To cut a long story short, despite the extreme prep, it was an unmitigated disaster. What were meant to be crunchy little lemony biscuits turned into a big old cakey mess that was stuck to the baking tray. My first thought was to bin the whole thing, but it seemed such a waste. When I was a child, any leftovers were greeted with a remark about starving Africans, so throwing food away just makes me feel guilty. Instead, I chipped it off the baking tray and made the rest of the lemons in to some yummy lemon curd.

Lemon Sundae

It might not be very sophisticated, but the cake/biscuit fail crumbs, mixed with the fresh lemon curd and some plain yoghurt was delicious. The thing I really like about cooking is that you can be creative. As well as trying out different flavours and presentations, if something goes wrong it's usually salvageable if you are a bit creative. In this case, I liked the way the sweet biscuit, the sweetly tart curd and the plain yoghurt balanced each other out. The biscuits on their own were a bit tooth-hurtingly sweet anyway.

I love lemon curd

I might give the biscuits another go, or I might just content myself with eating this for breakfast for the next few days. Who needs a balanced diet when you can have cake sundaes?

PS - Check out the ridiculously loud coasters I bought in Russia!

Strawberry Baked Cheesecake

I knew this day would come. "Bake" has finally let me down.

While moving in to the new flat, we somehow acquired a pack of coconut biscuits. As neither T nor I are particular fans, I decided to use the biscuits to make a cheesecake base. I found a recipe in "Bake" for a blueberry cheesecake, and set to work.

The base was easy enough, and was the usual mix of crushed biscuits and melted butter. On to that, I arranged plenty of chopped strawberries, as the blueberries in the shops were ridiculously expensive.

Next up was the cheesecake mix. Cream cheese, vanilla, sugar and eggs were whisked until smooth and creamy. Although I know you are not meant to eat raw eggs I couldn't resist a spoonful of mix, just to test it was alright... As it was delicious I poured the mixture over the strawberries and put it in to the oven.

It might be a tad unfair of me to totally blame Rachel Allen for my cheesecake fail. It was my first time cooking with the new oven, which is a combined oven and grill. I had an oven thermometer in there to see how accurate the oven was. Despite turning the oven up to full blast, it seemed unable to get hotter that 170C. Since the cheesecake wanted to be at 180C, I thought this was close enough and ploughed on regardless. It was only after the top of the cheesecake started burning after 5 minutes that I realised I had set the dial to grill instead of oven. In my defence, both symbols had a fan on them, and the only difference was a slightly thicker black line at the bottom!

I switched it over to oven mode, and kept an eye on the oven thermometer (which E, my old flatmate, once described as "a gadget for calling your oven's bullshit") so the temperature stayed around 180C the whole time. After 40 minutes, the cheesecake was mostly golden (except the burnt patch) and wobbled pleasingly.

Baked Strawberry Cheesecake

After chilling in the fridge, and topping it off with a strawberry and white wine syrup, it was time to eat. Although the strawberry flavour was good, the texture was a little too eggy in places. Instead of being smooth and custard like, it was granular and coarse. I can't decide if this was my complete inability to work an oven or just the wrong ratio of cream cheese and eggs.

The texture wasn't bad enough to scrap the cheesecake totally, and I've been working my way through it over the past few days. The flavours have matured nicely, and it does seem a little less granular after a few days in the fridge.

Strawberry Cheesecake - slightly granular

Hopefully now I have mastered how the new oven works, I can start making up with "Bake".

Orangey Honey Buns

My obsession with the latest Valentine Warner book continues. The Orangey Honey Buns had caught my eye straight away, and the quest to use up as much stuff in the cupboards before moving meant I had a packet of instant yeast wanting a home.

The buns were pretty easy to make, although the dough seemed to want to travel up my whisk in to my mixer instead of staying on the beaters. After a few attempts to scrape it out of the top of the beaters, I gave up and mixed it by hand.

The dough rose easily, and tiny blobs in each of the muffin holes soon grew to almost overflowing. Given my last attempt at baking with Valentine Warner ended in a burnt meringue, I went for the lower timing estimate.

Valentine Warner must be testing his recipes using the coldest oven in the world! I never normally have trouble with baking (my oven is pretty new and accurate) so I rarely check things too closely. After 12 minutes the buns were very very very black. Oh dear. However, after letting them cool, they hadn't hardened up too much. Even though they weren't golden, they didn't seem to be charcoal either.

Orangey Honey Buns

I forged on with making the syrup, which was very easy (and so tasty that I had a few spoonfuls while making it... just to test obviously). I served a couple of the buns straight away with the hot syrup, and put the rest in a jar in the fridge.

The buns were a little chewy on the outside, but the inside was still soft and spongy. It reminded me a lot of a rum baba. While it would have been slightly tastier (and much prettier) without the black tops, it didn't really completely ruin the dish either. The sticky syrup soaked in to the buns quickly, and they crumbled easily when attacked with a spoon. The ones that have been left to soak are almost liquid inside, with each bubble in the sponge containing syrup instead of air.

I'm having to resist eating these all the time. The jar in the fridge is calling me. I even ate some for breakfast, which is definitely not good for my health. The recipe suggests serving with whipped cream, but I think a nice blob of vanilla ice cream would also be lovely, especially if the buns are still warm. I've been having mine with creme fraiche and a chunk of the candied orange peel used in the syrup. The sourness of the creme fraiche cuts through the syrup well.

Still golden inside

I would recommend this recipe, but if you have a halfway decent oven, I would check the buns after 8 minutes and then proceed carefully. Don't worry too much if they do get a bit dark, but if food aesthetics are important to you, watch closely...

Festive Cocktail - Elderflower Martini

Although the Edinburgh fringe doesn't start officially until the 7th August, the city is already in full festival mode. Many shows are doing previews, and I'm off to a couple tonight. I've also got tickets for shows for the next few days, my mission this year is to go to at least one show a day!

A big problem with the Fringe is that there is just so much to see. I've had a programme guide for a couple of weeks, and picked up Fest magazine too, but I am still none the wiser about what I want to see.

While contemplating the hefty tome that is the full Fringe listings, I've often been sipping on an elderflower martini. I first tried this drink at the bar where my flatmate works. I think it was a special, as I haven't seen it there since. Although I know a proper martini shouldn't have a non-alcoholic mixer as it's main component, I can't quite remember what this was called in the bar, and googling doesn't bring up a similar recipe. I'd watched the barman quite closely as he'd made the drink, so although I can't remember the name, I can still guess at the recipe!

You will need these ingredients

Elderflower Martini - per person:
25ml sweet vermouth
25ml elderflower cordial
125ml cloudy apple juice

Put everything in a cocktail shaker, with plenty of ice cubes. Shake it up until the outside of the shaker gets cold and misty.

Cold and Misty

Strain the drink in to a glass and enjoy! It's not particularly alcoholic, so it's refreshing while still having a bit of a kick. I am a massive fan of gin and other "aromatic" type drinks, so I loved the floral flavour of the elderflower mixed with the herby tones of the vermouth.

Time to study the options!

There's a couple of other summer drinks I've been drinking a lot lately, so watch out for those recipes soon...

Click here for more Martini information -

Strawberry Jam - Why You Should Stick To Just One Recipe

Almost as soon as we got home from the PYO farm, it became obvious that we had way too much fruit, and unless we wanted to eat strawberries and cream at every meal for the next week, there was no way we would get through all of it. The cashier in the farm shop had asked if we planned to make jam, so on the way home we'd picked up some jam sugar just in case the mood took us.

The recipe on the back of the jam sugar packet said boil the jam for 4 minutes. The recipe in Leith's Bible said it could take up to 30 minutes for the jam to set, as did a recipe on BBC food. I also had a sugar thermometer with a handy "jam" marking on it. I've seen plenty of jars of homemade jam that are too runny, and have to be poured, but I couldn't imagine what jam that was too hard would be like. I decided to boil the jam until the sugar thermometer was satisfied. I also chucked in some vanilla seeds and a squeeze of lemon juice for fun.

As I am greedy and curious, it was only a couple of hours later when I broke in to the first jar. Instead of spreadable jam, I had some kind of fruit toffee. It was like a giant wine gum in a jar. I managed to chip a lump out of it, and it tasted fine. The only problem was the texture.

Strawberry Jam

After googling various phrases about hard jam, I discovered what had gone wrong. The "up to 30 minutes" recipes were using ordinary sugar, but the jam sugar I'd used had added pectin. This had caused the jam to set quicker and at a lower temperature than relying on the pectin in the fruit alone. The lemon juice had also bumped up the pectin levels. Luckily, I also found that melting the jam down and adding in over-ripe fruit would probably give the jam a slightly better consistency.

A few nights later, when trying to get rid of the last few strawberries, I put the two jars of jam I'd made in a saucepan of cold water, which I slowly warmed up. In another pan, I mashed up the remaining fresh strawberries with a splash of water. Once the jam was warm enough to be stirrable (this took some time) I added in the mashed strawberries and their juice, and mixed it in to the existing jam as best I could.

I left the jars overnight, and consoled myself that a jar of strawberry toffee was not the worst thing that could have happened. The next morning I made toast while staring at the jars of jam with apprehension. Opening the jar gave no clues, and the jam still looked firm. As I dipped the knife in, I knew the fix had worked. The jam was spreadable! Success!

Jam on a petit pain

I've been eating the jam all week, just on bread or crackers, sometimes with butter and sometimes without. I've even substituted jam and bread for dinner, in a move reminiscent of my grandmother. When my mother would tell her to eat a proper dinner, she'd reply that jam and smoking were the only pleasures left in life at her age. I haven't started smoking though.

I wouldn't say this jam is life changing, but it is very fruity, with the right balance of sweetness and tartness. The vanilla adds a little something, but the flavour is not obvious. For a first foray in to the jam-making world, I'm pretty happy. I've also learnt my lesson about not trying to combine 3 different recipes when I have no idea what I'm doing!

Raspberry Crumble, with a Hint of Strawberry

Last week, I went down to Durham for a night to visit my flatmate H, who has graduated, moved out of the flat, and is about to start a very exciting new project updating a guidebook (I want her job!). On the train down, I got a text from T. The strawberries we'd picked a few days ago were becoming over-ripe and squishy, with a couple already mouldy and in the bin. We decided to mush up any that looked on their last legs and freeze them.

When I returned from H's, I made the gooseberry snow, and froze the last couple of handfuls of remaining gooseberries. Now I just had a punnet of raspberries to deal with. I'd already used some for a very boozy cranachan (recipe to come later once I remember how much raspberry vodka I put in it...) but there were still quite a fair amount in the punnet.

So... it had to be some kind of recipe that was mostly fruit, as I didn't fancy a pile of cream and carbohydrates with just a couple of berries on top. It also had to be quick and simple, as 1 Vs 100 was on Xbox Live. I know this is the lamest thing ever, but I really, really, REALLY love trivia quizzes.

Raspberry crumble won. It is simple, quick, easy to clear up, great hot, good cold and gives fruit the starring role. Plus it always reminds of being a kid as crumble was about the only pudding my mum could be bothered to cook!

Raspberry Crumble

I completely guessed the recipe, as I forgot to bring my scales over to T's flat.

1/4 packet of butter (about 75g?)
A good sprinkle of flour
A good sprinkle of oats
A small sprinkle of sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ginger

The mixture seemed crumbly enough, and looked like there was enough to cover the dish I'd dumped all the raspberries in to. Just as I was about to add the topping, I remembered the frozen strawberries. There wasn't that much so I defrosted the mush in a saucepan with a dash of water and threw that in with the raspberries too.

Leftovers!

After 30 minutes in a gas mark 5 oven, the juice from the berries was staining the edges of the crumble, which had turned golden and crispy. We ate it with a small dollop of ice cream that was lurking in the back of the freezer. The fruit underneath was sweet, with a slight sourness, and had turned jammy and thick. The flavour of the strawberries wasn't obvious, but it tempered the intensity of the raspberries and made the whole affair even more yummy.

I finished off the last portion today while watching Eggheads. Sometimes I love being unemployed.

Valentine Warner's Gooseberry Snow

I don't think I've ever had gooseberries in any other form than gooseberry fool, so I was intrigued to try the recipe for gooseberry snow in Valentine Warner's "What to Eat Now: More Please!". It was a sort of cross between a crumble and a Queen of Puddings, with stewed fruit on the bottom, topped off with a lightly baked meringue.

The first step was to stew up some gooseberries. They were heated with butter and a bit of sugar until they were starting to go mushy, but most of the fruit was still intact. As this bit is to taste, I reckon you could pretty much freestyle it, but I used about 10g of butter, 75g of gooseberries and a good sprinkle of sugar. The recipe made 4 servings, but there was only me, so I made one serving of fruit and two servings of meringue, as I couldn't go smaller than one egg white!

Draining the Gooseberries

Leave the gooseberries to cool while you make the meringue. This was one egg white with 50g sugar and a dash of vanilla essence. Whisk it until it is stiff and shiny, if you tip the bowl upside down it shouldn't fall out! Mix the leftover egg yolk in to the stewed gooseberries (make sure they are cool enough so the yolk won't scramble).

Pour the gooseberry mixture into a greased ramekin or oven-proof dish, and spoon a good amount of meringue on top. Bake at 190C for 10-15 minutes.

I was very generous with the meringue.

I went for 15 minutes in the oven, although 12 would probably have been better. The meringue was a little too brown, with the occasional burnt patch.

Gooseberry Snow

Luckily, this didn't affect the taste too much, with only the top peak tasting "burnt" rather than caramelised. The sweet meringue was foamy and fluffy, and was offset nicely by the tart fruit. The fruit stew at the bottom was possibly one of the most delicious things I have eaten lately, and I rescued the saucepan from the washing up pile so I could have a couple more mouthfuls of the stuff! The addition of the egg yolk made the sauce surrounding the fruit transform in to a thin custard, with just the right amount of richness.

I'm still not convinced by meringue topping, so I don't think this dish will become a regular round here. However, I'll definitely be making the stewed gooseberries again, and probably just eating it straight out the pan too.

EDIT: The original recipe is now online for those of you fed up with my vague description!

Craigies PYO Farm, Near South Queensferry

Last year we spent a lot of time trying to go to Pick Your Own farms, but the only time we actually made it to one, it had been raining too heavily that week and the PYO fields were closed. When the sun struggled through the clouds on Sunday morning, we headed out to Craigie's Farm to grab some strawberries while we could!

The farm is just outside Edinburgh, with a great view of the airport! I kept hearing "thunder" only to realise it was a plane landing! You can also see out over Edinburgh to the surrounding hills, and over the Forth to Fife. After wandering around in the shop for a bit, we eventually found the pile of PYO punnets at the entrance to the fields.

View to Fife

We started off in the Strawberry rows, and soon filled a large punnet with 2kg of strawberries. The plants were not all completely ripe, so it was fun digging around under leaves and trying to spot the ripest ones. It was also great to sample a few berries along the way, although it probably wasn't the most hygienic thing you could do.

Spot the Ripe Strawberries...

Carrying our massive basket of strawberries, we headed over to the gooseberry bushes. They were quite spiky and we got a few nips off some of the more thorny branches. We didn't pick quite so many of these, but I wanted to try the Valentine Warner recipe for gooseberry snow, so we settled at half a small punnet (about 500g).

Finally, we trekked down to the bottom of the farm for the outdoor raspberries. These were the easiest to pick, as unlike the strawberries you didn't have to crouch down so low, and the bushes weren't spiky like the gooseberries. I don't think I've ever seen a raspberry bush before, and it was interesting how the raspberries left their white conical hulls on the bush. I always assumed that raspberries must have been hollowed out in a factory somewhere! As the raspberries were off the ground, they weren't as muddy as the strawberries, and for a while I was following a "one for the basket, one for me" style of picking! Fortunately for Craigie's profit margin, the Scottish weather started closing in, and we hurried to fill our punnet before the rain soaked us.

T hard at work in the raspberry field

As we walked back to the farm, the threatened rain didn't quite appear, so instead I took some arty shots of the punnets. We also passed redcurrents and blackcurrents, but we didn't get any of these on this occasion, although we did enjoy playing at being farmers! There are also lots of other PYO items that haven't come in to season yet, so I'm already planning the next trip!

Craigies PYO Fruit

Although we spent a fair bit of money, we got a lot of fruit. We didn't realise quite how good a deal we got until we stopped at Sainsbury's on the way home. We'd paid £3.99 per kg for our raspberries, but the ones in the supermarket were £8.84per kg! The cheapest supermarket strawberries we could find were £4 per kg, compared to our ones at £3.49. The supermarket fruit looked pretty sad in comparision to the stuff in the car boot, which had been attached to a plant less than an hour ago.

We ate the first batch of strawberries that night with cream, to maximise the freshness. I think some of it will end up as jam, while the excess raspberries and gooseberries are probably headed for the freezer, or summer puddings. I can't wait!

Graze - Plus a Free Box!

I heard about Graze from Jess, and signed up to look round the site. As usual, I got distracted and totally forgot about it. The other week, I got a reminder email from Graze, pointing out that although I'd signed up, I'd never actually ordered anything. To tempt me back, they also included a code for a free box.

Graze is basically a healthy snack box, with a large portion of fresh fruit, and two smaller portions of dried fruit, nuts or olives. You can select a nutritional "theme" for your box, such as immunity boosting (I picked this one as I still feel a bit run down and sickly after having pneumonia a few months ago), pre or post-workout*, and energy boosting.

Graze Box

My first box was meant to turn up last week, but I think it got lost in the post (or the postman stole it. A suspiciously large amount of our mail never turns up...) so this was my debut box. When I noted on the Graze website that my box hadn't arrived, I was immediately given the next box for free to make up for it. I was so excited when the postman rang the bell this morning! The box contained: a large punnet of crunchy apples (I can confirm they were indeed crunchy), a punnet of "fire nuts" (chilli almonds, cashews and wasabi peas) and a small punnet of raisins. I wasn't keen on the chilli almonds, but the cashews were amazing! Wasabi peas were a little too hot, but I still happily munched my way through the box. The raisins were also good, being some of the fattest and juiciest I have had in a while.

Fire Nut Selection - chilli cashews, almonds and wasabi peas

Although a Graze box isn't cheap (£2.99 a go) it is very convenient. I don't tend to buy things like dried fruit as I don't eat it often enough, and it just sits in the cupboard. Having a nutritionally controlled portion (1 of the 5-a-day) was good, as normally I would eat about 2 raisins and then wonder if it counted!

Graze are promoting themselves quite heavily at the moment, and seem to be very generous with the free boxes. If you'd like to try them yourself, this code gets you a free box, and £1 will be donated to the Rainforest Alliance.

Enter 5CCT231G at GRAZE.COM

*I have also recently returned to the gym after knackering my old running shoes, messing up my feet and having to get a new pair that was gait analysed! I like that I could get an immunity box one week and then a workout box the next. I am so healthy it hurts.

The Graduation Bake-a-thon.

As it was graduation week, we have had various friends, relatives and randomers drifting in and out of the flat all week. In an attempt to be hospitable, we all chipped in to an ingredients pot and I went on a baking binge.

• Delia's Lemon Roulade
• Jamie Oliver's Carrot Cake
• Cupcake Bakeshop's Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes
• Dorie Greenspan's Korova Cookies
• Red Mangetout Salted Caramel Mochas

The lemon roulade was amazing, and the left over lemon curd is in the fridge. I haven't told my flatmates this yet as once I do it will not be around for long. The only trouble I had with this recipe was that the sponge broke up when I tried to roll it. Luckily I had enough lemon curd and mascarpone to stick it back together, but it looked a bit messy from the side.

Broken lemon roulade - tastes better than it looks

The carrot cake is one of my favourite ones, as it is so dense and moist. However, I made it in mini loaf tins as I wanted to freeze a cake for later in the week in case the first batch went stale/got eaten. As the mixture is so dense, it is prone to burning on top but still being undercooked in the middle. Luckily I managed to get away with it this time, but the cake was a little moister than I would have liked, and a little crispy on top. I also swapped out the walnuts for hazelnuts as I had them in the cupboard already.

Carrot cake with vanilla mascarpone topping

I have altered the Cupcake Bakeshop recipe, and never use the strawberries in the filling, partly because they don't add that much and partly because even in season they are so expensive! The buttercream icing on top is perfect. It's creamy and sweet but without being overpowering. The texture of the cake itself is nothing special, but when it has the ganache filling it is AMAZING. I have yet to give anyone this cupcake and for them not to fall in love with it.

I'd made the Korova cookies before, but this time I used white chocolate chips instead of dark, just because I'd messed up the shopping list and not bought enough plain chocolate to make these and the chocolate cupcakes. I also think I sliced them a bit thin as they were too crispy and a little tough. Still delicious though!

Roulade and Carrot Cake, boxes of cookies

Once again, me and caramel failed to get on. I burned the mixture and had to strain it through a sieve in to a fresh pan. I also didn't cook it enough for it to stay in the biscuits, so some of them leaked as the caramel was too runny. I also got the quantities completely wrong, so now we have a massive tub of caramel in the fridge alongside the lemon curd!

Overall, I think I need to plan baking binges better. I ran out of muffin cases and baking powder, but had way too many eggs. I tried to make things in an order to best maximise things like oven capacity and cooling racks, but if I'd thought it through better I would have made things like cookie dough in advance. I also need some more attractive display containers. The cake caddy is pretty awesome, but kind of utilitarian looking. Any ideas?

Candied Kumquats and Financiers

I am so happy the weather has been good lately. Edinburgh is a much happier place to be when the sun is shining and the temperature is in double figures for once! It also means I got to take some photos in natural light instead of under an energy saving bulb with a wimpy built-in flash.

A few months ago, I bought a slice of cake in a cafe which appeared to be garnished with a tiny orange. A bit of research lead me to kumquats. This is not a particularly common fruit in Britain, and I don't remember ever seeing them in a supermarket. When I saw them the other week in the grocers, I figured I give them a go. (I also bought a pomegranate, but the less said about that the better. Yet another reason to always research what are the signs of ripeness in fruit rather than impulse buying.)

The kumquats sat in the salad drawer of the fridge for a few days. I didn't really know what to do with them. Then I saw this post by Cannelle et Vanille. I decided straight away that I would candy my kumquats. Once the kumquats and the syrup had cooled down, I tasted one. They were still a little too bitter, although I loved their sharp citrus flavour. I think I should have blanched them in boiling water rather than just simmering them. I'm way too impatient sometimes.

Candied Kumquats and Edinburgh sunshine

Aran had used her kumquats to garnish some financiers. I had a packet of 8 eggs. I also had some mini loaf tins from my visit to Kooks Unlimited in London. Can you see where this is going?

I made up my usual hazelnut financier batter, although this time I used 50g hazelnut and 50g almond. The next morning, I baked up a batch, garnishing some with the kumquats.

Financiers with Candied Kumquat

These had the crunchy crust of a good financier, and the buttery soft inside. While the plain ones were delicious, the ones with the kumquats were another thing entirely. The acidity cut through the cake, working as a foil to the butteryness. It seems like the only thing better than a financier is one with a big old citrus hit in the middle. To make it even sweeter, have it in the morning. Then you can feel better about the state of the economy - after all, you had a financier for breakfast!

(I think that possibly wins the lamest joke EVER prize.)