It has been many weeks since I last baked, never mind wrote about it, but with good reason. May and June are the busiest gardening months when everything bursts into life at full throttle and the garden is at its most gorgeous but most labour intensive phase. Plants that 3 weeks ago were leaves popping…
Tag: Baking
Macarons – the reason for all those steps
The macaron is a beautiful but tricky little thing. It started life as an ordinary biscuit back in the Middle Ages but in the 1930’s it was elevated to the world of haute couture petits-fours to become the beautiful and complex thing we know today. You can read more about the history here, but this post is all…
Macarons – a biscuit with many ancestors
If you have read my blog before you will know how this bake came about, but to summarise I was asked to bake a cake for my niece’s First Holy Communion, with a specific request for a Macaron Piece-Montee. It didn’t quite work out that way as you can read here, but it made an…
First Holy Communion Cake
My niece had her First Holy Communion yesterday in London, and my lovely french sister in law asked me to bake the cake for the family party afterwards. This was the result after a somewhat tortuous creative process and I have to say I was rather pleased ….. in the end. Now despite my advancing years,…
Opera Cake with Kirsch Cherries – a Bake Off Aria in 8 layers
My brother and his french wife are staying along with their 2 lovely girls so the stops had to be pulled out and we decided a quick trip to the cuisine of France was needed. The hubby made a Beef Daube and Aligot Pototoes, and I decided to try these little Opera Cakes. The Opera Cake…
A Seedy Sourdough
We have my big brother and his brood visiting for the bank holiday so we are in for a houseful for a couple of days. The first port of call for getting ready for any visitors is baking bread for our breakfast toast and I decided it was time to break away from my staple mill…
Resurrection of the Cardinal
Last weekend we had to recover the house from the latest onslaught of the builders which left little time for baking. But our neighbours Annie and Stephen wanted a grand tour of the restored residence and popped round for morning coffee on Sunday. Coffee of course requires cake (actually in Germany this visit would be called…
Of Bicarb and Other Leavening Agents
The husband and I are mightily tired of having builders in the house now. In fact we hope not to have to have builders in the house for quite a while, though I must make it clear to the Gods of Hubris that is not a wish, just a statement. In the last 6 months…
Rustling up a Rye and Apple Cake
I had 6 hours of business planning meetings yesterday and for the first one my colleague Zoe asked for an “awesome” cake to keep the meeting going. Now Zoe is one of the most positive and energetic people I have ever met and living in Zoe’s orbit it is very hard to resist her positive…
Canapés for a Marriage Upgrade
I have a small confession to make. I have been calling my beloved of 22 years “the husband”, when in fact until Friday afternoon he was in fact my Civil Partner. No longer though. Thanks to the Equal Marriage Act we are now officially husband and husband, something which has been a long time coming. That…
Wrestling with an Easter Wreath
I can officially say I am now baked out for Easter. My finale was going to be a Polish Babka Wielkanocna, a rich bundt cake (12 egg yolks are just the start of its richness) that caught my eye on Mary Berry’s programme and in the papers, but after making this monster loaf it will…
Lolloping Easter Bunny Brioche
We have been having a very nice week off work at home, though as ever when one staycations, we have done a little too much round the house clearing out the dust from the building work and catching up on the garden. I may have also taken on a little too much when committing to…
The Cottage Loaf 