Bilby Bites

Soft Gingerbread Cookies

2011-12-29T18:51:08+00:00

It's Christmas time! Well, it was last week. The time to eat, drink and be merry, or ... get excited about cooking and cram in as many complicated recipes into the days surrounding Christmas that you are so far from merry it's painful. On Christmas Eve I had planned to make these lovely gingerbread cookies, decorate them and make a Yule log with various household chores squeezed in between. I went to bed that night more exhausted than I think I have done on any Christmas Eve for the past 10 years. The good news is that these gingerbread cookies were a doddle to bake. I was looking for something chewy and moreish and that is exactly what I got here. Decorating them can be as simple or as complicated as you like. The first batch shown here were possibly too ambitious and the icing was a little runny so they have a very 'rustic' and child-like feel, but they are cute and fun. I might even give it another go next year.

180ml molasses
75g light brown sugar
80ml water
30g softened butter
405g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

In a medium bowl, mix together the molasses, brown sugar, water and butter until smooth.
Combine the flour, baking soda, allspice, ginger, cloves and cinnamon; stir them into the wet mixture until all of the dry ingredients are absorbed.
Cover the dough and chill for at least 3 hours.
Preheat the oven to 175ºC degrees (350ºF degrees).
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to 5-6mm (1/4 inch) thickness.
Cut out into desired shapes and place cookies roughly 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8-10 minutes in the preheated oven.
Remove from the cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

Makes roughly 30 biscuits. This was adapted from a recipe on the American site AllRecipes.com - they have a handy metric conversion function on the site, but it does create some rather odd measurements. To make things simple for the tiny spice quantities I converted 5g into 1 teaspoon and worked back from there. I also melted the butter in order to speed up the mixing process; softened butter doesn't really happen naturally in my house in December. A big thank you to JC for all his help in decorating the biscuits. His Santas turned out to be very cute.

The Bakehouse, Penzance

2011-11-13T00:59:34+00:00

Once I’ve decided I’m going on a trip, the next few hours is spent diligently and very pleasurably, searching for accommodation, things to do and most importantly (almost), places to eat. With a busy season at work upon me, I wanted a quick long weekend in Cornwall to set me up for the next few months and I chose Penzance. JC, having spent years listening to my travel plans, just nods loose agreement and lets me get on with the arrangements. I booked incredibly cheap advance train tickets and looked forward to our Cornish adventure.

Having found a lovely new hotel called the Artists Residence boasting individually decorated rooms by local artists, I then set about scouring the internet for decent cafés and restaurants. Whilst the options weren’t abundant – Penzance isn’t a huge city afterall, The Bakehouse stood out, as did Ricardo’s Pizza, which was unfortunately closing during the weekend we were visiting. The Bakehouse offers a 2 course £13 menu Monday to Friday before 7.15pm so I booked us a table for 6.30pm on the Friday as I imagined the last weekend in September would probably be a busy one. With hindsight, I’m glad I’d thought ahead, as they were fully booked with a couple of large parties. The Bakehouse has a good reputation it seems.

After quickly checking in and chatting to our hostess at the hotel, we set out to look around the town before dinner. We had been told that The Bakehouse was one of the best eateries in Penzance, with other notables being Sophia Bs and The Honey Pot. Our 3 hour train journey had left me needing a decent coffee so it wasn’t long before we hit The Honey Pot, a cute, welcoming café with scrumptious looking cakes and ‘cool’ staff – for ‘cool’, read unwilling to interact beyond what was absolutely necessary to take your order. Our first contact with the chap behind the counter wasn’t ideal as he curtly informed us we could either ‘order now if we knew what we wanted’ or ‘sit down and look at a menu’. He didn’t seem too bothered either way and not even the slightest smile was cracked during this instruction. However, we sat in the lovely window seat in the blazing late summer sunshine, read the menu and ordered our coffees and cake soon after, by which time our host had softened slightly. The few patrons around us were a good mix of well-heeled ladies and arty/muso types – not too cool, not to fusty. Our cakes, mine an espresso chocolate and JC’s a coffee & walnut, were both very good. The usual latte and Americano coffees were ordered alongside the cakes and it all went down a treat.

The headline establishment was up next after a 45 minute walk along the seafront and back through the town, via a myriad of tiny, hilly roads – just what you need after a coffee & cake session. I’d had pudding before my dinner and needed to make a dent in the inevitable calorie build up. The staff at The Bakehouse were two very genuine and friendly ladies who we later found out had been unintentionally abandoned by a third member who had been struck down by a bug. This certainly didn’t dampen their spirits and they moved quickly and efficiently around the packed restaurant without bother, for the entire time we were there. After scanning the main menu which contained a very good choice of steaks, rubs and sauces (Blue Cheese, Roasted Onion, Rosemary & Garlic to name a few), we turned to the Early Bird specials as the selection was wide and we both found something we were very happy with. At £13 for 2 courses, it was too good to ignore.

JC ordered Meatballs & Penne Pasta for his main, followed by a Toasted Oatmeal and Hazelnut Meringue served with Red Berries and clotted cream. My prior cake consumption had, unusually, put me off desserts for the evening so I opted for the Thai Monkfish with Coconut & Mango sauce to start, followed by the risotto of the day, Beetroot & Fennel. To drink, I was taken by the local Polgoon Vineyard offering, Cornish Pink – a sparkling cider with raspberry – and very tasty it was too. It was more dry than sweet, drier than I would normally pick, but ideal with the sweet and creamy starter and main I had chosen and a nice change from a glass of wine. I had no idea that a vineyard sat just outside Penzance and only 10-15 minutes walk away. We didn’t get a chance to take a closer look on this weekend, as the heaven’s opened the following day, but it’s worth knowing for our next trip down (cue much eyeball rolling from JC).

Owners of The Bakehouse, Andy and Rachel Carr, use as much local produce as possible and when I asked where the plump and juicy monkfish came from, I was told it was frozen, but came from a local fishmonger. The fish was battered, which I didn’t spot mentioned on the menu, but the batter was nice and light and the mango and coconut sauce was spicy, citrussy and tangy. The sauce slightly overtook the taste of the monkfish, but I enjoyed the meal overall – there could be no negative comments about a lack of flavour. The beetroot and fennel risotto was quite ‘wet’ with little pools of olive oil towards the bottom of the dish, but the fennel seeds added good spice and texture and the parmesan provided the savoury kick needed to combat the sweet, soft beetroot flavour. I confess I wasn’t feeling terribly hungry after the starter as it was a good sized portion. Thinking back, my chocolate cake endeavour may have interferred with my appetite. Years ago, I had made a beetroot, horseradish and dill risotto that I’d enjoyed, but not loved, so I was keen to give beetroot risotto another chance. Spice and zest are so important, to balance out the risotto’s natural creaminess and soft texture – I would have loved a little more fennel in my risotto, but it was an enjoyable dish.

JC enjoyed his meatballs and penne pasta, but we were both more impressed with his dessert which surprisingly (or not perhaps!) was the highlight of the night for me. I should have known, as the combination of meringue, hazelnut and red berries is always a heavenly one for my personal tastebuds. The meringue was not as soft in the centre as I prefer, but the hazelnut cream was gorgeous and the perfectly sweet and tart berry sauce brought it all together. If I had ordered the monkfish followed by the meringue dessert I would have had a lovely meal. As it stood I had a very nice night, with good food and great service.

The Bakehouse is in a quiet spot off Chapel Street, in a hidden courtyard lit with magical, coloured lights, so our exit after dark was into a pretty Cornish scene and reinforced a feeling of contentment at simply being in Penzance. For £13 plus drinks, the value was exceptional. On top of this I found the service to be friendly, consistent and way beyond the norm. I would like to try again some day, choosing from the main menu – maybe one of those tempting steaks I’d heard good things about from our friendly hostess at the hotel. The Bakehouse definitely stands out in Penzance as a modern restaurant that is firmly rooted in it’s Cornish seaside surroundings. If you are that far South West you must try it for yourself.

Riverford Plum Upside Down Cake

2011-10-22T20:19:09+00:00

For the past 5 years we have been buying a fruit and veg box from Riverford Organic and every week with the delivery they enclose a lovely newsletter with recipe ideas. Most of the time I just read over these, making approving noises, but rarely do I find time to actually make anything. Not so last week. I read over a recipe for Apple Upside Down Cake which looked easy and yummy. At the bottom of the recipe the line that clinched it for me was 'can be made with plums'. I happened to have an overflowing fruit bowl with 2 punnets of plums. Perfect. Not being one for very fiddly recipes, I was slightly concerned about my level of patience at slicing and displaying the plums, but it was fun and pretty simple. The results are impressive enough to make me want to try it again. Maybe next time, with apples.

25g unsalted butter, cut into very small pieces
2 tbsp demerara sugar
225g self raising flour
150g soft dark brown sugar
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
200g unsalted butter, melted & left to cool but still liquid
2 eggs
500g plums, peeled, cored + chopped into small dice
2 plums, cored, thinly sliced in the round, then cut into half moon shapes

Line a 20cm loose bottomed non-stick cake tin with baking parchment. Sprinkle the demerara sugar evenly over the parchment. Dot 25g of the butter over the top.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and chopped plums.
In a small bowl, lightly whisk the eggs and cooled melted butter together. Place the sliced plums around the bottom of the tin in an even pattern, pressing down the dots of butter as necessary.
Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and gently stir until all the ingredients are just combined.
Pour over the plums in the tin and gently smooth to even out the mixture. Bake at 190˚C for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 5-10 minutes, then invert onto a cake rack - don't forget to place a plate underneath in case any buttery juices run off.
Serve warm or cool, with cream.

The plum slices need to be ever so slightly overlapped and arranged in a concentric circular pattern. Put the first one in and then go round and round until you end up in the middle! It's quite therapeutic and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Thanks to Riverford for this lovely recipe.

Key Lime Pie

2011-09-03T22:24:15+00:00

Key Lime Pie has been on my 'must do' list for some time and I finally got my act together to make it a couple of weeks ago. I see ready made versions pop up in various supermarkets every once in a while, but it isn't a staple dessert in the UK like cheesecake, lemon tart, applie pie et al so you can't really cheat. In trawling the internet - well, searching on Google and hitting 'go' - the usual 3 million results came back, but it was Delia that grabbed my attention. Whenever I am going to tackle a sweet that I haven't tried before Delia is my go-to lady. She is renowned for creating recipes that don't really fail. This is another of those. The only thing I wasn't so keen on myself were the Grape-Nuts which have quite a malty flavour and are very crunchy, neither quality I'm a big fan of. JC however, thought they were great, so I would try them for yourself before judging. The level of lime flavour is perfect with enough citrus zest to make it cut through the creamy condensed milk, but not force you to pull odd faces.

95g butter (3 1/2 oz)
175g digestive biscuits, crushed (6 oz)
50g Grape-Nuts cereal (2 oz)
1 level tsp grated lime zest (3 limes)
150 ml lime juice (4-5 large limes)
3 large egg yolks
400g condensed milk (14 oz)
creme fraiche & lime slices to serve

Melt the butter in a pan over a very low heat. Crush the digestive biscuits - Delia suggests using a polythene bag and crushing them with a rolling pin using a lot of pressure, but be careful not to break the bag as I did!
Empty the crushed digestive biscuits into a bowl and mix in the Grape-Nuts; add the melted butter and mix well. Place the mixture into a flan tin and press down evenly and firmly across the base and up the sides.
Place flan base onto a baking sheet and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 10-12 minutes or until crisp and golden brown.
In the meantime, place the egg yolks (not full eggs) and lime zest in a bowl and, using an electric hand mixer, whisk for about 2 minutes or until the egg has thickened; add the condensed milk and whisk for a further 4 minutes. Add the lime juice to the mixture and give it a quick final whisk.
Pour the mixture onto the baked crust and place in the oven for 20 minutes or until it feels just set when you gently press the centre.
Remove the pie from the oven and leave to cool completely; cover it with clingfilm and chill until ready.
Serve cut in slices with creme fraiche and a twist of lime for decoration.

This recipe is taken from Delia's How to Cook Book Two.

Raspberry & White Chocolate Cookies

2011-08-27T21:55:13+00:00

What can be better than a lovely, chewy cookie for morning or afternoon tea? American style of course. I've discovered about myself in recent years, that I don't really like very crunchy food. That may make me sound like an overgrown child, but so be it. For me the soft centre of freshly baked bread is the best bit; not the hard, crunchy exterior. I'm not a fan of hard granola bars or seeds - it seems like a lot of effort for not much reward. So, whilst I like a biscuit every now and again, I've never been a massive fan. I can resist eating an entire packet by a long shot, where many of my friends cannot. I have never had so many conversations about eating biscuits as since I moved to the UK 20 years ago. It seems, along with the weather, that you can always rely on the subject of biscuits to pick up the tempo at a flagging dinner party. This American-style cookie recipe actually comes from Carnation so no prizes for predicting that it contains some condensed milk. These are lovely and easy to make with a million variations to experiment with.

225g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
170g condensed milk
350g self-raising flour
150g white chocolate, chopped
175g punnet raspberries

Preheat the oven to 180C / Gas 4
Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale. Stir in the condensed milk. Sift in the flour and work into a soft dough with your hands. Mix in the chocolate.
Take a small handful of dough and flatten with your fingers. Place 2-3 raspberries into the centre of the dough and fold over the raspberries until encased - don't worry too much if the raspberries stick out a bit. Repeat with remaining dough and raspberries.
Place roughly flattened dough onto parchment lined baking trays, spacing well apart and bake for about 15-18 minutes or until golden at the edges, but still a little soft.
Leave to cool slightly and set before transferring to a cooling rack.

Should only take about 10 minutes to pull together. The dough without the raspberries will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days or about 1 month in the freezer - freeze in small slightly flattened chunks, defrost and bake as required. Carnation suggest more lovely flavour combinations: roasted hazelnuts and dark chocolate (my favourite option!); dried cranberries and macadamia nuts; stem ginger and Carnation caramel; orange zest, raisins and cinnamon

The Coffee Cellar

2011-07-16T21:23:54+00:00

The Quay is one of my favourite places in Exeter. I have spent over 10 years living and/or working within a 20 minute walk of the area and if ever I need to just get out of the house to stretch my legs, indulge in a bout of architectural admiration and general soul replenishment then this is where I like to head. In the summertime we like to cycle to the Double Locks or Turf Locks, depending on how energetic we’re feeling and on the way back stop off for an ice-cream by the quay; you can wander along the canal for a drink at the Prospect in the evening or grab one of the best meals in town at The Hourglass – technically above the Quay, but still nice and local. So, imagine my delight a couple of years ago, when I discovered that some clever bunny had opened a coffee shop, The Coffee Cellar, in one of the warehouses along the quay and inadvertently added another very good reason to head in that direction on a regular basis.

The Coffee Cellar is the only food vendor amongst several gift and craft shops in warehouses located at the end of the oldest part of the quay. The quay was first constructed during the 16th century so the buildings in the area, despite their original commercial function, are aesthetically pleasing to say the least. I wish the commercial buildings of our day held just a small fraction of the charm and beauty of these warehouses, but alas today we get steel, aluminium and glass with almost no thoughtful design elements whatsoever. I digress. The Coffee Cellar is the kind of independent coffee shop that I would like to see more of, but in the high street the domination of the big guns like Starbucks, Café Nero and Costa is ongoing and I doubt very much whether this will change in the short term. The Coffee Cellar’s location has all the seasons covered with an outdoor seating area that looks across the quay and is just perfect when the sun is shining; in the winter time the comfy sofas and retro styling pull you in and absolutely encourage the leisurely reading of magazines and newspapers whilst you sip your Americano or latté.

The décor is one my favourite things about the café with 1930’s red leather sofas and armchairs, fairy lights, chunky wooden tables, ethereal fabrics draped from the ceiling and old advertising posters on the walls. If you like bright lighting and clinical environs then the Coffee Cellar probably won’t work for you. They are also keen on running an eco-friendly business so they recycle as much as they can and conserve energy wherever possible which might explain the low lighting, but I’m definitely not complaining about that as it sets a lovely, chilled mood. During the winter months the café thoughtfully provide blankets for sitting outdoors as well as dog biscuits and water for any furry friends you might have with you. The friendly & incredibly laid-back staff are a big part of the personality of the café (although more on that later) and attention to detail in terms of atmosphere is strong. The food is relatively straightforward as the kitchen and work area is small, so cakes, coffees, teas, cold drinks including smoothies, paninis and baps are the order of the day. The panini range is tight, but should suit most. On the day that I was visiting recently with JC, my friend JH and her little 3 year old boy there were 4 fillings on offer. JH ordered a Cheddar cheese and onion panini whilst I went for the Mexican chicken panini which included chicken, chilli sauce and Cheddar cheese. JC ordered a piece of carrot cake and an Americano, whilst I chose a caramel latté and JH an orange juice.

I have visited The Coffee Cellar on numerous occasions over the past 2 years and I have enjoyed myself very much for the most part, but there is one thing that I struggle with whenever I go there and that is the degree of laid-back service. It is largely a team of young, very friendly people who do not seem to be flustered by very much at all and this is where it goes a little awry. On nearly every visit I have been left waiting for far too long to be served, without any real acknowledgement from the staff. There can be 4 people working behind the counter, but it often seems that there is little going on. On this most recent trip it took us roughly 10 minutes to be served and we were initially the only people waiting. The 2 girls behind the counter kept doing what they were doing, barely looking at us. Now I am not unreasonable, so I understand that people can be busy – all I ask is that I am acknowledged and receive a quick ‘sorry about the wait, I’ll be with you very shortly’. No problem. We were finally served and during this time my friend JH enquired about getting some bread and butter for her son – the girl behind the counter said ‘we don’t have any bread, sorry’. She was very polite about this, but when I asked if he could simply have a toasted panini with butter she said, yes we can do that. Some proactive service here would have been helpful. Once we had chosen our lovely table, the carrot cake, cheese and onion panini and drinks arrived very quickly. After 15 minutes or so there was no sign of my Mexican chicken panini so I asked one of the girls of it’s whereabouts. It had been forgotten. This was quickly rectified and an apology given, but as it wasn’t the first time this had happened it just left me feeling a bit disappointed.

Now normally I do not give negative reviews. Read any of my other reviews on this site and I always stick to the positives. I don’t like to promote places that do not appeal to me. The difficulty with The Coffee Cellar is that I love the place and it has so much going for it. This was not my first negative experience at the café. I have waited patiently to be served on many an occasion, to the point where I have almost walked out. Their website clearly states that they have a very European approach to opening times and I suspect this approach extends to service attitudes as well. Whilst part of me loves this idea, another part of me (the one that wants to eat) thinks that there are just times where you want to have a coffee and a piece of cake without queuing forever. It is also nice to know that when you have paid and ordered something that you are going to receive it without asking for it again. If The Coffee Cellar was to improve it’s service, then I truly think this would be one of the loveliest cafés in Exeter. As it stands the Italian freshly ground coffee is good, the food is decent, the location is wonderful, the décor is welcoming and stylish and the staff are friendly. That is why I continue to love the place and go there in the hope that they will one day crank up the service a notch.

Poached Egg & Soda Bread

2011-06-11T20:13:40+00:00

The humble poached egg ... so simple and yet so tricky! In many ways, I'm a lazy cook. I like recipes that take a maximum of half an hour to an hour to prepare and so long as they cook by themselves they can take as long as they like after that. Delia Smith, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson are three of my favourite cooks as their recipes are pretty much 'idiot' proof and always come out tasting fantastic. Sometimes though, I like to stretch myself in order to test my culinary boundaries. I have only tried to poach an egg once before and this was less than successful. It was edible as JC will support me on, but it wasn't great. As I have a sort of love/hate relationship with eggs, I just haven't bothered trying again. That was until I read a wonderful article on The Guardian website.

Written by Felicity Cloake for their Word of Mouth blog, it covered various tried and tested methods including Delia's and Marcus Wareing's. Marcus Wareing's method was taught to him by the breakfast chef at the Savoy so I was hoping for big things. I wasn't disappointed! This is less of a 'recipe' and more of a weekend brunch idea, but I have to say I felt very pleased with myself having pulled it off. Thanks to Marcus and Felicity for their help. Beneath the perfect poached egg, I served some of The Exploding Bakery's gorgeous soda bread, toasted and lightly buttered. This made for a wonderful Saturday brunch. I also have to thank the staff at The Exploding Bakery for planting the idea in my head to whip this up.

1-2 egg(s) per person
a drop of vinegar per egg
1 slice of soda bread per egg

Using a 20-22cm pan, bring around 3-4 inches of water to the boil.
Crack a single egg into a ramekin dish and a drop of vinegar on top of it.
Using a whisk, stir the boiling water vigorously (without splashing yourself!) and create a vortex.
Quickly take the ramekin dish and place the egg gently - as close to the water as you can safely get - into the centre of the vortex.
Cook for 3 minutes.
Whilst the egg cooks, get your soda bread beneath a heated grill and lightly toast both sides; when toasted, butter quickly.
Remove the egg from the water with a slotted/draining spoon and place on top of your toasted soda bread. Season to taste. Eat now!

The Guardian article is worth reading in case you want to dabble with other methods. I'm finished dabbling myself as I'm very happy with this version.

The Exploding Bakery

2011-05-07T23:03:12+00:00

Queen Street in Exeter is my corridor to the High Street so I wander down it on a regular basis. To my surprise on the way back from town a few months ago – clearly I wasn’t paying much attention on the way up – I noticed that Juice Moose, a shop which I really quite liked, no longer existed and in it’s place was the rather fetching store, The Exploding Bakery. Upon entering said store, I noticed that they sold Monmouth coffee in bean, ground and takeaway brewed form. Having tried Monmouth coffee at their Borough Market shop a couple of times and declared it my new favourite coffee due to the amazingly smooth taste (something to do with the grind apparently) and snazzy stylish fittings I was extremely happy to see that I could buy it in Exeter now.

Last weekend I popped to the food festival and on my way decided to duck my head into The Exploding Bakery to see what they had on offer that day. They change out their offering regularly and the produce always seems to be very beautifully presented and inviting. Ollie is the head baker and I must say a very creative sort of a chap. On that particular day offerings included a rather stunning Raspberry & White Chocolate Cheesecake, a tasty Lemon Polenta Cake (I sampled this one), Vegan Banana Bread, lovely appley Lumberjack Cake and Carrot Cake all of which were crying out to me.

Each day they serve soups and savouries for lucky local workers, an example of which was a tomato, caramelised onion and rocket foccacia that looked ludicrously attractive that day. As I was on my way to a food festival I refrained, but regretted it afterwards. As well as a gorgeous, fresh range of baked products, The Exploding Bakery stock some store cupboard goodies and snacks such as Burts Crisps, Tracklements condiments (Thai Jelly, Fig Relish, mustards and more), Monmouth coffee at £5.75 a bag and a range of organic & gluten free flours from Doves Farm and Sharpham Park.

The other standout feature of The Exploding Bakery is its stylishness. I’ve mentioned before that I am a sucker for a good bit of design and The Exploding Bakery has this in abundance. From their logo, to the ‘tasteful’ dark grey of the façade and the rustic fittings – wooden crates and industrial metal shelving – it exudes the personality of a real, working bakery which it essentially is, with a bit of urban cool. It feels a little like you have stuck your head into a professional artisan bakery and they have very kindly allowed you to buy some of their recently baked treats. Form and function perfectly melded. Nestled between Jenniflower, in my opinion the nicest florist in Exeter, and Whistle Wines, one of the few high street independent wine shops in Exeter, I am starting to see Queen Street as an up-and-coming Magdalen Road. I’m keeping my fingers crossed it keeps developing along the same lines.

Exeter Festival of South West Food & Drink 2011

2011-04-30T23:28:10+00:00

After last year’s rather low key trip to the Food & Drink Festival whilst I was in the midst of a self-inflicted no dairy, alcohol, sugar or wheat diet, I was ready to sample whatever the heck I liked this year. I have been partying a lot recently as my sister and brother-in-law have been over from Australia and together we have eaten our way across the UK and France over the past fortnight. No wine, cheese, cured meat or cake has been safe. Despite the fact that my skinny fit jeans are now starting to turn me blue when I wear them – yes I’m still trying - I decided to soldier on in the name of food lovers everywhere, arriving at the festival entrance at around 11am with a keen interest in discovering some new and interesting local producers.

I always have a game plan when I attend any food event like this – a quick scoot round with an eye on anything that looks worth coming back for. I rarely buy first time around. This is healthy from both a weight gain and a bank balance point of view. It is way too easy to whip your wallet out every 2 yards and end up with a cupboard full of those jams, relishes and sauces that don’t see the light of day again for another 18 months.

First to catch my eye as I walked through the first marquee (No. 6) was The Cherry Tree stand which was neatly laden with their chutneys, preserves and cheese samples. As I mentioned I have to be careful with this sort of produce as I have a tendency to get a little excited. The range of products sold by The Cherry Tree is extensive, making my decision to stick to just 2 items a little difficult. Right now though I am obsessed with lemon curd so the soft, creamy tang of their lemon curd was a definite winner. I was intrigued by the garlic pickles also – one being hot and the other mild. As a rule I would run with the hotter version, but the garlic flavour was much stronger in the milder version and it was gorgeous. Amongst other offerings that caught my eye were Kashmiri Chutney, Apricot and Stem Ginger Chutney, Pear and Ginger Jam and Tipsy Strawberry with Champagne Jam. I struggled to get to some of the products due to the popularity of the stand so I moved on.

I generally try to focus on ‘new’ producers that I have little or no knowledge of. The great thing about this year was that it wasn’t difficult to achieve this. The balance of old favourites and fresh exhibitors was spot on. Next to catch my eye was the Deli Farm Charcuterie stand, a North Cornwall business based in Delabole, specialising in traditionally air dried salami and ham. They have won Taste of the West awards for many of their products including their air dried coppa (the cut of meat behind the back of the pig’s head at the top of the shoulder) which is cured in salts and spices and is offered in either traditional or honeyed versions. I opted to try the orange & ginger salami which was subtle, but definitely flavoured. Other flavours include fennel and anise, oak smoked paprika, coriander and cumin or black olive. Their cutely named, ready to eat snacks ‘pokers’ and ‘devils pokers’ are finely ground sticks of salami flavoured with various herbs including caraway seed, chilli flakes and/or cayenne pepper, whilst the caraway flavoured ‘slippery imps’ are sold in jars of extra virgin olive oil with bay leaves. Taster packs are also available for £15.90 containing 2 large slices of each salami, 4 slices of each coppa and a small piece of poker and devils poker. This is a great idea for anybody you know who loves their cured meats.

Could it get any better than garlic pickle and cured meat I ask? Well, my next stop was the Otter Valley Dairy stand, so the answer is yes. Otter Valley Dairy Farm is situated on the A30 at Monkton, in a layby immediately off the main road. I sometimes do a trip up to Surrey using the A303 so I was most pleased to note that I could stop off for an ice cream during my next journey. As I arrived at the stand I heard another lady asking if she could try the Seabuckthorn flavoured ice cream as she had read about it – of course, not one to turn away from a flavour I hadn’t tried before, I piped up with my own request to have a taste. It was lovely – the ice cream itself was creamy and smooth as I would have hoped, but the bonus was the unusual flavour which was a mix of mild citrus (orange) and soft berry – I couldn’t pin point exactly which berry, but it worked.

Four generations of the Bond family work on the farm so it is a serious family business and their ice cream is made using milk and cream from their own cows. What was special about their offering was the range of flavours. I also tried the Banoffee Pie and Rhubarb & Ginger ice creams which were both gorgeous. The Banoffee reminded me of banana ice cream I used to eat growing up in Australia so there was an added nostalgic element thrown in. I will be making a trip out to the farm in the near future as I was further drawn in by the promise of such flavours as Rice Pudding with Raspberry Jam, Cream Tea and Chili and Melon. Sadly, I had to keep moving through the festival – these are not places to lurk unless you want to be trampled. The older gentleman beside me was drawn in by the Divine Chocolate ice cream and I had been gently elbowed out.

The Mr Filbert’s nut stand featured a sign which read ‘Freshly Roasted Prince William’s Nuts or Hot Nuts for Kate’, something that wasn’t terribly easy to walk past without stopping. The Hot Nuts for Kate were a little too spicy for JC who I had in mind for these, but the Prince William’s Nuts were peanuts flavoured with English tomatoes and Mediterranean herbs, with a subtle sweetness provided by Pomegranate molasses, and seemed perfect. Very moreish indeed. Mr Filbert’s has only been running 9 months so it’s great to get in on the ground floor and spread the word on a worthy snack. This range of flavoured nuts are a little different to those on the market right now with products that include Kasbah Spiced Almonds (harissa, mint, garlic and cane sugar), Sweet Chilli Peanuts (sweet chilli and mango) and Pomodoro Peanuts (tomatoes, basil and Parmesan cheese). They also produce salad dressings and marinades such as Summer Herb Drizzle with Dorset Wild Garlic and Smoked Chilli infused Rapeseed Oil. They are currently extending their distribution so fingers crossed they will be hitting a deli near you soon.

A producer that has recently piqued my interest is Sharpham Wines & Cheeses based in the Dart Valley near Totnes. Their wine and cheese production seems to have been cranked up in the past few years although they have been producing wine for 25 years. They have also won several top awards for their wine in 2009 and 2010, including the Gold English & Welsh Wine of the Year 2010 award for their Pinot Noir 2009. The very friendly lady on the stand let me try the 2010 New Release and the 2009 Rose, both of which were a little ‘fresh’ and young for me, but the Rose had a creamy quality that balanced the tartness well. I tried the Reserve 2009 on a recent trip to The Lazy Toad at Brampford Speke and this confirmed that I needed to make a trip to the vineyard and creamery very soon. A Gold tour at £8.95 includes a self-directed tour of the vineyard, a tasting of six wines and 3 cheeses (subject to availability), which seems like a bargain to me and there is no need to book. If our summery weather lasts beyond May I can’t think of a nicer day out.

Some of the stands I was keen to explore were difficult to get to as is often the way, and amongst these was that of Bell & Loxton. Bell & Loxton cold pressed rapeseed oil is sold in the Real Food Store in Exeter so I am familiar with their products. Being the marketing victim that I am, I was also attracted to their very attractive packaging – they use aluminium bottles as they are lighter to transport and easily recycled compared to glass. I assume they also work well to protect the oil from sunlight. The rapeseed oil is grown, pressed and bottled on the farm at South Devon and contains half the saturated fat of olive oil. Bon Gout Deli in Magdalen Rd are also amongst the current local stockists.

Pullins Bakers, based in North Somerset were established in 1925 so I can’t exactly refer to them as a new supplier, but this is the first time I have come across them, so I made my way over to their rather lovely bakery stand. Referring to themselves as artisan bakers, they bake a range of loaves such as ciabatta, french sticks, rye, overnight white (using an 18 hour fermentation method), sourdough and spelt. After greedily reading the May Italy issue of the American foodie magazine Bon Appétit I couldn’t resist the Stromboli loaves on the end of the stand – I bought 2 of the vegetarian smaller rolls full of sunblush tomato, red onion, mushrooms, local Cheddar cheese, Italian seasoning and paprika. That will go nicely with my Tuscan bean soup tonight!

Of course, it is necessary to have lunch at the food festival every year, or at the very least buy it to take home and eat. This year I decided to buy a Pieminister pie with mash and mushy, minty peas to eat in Rougemont Gardens. JC had a Chicken of Aragon (free range chicken, smoky bacon, roasted garlic, vermouth and fresh tarragon) and I had the Heidi Pie (goats cheese, sweet potato, spinach, red onion and roasted garlic). I also grabbed us a Chai latte and an Americano from the Devon Coffee van run by Percolapps based on Sowton Industrial Estate. They run a mobile coffee service and serve Hawkins Coffee of Budleigh Salterton and tea from Miles Tea in Somerset. You would expect to be able to get a half decent brew at a food festival and we weren’t disappointed. Our picnic turned out very nicely. Even the threatening storm clouds managed to hold back their contents long enough for us to finish.

On the way back through the festival, passing Michael Caines being interviewed in the process, I nipped to pick up my well thought out purchases - orange & ginger salami from the Deli Farm Charcuterie and the lemon curd and mild garlic pickle from The Cherry Tree – before heading home, replete, content and ready to sing the praises of another successful festival.

The Real Food Store, Exeter

2011-04-03T20:33:48+00:00

It's been a long time in the planning, but The Real Food Store in Exeter has finally opened its doors. This might be a slightly biased review, but being a member I was always going to want to shout from the rooftops about this wonderful new 'store with a heart & soul'.

After 2 years in the planning, the founding members and first official Board of Directors, finally saw their dream of a ‘Real Food’ store for Exeter come to fruition. Dominic Acland, co-founder of Occombe Farm in South Devon, Nicola Beglin, Sarah Collier, David Mezzetti of Transition Exeter, Christine Duff of OrganicArts and Love Local Food and Emma Parkin of Emma’s Bread have been supported by nearly 300 local shareholders, better known as members, in a project that has ‘community’ written all over it. The idea was to open a shop, café and bakery for local people that was an alternative to other standard retail offerings. The double fronted store in Paris Street features local, Fairtrade & organic essentials and specialities, homemade bread baked daily and a café menu that makes the most of this very special and carefully selected produce. The focus is on seasonality, making it very easy to keep track of what is naturally available to us at any time of the year.

Suppliers are thoughtfully sourced in a bid to maintain the integrity and ethos of the project. My trip to the store on its first Saturday of opening saw me scouring the shelves for new and interesting products and I wasn’t disappointed. There were those I instantly recognised such as Luscombe juices, Chunk pies & Quickes cheese, but the shelves were riddled with unfamiliar brands that kept me occupied for the best part of half an hour. A small taster selection includes Devon Cottage organic fudge, Sandford Orchards Ginger Beer, The Bath Pig’s UK Chorizo - that’s definitely on the shopping list for my next visit – Mike’s Smokehouse smoked salmon & prawns, Zaytoun Palestinian Fairtrade EV Olive Oil and Bell & Loxton Cold Pressed Rapeseed Oil. Where the produce is not completely local, and this is inevitable for a well-rounded store, it is Fairtrade. David Mezzetti has been quoted as saying that this is the perfect shop window for local producers and I have to agree. The choice is broad, enticing and ethical. Essentials such as flour (Shipton Mill), bread (in abundance!), vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and eggs are all accounted for making this a serious option for part or all of your next weekly shop. Prices are varied and many are very reasonable, but sometimes it is worth paying a little more to know that we are supporting local producers and getting top quality, seasonal food.

Local workers who fancy something different at lunchtime can either shimmy on up to the Café or grab a take away sandwich, all of which are made on the premises. I was very impressed by the sandwich filling selection which is an extension of the current Spring menu in the café. Pumpkin, humous and slaw, venison sausage and onion marmalade and paprika egg salad stood out as attractive alternatives to your standard BLT or tuna mayo. We aimed to eat in the café, but missed both the breakfast and lunch slots which run until 11.30am and from 12 noon respectively. We ordered a latté and Americano instead and enjoyed bathing in the sunshine streaming through the large windows at the front of the café. The coffee is Origin Farmer 30 (£2.10/2.30) and the Fairtrade loose leaf tea (£1.95) is by Suki. I spent a little time studying the Spring menu in order to get a head start on my next visit and was more than impressed by the average prices, particularly given the quality of the produce. My choice on that visit, would have been for either the Garlic Cheese Salad (£4.25) - salads are changed out regularly - served with Emma’s Bread or the Venison Sausage & Hillside Red Onion & Thyme Marmalade sandwich (£4.95). The breakfast menu served from 8-11.30am includes healthy options such as Emma’s toast, Midfields granola with Riverford yogurt (£2.95) as well as weekend treat options such as Rhubarb & Ginger breakfast muffins (£1.95) and my personal favourite, an open toastie with wilted organic spinach & tasty Cheddar with 2 poached eggs (£3.95). For someone who thrives on novelty, like myself, the seasonal changing of the menu equals endless entertainment.

There is plenty of room in the café with roughly 15-20 tables seating between 60-80 people although don’t quote me on that. It’s a big space in any event. In the true spirit of the project JC & I shared our 4 seater table with a mum and her son as things were a tad busy. The café had a lovely buzz to it, despite some teething troubles such as an inability to take card payments due to a technical glitch. Given the store had been open only 4 days it is expected that things won’t run exactly to plan from minute one, but they certainly looked pretty organised to me. The colour scheme, in line with the store branding, is lime green and tomato red with several feature walls painted in either one or the other colour. The use of natural materials, including gratifyingly chunky wood counters in the store, bakery and café, add to a very tasteful and vibrant space. The design of the Real Food Store has an earthy and vivid personality which makes poking around the well-stocked shelves even more enjoyable.

The bakery has it’s own entrance to the right of the main store entrance and as per the rest of the store feels very different to your average supermarket experience. Emma Parkin has run Emma’s Bread since 2005 and her products are already well known and loved by many a farmers market shopper, but this is her first permanent store front. The bakery is stocked daily (Mon-Sat 8am-6pm) with a range of speciality breads including spelt, rye & seeded sourdough and wholemeal loaves as well as an ever changing range of tempting cakes, biscuits and slices. Emma’s aim is to offer customers ‘real’ bread using traditional methods and without unnecessary additives or preservatives. Emma uses Shipton Mill organic flours and each loaf is weighed and shaped by hand. An artisan bakery of this calibre should be well appreciated by anyone who truly loves good food.

My purchases on that first visit were a little special as my sister and brother-in-law were arriving from Australia that week, so I pushed the boat out. Some goat’s cheese & mature Cheddar from Quickes, a pot of Hillside Plum & Port fruit paste and a packet of Hillside Pink Peppercorn Crunch savoury biscuits made for a stunning Devon produce showcase as well as a very impressive late afternoon snack for my guests who are a pair of Australian foodies. In fact all of these products are made within a stone’s throw of Exeter city centre. I can’t fail to bowl them over with that little spread. Next time you are pottering around Princesshay, head for Paris St. and treat yourself to a little feel-good nosh. Help support our local producers and at the same time enjoy a mighty fine meal. You can’t say fairer than that.

Opening Hours Monday to Saturday 8am-6pm
11 & 13 Paris St, Exeter EX1 2JB

Chocolate Chip Jaffa Muffins

2011-03-22T00:17:31+00:00

I love the combination of chocolate and orange. OK, it's not ground breaking, but it's a classic. I've always found too much chocolate on it's own to be very cloying so the addition of a tart, fruity element is always appealing. Think raspberry and chocolate or lemon and cream. Perfect. This is yet another yummy recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly cookbook Easy Baking. This is the third I have published and I'm starting to think that the publishers will stop me doing it soon! So far they have been kind enough to allow me to pilfer from their carefully put together collection of recipes so I am completely legitimate. The buttermilk in the recipe gives a slightly softer texture as it apparently helps to tenderise the gluten in flour. It is also meant to help with the raising of the muffin. On a basic level, it provides an extra tang that works well with the orange zest.

375g (2 1/2 cups) self raising flour
100g cold butter, chopped finely
220g (1 cup) caster sugar
310ml (1 1/4 cups) buttermilk
1 egg
135g (3/4 cup) dark choc chips
2 tsps orange rind, finely grated

Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan-forced and grease a 12 hole (1/3 cup or 80ml) muffin pan.
Sift flour into a large bowl and rub in the butter.
Stir in the sugar, buttermilk and egg, but do not overmix. The mixture should still be lumpy. Then stir in the choc chips and orange rind.
Divide the mixture between the pan holes and bake for about 20 minutes.
Stand the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out top-side up onto a wire rack to cool.

Note that the measurements in brackets are Australian. Preparation and cooking time should be roughly 30 minutes. Makes 12.

Occombe Farm Shop, Paignton

2011-03-12T22:58:05+00:00

For some time now I have been planning to venture into South Devon to visit Occombe Farm Shop near Paignton. Having spent many years wandering around West and East Devon, poor old South Devon has been sadly neglected in my travels. This is mostly due to the large volume of tourists that head towards this part of the world every summer and partly due to the fact that I just don’t get the time to visit everywhere I would like to. So … last weekend I jumped in the car with my BFF (Best Food Friend) and we headed off to see what Occombe had to offer.

Only 30 minutes later, with little or no traffic on the road (it was, after all, February), we arrived at the farm and the first thing that hit us as we extracted ourselves from my restrictive little coupé, was the smell of proper farm animals. Yes, proper farm animals - Ruby Red cows in fact, as we quickly discovered. Right next to the main parking area was a barn full to the brim with mooing cows munching happily on bales of hay. I don’t know about you, but when I visit a farm shop I very much enjoy the prospect of the ‘full’ farm experience, complete with sounds & smells. I live in a city, albeit a relatively ‘rural’ city, so I cherish my trips out of Exeter. Occombe is a 150 acre organic farm consisting of a mixture of pasture, wet meadows and woodland and is part of a 1750 acre area that is managed by the Torbay Coast and Countryside Trust. The ethos of the farm is centred around community and education, and in 2009 they established the Lottery funded One Planet Food Project which has enabled them to set up a Community Garden and Kitchen with an aim to teaching local adults and children how to grow and cook seasonal produce. This is a farm that has big ambitions and seems to be on the right path.

On entering the farm shop, you are greeted with a wealth of fresh, seasonal fruit and veg, a fish counter and several shelves of West Country, Fairtrade, eco, organic and generally enticing, feel-good produce. At the back of the shop is a large deli counter and alongside this a butcher’s concession run by Mark Gribble. In the main part of the store there is a wide choice of general groceries and store cupboard essentials including tea, coffee, dried pasta, tinned products, juice, wine, flour and biscuits. I spotted several well-known gluten-free brands during my browse including Doves, Clives, Mrs Crimbles and Manna from Devon. Customers with an interest in taking care of the planet will find an extensive range of eco products which include the recognisable big brands like Bio, Ecover and Faith in Nature as well as some more unusual items such as Eco-Force recycled clothes pegs, Geo Organic Atlantic Bathing Salts and Michael's Biodegradable cleaning brushes and sponges.

The delicatessen boasts a selection of over 50 cheeses from the West Country including Organic North Devon Farmhouse, Sharpham Brie, Devon Blue, Beenleigh Blue, Godminster Vintage, Quickes Mature and Ticklemore Goat. A good range of cooked meats, quiches, pies and pasties as well as olives and tapas round of the selection. My eyes were immediately drawn to Tom’s Pies as I am a big fan of Tom's work. Without a second thought I bought some Ham Hock and Pea pies for our dinner and grabbed a loaf of organic granary bread, made daily on the premises, for JC to munch on. There can never be too much bread in our house.

Gribble's Butchers, unsurprisingly given Occombe’s ethics, are focussed on supplying local, sustainably-farmed meat and stock a good organic range. Mondays are a self-service day, but the remainder of the week the Gribble’s staff are happy to offer any help needed with information on cut selection, cooking tips, animal welfare or product ingredients. Creedy Carver poultry and Gribble’s home-made sausages are also available with exotic sausage flavours that vary and can include Thai, Wild Boar & Apple, Venison Cranberry & Rosemary and Gluten Free Pork. The butchers was in fact such a constantly busy area during my visit that I didn’t take any photographs for fear of upsetting business!

After a good look around and a bit of restrained retail therapy, we headed upstairs to The Bakehouse Cafe to take the weight of our feet. We didn’t exactly need a rest given that we only shopped for around 20 minutes, but when the prospect of coffee and cake is distracting concentration it’s best not to fight it. The Bakehouse is a lovely area above the shop with glass doors and a balcony that looks out over farmland. I can imagine in the summer months this would be a peaceful place to while away an hour or two. We ordered our drinks and I just had to add a vanilla and chocolate cupcake to my choice as I never ever want my coffee to feel lonely. It doesn’t seem right to consume hot beverages without accompanying cake. Cakes are either made in the farm bakery or off-site by a local artisan producer. We shuffled over to one of the sofas and spent the next hour relaxing, chatting and wondering why we had waited so long to visit Occombe.

We didn’t eat lunch this time, but I made a point of checking the menu in lieu of future visits. More unusual offerings on the menu include Occombe baked cheese scones served with butter and local chutney, breakfast baps (served from 9am to 3.30pm) with free range eggs, Occombe bacon & sausages or perhaps an Occombe Steak Burger containing Occombe beef burgers in an Occombe bap. You can’t argue with that sort of provenance. If you fancy a glass of wine or local beer with your meal, Occombe also offer a small selection of alcoholic drinks. The childrens menu is served from 11.30am to 3.30pm and is larger than many I have seen in other cafés and restaurants. The Bakehouse will also put together a kiddies picnic lunch to eat in or take out, consisting of a bap, a piece of fruit, a bag of Burts crisps or an organic cereal bar and a carton of fruit juice.

Occombe Farm is lovingly operated as a community project with it’s visitors at the heart of it’s raison d’etre. Regular events are held at the farm and have included sausage-making courses, planting projects, product tasting days and outdoor classroom lessons in the farm yurt. I suspect that the farm shop and cafe are important means of revenue for the continuation of the project and allow Occombe to move forward with their admirable education plans. I for one am happy to put forward my tiny financial contribution towards the ongoing development of this sort of community work by frequenting the shop and café as often as I can. If you also appreciate this sort of community endeavour, you might like to consider a related, but more urban project, about to open in Exeter called The Real Food Store. I’ll be telling you more about their story very soon.

Lemon Curd Friands

2011-01-20T19:31:29+00:00

Australia has a fabulous food culture. I lived in Sydney for 5 years before I came to the UK and would go out to dinner roughly 2-3 times a week during that time. Whenever I visit friends and family in Sydney now I try to take advantage of the amazing array of restaurants that are all over the city. I read Sydney based food blogs and try to keep up to date with what new restaurants are opening up, but it's hard to stay on top of this, when you are on the other side of the world. I've realised it is much easier to buy Australian cookbooks and make the recipes yourself, so after years of ordering yummy friands with my coffee in Australia I decided I would make them myself. The Australian Women's Weekly Easy Baking cookbook that I bought on my last visit contained 2 friand recipes and after getting my hands on a friand mould in only the last few weeks, I am happy to report I have made 2 batches of these gorgeous Lemon Curd Friands and they are not only easy to make, but are lighter than regular sponge cakes and incredibly moreish. Friands are basically French financiers, made using egg whites and ground almonds, but the shape is slightly different. The lemon curd in these is sharp and adds a bit of zest to the gentle almond flavour.

6 egg whites
185g melted butter
120g almond meal
240g icing sugar
75g plain flour
80g lemon curd

Preheat oven to 200°C (180°C fan oven). Grease a 125ml oval friand pan.
Place egg whites in medium bowl; whisk lightly with fork until combined. Stir in melted butter, ground almonds, sifted icing sugar and flour until just combined.
Divide mixture among pan holes and bake for 10 minutes.
Remove friands from the oven and top each with a level teaspoon of curd. Bake for a further 10 minutes.
Stand friands for 5 minutes before turning, top-side up, onto a wire rack to cool.

The Women's Weekly recipe states that you should use a 12-hole/125ml oval friand pan, however I use a 8 hole silicone friand mould and it has been fine. It makes slightly larger friands, but they still taste terrific. Of course you could try these with orange or lime curd for something a little different.

Taken from the Australian Women's Weekly Easy Baking cookbook, featuring photographs by Ben Dearnley. The photographs here on the blog are my own.

Banana & Chocolate Mini Loaf Cakes

2011-01-09T01:30:27+00:00

Whilst I was in Australia I searched high and low for some friand pans that didn't weigh a tonne; silicone would have been ideal. Friand pans were few and far between even in a country where friands are readily available in coffee shops and cafes, so I returned to the UK disappointed, but with a new cookbook containing several friand recipes. Friands, in case you haven't had the pleasure of coming across them, are small, moist oval cakes (almost bite sized) loosely based on French financiers and similar in texture to a sponge. In Australia and apparently New Zealand too, they come in all sorts of flavours including coconut, lemon, raspberry and chocolate. I had a lemon & poppy seed version in Sydney a few years ago and fell in love. Unfortunately I still don't have my friand pan, although recently my mum sent me 18 silicone cake cases for mini loaves. At roughly 7x3 cm these are dinky and cute. This recipe for Banana & Chocolate mini loaf cakes came from Waitrose and whilst their recipe was geared towards the use of 150ml capacity mini loaf tins or 10 x 125ml muffin tins, this worked to make 24 very mini loaf cakes for me. These are absolutely gorgeous & very easy to do. If you can get a hold of these little cases, they make for a novel treat. I will carry on looking for the friand cases and get back to you with a recipe for those soon.

250g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125g unsalted butter, softened
250g caster sugar
4 ripe bananas (or 3 large), mashed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g dark or milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180℃/gas mark 4. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
Mix the butter, sugar, banana, eggs, vanilla extract and chocolate chips in a separate bowl.
Add to the dry ingredients and stir to combine, being careful not to over mix. Divide the batter between the tins or cases and bake for 30-35 minutes. When golden brown and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake, remove from the oven. Leave to cool in the tins or cases for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool.

These take around 45 minutes to create, from start to finish. I didn't have any chocolate chips, but instead used up some Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate broken into small pieces, left over from Christmas.

Jamie’s Lasagne

2011-01-02T22:24:59+00:00

New Year's Eve has, in the past, been a complete non-event for me. Between the ages of 17 & 21, living in Sydney, I pretty much forced myself to go out and have a good time, like many other people no doubt. After a few years of utter disappointment amongst crowds of drunken people - goodness knows how anybody gets drunk at NYE when queuing for a drink at pubs and clubs takes up most of the evening - I decided that the only way I can enjoy myself is to be with good friends or at home with some indulgent & fattening food, a glass of decent wine and a DVD. For the last few years JC and I have bought ourselves a series of The Sopranos, a bottle of good red wine and we have collapsed on the sofa with a bowl of pasta and meatballs.

This year things didn't quite work out the way we had planned. JC had a craving for lasagne so we ditched the meatballs and The Sopranos Season 6 (both DVDs) didn't arrive from Amazon despite booking a next day delivery. I am not a massive fan of lasagne so I tried to find something with a twist and Jamie Oliver came through for me. This lasagne notably contains pancetta as well as butternut squash roasted with coriander seeds and dried chilli - the coriander seeds did it for me. Lasagne is notoriously fiddly and this one is no different so bear that in mind. I made a few changes to the original recipe to suit our tastes, but I don't think it took much away although Jamie might disagree. Next year I have no idea what we will do as this is the last series of The Sopranos so I think it will be onto a new theme - perhaps curry and a Bollywood night? It will take me 364 days to convince JC this is a good idea.

103g packet pancetta cubes
a pinch of cinnamon
1 onion finely chopped
1 carrot finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
2 handfuls of fresh rosemary & thyme (combined, not each!)
olive oil
500g minced beef
400g minced pork
2 x 400g tins/boxes of chopped tomatoes
2 glasses of red wine
Optional: 2 tbsps tomato ketchup
1 butternut squash cut into 4mm slices
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 tsp dried red chilli flakes
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
400g fresh lasagne sheets
400g mozzarella, torn up
1 x 500ml tub of creme fraiche
2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
optional: milk

Preheat the oven to 180℃/350℉/gas 4.
In a large casserole-type pan slowly fry the pancetta and cinnamon until golden, then add the onion, carrot, garlic and herbs and about 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix together, then add the beef and pork and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the tinned tomatoes and the wine and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and simmer on the hob for 1 1/2 hours. You can also put this in the oven for 2 hours if you prefer. Towards the end of the cooking time I also added 2 tablespoons of tomato ketchup here (yep!) as I thought the consistency too watery, but I will leave that up to you.
Peel, de-seed and slice your butternut squash. Rub the slices with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, the crushed coriander seeds and chilli flakes. Roast in the oven for the last 45 minutes of the sauce cooking time.
When the sauce is done, season to taste and put to one side. I let mine simmer for an extra half an hour because I wasn't completely happy with the consistency - it was too watery - so this won't hurt.
Mix together the crème fraiche and Parmigiano Reggiano, adding a little milk if you need to loosen the mixture. Season with salt and pepper.
Turn the oven to 200℃/400℉/gas 6. To assemble the lasagne, rub an earthenware lasagne dish with olive oil, lay some sheets of lasagne over the bottom and drape them over the sides. Add a layer of meat, a little white sauce and a sprinkling of Parmigiano Reggiano. Place half of the butternut squash slices on top of the previous layer and then repeat the layers of meat, white sauce, cheese and butternut squash one more time finishing with a layer of pasta covered in white sauce. Tear the mozarella and sprinkle with some extra Parmigiano Reggiano.
Cook in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until golden.

I omitted a couple of things from Jamie's original recipe including anchovies from the white sauce and bay leaves from the tomato sauce. Anchovies because JC is not a fish fan & bay leaves because I had run out. The lack of these two did not ruin the finished product. Jamie suggests using 2 handfuls of fresh herbs to include sage, oregano, rosemary and thyme. I only used rosemary and thyme. I was lucky enough to find a butternut squash that was long and relatively thin which meant that slicing into 4mm discs was very easy - try to look out for one of these. Jamie's recipe refers to both sliced and chopped squash so feel free to do whichever you prefer. It will inevitably taste the same! Just make sure it works as a complete layer. I served steam broccoli and courgettes with this in a bid to inject some vegetables into the festive, porky pig series of dinners we had been eating for a week.

Bilby Christmas 2010

2010-12-27T18:51:31+00:00

The Christmas vibe starts for me around the 1st December. I don’t like the idea of getting too worked up about it before then as I’m always cautious of being caught up in a wave of commercialism. When it comes to planning my Christmas day menu though it’s no holds barred and I try to come up with something a little different. My aim is always to get the balance right between tradition and novelty. Rather selfishly this is all for me I might add as JC would willingly go along with the same dinner every year. For the last 2 years we have hosted Christmas at our house and provided JC’s mum with a well earned rest after more than 20 years of shouldering full responsibility for the day.

Last year I managed to get the balance of work to hostessing just right, but this year excitement took over and I set the bar perhaps a little too high. The weekend before I had made my Cranberry & White Chocolate Panettone ready to use this as the base for my trifle so that, at least, was done and dusted (with flaked almonds). Christmas Eve night was a tad fraught as I worked until 7pm and then crammed in some preparation for the day grating the chocolate onto my individual trifles at 10.30pm before making my way to bed with plans for the day whizzing around in my head. We have started Christmas day every year for the past 5, by heading down to Exmouth beach to watch JC’s dad run into the freezing cold sea with a host of other brave and mad people and it’s a ritual I love. We sip coffee from flasks whilst shaking our heads at a spectacle that is so very British. We listened to stories on the radio on the way there on others who were planning to take a ‘dip’ in the Serpentine, having broken through the ice in order to do so. For me swimming is something that should be saved for temperatures above 30 degrees, but it’s a great way to kick off the seasonal celebrations. Just as we were leaving, I was told by a lady on the beach that there was a marquee selling cups of gluhwein, something I hadn’t seen in previous years. As I was driving in icy conditions I thought better of it, but it would have topped off the morning nicely. I made a mental note to grab some next year.

Returning back home, we had 2 hours to prepare for the arrival of JC’s mum, dad and nan who had returned to their own place to defrost JC's dad. I had created a list of seemingly never-ending jobs that absolutely ‘had’ to be done before they arrived in true Christmas day style. The bathroom needed cleaning, the lounge needed vacuuming, the bin needed emptying, clothes needed to be folded & put away and that didn’t take into account any of the food preparation. In all honesty it took the pair of us about an hour to sort all of this out and I chuckled at myself for creating a mountain out of a mole hill once again. Once that was out of the way I set to completing the remaining food related tasks. My menu looked like this:

Jamie’s Baked Figs with walnut bread, goat’s cheese, walnuts & honey; Nigella’s Ham in Cola, Sweet Corn pudding, potatoes roasted in goose fat, broccoli & carrots; Trifle made with Cranberry & White Chocolate Panettone, clementines soaked in Grand Marnier and Marsala custard.

The panettone was actually a tricky character to create, as with the very cold winter we have been having I struggled to get the yeast to come to life and it ended up a little heavier than it should have been. The flavour and texture were perfectly acceptable though, particularly given that I would be covering it with the clementine soaking liquid. We had a slice (just to test of course) not long after I baked it and it was very good. The white chocolate I used was Green & Black’s and it gave a lovely alternative texture, providing isolated lumps of creaminess, working well against the tart cranberries. The rest of the trifle came together easily as I pulled elements from several recipes to meld a host of Christmas flavours. I soaked the clementines in vanilla sugar and Grand Marnier although with hindsight I would have increased the volume and heated these to a more syrupy consistency.

My Christmas Eve preparation consisted of completing the trifle above, baking 2 loaves of walnut bread and simmering the ham in the cola. The walnut bread recipe was from the River Cottage Bread book and was incredibly easy to make. I found it to be a little too salty for my liking, but aside from that I would without doubt make this again. This was to be warmed and used as the base for my starter. All of this preparation was definitely worth it as on Christmas day I actually felt quite in control. JC went out on his bike briefly on our return from Exmouth beach and I got the figs into the oven for their 3-4 hour cooking session. I set the table, finished my house cleaning duties and began to settle into the Christmas spirit. Following a quick change into Christmas garb (floaty skirt and feathery cardi), I then toddled into the kitchen to peel the veg. By this point I was genuinely mellow and couldn’t wait to see John’s family. There is something to be said for organisation and discipline no matter what anybody says otherwise. Having said that I did panic on Christmas Eve so perhaps a small dose of frenzy before the actual day is acceptable.

Excuse the lack of ham & sweet corn pudding photos by the way. The speed with which I tried to dish up the dinner before the freezing cold temperatures turned the meal into a cold disaster meant that I completely forgot to take any snaps. I even had the help of a production line in the form of JC’s mum and JC himself and I still managed to take my eye of the ball. I think 2 glasses of Prosecco di Valdobbiadene and Lejay Lagoute Crème de Framboise hadn’t helped. I was busy having a truly merry Christmas and lost the blogging plot. Anyway, all courses were received very well and you will just have to believe me when I say that the ham was wonderful and the sweet corn pudding was perfect with it as Nigella had suggested – I didn’t doubt Nigella for a moment. This American influenced main course was right up my street. It’s not for everyone and certainly not for the turkey and sprouts brigade, but I really enjoyed it. It was warming and out of the ordinary, as was the residual snow that coated our back garden (out of the ordinary, not warming of course). The whole day was pretty much as you would hope a Christmas day to be. I just wish we could order a snowfall every year. As my sister reported on her own 38 degree day by the pool in Perth, I felt very lucky to be experiencing a Christmas straight from the front of a Hallmark card (or any other company producing festive cards). I’ve now got 364 days to come up with my 2011 Christmas menu.

Bath Christmas Markets

2010-12-13T02:40:13+00:00

My love of the Christmas season has grown in the last 10 years. Growing up in Australia, Christmas was a very different affair – it was still good fun, but different. Nowadays, as soon as December arrives I start to look for possible food ideas for Christmas day, bauble additions for the tree and festive film and music favourites start to edge their way out of the TV & iPod. I’m not a massive traditionalist, but with age comes a need for the familiarity of repetition and custom so I seem to be growing up. I grasp the comfort of routine with both hands at this time of year and thoroughly enjoy writing my Christmas cards (despite the nagging concern that I am aiding the demise of the planet), trawling through old recipes, cookbooks and the trusty internet for my Christmas menu and popping into town for a little shop and a jolly cup of drink or two. These freezing temperatures we have been experiencing have only added to the wonderful yuletide vibe.

I’ve always loved the thought of heading to Germany or Austria for one of their famed Christmas markets, but the decadence of taking a plane across Europe just to drink some Gluhwein doesn’t rest easily with me these days, so when I discovered that Bath has a perfectly lovely Christmas market every year I set my sights on this instead. I booked a train ticket and decided to head up for the afternoon, meeting a friend for a drink at the end of the day. The markets are now 10 years old, but I was told by a repeat visitor that it has really hit it’s stride in the last few years. I’m not an ‘early adopter’ by nature, as I prefer to have any ‘bugs’ ironed out of events like this so I was happy to have caught up with it after a decade of trial and error. There were around 130 stalls this year, all of them housed within individual wooden chalets and decorated with fairy lights. The resulting spectacle is insanely festive and the smell of mulled wine and roasting nuts in the air provide a sensual experience that would knock the misery out of the most steadfast Grinch.

When I arrived at around 1.30pm my first thought was of food. There is absolutely nothing unusual about this, but I had not eaten since breakfast so I was quite within my rights to focus on being fed. After a half hour diversion at the post office (not so festive) getting my international cards in the mail, I high-tailed it back to the market area between the Abbey and the Roman Baths where all the action is. I had already clocked a stall called Stew in a Box that took my fancy as they were serving local sausage stew with spicy beans & tomatoes with potato and parsnip mash … in a box!! These were my kind of people. I showed a moment of blind confusion when I spotted the alternatives of beef & apricot and butternut squash with field mushrooms and butter beans, but after repeating the word ‘sausages’ a few times my head cleared. The sausages are made locally using pork from a farm near Glastonbury and it was a very good stew. It was quite tomato heavy, but the sauce was rich and it was tempered by the smooth, creamy potato and parsnip mash. The parsnip twist was genius as it was a soft flavour and not too overpowering, but definitely added something special to the whole dish. I am not a great lover of outdoor eating in the dead of winter, but this was a particularly mild day, more reminiscent of Autumn, so I squeezed onto a table alongside a couple who were enjoying the beef & apricot stew, despite the chap thinking it was a little too sweet for him. Not everybody does, but I love the mix of sweet and savoury in a stew so I was keen to try this one too, but I didn’t know these nice people well enough to be plunging my spoon into their stew so I carried on enjoying my own meal. The view from my table enhanced the whole experience as whilst I munched away I was looking at a beautiful big Christmas tree decorated with lights whilst Bath Abbey provided the backdrop. Not bad.

I was tempted to try a The Orchard Pig mulled apple juice or cider from the Stew in a Box stall because it smelled terrific, but not being alt that keen on carting around a drink whilst I tried to take photos, I stifled that idea. The hot pumpkin & cheese muffin from the Thoughtful Bread Company also looked very inviting, but I shuffled on. The beautiful wooden chalets came to life when the sun went down with the twinkling lights providing the magic that I was patiently anticipating. There was an abundance of gift stalls including many selling Christmas decorations, children’s toys, ceramics, clothing & jewellery, but I was pretty focussed on the food as ever. I reluctantly passed by the Gascoyne Place wine stall selling wine from the Chateau de la Tuilerie vineyard in France, as I couldn’t bear the thought of carrying clunking bottles of wine around with me for the rest of the day. I entertained the idea briefly and then moved on. You really have to be very strict with yourself at these things. The smell of the Chou Chou nut stand drew me in – there is nothing like the smell of roasting hazelnuts and cashews to draw you across a crowded marketplace – and I made a note to grab some of these caramelised goodies later in the evening. The markets were open until 9pm so there would be plenty of time for me to grab some before I left.

I did manage to pick up a few Christmas presents whilst I was running around following my nose, including making a quick dash to Vinegar Hill, one of my favourite shops in Bath, so it was a very productive day all round. I had a tight schedule to keep to and this included grabbing some Gluhwein from the Green Park Brasserie & Bar stall. Their Bratwurst sausages sounded fabulous – the last time I had one of these from a market stall was at the Eumundi markets near my mother’s house in Queensland and it was incredibly good – but I couldn’t eat another sausage right at that point. Sloshing an open container of Gluhwein whilst trying to elbow your way through thousands of pre-Christmas shoppers is not advised, but it was extremely good and smelled like liquified Christmas so it had to be done. I did wear some of it, but I did smell very Christmassy afterwards. I was on my way to the Hansel & Gretel Strudel Bar nestled in a pedestrian street between The Circus and the Royal Crescent. I had found this place on my last visit to Bath and was determined to seek it out again for some Viennese coffee and cherry strudel, but alas, everybody else in Bath had the same idea and with only around 15 seats in the very compact café I didn’t stand a chance. So, back to the centre of town for some more retail therapy. I will keep the Hansel & Gretal Strudel Bar on my radar and I hope to have a post on this up in the not too distant future. It’s a special place.

After a Christmas apple cocktail in the 1453 bar with a friend, I was ready to get back to the market for one last wander before catching my train home. I felt extremely pleased with my day and ambled around Abbey Green, my favourite area in Bath, mopping up the stalls I hadn’t reached earlier. Regrettably I passed by Suzette’s Pancakes knowing that I wasn’t up to staggering around trying to eat a crepe whilst in transit – I’m not very good at moving and eating. The Cointreau, apricot and cream crepe sounded amazing, but I kept going. Next year I will pace myself a little better. The last stall that took my fancy was the Fussels Fine Foods stall with frontman Andy hard at work after many hours at the helm. I’m sure that many of the stallholders must have been flagging by this point, but they were still admirably upright. The Fussels stall displayed several rapeseed oil products that looked very inviting including Quince & Cider Vinegar dressing, Mint Rapeseed Mayonnaise and Beer & Horseradish sauce. The Beer & Horseradish sauce uses Blindmans Ale which hales from a brewery just down the road from Fussels near Frome in Somerset. I will be seeking out their products soon enough.

The Bath Christmas Markets were everything I had hoped they would be with plenty of quality food and gift stalls. The organisers have done a fantastic job of creating a very continental atmosphere within the stunning, very British setting of Bath (well, Roman/British) and the bewitching ambience hits you the moment you walk through the colonnade from Stall Street – at least this is what angle I came from. For me the only issue was with the volume of people that covered every inch of the city, but with only 2 weeks until Christmas and over a quarter of a million people flooding into Bath each year for this event, it was pretty much expected. I guess clearing the city of people might well have spoiled the atmosphere! It was still very easy to get caught up in the spirit of the occasion and despite my train journey home being disrupted (South West trains don’t do magic) I was still a pretty happy bunny by the time I got home. Next year I might stay over!

Gidleigh Park Hotel

2010-11-30T01:07:54+00:00

Between 10 & 15 years ago I came across the name Michael Caines whilst he was working full time at the The Gidleigh Park Hotel and heard tales of his incredible culinary talent. Ever since that day I have told myself I would bite the bullet and get myself out there for a meal. I managed to achieve my goal this weekend and it was most definitely worth the wait. I had seen Gidleigh Park Hotel popping up on various food emails and websites, having recently won a number of Sunday Times awards for Best Place to Stay, Best Wine List and most importantly for me Best British Restaurant, pipping Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck to 1st position. This particular Top 100 was drawn up from a survey of over 8,000 food fans, which I think makes it a rather special award.

For the month of November, Gidleigh Park decided to celebrate by offering a discounted lunch menu - £32 for 2 courses or £42.50 for 3 courses. I was sold. Whilst this is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, it was ‘affordable’ enough for me to want to get on the phone and book a table quick smart. After all, how often to you get a chance to eat in a 2 star Michelin restaurant? Not often enough. It is about 25 miles drive from Exeter and takes about 45 minutes, so it’s almost on our doorstep. Whilst snow threatened to throw our well-laid plans completely out the window, I woke on Saturday morning to see the roads clear. I then rang Gidleigh Park to make sure that they weren’t covered in a layer of white – as they are on Dartmoor it would have been impossible to reach them if this was the case. Luck was on my side with a resounding ‘no snow’ update, so we started on the journey at 10.30am with our booking at 11.30 for 12. Now I love Dartmoor, having lived in and around the area for 12 years, and nothing makes me happier than being surrounded by the beauty of the winter moors, so this trip was doubly exciting. After driving through Chagford, I remembered the way from there, having been past the turn off for the hotel hundreds of times before. What I didn’t know is how much time the 1.5 mile drive from the first sign to the hotel actually took. I’m used to tiny, windy, hilly country lanes, but this was incredibly so and I wondered how on earth they managed in winter with ice and snow stopping all but the most intrepid foodies from getting to them. They’re not struggling by any means so I’m assuming it doesn’t hurt them too much.

Just as you think you may have taken a wrong turn, a sign appears on cue telling you not to lose heart, that you only have a ½ mile to go. I’m not sure how many people they surveyed in order to get this spot for the sign precisely right, but I for one was very glad to see it. The beautiful house, built in 1928 for an Australian shipping magnate no less(!) eventually greeted us and I loved that it was grand, but not imposing. One of my big fears about finally visiting Gidleigh Park was that I was going to be disappointed. Not by the food I was sure, but by a feeling of stuffiness, pompousness or pretension that would have ruined it for me. The house itself was the perfect mix of luxury and comfort. I certainly didn’t feel intimidated which is a great start. As we walked towards the back entrance from the car park a very friendly member of staff greeted us in passing and we stepped into the wood panelled entrance hall. On more than one occasion during our trip I thought that the interior of the house was reminiscent of Castle Drogo which is just down the road and of the same period. The wood panelling, stone fireplaces and 1920s/30s style furniture all ooze glamour and understated nobility. Immediately I understood that one of the special things about Gidleigh Park is the staff. Good food is good food in degrees if you get my meaning. It can be artfully presented, beautifully composed, but if the person placing it in front of you, pushes it onto your lap or grunts during the process, it suddenly removes some of the sparkle. In fact I’ve said many times before that for me atmosphere is crucially important and friendly staff are important here. The Holt Inn at Honiton was the last place where I felt a similar sincerity from the staff – that they wanted to be there and look after you and the pay was just a bonus. Really! These guys are that good.

Our coats were taken away and we were shown into the lounge where only one other couple were seated reading the paper. I was green with envy as they looked very much like comfortable house guests sitting by the fire as if they had all the time in the world. Before too long JC was brought his soft drink (he doesn’t drink much) and I ordered a bottle of still water and a glass of the 2008 Chardonnay from the Cape Mentelle vineyard in the Margaret River area, Western Australia. The extensive wine list is a heavy tome that is impressive to flick through – well, wade through. I was driving and my budget did not stretch to many of the bottles although I eyed up a £500 half bottle of red before shaking myself back into the real world. I made a note to visit the Cape Mentelle vineyard in the future as my sister and family have recently moved not far from there just outside of Perth and it was realistic to clock it for my next Australian trip. Hoorah. We were visited by the Head Sommelier himself Edouard Oger, which was lovely given that I only wanted a single glass of white and I had already chosen this from the website before I came. Well ... I was excited. He nodded approvingly when I asked for the wine, but it makes sense to me that if you draw up the wine list yourself you will approve of everything on it.

Next to arrive were canapés served by yet another member of staff – we had direct contact with no less than 8 different helpful people whilst we were there. Unfortunately for JC, one of the tasty little morsels was tartar of tuna and he does not like seafood one little bit. Such a shame, as I had to have his portion too. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to have my first taste of Gidleigh Park cuisine. The tartar of tuna was served with a sliver of beetroot, soused turnip and wasabi cream which I later found out was a miniature version of a starter that Michael Caines uses at his other restaurants and very tasty it was too. The other offering was a small mushroom and soft cheese ball covered in breadcrumbs and served with a light mushroom and garlic creamy sauce. I apologise for the lack of finesse in describing these canapés but I was so eager to move on that I didn’t completely hear what the waitress had said. I also didn’t want to spend too much time with my blogger head on – it was important to enjoy the experience too and not get too technical. Who knows when I will visit again. When I placed my booking, the very pleasant lady on the end of the phone had told me that taking photos would not be ideal as they did not wish to upset other diners and she would leave this to my discretion. As we moved through the afternoon I could see why, as the service and setting is incredibly intimate and personal, without the usual clattering of knives and forks, raised voices and general chaos that you experience in your average restaurant. I did take photos, but they could have been a lot better as you can see. I was very wary of behaving like an insane tourist.

Before too long, and probably in perfect time, we were taken into the dining room which was at that point empty apart from us. I began taking photos like a deranged 18th century peasant who had just discovered the camera. Point and shoot was pretty much my style throughout. Not long after we were seated, fresh, warm bread arrived which included a small baguette that looked fabulously like Salvador Dali’s moustache, as well as slices of tomato and olive bread that I adored the most. Following was a complementary starter of a large crab tortellini with a shellfish bisque. Once again poor JC was left out in the cold, but with bittersweet relish I ate mine first and then moved onto his. This tortellini was gorgeous. The pasta was perfect and the crab filling was substantial and fresh, whilst the shellfish bisque added an extra seafood kick that pushed it to another level. Having polished off two starters, I took the time to look around the dining room. Each of the rooms face out onto a stunning Dartmoor vista, which looked even more magical given the layer of heavy frost and light snow that stubbornly coated the scenery on the day of our visit. The décor in the room was restrained stately home with a stunning flower arrangement in the centre of the room which included black calla lilies of which I’m a big fan. More plus points.

Moving on, both JC and I had plumped for the main course and dessert, leaving the starter out. The complementary starter was therefore a perfect complement to our 2 courses. JC had chosen the risotto of jerusalem artichoke with black olive truffle for his main, whilst I went for the pheasant, pumpkin and cumin pureé with lentils, button onions and a cumin scented red wine sauce. JC was happy enough with his risotto although unfortunately nothing on the menu grabbed him as much as it grabbed me. The risotto was quite salty and just a touch too al dente for me, but still very good, but I was very happy with my pheasant which is served pink - I was asked if this was suitable although I got the feeling anyone requesting a leathery overcooked version might have felt a bit naughty - and married with the lentils and vegetables beautifully. The cumin element gave it a spicy note and as ever was a perfect fit with pumpkin, this combination being a big hit with me already. The sweet button onions were served on top of cubes of soft pumpkin and with the red wine sauce the entire dish came together and tasted as perfect as it looked.

The dessert was, for me, the stand out course although the entire experience was very special. I had unusually been a little unsure of which dessert to order being fairly quick to decide as a rule, but was pointed in the right direction by restaurant manager Damien Bastiat, who had recommended the banana parfait with chocolate and lime sorbet. It was between this and the hot rum and raisin chocolate fondant mousse with white chocolate ice cream. Just typing this dessert title takes me back to that confused state as it sounds fantastic. The banana parfait was an absolute picture although I’m sorry, the photo hurriedly took was atrocious and couldn’t be used here. We were pressed to take a snap, as by this point the dining room had filled to capacity and there was much staff activity. I felt like a naughty school girl just bringing the camera above table level. The banana parfait was layered between thin marbled dark and white chocolate squares and served with a very tart lime mousse atop the stack. A sliced banana with a caramelised top sat alongside it. I loved the idea of a piece of relatively unadulterated banana on the plate. I think this has become my absolute favourite dessert of all time and I’m hoping that it will be a long time before it is surpassed. JC’s glazed lemon tart with lemon confit sorbet and candied zest was a little too zesty for him and I had to agree when I tried it. My lime sorbet was also a cheek-sucker, but balanced nicely with the creamy, banana parfait. If you are not a fan of tart and/or sour citrus flavours then I’m not sure you would appreciate the treatment of limes and lemons at Gidleigh Park, but as I get older I enjoy these flavours more and more. I still can’t bear grapefruit, but that’s another story.

After a stunning meal, and feeling very relaxed, we were asked if we wished to take our coffee and petit fours in the lounge again. Well, of course! We moved into the, by now, relatively crowded lounge (and I mean relatively) and reclined back into our very own sofa. I was unfortunately a bit full by this point so when I saw the beautiful petit fours arrive I was both excited and a little worried. I didn’t want to compromise my enjoyment by having a full stomach after all. The trio of treats consisted of a miniature jam-filled, sugared doughnut hole with vanilla crème anglaise, a passionfruit tart and a 3 chocolate mousse. My favourite was the doughnut hole, closely followed by the passionfruit tart. By this point JC was in his element as dessert is definitely his course. I was struggling after the passionfruit tart so tried the chocolate mousse which was insanely creamy and then passed the rest to JC. It seemed only fair after eating his canapé and his starter. The coffee was also very good. We sat and rested on the sofa for a while and then we thought we must make a move. Unfortunately real life was calling and we needed to get to the shops in Exeter before they closed. With a heavy thud, we crashed back to reality. On our way back to the car I just had to stop and take some photos of the gorgeous grounds. November at Gidleigh Park is bewitching. I am very keen to get back to the hotel so I can see if the other 11 months are just as entrancing, but maybe it’s better to play it cool and keep it a very special occasion. Having such a place a short drive away is yet another serious perk of living in Devon.

Portuguese Custard Tarts

2010-11-14T00:06:42+00:00

These cute little numbers are all over the web if you search for them and I've wanted to try making them for a long time, so here they are. This recipe was taken from Not Quite Nigella & slightly adapted, but NQN's original recipe was taken from somebody else so I'm hoping she won't mind me poaching it! They are quite easy to make and taste fantastic. I could even close my eyes and kid myself that I was sitting in a café as I munched on one of these whilst sipping coffee made using our trusty Gaggia. How flash huh? I can't actually use the Gaggia very well, but that is beside the point. Like NQN I used milk only for this, with no cream whatsoever involved, and they were still delicious. I'm not one for avoiding full-fat anything when it's needed so you can believe me when I say that taste is not compromised. I actually used full fat goat's milk without any nasty consequences. They may look a little rough and ready and they don't photograph particularly well, but these custard tarts are impressively yummy. You could really make them every weekend without much fuss.

3 egg yolks
115g caster sugar
2 tbsp cornflour
500ml milk (or 230ml cream & 170ml milk combined)
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g rolled puff pastry

Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin tray (not a mini-muffin tray!).
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a saucepan and gradually add the milk (or milk and cream) until smooth.
Place the pan over a medium heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
Transfer the custard to a bowl. Cover the surface of the custard with cling film to prevent a skin forming and leave to cool.
Preheat the oven to 200C.
Cut the pastry dough sheet in half and place one half on top of the other. Set aside for 5 minutes. Roll up the pastry tightly from the short end and cut the pastry log into 12 x 1cm rounds. Lay each pastry round on a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll out until each is 10cm in diameter.
Press the pastry rounds into the muffin tin. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry and custard are golden. Leave the tarts in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

The rolled puff pastry I bought came in 2 sheets and I simply used these together without cutting each of them in half. I used the 425g Jus Rol Puff Pastry Sheets. NQN suggested replacing one of the egg yolks with a whole egg which I haven't yet tried, but I will do.

The Coffee Rush, Shaldon

2010-11-07T22:08:27+00:00

We awoke on a Sunday morning in late October to find that a little winter weather had hit us overnight. The rain was falling and the wind was picking up. I didn’t feel justified in complaining as we have had a very good run of relatively warm weather over the last few months so it had to change at some point. Anyway, there is a reason for me giving you a belated weather report (you can’t beat a chat about the weather) and that is because it actually motivated me to find somewhere new and lovely to explore where JC and I could find a coffee and a slice of cake in a bid to embrace my mellow Sunday morning vibe. Tapping away in bed on the laptop I discovered The Coffee Rush in Shaldon which boasted the runner-up prize in Devon Life’s 2009 Best Tearoom/Coffee Shop. At the time I didn’t spot the words Runner Up, but as I had wanted to visit Shaldon for many years and had previously never got my act together to do so, it seemed like a great place to head for.

Shaldon is about a half an hour away from us in Exeter and the drive on this wet and windy Sunday morning wasn’t at all stressful. I was in a good mood which is a positive start. I’m always happy when I am getting ready to explore new places and there is a slice of cake at the end of the journey. We parked in the Ness Car Park which feels like it will be a million miles from the village, but it is much more central than you first realise. The rain thankfully held off when we got out of the car although the walk along Marine Parade was quite stimulating in that the waves crashing against the harbour wall were doing their best to jump over and saturate us. My relationship with nature is generally a little unstable – I adore being out when the sun is shining and there is a slight breeze, but when the rain starts to hammer down and the wind picks up I run indoors. I am not, nor will I ever be, a hardy, outdoorsy type no matter how hard I try. This morning however, nothing could dampen my mood if you’ll excuse the pun.

We made the 5 minute journey from the car to the cafe unscathed, if a little damp, and found The Coffee Rush in the centre of the village with it’s welcoming cornflower blue woodwork and Art Deco signage. Once inside I felt very much at home as the décor was right up my street – Art Deco pendant lighting, vintage painted metal furniture, white wood panelling, wood flooring and at the back of the café an intimate area with sofas. A clever and large bunch of friends had pipped us at the post for the sofas and sounded as if they were having a wonderful time whilst we were there. Eyeing up the cakes on the counter, I suddenly morphed into my awkward customer role, asking the lovely lady serving me if I could possibly have 2 half pieces of cake in order to try more than one. This wasn't a problem at all, although I afterwards realised I probably ruined the portion sizes completely. Oops. The coffee choice was obvious - JC always has an Americano sans milk and I almost always have a latte. The Coffee Rush doesn’t offer coffee flavourings so my vanilla addiction wasn’t satiated on this occasion, but I’m used to there only being a 50/50 chance I will get this when I venture into a new café. My cake indecision came as a result of both the range and the presentation as they are all displayed beautifully on cake stands with glass domes, but I finally decided on a half-slice (awkward woman that I am) of the orange & pistachio cake and a half-slice of the lemon drizzle cake. JC went for the coffee and walnut cake.

I will try not to rant too much about how amazing these cakes were, but I need to do so to some extent given that this is a food blog and I honestly haven’t had a slice of cake this good in a very long time. In fact I’m hard pressed to think of the last time I enjoyed cake this much unless I count the honey wholemeal cake I baked recently out of the Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall Everyday cookbook which blew me away. Anyway, I digress. The orange & pistachio cake was incredible – moist, tangy, a touch savoury from the nuts of course and utterly moreish. The lemon drizzle cake was also very good with the same gorgeous moistness as if it had been soaked in a syrup, but without losing it’s cakey texture if you get my drift. I often find that lemon cakes are a little insipid as if for some insane reason people are holding back on making them too lemony, but I like my lemon cake to be zingy and buttery and this one performed very well.

The menu is perfect for the size of the café (they couldn't seat too many people as it's fairly small), offering a range of paninis, bagels & sandwiches (all around the £5 mark), with fillings such as brie & cranberry and goat’s cheese & devon chutney, as well as baked potatoes, home made soup (bacon & leek on the morning we were there for £3.90) and various blackboard specials which can include anything from gourmet pies or savoury tarts to salads. The café also operates as a wine bar from 6-10.30pm every Thursday, Friday and Saturday so the drinks menu also includes wine, beer and cider if you fancy an alcoholic tipple with your lunch. Luscombe organic juices, a good selection of teas, hot chocolate (dark or white versions!), smoothies and milkshakes complete the liquid element of the menu. If the gorgeous spread of cakes doesn’t appeal to your sweet tooth then you can choose from locally produced ice cream or perhaps a cream tea instead. Children are catered for with a Baby Chino on offer (50p) and Cadbury’s Hot Chocolate (£1.60). This is not a place where children would feel left out I can assure you. There is even a basket of toys to keep them happy while they sip their Baby Chino.

As we paid for our Sunday morning treat I was told that the cakes were made by local ladies in the village (often in an Aga) which I thought was fantastic. This is a lucky village I can tell you. The cakes are priced at £2.60 per slice and our coffees were £1.95 each for a medium cup, so for £4.55 per person we were provided with a little slice of heaven for an hour or so. This seemed like an absolute bargain to me. I look forward to heading back there again for lunch in the near future. Shaldon is a pretty place to spend some time and I felt a tad jealous of the inhabitants as we made our way back to the car through the increasingly wintery weather, passing several other interesting looking places to eat and drink along the way. Shaldon is now on my very long list of places I wouldn’t mind living!

The photo of the cakes is borrowed from the website of The Coffee Rush.