I turned 30 last week. I don’t really know how that happened, but I’m going to play along and claim that I’m OK with it, and that I’m not remotely having a miniature crisis of self. I celebrated with good friends, eating pizza at my favourite place in Walthamstow (long term readers and anyone that follows me on my instagram will know that that’s SoDo Pizza Cafe), before flying off for a week in Iceland with my girlfriend, Maddie. Iceland was an absolutely incredible trip, including the best cinnamon bun of my life, numerous mountains, black sand beaches, infinite waterfalls and the most metal church I’ve ever seen. I’ll probably get around to that trip properly at a later date, but it was something from that adventure which prompted me to crack out my new bundt tin; Skyr. It’s everywhere in Iceland and you can use it in the same way as yogurt for most things, but it’s a bit thicker with a slightly different flavour.
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Lemon
Earl Grey Sandwich Biscuits
It was biscuit week on the Great British Bake Off two weeks ago, so to keep up with the Bake Off Bake Along that can only mean one thing; a kitchen full of biscuits. I’ve actually not had much time to get this done. I’ve had an exceptionally busy few weeks, with important family commitments, going to the filming of Bake Off Extra Slice, watching Progress Wrestling and Alexandra Palace and planning, then going on, a last minute getaway to Madrid & Barcelona. This means that I was up early on a Tuesday morning piping buttercream onto biscuits in my pyjamas. It was all going well until I realised the fridge had been on a high setting and the buttercream was too hard to pipe, leading to a stress while I tried to juggle photographing food and getting ready to work. It may also mean that I have to skip bread week and jump straight to caramel week!
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Blackberry, Lemon & Thyme Cake W/ Gin Drizzle
I had a couple of punnets of blackberries that I impulse bought when out getting supplies for breakfast on the Saturday of the bank holiday weekend. I started off with grand plans to make something like a blackberry meringue pie, but as the day drifted on, I decided to keep it simple. The sun was burning through the window and I wanted to make something equally fresh and summery, with simple flavours. I decided to combine the blackberries with a couple of things I had in the fridge; lemons & thyme sprigs. To keep the simple nature of this going, I pulled out a loaf tin and decided to make a drizzle cake. Read more
Lemon Meringue Pie
We are well into January now and I am well into another year of ignoring everything about ‘clean eating’ and ‘detox’, as we all know how garbage that is. I won’t get into it here. The year even started with a Lemon Meringue Pie sat in the fridge waiting for us. It was Maddie’s Birthday on NYE, and Lemon Meringue Pie is her favourite dessert. I’ve been putting off making it for a long time, as (admission) I’ve never made meringue. Couple that with never having made curd either and it all seemed a bit daunting. But, for her Birthday, I was determined to make it, even if I failed in a a blaze of glory and bad meringue.
Earl Grey Iced Tea
We are well into the few days of summer the UK gets each year. It’s been sweltering, so I know that people probably aren’t going to be inside reading my rambles. As my last post, an open letter about just how good the London food scene is, was pretty lengthy and as my next is going to be something just as long about our trip to Budapest, I thought it’d be a good time to crack out a nice short post on a simple summer recipe. So here’s a quick and easy recipe for Iced Earl Grey Tea with Mint and Lemon. I have talked about my love for Earl Grey at length, and my most recent recipe, Earl Grey & Raspberry Loaves, is one of those times.
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