All posts tagged: bakery

Icing Easter ‘Biskies’ at Cutter & Squidge, Soho

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Last week I discovered the ‘biskie’.  You run the risk of sounding like a toddler trying to pronounce ‘biscuit’ when saying it, but this is actually a delicious hybrid of biscuit, cake and cookie, filled  with light buttercream! It’s the brainchild of sisters Annabel and Emily Lui who started out selling them at Partidge’s food market in 2013 under the name ‘Cutter and Squidge’, and after successful commissions for Selfridges and Harrods, ending up taking full time residence at a shop/cafe in the heart of Soho. I was invited to a biskie masterclass at Cutter and Squidge, and for some reason I thought we would actually be baking biskies, but in fact we we trying (yum!) and icing them (fun!). It makes sense – I can’t imagine they’re going to be giving up their recipe for someone to copy and time soon. Because they’re really good! I was led downstairs to the very cute ‘secret garden,’ filled with vines, hanging fruits and flowers, designed by Callum Lumsden. We started off trying some ‘mini’ biskies’ in a …

Easter Cupcakes with Lavolio & Bake With Maria

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One of my favourite companies I’ve come across since starting this blog is ‘Bake With Maria’, a wonderful baking school based in North West London. You may have read my posts about their chocolate event and baking with rye class. And recently, they introduced me to another lovely company called Lavolio, a boutique confectionery company. Their products are handmade by Artisans with real fruit, nuts and spices, and they’re 100% vegetarian and gluten-free. Each sweet can take up to five days to make. You can watch a video about the production process here: Lavolio Artisan Production from lavolioboutiqueconfectionery on Vimeo. Lavolio were kind enough to send me some of their Nutty Easter Eggs. Inside each white egg is one of three chocolate flavours – Extra Dark Chocolate, Hazelnut Gianduia Chocolate, and White Amaretto Chocolate. And Bake With Maria provided a cupcake recipe to put them to good use (probably a good thing, otherwise I could easily have eaten the whole box!) Ingredients: • 125g self raising flour (you can use gluten free flour here) • 125g …

Baileys Cocktails and Puds!

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For as long as I can remember, Baileys has always been a staple in our household. I remember when it first started to get ‘big’ in the 90’s and my Mum bought a sneaky bottle for herself one Christmas, but was quite put out when all of our visiting family members and friends took a fancy to it too, and the bottle was soon depleted! Over New Year, I was kindly sent a very awesome hamper from the team at Baileys with ingredients and items to create some rather epic Baileys-based cocktails and puddings! They have a hub of loads of different recipes here – I tried out the following: Baileys Flat White Martini Ingredients 50ml Baileys Original Irish Cream 25ml Smirnoff Vodka 25ml Espresso Ice cubes Coffee beans (to garnish) Method Pop all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake it up until everything is perfectly blended and the liquid is silky smooth. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with coffee beans. Baileys Cheesecake with a chocolate base and almond brittle Ingredients …

Masha Meringue Challenge – Fig & Honey Pavlova

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As I’ve mentioned on here before, I love making meringue! Meringue Girls is one of my favourite cookery books (baking books?) and I’ll find any excuse to try out a new recipe. I started out doing them completely by hand (with a hand whisk) as I found it easier to control, but after one episode of trying to whisk 8 egg whites and my arm nearly falling off, I had to upgrade to electric! I was recently invited to try out a ‘Masha’ from the a range – a kitchen device with a two different aerator blades, making it the perfect tool for things like meringues and mashed potatoes. My Mum recently came to stay and after a busy day in London together, I didn’t have a huge amount of time to prepare a dessert for dinner, so I thought a pavlova would be quick and easy to do. I decided to make it with figs and honey, here’s how I did it: Ingredients 6 large free-range egg whites 300g caster sugar 5 tablespoons of …

Edible Pansy Shortbread Biscuits

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I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical about ‘edible flowers’ when they became particularly fashionable a few months ago. I felt like it was a cheat’s way of making an average dish look amazing. But there’s no denying that whatever dish they’re used in, it does make it look incredibly pretty! When I went to stay with my Mum in Yorkshire recently, I was excited to see some beautiful pansies growing wild in her lawn and just had to do something with them! I’d seen someone make biscuits with them recently, so I thought I’d do a quick and easy recipe to use them.     Ingredients 180g plain flour 125g unsalted butter, cubed 55g caster sugar, plus more for decoration 1 egg white, beaten Pansies/edible flours, washed (delicately!) Method Mix together the butter and sugar in a bowl to form a paste. Slowly add in the flour and stir to make a thicker mixture. Roll this out to around 1cm thick onto a floured surface (the mixture is likely to be …

Croatian Fig Tart Recipe

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Have you been watching Rick Stein’s ‘Venice To Istanbul’ TV series? I’m rather hooked, as I’m a big fan of the cuisine he’s lucky enough to be eating, drinking and cooking his way through, having grown up in Cyprus. As I’ve mentioned previously, Cypriot cuisine really does take inspiration from all of the countries surrounding it. I’ve been meaning to buy the cookbook accompanying the series, but when I came across one of the recipes for a Croatian Fig Tart in BBC Good Food Magazine, I had to try it out. I was cooking it for a dinner party, perhaps a bit risky for a first attempt, but luckily it turned out well and was very yummy indeed! Here’s the recipe: Ingredients PASTRY: 170g plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting Pinch salt 100g unsalted butter, cubed 50g caster sugar 1 egg yolk 50ml double cream FILLING: 500g mascarpone cheese 6 tbsp clear honey 6 large, 7 medium or 8 small fresh figs, stems trimmed, halved Method For pastry, mix flour, salt and butter until …

Biscuiteers Retro Classics – Review & Recipes

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This week’s episode of The Great British Bake Off focused on biscuits – did you see it? It was a good ‘un! I enjoy a nice biscuit with a cup of tea, although I must admit, I tend to avoid buying them in my grocery shop, as I’ll be tempted to eat the entire packet in one sitting (why are biscuits just so damn addictive?!)  My favourites are the old school classics, so I was over the moon to see that Biscuiteers are selling their own hand-made Custard Creams and Chocolate Bourbons (two of my faves!) until the beginning of September. It’s always a great day when something like this arrives in the post, I couldn’t wait to try them!     I don’t actually know the last time I had a Custard Creams, so it was very nostalgic. They tasted just like the original versions but even better. The butter icing was so rich and creamy, with a perfect level of crunch on the biscuit. I’m sure Mary and Paul would be very impressed if …

Mississippi Mud Pie for 4th July

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For the past few years, I’ve always made some kind of pudding to celebrate 4th July. Yes, I know I’m British, but a lot of my friends and ex-colleagues are American. And hey, any excuse to make a cake, right? This year I thought I’d have a go at a Mississippi Mud Pie. But I have to confess. This ended in disaster… I haven’t had a baking disaster for a while, so it was extremely frustrating! I followed a recipe from The Telegraph, with the exact ingredients, measurements and so on. However, after over 40 minutes of being in the oven, I could tell that the inside was still quite wobbly. I left it to cool for 20 minutes but could tell it was clearly undercooked. I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes but the inside was still gloopy! At this stage I was running out of time and didn’t really have a choice, so I took it out and as expected, the thing completely fell apart. The issue is clearly …

‘An Evening With Rye’ and Bake With Maria

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I recently attended a chocolate class with other bloggers at ‘Bake With Maria‘, a baking school run by the lovely Maria Mayerhofer. Maria teaches all kinds of classes, from macarons to croissants, and last week, I was invited to try out her ‘baking with rye’ class. I really enjoy making and eating bread, although I’d never made rye bread at home before. There’s so much focus in the news at the moment on eating healthily and cutting out various food substances, such as gluten or yeast, so I was keen to see if I would like the rye products as much as standard white or brown bread. I was hoping I would, as it seemed like a healthier alternative! The class was held at Snaps + Rye in Notting Hill – interestingly, London’s only Danish restaurant!     During the class, we learned how to make a Rye Loaf with Figs & Fennel, Rye Crackers with Seeds and Overnight Rye Buns. Rye Loaf with Figs & Fennel This was a lot of fun to make, and made …

A Homemade Rhubarb Crumble

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When I was a child, we used to have rhubarb growing all around us in Yorkshire, I completely took it for granted. As this time of year is perfect for rhubarb, I really wanted to try out a recipe with it, but sourcing some fresh rhubarb in East London turned out to be tricky. At one point I even tweeted to ask if anyone knew where I could buy fresh rhubarb online. This proved to be rather amusing for some people and yes, I realise the irony of the request. But I thought there might be a fairly local farm shop that sells it online. Apparently not. I ended up just ordering some from Sainsbury’s in our weekly food shop. Annoyingly its use-by date was the day it was delivered, something that really irks me about doing grocery shopping online! I swear they just fob you off with the fruit and veggies that are closest to their sell/use-by date. Anyway, at least it was ready to bake with, so I made a crumble with it …