Sometimes I manage to bake a Christmas cake well ahead of time, in October, and then feed it regularly with more brandy. Other years, I fail entirely and then get to mid-December and wonder about quick recipes which don’t need months to mature or regular feeds. Or hours in the oven. But even Delia’s Quick… Continue reading Christmas Cake for the Disorganised
Category: Kitchen
Recipes
The Simplest of Simple Cheese Puffs
This follows in the grand tradition of Delia Smith’s How to Cheat at Cooking. It’s one of my favourite recipe-books, partly because there’s no shame in being lazy and using ready-made ingredients like pastry. This recipe does not, specifically, come from it, but I doubt I'm the first to have made cheese puffs in this… Continue reading The Simplest of Simple Cheese Puffs
Adapting Marvellous Creations
When it comes to chocolate, I’m normally fussy. I don’t much care for the overly sweet mass-produced stuff, though sometimes desperate times call for quantity over quality. Except for one: I am quite fond of the Cadbury’s Marvellous Creations bar. If you haven’t come across it, Marvellous Creations is Dairy Milk with extras: jelly beans,… Continue reading Adapting Marvellous Creations
Millionaire’s Flapjack
I can’t remember where I found this recipe. I might have cobbled it together from a flapjack recipe and a caramel recipe. It’s based on millionaire’s shortbread. Shortbread isn’t my favourite, though, hence the flapjack base. It’s simple and quick and doesn’t involve much thinking. Which is the sort of recipe I’ve needed while there’s… Continue reading Millionaire’s Flapjack
Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Queen Drop Biscuits
Of all the things to bake, biscuits are often the quickest and easiest. Simple to put together, maybe ten minutes in the oven. The best thing to bake when in need of a sweet treat. Fresh from the oven Mrs Crocombe’s Queen Drop Biscuits are no different. Perhaps a bit cakey for modern biscuit tastes… Continue reading Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Queen Drop Biscuits
Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Saffron Buns
My favourite meal of the year is Good Friday Tea. Homemade, fresh from the oven, hot cross buns. Dripping with butter, or layered with homemade jam (usually damson). There is nothing tastier. I don’t often make hot cross buns because of M and not liking curranty things (also because they’re a once-a-year sort of thing… Continue reading Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Saffron Buns
Easter Baking: Crème Egg Brownies
I’m not actually much of a fan of crème eggs. Too sickly sweet, I find. But a few weeks ago I was really wanting some brownies and I thought it’d be fun to have a go at crème egg brownies. Unfortunately, Mrs Crocombe doesn’t have a recipe for brownies, so I had to resort to… Continue reading Easter Baking: Crème Egg Brownies
Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Victoria Sandwich
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: Always Start Simple. With this in mind, the first recipe I thought to try from Mrs Crocombe’s recipe book was for her Victoria sponge. It’s the sort of cake for which I’ve several recipes, and I have all the ingredients already in the cupboard… Continue reading Cooking with Mrs Crocombe: Victoria Sandwich
Cooking With Mrs Crocombe
During the first lockdown last spring, one of the things that I found to help me through it was English Heritage’s Mrs Crocombe videos on YouTube. If you haven’t already discovered Mrs Crocombe, she was the cook at Audley End House in the late Victorian period, and English Heritage has a series called The Victorian… Continue reading Cooking With Mrs Crocombe
(Almost) According to Mrs Crocombe: Gingerbread Cake
After Delia’s Jamaican Gingerbread, I was going to make Mrs Crocombe’s gingerbread biscuits. But the recipe calls for a quarter of an egg, and I can’t, at this present, think what to do with the remaining three-quarters, so I’m putting that off until I can. Instead, I turned to her gingerbread cake, with adaptations. The… Continue reading (Almost) According to Mrs Crocombe: Gingerbread Cake
Life Ever Crafting 