Content
Apparently it's World Baking Day today, who knew? I haven't got quite as much time as I'd like to bake at the moment, so I was happy to come across this quick and easy recipe for a fruity summer shortcake. Fresh Raspberry Shortcake Adapted from the BBC Food website. 115g butter, softened 225g self raising flour 115g caster sugar 400g raspberries
Bank Holiday weekends can sometimes be a washout, but this weekend the weather was glorious and so were the food events. We went to London and our first stop was the Southbank Centre, where the Campo Viejo Spanish gastronomy event 'Streets of Spain' was being held - a four day celebration of Spanish wine, food, culture and art. Market stall owners from the famous La Boqueria brought over
Just out this month is a fabulous baking book by rising pastry star, Will Torrent, called Pâtisserie at Home. An absolute treat for all keen home bakers, the book has 80 recipes with clear step-by-step instructions to make French pastries at home. You will find some timeless classics in the book (eg sachertorte, Black Forest gâteau), but also updated versions and some with a moder
My blog turns 6 this week, wow! Even I am surprised I've kept it going this long... but I'm not going to waffle on about it, instead I'm sharing cake, a lovely carrot cake with fabulous mascarpone honey icing. And if you are reading this, I would like to say a huge thank you for visiting, commenting and emailing. It means a lot to me to know that there are people who have made the recip
A while back, I was sent some pots of luxurious Food Thoughts 100% Organic Cocoa to try. Produced in the Dominican Republic by an accredited Fairtrade consortium, the cocoa is made with the finest beans and is ideal to use in baking due to its high cocoa fat content. Brownies + clotted cream = heaven Did you know that cocoa can boost your mood? For a long time we have known
Always a lovely surprise to find a feather on your egg. I remember when you could only fit one of these in your mouth at a time, they seem to have shrunk over the years! Happy Easter! ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This content belongs to Nic at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyrigh
This year I added some white chocolate into my Ultimate Hot Cross Buns. If you roughly chop the chocolate into chunks that are a little under 1cm, when you bite into the bun you will get a lovely white chocolate blast. Combined with the cranberries, this recipe is a winner! Piping on the crosses Full recipe can be found here: Ultimate Hot Cross Buns, just add about 100g
You know when you see a photo of something that makes you slobber all over the screen? One that makes you run to the shop for the ingredients... Here's something that made me do just that yesterday, chocolate honey cashew butter - oh yes - you read it right, CHOCOLATE + HONEY ROASTED CASHEWS (+ a tad of vanilla) YES!!! It was a pin on Pinterest that led me to Averie Cooks, to a
It's almost Red Nose Day here in the UK, a day when we are all asked to 'Do Something Funny for Money'. Comic Relief was launched back in 1985, from a refugee camp in Sudan, when a devastating famine was crippling Ethiopia. It was a simple idea - get a whole load of British comedians to make the public laugh, while raising money to help people in desperate need. Not long after, Red
I do love a challenge, especially when it involves wine (or chocolate!) Happy days are when you get sent two bottles of beautiful Chablis to match with your favourite takeaway food, in order to demonstrate how the wine can pair with different foods from around the world. For me the choice of food was easy, it would have to be an Indian takeaway as a) we live in out in the
Happy V Day! Sticky toffee bourbon pudding, with a salted caramel sauce. Recipe comes from this post, Recipes Using Bourbon. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This content belongs to Nic at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2013 unless otherwise
Happy Pancake Day! Banana with your pancake? A little breakfast treat of American style pancakes with raisins - just add the raisins to the pancake batter, and mix well before cooking. Top with banana, some more raisins and a drizzle of maple syrup. Recipes for the pancakes here. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Th
Just because... I love Nutella... Pecan Nutella Heart Cookies A cookie similar to the Linzer cookie, but filled with Nutella rather than jam. The cookies will be a little crumbly, so take care when filling with Nutella (or jam) that you don't break them. 170g unsalted butter, softened 130g icing sugar 1 egg 225g plain flour 110g cornflour 130g pecans, finely ground
One of the places on my (long) list to visit is Hong Kong. Although small and compact, there are more than 10,000 restaurants to choose from, which means that if you ate out three times a day, it would take over nine years to try them all out! I love these soy sauce bottles If you haven't got nine years to spare and can't get to Hong Kong, I have good news!
Wow, January crept up rather quickly - hope you all had a great Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Garden rosemary surviving the snow Here's an easy recipe for mushroom lovers, which can be prepared ahead of time and just thrown into the oven to cook. If you don't like chilli you can leave it out, the herbs can be swapped for whatever you prefer. Roasted Mushrooms with Ros
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a Champagne and macaron event, courtesy of Air France, at the Institut Français in London. It was a weird, but thoroughly enjoyable evening culminating in something rather exciting, which I'll get to in a bit! We were treated to some rather interesting glittery macarons, created by experimental food aficionados, The Robin Collective.
Melted white chocolate and a sprinkling of freeze dried strawberries. Sweet. Tart. Simple. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This content belongs to Nic at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2012 unless otherwise indicated. All
Avocados are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-! Did you know that avocados have the highest protein content of any fruit, AND that they contain more potassium than a banana? Did you also know that you can fry an avocado? My mum: "What?" Me: "Heh heh - yep, you really can! There's more to an avocado than guacamole..." Here's my recipe for crumbed avocado, served hot with some mango salsa on the
Bitten by the Instagram bug yet? Yeah, me too! (Although I also love Snapseed and Big Lens as well.) Everyone seems to be snapping their food these days - it's NOT JUST ME!! The great thing is it's instantaneous, take the photo with your phone or iPod and ta-da! Pecan praline chocolate fancies. Choc + cake = love! This photo of my pecan praline chocolate fancies won me a ticket to th
Margaritas de Sandia When we lived in Tucson, Mexican restaurants could be found on most of the street corners, and the supermarkets sold ingredients that I had never seen before - I had no clue what to do with most of them! Coming back after nearly 6 years (now knowing how to make a decent taco!) I was pleased to see that Mexican food was beginning to become popular ove
Here's a quick round up of what I thought were the best gifts and ideas from the Lakeland Christmas press show. Cute ideas for Christmassy cake pops And to make those cake pops, a special tin! This must be my favourite thing I saw at the show, cookie cutters in the shape of tree ornaments Christmas cake idea, & to flavour the cake, Lakeland sell a large range of diff
Last year, I published a post showcasing the festive offerings from Carluccio's. It proved to be very popular in the run up to Christmas, so here is another, with some of my favourite gift ideas to take away the pain of what to buy the teacher, colleague etc. P.S. Did you know that when you order Penne Giardiniera at Carluccio's, 50p is donated to Action Against Hunger? I've also
Still enjoying The Boy Who Bakes, and loving that the recipes are easy to make. I've often thought about making Nanaimo bars, but never really got around to it. The recipe originally came from a Canadian housewife who submitted it to an annual Women's Institute fundraising cookbook back in the early 1950's, and recently, Nanaimo bars were voted 'Canada's Favourite Confection'
Kids' kitchen Last month I went to the very first Cake & Bake Show which was held at Earls Court, London. The show was a cake decorator's dream, with many of the stands demonstrating icing techniques and beautiful little fondant flowers/figures etc that you could make or buy for your cakes. There were fewer stands for the baker, I would have liked to have seen even more baking pro
Salted Caramel from page 246, easy to make and very versatile If you have ever watched MasterChef Australia, you might recognise the author of an exciting new book called Have You Eaten?, which I was kindly sent to review. I was already familiar with Billy Law (a Malaysian who is based in Australia) after following his food blog A Table For Two, where he combines his Malaysian heritage for
Don't forget to head into M&S tomorrow, Friday 28 September, to support Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morning, AND while you are there, please buy a copy of The Little Book of Treats, it's only £4.00 and 100% of the proceeds go to charity. In case you missed it, my recipe for Strawberry & Lemon Mascarpone Cheesecakes is in the book! Here's another recipe I made from th
Last Christmas, I was gifted with one of my darling boys (looking over my shoulder at the mo) gave me The Boy Who Bakes by Edd Kimber, winner of the first Great British Bake Off series on BBC2. It's only now that I have gotten around to making some of the recipes from the book and I'm wondering why I left it so long! The book is full of fabulous bakes including a Gianduja Dacquoise
Guess what?? I have a recipe published in a very special book! 'The Little Book of Treats', which is being sold in all M&S Cafés from NOW until the 3rd October, is a luxury edition of fabulous sweet recipes being sold in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. It's only £4.00 and 100% of the proceeds go to charity. M&S cafés are the official partner of Macmillan's World's Biggest Coffee Morn
Last weekend I popped along to Bedgebury Pinetum Walled Garden in Goudhurst, to check out the local Taste Fest 2012 food and drink festival. The 2 day extravaganza, organised by The Courier Media Group, was for businesses in the south east of England to showcase their food products and services to the public, and to make people aware of where their food comes from. The entertainm
We spent the last few weeks sitting in the best seats, watching the London Olympics, clutching the TV remote, flicking the channels with Usain Bolt speed, clapping and cheering on every Team GB competitor. Except for the one day when we dragged ourselves away from the box and headed into London, to the Olympic Park for our glorious Olympic experience. Like many others, we applied for c
....that's Iced Coffee to you and me! And it's brilliant, especially on a warm, balmy British afternoon. My son bought a coffee machine a while back and it makes my day when I get offered a frothy cappuccino, and it's better than any you can buy in the cafes. He also found this recipe for French iced coffee via The Guardian and it's good. BUT.... we made it even better. We fiddled around
I am giving away a copy of Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale! (Image courtesy of theworks.co.uk) Lorraine Pascale is a supermodel turned patisserie chef. She has had several BBC series on baking and this is the book to accompany the first: Baking Made Easy. Lorraine shares her expertise, passion and all of her favourite baking recipes, sweet and savoury, The book features 100 re
Last week I was invited to a rather special Mexican cookery workshop, run by Tommi Miers and held at her Wahaca restaurant in Westfield Stratford City. We watched as Tommi effortlessly demonstrated three recipes from her new book, Mexican Food at Home, (whilst relating tales of her life in Mexico) all in less than 30 minutes while being filmed for the Westfield food website!
Our serrano seedlings If you thought you couldn't grow chillies here in the UK, think again. The world's most northerly chilli farm is in the wilds of Northumberland, where Dan May and his team grow around 60 varieties of chillies. The chillies vary in strength, colour and size, and are used to produce chilli sauces and products under the name Trees Can't Dance. Now, Dan May is sharing some o
This week is Coeliac Awareness Week in the UK (from 14th to 20th May 2012) - it's something close to my heart as it runs on my side of the family. Coeliac (or celiac) is a disease that affects around 1 in 100 people, it is an autoimmune disease causing the body’s immune system to wrongly attack itself when it comes into contact with gluten. Eating gluten damages the lining of the
The probe neatly folds neatly away into the side of the Thermapen How many times have you thought that you could do with a really accurate, fast, digital thermometer for the kitchen? I have been looking around for a decent one for quite a while now and was pleased to come across this one which is rather brilliant. The beautiful British-made Thermapen is now available to home cooks and BBQ
Craving chocolate? Then this is for YOU! It's a little cake/mousse layered dessert with a surprise crunch in the middle. It was created by Hans Schweitzer, head chef at Cotto restaurant in Cambridge, for the TV show Britain's Best Dish: The Chefs. Although I didn't watch the whole series, this recipe made it to the semi-final and seemed like one I could make at home with just a couple of
I've had a lovely break from blogging (sometimes real life gets in the way) but am back to celebrate World Nutella Day! Here is an easy pancake cake - the pancakes are sandwiched together with Nutella and Frangelico cream, then drenched in ganache and topped with hazelnuts. A variation could be to add roasted chopped hazelnuts to the cream or sliced bananas to a couple of the layers.
I spotted these cute Santa hats on top of olive oil bottles at Vom Fass in Bath the other week! ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? This content belongs to Nic at Cherrapeno. All writing and photography copyright N Fowers © 2007-2011 unless otherwise indicated. All rights
Christmas cupcakes Last week I was looking around for cake recipes to make something Christmassy, when I came across the Baking Mad website. There were some interesting cupcake recipes and I settled on this chocolate one for my cakes. As well as cupcakes, I wanted to make a few round balls and turn them into Christmas cake baubles, for which I used my silicone sphere moulds. If you d
I was recently asked to try some House of Castello® cheeses, how can I say no to cheese? It's one of my favourite ingredients and we do eat a lot of it. There are currently 8 Castello® cheeses on sale in the UK, including Pineapple Halo and a fiery Black Pepper Halo. The cheese is produced in Denmark and can be found in all good supermarkets. I could only find two of the cheeses - the Caste
Sometimes my Google Reader throws up a real gem, like these pumpkin cinnamon roll pancakes. Lori from Recipe Girl says that this is the best breakfast treat she has ever made, and I have to agree! What a change from our usual boring pancakes with maple syrup and whippy.Cinnamon fillingI'm not going to put the recipe here, because the only change I made was to use mascarpone cheese for the icing,
I love chocolate and I LOVE this book! Couture Chocolate by William Curley is one of those books that you can't put down. The glossy, beautiful photographs will have you drooling and wanting to lick every page!My rum and raisin bouchée waiting to be cut and coated in chocolateBut before I go any further, I want to mention a few things so I can get onto the good stuff.You must have incredible
Nduja! No, I'm not swearing! It's one of the new products from Unearthed, hitting the shelves of Waitrose at the moment.What is it? Nduja (pronounced en-du-ya) is a spicy, spreadable cured pork sausage which is traditional and unique to Calabria in Southern Italy. It seems to be the latest trend in London and I was invited to a very special cooking club to find out more.All set for a Nduja party!
Dr. Oetker have some new decorating products available and they're rather good! I've been enjoying their bright food gel colours, which can be used in icings and cakes. I mixed a little red with the yellow to get a vibrant orange for the spider web cupcakes. Spider Web Cupcakes Not really a recipe but here's how to decorate: Make some cupcakes and cover with a generous helping o
Banana & chocolate cookies, perfect with a glass of milkI was recently sent a rather interesting cookbook called Hungry? written by the people from Innocent. Innocent are well known for their smoothies and juice drinks, but did you know that they also make veg pots and fruit tubes?So why did I find the book so interesting? Well, not only are the recipes easy and fuss free, they are also healthy
To celebrate their nationwide launch, Farmison.com held a very special lunch at Koffmann's restaurant in Knightsbridge, and as Jules from the Butcher the Baker couldn't go, I went in her place. It was an amazing lunch, the food was awesome and I am now a definite fan of a new online food delivery site! What is Farmison.com?In short, Farmison.com - 'farm produce is on-line' - is an internet
A bumper crop of tomatoes...Use them in a tart!Struggling to use up that glut of cherry tomatoes from the greenhouse?Here's my recipe that will get rid of about 25-30 of them, depending on the size of your tart tin, plus it's really quick and easy to make. You can use ready-made pastry or make your own - I've added fresh chillies and Parmesan cheese to the pastry, which gives a lovely flavour and
Carluccio's chocolate grissini sticks are perfect with a cappuccino!Summer is over, the kids are back at school, the weather is autumnal and Christmas is on its way. Christmas? Oh no, I can't bear to think about it - we didn't even get a decent summer this year and pretty soon, it's going to be cold(er), dark and miserable.When it comes to Christmas, you can usually find me banging my head
This time last week I was at Food Blogger Connect 2011 (FBC), thanks to Olives from Spain, who generously gave away 4 tickets to the event via Twitter. Held at the Hempel Hotel, FBC is a 3-day conference for food bloggers, covering a variety of food related topics and just about everything you wanted to know about blogging. Attracting food bloggers from all over Europe and beyond, there
