Baking (sweet)

Decadent mint chocolate chip brownie recipe

Thumbnail image for Decadent mint chocolate chip brownie recipe May 1, 2013

  “ Smile, and the world smiles with you; cry and you cry alone”, wrote author Stanley Gordon West. I’m not sure I entirely agree with all of this, but it is true that when you smile, it seems to elicit smiles from other people.  In fact, smiling is one of those activities that we all [...]

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Gingerbread cookies for Easter

Thumbnail image for Gingerbread cookies for Easter March 28, 2013

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  There are two types of people in the world – bakers and non-bakers.  Bakers tend to be those with an eye for detail – the kind of people who are not at all fazed by recipes requiring “2.5 egg yolks”;  who are willing to spend as [...]

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Apple and sage tarte tatin

Thumbnail image for Apple and sage tarte tatin January 25, 2013

Jeff Potter said that flavours are like notes on a piano: some join together far more harmoniously than others. Think about: tomato and basil. Beef and horseradish. Peas and mint. Bacon and eggs.  Apple and cinnamon. Strawberries and cream.  Chocolate and coffee. Flavour combinations that are so ingrained in our consciousness that we don’t even [...]

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Charred clementine and rum individual upside-down cakes

Thumbnail image for Charred clementine and rum individual upside-down cakes December 31, 2012

And here we are again – the fnal blog post of another year. In 2011 my final post was a visual toast to my readers. In 2010 my final post was a recipe for shredded Brussels sprouts with pancetta & pine nuts In 2009 my final post was a Christmas message (gulp – a whole week [...]

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Chocolate chestnut fondant – a decadent Christmas dessert

Thumbnail image for Chocolate chestnut fondant – a decadent Christmas dessert December 23, 2012

The other day, a friend and fellow-blogger asked an open question of his readers:  do you collect mementos when you travel, and if so, what?  If you’d aked me that question 15 years ago, the answer would have been a resounding “YES! How much time do you have?” At various times over my teenage and 20-something years, [...]

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Spiced maple pear and oat muffins

Thumbnail image for Spiced maple pear and oat muffins September 20, 2012

A few years after I had stopped lecturing, I bumped into an ex student of mine. We chatted for a while about what we were up to these days before he told me that I was one of the best lecturers he had ever had. But as my chest swelled with pride, he instantly burst my bubble by saying that the one thing he will never forget about my classes was not understanding how human rights work; or how to form a contract – but “the joke about the pear”.

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Mirabelle plum and Cognac clafoutis

Thumbnail image for Mirabelle plum and Cognac clafoutis August 3, 2012

Pop quiz, ladies and gentlemen: Who can tell me what the following list of items have in common: Xiri, Catawba, Manx, Coeur d’Alene, Gamilaraay, Chamacoco, Faetar, and Occitan? If you said they were the names of all Brangelina’s children in order of age, you’d be… pretty amusing but… WRONG. But if you said that they are all endangered languages you’d be 100% correct.

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