We aren’t really biscuit eaters here at food to glow. Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t averse to them. A Hobnob biscuit and a cup of tea is a simple pleasure that I wouldn’t say no to, if offered (hint, hint). Let’s just say we don’t have a biscuit barrel full of the things. Or indeed usually any packets of them lurking in cupboards. Mainly this is because none of us has a big sweet-tooth but also because most bought biscuits are full of things we could all do well with avoiding – trans-fats, bleached flours, multiple incarnations of sugar (including the recently-notorious-but-now-just-another-sugar high fructose corn syrup), too much salt. And then there are the so-called ‘flavourings.’ We are not saints – I would happily arm wrestle you for a bag of salt and pepper Popchips – but biscuits just aren’t our thing. Usually. Continue reading
Category Archives: Desserts and sweet afters
Golden Apple Pie Pancakes (gf/df) with Salted Caramel Sauce (easily veganised)
A few months back I eavesdropped on a Twitter conversation. This is unusual for me as I’m not normally prone to eavesdropping. Unlike in real life, where I am shy and retiring (cough), on Twitter I have no qualms about twanging a conversation thread with an unasked-for opinion or observation. Most people are pretty polite, as long as you don’t insult them. But in this case I wanted to know more. And I didn’t want to look foolish about my lack of experience.
Before you jump to all kinds of inappropriate conclusions, I was in fact eavesdropping on a conversation about chestnut flour. I know, how exciting is that? Other folk are meeting friends for drinks, or trading bonds and whatnot and I’m lurking on Twitter following a convo about flour. Continue reading
Quick Hot Chocolate Sauce with Iced Berries
Have you got your romantic meal planned? Asparagus? Oysters? Caviar? Perhaps Spaghetti Bolognese a la Lady and the Tramp? Or, are you being whisked off for a slap up meal, after having sipped Champagne in a rose petal bath? Well, if you are like me and not particularly romantic, forward planning, or fond of lolling in baths, this quick and easy recipe is a cheat’s way of getting in the spirit of Valentine’s Day. Continue reading
Chocolate Chestnut Truffle Cake – fabulous, festive, flourless
For not being overly crazy about chocolate I seem to have my fair share of chocolate based recipes here on food to glow. But I must say that this is my favourite. I think what I like – other than the knockout taste – is that it is a recipe that has basically haunted me until I made it. Continue reading
Three-Ginger Bonfire Night Parkin (Sticky Gingerbread) with Vanilla-Apple Compote
Here in the UK we are coming up for the effigy-burning, firework-displaying extravaganza that is Guy Fawkes Night. Also known as Bonfire Night, November 5 commemorates the evening in 1605 that 13 young men had planned to use 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
Poor old Guy Fawkes should have stayed in the ye olde tavern because not only was he caught, tortured and executed, we now have a rather gruesome tradition of making effigies of him to burn. Or rather they do in England. Up in Scotland it’s just fireworks and hard cider (any excuse really).
Roasted Fruit with Baklava ‘Crumble’
The culinary compensation for the recent rapid slide in temperature is the rapid rise in scrummy seasonal fruits – pears, English apples, blackberries, figs, plums, quinces. My Victoria plums are finished but next week I plan on raiding the local woods to claim a basket of brambles – free nippy sweeties to be eaten as I go, with any left going into jam, dessert and sauce-making. Even nectarines and peaches are still with us for awhile.
To welcome in these crisp and uber-flavoursome replacements for the succulent and summery berries, my Roasted Fruit with Baklava ‘Crumble’ is the easiest of recipes. But easy doesn’t mean unimpressive. Oh no. This light deconstructed baklava takes care of that. Continue reading
Squidgy Raspberry Brownies – a gluten-free treat!
Does the world really need another brownie recipe? Do you and I really need another take on one of Boston’s* finest contributions to the culinary arts? Yet more words and ingredients leading us on a crumb trail to chocolate bliss? Continue reading
Jam and Almond Macaroon Bites
Hands up who is already struggling with lunchboxes? Don’t be shy. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, I see. Quite a few of you… You, in the banana-coloured shirt – oh, that is banana, sorry – sobbing silently and clutching your temples: it’s okay. You are in good company. Almost everyone fears the dreaded lunchbox… And don’t we tell our children that facing our fears makes us stronger?. ..Don’t stand too close to that open window. You’re making me nervous. Continue reading
Espresso Ice Cream with Dulce de Leche
Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love*
- a description of coffee by cunning and eccentric 18th/19th century French diplomat, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (pilfered from urbin.net)
Over on the right, underneath my smug-looking face (I can’t smile straight), I mention the fact that sometimes an off-message decadent treat finds its way here. Well, today’s the day. But fear not, it isn’t as dangerous as it looks.
Cherry-Chocolate Clafoutis
I was going to give you a super-easy and healthy-ish, ice cream recipe, inspired by my recent trip to Spain. Miss R even had a crackin’ tune all planned out, a real belter. But the sloppy slap of rain against the conservatory roof put me in a baking mood. Not a cake baking mood but a full-on comfort extravaganza, involving batter.
Batter-based clafoutis is, according to Nigel Slater, the only hot pudding acceptable in summer. I quite agree. Menus featuring sticky toffee puddings and hot chocolate fondants seem somewhat disagreeable when the mercury is nudging 30C. Like wearing a fur coat on the beach. I would imagine.
To quell my baking fixation, as luck would have it two packs of English cherries were hiding in the fridge, their plastic carapaces not yet be breached by snack-seeking fingers. So I thought – lightbulb moment – clafoutis. But clafoutis with a – turning up the dimmer switch – dark side. Continue reading
