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: Sweet baked things
Marbled Peanut Butter and Jam Banana Bread
As an ex-pat American living in Scotland, peanut butter and jelly is something I occasionally have a hankering for. It must be in my DNA. I can’t say I give into that craving very often, but when I do I have to say that it is not on nice seeded whole meal bread, or using posh jam. If for whatever reason I need to buy white bread – for Christmas stuffing, or bread and butter pudding – I always nick a piece. I then proceed to smear it with a good quarter inch of peanut butter, top with a crimson dod of Lidl morello cherry jam, and fold in half. Then I proceed to shove it in my gob with two hands, like a ravenous toddler. Again, a childhood/DNA thing. With today’s recipe I think I may have grown up. A bit. 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
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
Summer Berries Crumble Tart – A Slice of Summer
Gosh, it feels like ages since I last put fingers to keyboard. All thumbs here. As I am feeling somewhat rusty this might be a bit brief.’ Yay!’ I hear you cry. But not because I have nothing to say. Oh no. Continue reading
Masala Chai Carrot Cake Muffins with Coconut Milk Icing
Unintentionally this post is perhaps more for my UK-based friends. Or really anyone whose summer is not quite up to scratch, weather-wise. Despite the assurances of nearly every weather pundit that we would be using parasols to defend our delicate sun-deprived skin, we are in fact using them as defenders against ghastly downpours. And in some parts of the UK (Wales particularly), the parasols are probably mini boats floating downstream and down streets, having been blown there by gale force winds. It has not been nice. Not at all. We in Scotland are better off than most but it is more early March than early June. Not in the least summery or barbequey. But what are you gonna do?
All of this rubbishy weather has really had me pining for exotic climes. As a Floridian at heart I really crave the sun on my skin and the feel of warm sand between my toes. At least for a few lousy weeks in the year. But this doesn’t seem very likely as I sit here typing IN A FLEECE. Continue reading
