Tag: Baking

  • French recipe: Peach Mille Feuille

    French recipe: Peach Mille Feuille

    If I could be a fruit, I would like to cast my vote to be a peach. There may be a lot of us peaches jostling in the fruit bowl. There is a reason this blog’s logo is a peach – it’s a little cheeky (the peach emoji connotations have a lot to answer for).…

  • Fig and Caramelised Onion Flatbreads

    Fig and Caramelised Onion Flatbreads

    And at last, figs are here. The bounty of the season! Let’s frolic under heaving fig trees or shove armfuls of them into our bags-for-life at the market. Make snow angles in the teetering piles of them building up all around us. Or not. You may be thinking that a fig and caramelised onion flatbread…

  • French recipe: Peach and Apricot Clafoutis

    French recipe: Peach and Apricot Clafoutis

    Summer: it’s the season to brave the heaving weekend markets, jostling old biddies with their shopping carts. It’s the time to drink iced coffee in the morning, and share a sliced peach so juicy you need some paper towel on hand. It’s the smell of the mosquito spirals burning, their smoke blowing through your window.…

  • Easy Cherry and Almond Galette

    Easy Cherry and Almond Galette

    Cherry season in Toulouse is early – one year I missed it entirely as it just kind of creeps in, slips onto supermarket fruit and veg shelves in the dead of night, then before you know it, they’ve been there for weeks coolly filing their nails and concealing yawns. I’m sorry guys, you’re just annoyingly…

  • The Perfect Eton Mess with Strawberries and Raspberries

    The Perfect Eton Mess with Strawberries and Raspberries

    Finally the French windows are throw open, the laundry is hanging up outside and fluttering in the breeze and I feel like I’m in a washing detergent advert at last. Even doing the laundry is better in the summer. Roland Garros is on the TV, not that I’m watching, my desk is conveniently angled in…

  • Blueberry, Lemon and White Chocolate Cookies

    Blueberry, Lemon and White Chocolate Cookies

    I write this as I eat cookies. Cookies for breakfast are fine yes? Maybe they’re more suited to the weekend – if pancakes are too ambitious on Saturday morning, then opening a packet of Marylands isn’t too offensive – but Monday? I haven’t even found the wagon, let alone fallen off it. But what can…

  • French recipe: Pain au Chocolat

    French recipe: Pain au Chocolat

    What are the first three foods that come to mind when you think of France? Take your time, I will wait. Ready? Let’s see – I assume baguettes are up there? Baguettes seem to grow like grass here. What about delicate pastries like eclairs? Or their 1600 cheeses? Basically, anything involving butter? France is pretty…

  • Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Caramel and Chocolate

    Peanut Butter Banana Bread with Caramel and Chocolate

    Finally, finally, after five years of writing this old blog, I bring you peanut butter banana bread. The fact that this is my first recipe for banana bread is honestly shocking. Considering that for years I have kept a stash of bananas in my freezer for the entire purpose of a regular supply of banana…

  • Moist Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

    Moist Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

    Unlike many bakers, I didn’t grow up baking at my grandmother’s knee. In fact, my most regular activity in my granny’s kitchen was drying the dishes (can you even qualify that as a skill? – ‘oh her baking is delicious’ ‘you haven’t seen anything, just watch her dry up’). My granny was of the generation…

  • French recipe: Spiced Apricot Tarte Tatin

    French recipe: Spiced Apricot Tarte Tatin

    I’ve never kept it a secret that I’m a winter girl at heart. My favourite foods usually involve pastry or suet, I mean, I love lard for goodness’ sake. However, I will admit defeat in favour of summer fruits. This season can claim proud responsibility for the best fruits of the year. One of those…