Do you ever feel like the Universe is messing with you?  Taking the piss maybe, just a little bit?

Every November, I make a little tour of greengrocers and farm shops, hoping against hope that they will have quince.  They never do, which always baffles me as surely the quince is quince-essentially English?  It was certainly beloved of the Edwardians and Victorians, but despite living in the West Country, surrounded by orchard fruits, there is never a quince to be found.

This hasn’t really bothered me until this year.  Sure, I was sad.  Maybe even mildly vexed.  But this year, not only was it heavily featured upon Market Kitchen—which is normally a surefire way of getting unusual fruit and vegetables into the supermarkets, let alone farm shops—but bloggers far and wide were cooking with it!  That was just insult upon injury!

Why could I, in the orchard of England, not find any quince?  Aran was making membrillo in Florida, Clotilde and David were poaching quince in Paris, and Andrew—who must surely be the luckiest man on the planet—was poaching quinces he’d found at the side of the road.

Well.

The bit was firmly set between my teeth by this point, and so I started visiting my usual farm shops, my list of known shops expands year upon year, and calling ones I’d never been to before.  Some, worryingly, had never heard of quince.  Others said, “Ooh, no.  No one eats those any more.”  I even went so far as to try and track down a quince tree that I could scrump some fruit from.  Poor Dave put up with my dark mutterings for days.

I had an ace up my sleeve, though.  Farringtons Farm Shop is my go-to place for unusual vegetables—fresh borlotti, cavolo nero—so perhaps they would have some?  Luckily I rang before jumping in the car, as they’re not exactly local.  No, no they didn’t have any.  I could have cried, and perhaps sensing this, Diane, the farm shop manager, offered to order me in a tray of quince.  She did warn that she might not be able to get any, but still… how kind of her!

As you can see, my quest for quince has had a happy ending.  A couple of days later, Diane called and I drove down there with Lucas to collect eight of the most aromatic quince ever known to man.

Aren’t they beautiful?

I must admit that by the time I had the quince in my hands, I had completely forgotten what I had originally wanted to make with them.  So, some fast-thinking was called for as I had no idea how long they would keep for.

I was somewhat seduced by Nigella’s Ruby Red Quince from Forever Summer, but a quick Google revealed some serious concerns about the cooking temperature/times.  I also discovered that not every quince will turn ruby red—apparently it’s all to do with the ripeness of the quince, as well as the variety.  An unripe quince will turn a beautiful dark red, but a very ripe one may not get much beyond amber.  There’s some interesting science behind the transformation from off-white to ruby red, but I think some things are perhaps best left as magic.

I tracked Nigella’s version back to Maggie Beer’s original recipe for slow-roasted quince, and after an initial wobble about having the oven on for seven hours, decided to just go for it.  In my Googling I’d also come across a quince & brandy ice cream which sounded delectable, so I knuckled down and made that too.  (I also made an amazing lamb and quince tagine, which was unapologetically unphotegenic yet utterly delicious.)

So, after all the trouble I went to, were the results worthwhile?  Absolutely.  I couldn’t believe how different the fruit tasted with the two different preparations.

The ice cream was fresh and light, tasting exactly like the scent of the fresh quince.  Honey-sweet, somewhere between apple and pear in taste and wonderfully light in texture thanks to the Italian meringue.  The brandy kept it from being too sweet and made it more autumnal in taste, if that makes any sense.  At any rate, it was very good and very adult.  If I had a quince tree in the garden then the first fruits of the season every year would go towards this!

The ruby red, slow-roasted quince were a complete contrast to the lightness of the ice cream.  Each bite conjured up thoughts of Turkish bazaars, with heady flavours of rose, caramel, and spice as well as the apple/pear inbetween-ness.  Slow-roasting the fruit created a glacé fruit effect, and each bite was a seductive experience.  Definitely worth leaving the oven on all day for—I was too chicken to have it on while we slept!

They say that all good things come to those who wait, and they’re right.

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Occasionally, I like to pretend that I’m a thrifty cook who can always whip up something fabulous from leftover ingredients or foods.  And if I hadn’t just confessed that I am merely pretending, you’d all think I was totally amazing for looking at some leftover egg yolks (from an Opera Cake), the bottomless bag of apples and a half-full pot of cream in the fridge and coming up with the idea of semifreddo.

I had vaguely contemplated making Skye Gyngell’s Apple Ice-Cream with roasted cobnuts and caramel sauce, but got no further than buying cream.  I also completely overlooked the necessity of pre-freezing the cannister for my ice-cream maker.  And then along came these egg yolks that needed to be used up…

It dawned upon me that I could turn the egg yolks into pate a bombe—a common component of mousse and occasionally of semifreddo—fold in the cream and then the apples.  But what to do with the apples?  “Er… I know, I’ll bake them,” said I.

So that’s just what I did.

I peeled and chopped a couple of eating apples which would keep their shape once baked and also a little Bramley apple which would collapse into sticky-golden purée.  This would give an apple flavour throughout the semifreddo as well as delicious chunks of baked apple.  The apples were dotted with little bits of butter and sprinkled with sugar then baked with whole spices until golden, sticky and tender.

I’m ridiculously proud of myself for making the pate a bombe.  After several disastrous attempts at Italian meringue in the past, I’ve stuck firmly to making Swiss meringue and avoided fiddling around with sugar thermometers and syrups.  However, since joining The Daring Bakers, I’ve been a bit more, well, daring, and decided to give it a go.

I’ve never met a sugar thermometer that I’ve trusted or gotten along with, so I ignored that and just cooked the apple syrup for exactly 2 minutes once it came to the boil; while the syrup cooked, I whisked the egg yolks in my KitchenAid until they were pale and beginning to go fluffy.  Once the syrup was done, I poured it into a jug to give better control when adding it to the egg yolks.

With the mixer off I added a tiny trickle of the syrup and immediately flicked it on high to incorporate it without scrambling the eggs.  And then it was just a case of repeating that, with the increments of syrup getting larger each time until it was all incorporated and the mixture had massively increased in volume and had become billowing and fluffy.   I left the mixer running on slow until the bowl felt cool to ensure that there wouldn’t be any little bits of scrambled egg lurking and also to firm up the structure a little.  Now that I’d created this fabulously light pate a bombe, I didn’t want to lose any of the air that was whisked into it.

To keep the semifreddo from freezing solid, I added a couple of tablespoons of brandy which enhanced the flavour of the apples, too.  A little cinnamon folded in with the softly whipped cream made everything perfect.

I was a bit worried that the apple pieces would sink down to the bottom of the semifreddo if I incorporated them into the mixture before freezing, so I just poked them into the firmed up mixture (at random depths) after it had been in the freezer for about an hour.  This worked out nicely and each slice looked different, so I was quite pleased.

I like how this turned into a British interpretation of an Italian classic.  Rather like how the Italian’s have interpreted trifle into Zuppa Inglese but in a very autumnal fashion.  The warm, spicy apple chunks are totally British in flavour, and the incredibly light, silky smooth texture is utterly Italian.

For an extra burst of flavour, I drizzled the cut slices with some apple glaze, made with some of the apple juice that we bought at Our Small Farm last month.  Some crisp-tart slices of Granny Smith apples gave a fresh and crunchy contrast to what had turned into a celebration of apples.

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Apples, apples everywhere!

I’ve never been faced with a glut of apples before, but after our afternoon at an orchard, Dave negotiated scrumping rights with our next-door neighbour and now I find myself with a large bag of apples that seems to be bottomless.  So far I’ve made a luscious apple crumble, some apple butter (inspired by Zarah’s) and the apples barely seem dented.  Serious measures are called for.

One of the mottos that I seem to live life by is: in case of emergency… bake cake.  So I figured that a nice, moist apple cake should take care of quite a few of the tiny Bramley apples that Alan, our neighbour, brought round.  Every year I look longingly over at the laden branches of his trees and this year I finally get to taste them!

This cake is superbly moist with a pure apple flavour and lovely distinct chunks of apples with additional flavour bombs in the shape of the cider-plumped sultanas.  There’s a lovely buttery finish and just the right amount of cinnamon permeating the entire cake.  The whole house smells warm, welcoming and apple-y which is marvellous.

I served the cake warm with a generous spoonful of Chantilly cream, but it would be equally as delicious with something a little edgier like creme fraiche.  It is also fantastic on its own as elevenses with a glass of apple juice—for the apple obsessed among us… I’m looking at you, Lucas—or a glass of cold milk.

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After our afternoon at the apple orchard in Wotton-under-Edge we came home with the most marvellous haul of apples.  Since we’d already feasted upon apple pie at the orchard, I decided to turn some of the apples into a wonderfully buttery crumble.

Crumbles were a favourite family pudding when I was growing up.  Our Sunday roast of a succulent chicken, roasties and (alas) sprouts was frequently followed by a tart, fluffy apple crumble doused in evaporated milk or Bird’s custard.  My tastes have moved on a bit since then, but I still have a bit of a weakness for evaporated milk.

I like to keep all the fruit in my crumbles, rather than bubbling over the edge and disappearing to the floor of the oven.  So, to ensure a juicy crumble and a clean no dirtier than usual oven, I peeled a few apples turned them into a compote.  A brainwave struck me whilst chopping the apples and instead of sweetening with sugar, I used the deliciously sweet-smokey syrup left over from the honey and marsala baked pears I’d made a couple of days before.  There was still a leftover baked pear, so I decided to peel and slice it over the compote before adding the crumble.  I also re-used the cinnamon and vanilla that were still lurking in the syrup for additional oomph.  Apples and pears are always happy bedfellows and I’m trying very hard to waste less food, so I was quite pleased with myself.

For the crumble topping, I turned to How to Eat and the wisdom of Nigella.  Her recipe was deliciously buttery which boded well for a crunchy golden topping to the crumble.  I did intend to add some sliced almonds, but I forgot all about them until the crumble was well on its way to perfection.  I wasn’t too sad as it smelt divine, and anyway, almonds are always welcome in my pantry.

So, did I do the apples justice?  I think I did!  The apples were soft and pillowy but so, so fresh and vibrant despite being cooked twice.  Apples eaten just hours after being picked are a world away from apples that have sat in cold stores for months.  The honey and marsala syrup didn’t dominate at all… just gently supported the apples and added an extra dimension to the compote.  The occasional chunk of tender, almost grainy honeyed pear came as a very welcome treat.

Nigella’s crumble topping was a triumph.  Such a fabulously buttery and crunchy topping, almost like shortbread.  I think that the almonds would have been a step too far with the additional tweaks I’d already made, so my forgetfulness was actually a good thing for once.

I served the crumble with lashings of double cream and between Dave and I—I’m ashamed to say—we ate the whole lot!  I did fleetingly think that Lucas would really enjoy it, but that last portion just looked too good.  Still, I can’t feel too guilty about my gluttony… Lucas can look forward to numerous crumbles in his lifetime and let’s face it, crumble is best served hot!

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I saw Claire Clark, the executive pastry chef at The French Laundry, demonstrating these gorgeous little spiced pumpkin pots on Market Kitchen last week and thought to myself… what a great dessert for Autumn! And then realised that this would also be the perfect thing to make for this month’s Sugar High Friday and Waiter… there’s something in my… gourd.

All three of us are big fans of pumpkin and squash, so it surprises me to realise that this is the first dessert I’ve ever made with them.  I’m sure it won’t be the last, though.  Dave keeps gently hinting that he’d quite like a pumpkin pie and after tasting these pots de creme I’m rather keen on the idea, too.

For the cuteness factor, I decided to serve the pots de creme in little Munchkin pumpkins.  I spotted them in the supermarket and had to pick them up as (a) I couldn’t resist the name and (b) they were so small and cute.  The flesh of the Munchkin is quite tasty, but to be honest… there are more seeds than flesh, so I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat them again.  However, they do make a fantastic edible serving dish for the pots de creme!

I did manage to save some Munchkin flesh—that just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?—for the custard, but the bulk of the pumpkin flavour comes from my favourite (and ever-reliable) butternut squash.  I know pumpkin and squash are subtly different, but we always have a butternut about the house and they’re delicious!  Excuses aside, the custard is generously spiced with cinnamon, ginger and freshly grated nutmeg which gives you a wonderful gingerbread taste before the sweetness of the squash comes through.  This is a sexy little dessert that is just sweet, seasonal and perfect if you’re planning some sort of Halloween shindig!

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What else could I possibly follow roast partridge with?  It had to be pears.  In this case, baked pears with honey, marsala and bay from My Favourite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell.  I am loving this book so much; everything I’ve made has turned out beautifully and it’s just such an inspiring read.

This is a beautifully simple autumn dessert, requiring only the tiniest bit of effort on the part of the cook.  And honestly, chucking a few well-chosen ingredients in a dish barely constitutes effort in my book.  I did go the extra mile (or two) and picked up a jar of gorgeously amber honey from our local farm shop.  I was thrilled to discover that it was their own honey and relieved that the hives are nowhere near the shop itself.  I didn’t even know they had their own bees.  It’s quite a mild honey—compared to chestnut or eucalyptus—but still flavourful.

While at the farm shop I took the opportunity to check out the new plant and herb nursery that had opened behind it.  My attempt at rooting rosemary cuttings has failed to elicit even the tiniest root, even after two months, so I decided to just buy myself a rosemary plant.  Safely strapped into the passenger seat it drove around with me for the rest of the day before being repotted into a shiny new pot at home.

I picked up some almost-ripe comice pears at the supermarket—the farm shop had none—figuring that a little longer in the oven should still give me sweet, meltingly tender fruit.  The pears were all wrapped-up and ready to go in the oven long before it finished preheating!  Like I said, a very simple recipe!

Fifty minutes later and the pears were caramelised and sitting in a bath of golden-brown syrup, heady with the scent of vanilla and marsala.  As they cooled I basted them with the syrup, hoping for a toffee apple effect that sadly didn’t materialise, but I do think it helped keep everything succulent.

I served the pears with a generous spoonful of thick, thick, crime fraiche which played well against the sweetness of the pears and syrup.  It’s a cliché, I know, but it really did cut through the sweet stickiness of the syrup to make a beautifully balanced dessert.  Ice cream would kill this, I think.  I loved the smokiness that the marsala left behind in the syrup and there was also a subtle spicing from the bay as well as the nutmeg.  Maybe infusing bay into the creme fraiche would lift this dish even further?

This was the perfect ending to our autumnal feast and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be baking plenty more pears in the future.

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My kitchen is filled with the heady scent of lavender.  The bunch of gloriously purple Provençal lavender that I bought at the Bristol Organic Food Festival lies by the windowsill, enticing me closer for a sniff every time I pass it…

With such constant temptation, it wasn’t long before I succumbed and made my first floral dessert.

I’m not sure how I came up with the combination of peach and lavender.  Perhaps I was inspired by Tartlette’s apricot and lavender panna cotta, or it might just have been that peaches were the only fruit I had to hand.

Semifreddo means “half cold” in Italian.  As the name suggests, it’s served when only just frozen so it melts quickly in the mouth, leaving only the sweetest memories behind.  There are a myriad of recipes and techniques for preparing semifreddo, but the end result is always a delicious mousse-like frozen dessert due to the thousands of air bubbles captured within it from either meringue or whipped cream.

And the best thing about semifreddo?  You don’t need an ice-cream machine.

The scent of peaches and lavender rise subtly at first from the semifreddo and intensify as it continues to melt until you’re wrapped in the most delicious aromas.  The scent isn’t too heavy; there’s nothing grandmotherly about this dessert and nor does it feel like you’re eating potpourri.  It’s complex… full of ripe peach flavour, floral, and citrusy from both the splash of limoncello I added to the caramelised peached but mainly from the lavender itself.  In essence, it tastes as good as it smells!

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I caught the tail end of a programme called Food Safari with Maeve O’Meara the other day. I have no idea who Maeve is, or why I should care about her, however the recipe being demonstrated was some luscious coconut cardamom burfi. Cue instant trip down memory lane…

When I was but a slip of a lass, I studied at the University of Glasgow. The West End of Glasgow was a foodie haven, especially for students with our discounted everything. Come to think of it, Glasgow is probably what turned me into a real food-lover. We’d walk along Great Western Road from Kelvinbridge to Byres Road, happily filling our bellies and emptying our purses, as we bought cheese from I.J. Mellis Cheesemongers–isn’t that a fabulous word?–and picking up bread, cured meats, cakes and almost everything else at Made In Heaven. Sadly, Made In Heaven is no longer there, but I have such fond memories of skiving off lectures racing there first thing in the morning to queue for their immense chocolate eclairs before they were all gone by 10am. There was a fantastic greengrocers at the top of Byres Road that could always be relied upon for cheap veg at the end of the day. All in all, we were very lucky. Great food at reasonable prices. But this reminiscing doesn’t tell you anything about burfi, does it?

Well, also at the top of Byres Road nestled a little shop between the Post Office and Papyrus. All day long, the scent of spice would waft from it, tempting in people of all walks of life. You’d see people in posh suits from the BBC, jostling for space with students and the occasional tramp who’d forsaken his can of Tennants Special in favour of a curry.

Aside from the pakora, bhajees, samosas and sag aloo, what really tempted me in was the dazzling aray of Indian sweets they had. I’d never seen anything like it… For a start: the colours. Bright yellows, pinks, greens, and oranges adorned with slivers of nuts and shiny silver leaf. And such sweet, vibrant flavours! I feasted upon halva (halwa), burfi and jalebi.

So… what are burfi? Burfi (also known as barfi) are traditional sweets made throughout India and Bangladesh made from milk–mainly condensed milk these days–cooked with sugar and nuts until a very thick paste forms. This is then allowed to set before being cut into squares, diamonds or rolled into balls.

This recipe was described in the programme as a “cheat’s burfi” so if you want to try a more traditional recipe for burfi, then give this one a go. I’m more than happy with this recipe, however. The recipe is a little vague on the cooking of the burfi, however you’ll know when the burfi is ready. The mixture turns from a creamy colour to a pale gold and clumps together around your spoon or spatula. Also, the scent of cardamom becomes more pronounced. Some further advice: turn the mixture out onto a plate once cooked and squidge it out flat so that it cools evenly–I left mine as a big ball and then promptly scorched my hands when I rolled my first piece!

While making the burfi I expected them to taste rather like coconut ice as the ingredients are so similar. However, they’re much more sophisticated than that. Straight from the fridge they’re hard, and not hugely sweet. However, let them come up to room temperature and you’ll have a real treat. The burfi are chewy in the best way, full of gloriously caramelised coconut flavours and the cardamom makes them both earthy and exotic at the same time. The pistachio is there, but very much a background flavour with the coconut and cardamom as stars of the show. I didn’t find these burfi excessively sweet, but your mileage may vary on this point.

Watch out, though… burfi are very more-ish! I found myself sneaking back to the fridge on several occasions for just one more piece…

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Our hosts for this month’s Daring Bakers challenge are the lovely Meeta of What’s for lunch, Honey? and Tony Tahhan. They took pity on us and offered up a fairly straightforward recipe that wouldn’t leave us sweltering in the kitchen for too long: Pierre Herme’s chocolate éclairs.

I adore éclairs and also have a little bit of a crush on Pierre Hermé, so I was thrilled with this challenge recipe. I often flick through Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, sighing longingly over each recipe, but always reluctant to commit myself to so much butter and sugar. The Daring Bakers have provided me with the perfect excuse to indulge myself–learning, camaraderie and fun–and I couldn’t be happier.

While I could have made the entire recipe within a day, I chose to spread it over two so that I could take things easy. I’ve only recently been allowed back into the kitchen after having surgery on my right eye, so I felt the need to move slowly, especially where sharp objects are concerned.

I kicked things off with the pastry cream. The challenge rules stated that we had to make the choux pastry with no changes, but we had the option of having one non-chocolate component. I opted to make a coconut pastry cream as I suspected that an all-chocolate experience would be a little too much for my two expert taste-testers.

Anyone who has ever eaten a dark chocolate Bounty bar will tell you that it is a match made in heaven and I hoped that this would be the case with the eclairs.

The pastry cream came together like a dream. Richly scented and flavoured with coconut; I had to hurriedly press a sheet of clingfilm to it otherwise I’d have eaten the whole lot in the name of ‘tasting’.

The chocolate sauce–a necessary component of the chocolate glaze–was next and was so easy to make. It provided a really intense hit of chocolate, unlocking the layers of flavour and making it easy to pick out the more subtle nuances. I’ll definitely be using this recipe again as it wasn’t overly rich or cloying.

The next morning I moved on to the choux pastry which turned out to be pretty damn fabulous. It was a world away from the previous recipe I used in every respect–texture, colour, flavour and behaviour. Taking an extra few minutes to cook out the choux pastry after it forms a ball in the pan really makes a difference to the finished pastry. Clouds of steam billowed up from the bowl of my KitchenAid when I beat the initial paste to cool it slightly before adding the eggs and it looked ever so slightly oily, but I persevered. Upon adding the eggs, that old magic happened and the most beautiful choux pastry emerged. Thick, glossy, silky smooth and sporting the most gorgeous golden glow. This will be my ‘go-to’ choux pastry recipe in future. I can’t say enough how much I loved it.

And so to the actual eclairs. Interestingly Pierre said that the choux pastry must be used warm so I began piping straight away. I am not very good at piping. In fact, I suck at piping so I was dreading this part.

We were instructed to use a 2cm diameter piping tip and after looking at my meagre collection of tips I determined that the best thing to do would be to use the coupler without any tip at all, as that was closest to 2cm. This did seem to make the piping more difficult, but I persevered and by the time that I’d piped my fourth line of pate aux choux I’d managed one presentable line.

You see, in an effort to create perfect éclair shapes, I had opted to follow the lovely Tartlette’s advice to pipe the choux in long lines, freeze, and then cut the éclairs to size. This worked out really well, and if I manage to improve my piping skills then I can see my turning out some really beautiful eclairs in future. Just not today.

Once baked, the éclairs were a little… rustic in appearance, but chocolate glaze can hide a multitude of sins. This is where things went really, really wrong. I think I over-stirred the chocolate when it was melting into the hot cream, as when I added the butter the entire mixture split. After staring in horror at the mess before me, I poured off the fat and gently stirred in the warm chocolate sauce at which point it miraculously recovered. Being greatly daring, I re-added the butter, drop by drop, and the glaze was rescued!

The glaze started to thicken really quickly, despite the warmth of the kitchen, so I had to work fast. After all the trauma of making the glaze I did not want to have to reheat it. So I quickly dipped the éclair tops in the glaze which worked out really nicely and they looked like a million dollars with their slick of chocolate.

And now the home straight… I added some sweetened coconut flakes to the pastry cream, just for a bit of textural interest as well as an added hit of flavour and lightened it with some whipped cream before piping it into the éclair bases and tumbling over a few raspberries. Popped their tops on and voilà! Dark chocolate and coconut éclairs!

I much preferred the éclairs after they’d chilled overnight. I love crisp profiteroles, but for me… éclairs need a bit of extra squidge to reach the proper heights of decadence. The crisp exterior gave way to the most delicious coconut pastry cream which gave up more and more flavour with each chew. And then the chocolate hit. Oh my god, the glaze was obscenely good!

It all melded together to create the Bounty flavour that I was aiming for, but so, so much better. This is a sophisticated and decadent–if not particularly elegant–éclair. Thank-you so much, Meeta and Tony, for a wonderful recipe!

Don’t forget to visit the Daring Bakers Blogroll for more wonderful éclairs!

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Rain, rain… go away. Come again another day.

…please?

The weather has been crazy of late. One minute we have a torrential deluge of rain and the next the temperature rises, sun comes out, and you get that hopeful feeling for just a second… maybe this is it. Maybe this is finally summer!

And then… pitter-patter. More rain.

It was on such a day that I threw together this quick–yet relatively traditional–gelato for Lucas and our niece Maria who we were baby-sitting for the afternoon. They’d both been so patient while I poked around a cookware shop and a bookshop. (Admittedly they did spend ages playing in a toyshop, too. And okay… so I really wanted ice cream, too!)

Stracciatella means “torn apart” in Italian, but in the case of gelato it means the finest chocolate-chip you’ve ever had: cool vanilla ice-cream flecked with tiny pieces of milk chocolate which melt quickly on your tongue alongside the ice-cream. It’s odd how such a simple flavour can take you by surprise. I only added the chocolate as a fun touch for the kids, but it really was fantastic.

This is a Philadelphia-style ice-cream which means that it is egg-free and takes moments to put together. It’s totally kid friendly, especially when you start drizzling chocolate into the ice-cream maker and you suddenly find two little helpers beside you…

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