Category Archives: Food

I’m quite interested in food. Not just the eating, but everything from growing the ingredients, fundamental methods of cooking and preserving that have withstood the ravages of time and laziness to the fusion of influences from across the world.

This section of my website generally holds recipes that I value, either because I think they’re interesting enough that other people might want to read them too, or simply so that I can find them again in the future.

Homemade crunchie bars

Homemade crunchie bars, by .

Homemade crunchie bars Homemade crunchie bars

Chocolate crunchie bars

If you’ve read my last recipe, Caramel and Honeycomb Ice Cream, you’ll know that I’ve been playing around with melted sugar recently.

Just in time for Halloween and Bonfire Night, Cinder Toffee is surprisingly simple to make and great fun for all the family as it bubbles up all over the place and makes a sweet treat in next to no time. Generously enrobing it in chocolate takes it to the next level and makes, for me at least, a superior alternative to commercially available confectionary.It’s also a chance to play with chocolate crystallisation at different temperatures, a process known as tempering.

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Easy Caramel and Honeycomb Ice Cream

Salted Caramel and Honeycomb Ice Cream

This recipe was inspired by something I read in Olive Magazine earlier on this year, having half a can of Carnation Caramel spare was just the excuse I needed to get around to making it up.

This is a lazy person’s version of Salted Caramel and HoneyComb Ice Cream, based on the frozen cream approach. Sometime, I’ll try my hand at making the caramel sauce out of sugar and cream and mix it into a frozen custard base, just to see if it’s noticably different.

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Summer berry and cherry jelly tarts with mascarpone cream

Summer berry tarts with a surprise cherry jelly

Patisserie is the fine art of creating pastries, with most pastry chefs working a long apprenticeship and passing a written exam before they are entitled to use the title patissier. The idea is to take simple sweet ingredients, prepare and present them in an extremely precise and perfect way that’s as pleasing to the eyes as to the palette. As a home cook, I’m quite happy to compromise on presentation if it tastes ok, so whilst the method is sound, you’ll have to imagine the photos looking a bit better.

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