Day one for my sourdough starter & the start of a new year

Exactly one year ago today, I sat down in front of my computer to pen my very first post. A few weeks prior to that I had decided to start baking my own bread, and the day before I had produced what I proudly felt to be my first loaf worthy of a write up i.e. something that didn’t sit in your stomach for days or have the consistency of a slightly spongy brick. Thelittleloaf blog was to be a catalogue of my adventures with bread – a way to express myself, to tell some stories and to put my money where my mouth was by baking my own bread on a regular basis.

Little did I know what a big part of my life my blog would become. Or how much I had to say about so much more than just bread. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, always been the one wanting to help out in the kitchen at parties, prepare and hand round nibbles and make cakes look beautiful on birthdays, but since starting this blog I’ve found an even greater joy in food – cooking and sharing it with those I love, researching recipes, writing stories and trying to make it look just as beautiful as it tastes.

Flour + water - the best things start from simple foundations

I’ve also discovered a whole community of food fanatics I never really knew existed. There are other people out there who think about food all day, who will happily help you discover hard to find ingredients, decipher instructions from a complicated recipe, share tips and tricks and ideas and passions, or simply while away the time talking about the food they love. And I don’t just mean chefs and professional foodies – although many have been so supportive and helpful over the last 12 months through emails, comments, tweets and the like – but normal, passionate people. One of the great joys of blogging about food.

Yesterday saw the start of Lent; forty days and forty nights of fasting if you follow tradition, or – for what seems like a large percentage of the UK population nowadays – an excuse to make a second attempt at kicking the vice you failed to quit the previous month as a New Year’s resolution. I’m not a big fan of  abstinence – a little of what you fancy surely does you good in moderation – and I’m sure that giving up chocolate for a month only serves as fuel some serious Easter egg bingeing when the time comes round, but I do quite like the idea of doing something new, tackling a project, picking something positive to carry me through the fairly bleak weeks of February and March and emerge triumphant at the start of Spring.

Day One for my sourdough starter

So, to celebrate one year of blogging, and in the spirit of starting something new, I’m embarking on my first attempt at sourdough. After over a year of baking my own bread and getting really good results from both fresh and dried yeast, it’s time to take it old school. Reading the New Year’s resolutions on a number of blogs in January, I noticed that sourdough was a recurring fixation of the foodie community – people are fascinated by the strange creature that is the starter you have to nurture and feed, the incredible chemical reaction that results from a simple mixture of flour and water and the wonderful, chewy loaves themselves with their distinctive tangy taste.

Sourdough isn’t something I felt comfortable jumping straight into. I wanted to feel confident in my bread making abilities before progressing onto this slightly more complex process, and I needed to be prepared that it might go wrong. During the working week I’m often out of the house for more than twelve hours at a time, meaning the potential to forget to feed my baby is quite high, I might miss some of its developments, or arrive home to find it has escaped its jar and spread across the kitchen (unlikely I’ll admit, but I’ve seen the sourdough monsters out there, they do exist . . .). I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my kitchen, so to experiment in such a potential disaster zone is quite a leap of faith for me.

Store your sourdough starter in a warm place to encourage activity

I’m not going to provide a recipe here – I’m only on Day One so who knows what will work and what won’t? If you want to read something a bit more serious on all things sourdough, or follow another blogger’s experiments, I’d suggest taking a look at Tea & Cookies, Café Fernando, or two of my favourite UK based bread blogs, Zeb Bakes and Azelia’s Kitchen.  I’m following a carefully laid out feeding plan from my Bourke Street Bakery recipe book, so here’s hoping it does me proud.

Who knows what will be happening on this day in one year’s time? Hopefully I’ll be on my way to mastering the sourdough, with a lot of lovely loaves under my belt and another twelve months spent meeting new people, discovering new recipes and making new things. Only time will tell, but it feels like the start of something exciting. A lot can happen in a year.

The start of greater things to come?

Layers of hazelnut & chocolate meringue, vanilla & praline cream & chocolate ganache

While Italian food will always hold a special place in my heart, when it comes to desserts I have to admit it’s the French who really know what they’re talking about. Their puds are good. Too good, perhaps. Elegant, flawless and invariably involving multiple stages, these incredible feats of confection can often feel beyond the realm of your average home baker, appearing more frequently in the pages of a restaurant menu or the window of your local patisserie than on a private kitchen table. Recipes requiring rounds of piping bags, pints of cream and the patience of a saint aren’t everyone’s idea of fun, and a fancy French gâteau can be altogether far flightier than a dependable British pud.

That said, sometimes you need to take a leap of faith. It’s easy to stay in your kitchen comfort zone and shy away from anything that sounds too tricky, but where’s the fun in that?

Hazelnuts - toasted, chopped & folded through the meringue

This Friday just gone, one of my friends asked me to bring the dessert when we came round for dinner. (Ok, so I asked if I could bring the dessert, but she had a busy week, she loves it when I bake and I love to bake, so there wasn’t a lot of point in beating around the bush . . .). Flicking through my recipe books I found myself returning more than once to a two page spread in one of David Lebovitz’s books entitled simply ‘Marjolaine’. Having never heard of it, and with nothing to guide me (the page has no picture) except David’s rapturous description, I decided to investigate a little further.

Google the word on its own and your search will return a random mixture of lingerie, recipes and women with not very many clothes on. Add in the word ‘recipe’ and you’re back on a better track. A combination of  articles, interviews and a forum for chefs eventually led me back to the man who invented the marjolaine, ‘father of modern French cuisine’, Fernand Point. The result of ‘years of experimentation’, this many-layered, multi-stage magnificence was his signature dessert, a triumph in taste and appearance and as close to perfection as possible (which for a French chef probably means perfection itself).

Crispy, chewy meringue, soft sweet cream & thick chocolate ganache

You might think that this, along with the fact that the instructions cover a double page spread and that I had to make it during the working week, might put me off. But seeing that the recipe could be made in stages, I decided to ignore all advice that this is a true labour of love and got stuck in, ticking off different elements as the week went on. On Tuesday I toasted my nuts and made the praline, on Wednesday I baked my meringues, on Thursday I assembled it all and on Friday I slicked over the final coating of smooth chocolate ganache before jumping in a cab round to my friend’s house. Each element involved less than twenty minutes preparation, and although it could be a little intense if you made the whole thing in one day, there’s really nothing that complicated about this recipe.

As for the result? Good things definitely come to those who wait; the marriage of taste and textures in a marjolaine is simply divine. Resting the assembled dessert in the fridge overnight allows the flavours to develop and the ingredients to work with each other, creating a mouthful that moves from chewy meringue with slightly softening edges through smooth whipped cream, crunchy caramel-like praline, toasted nuts, glossy, slightly tart ganache and waves of aromatic vanilla and sweet nutty liqueur.

Just a few forkfuls are all you need of this intensely rich, sweet dessert

I adapted David’s recipe to make it my own, flavouring half the meringue with chocolate, omitting some of the toasted hazelnuts and including a splash of Frangelico liqueur. In fact this dessert is infinitely adaptable, as shown by the numerous students of Point’s who have created their own interpretations. My understanding is that the four layers, rectangular shape, praline cream and some sort of ganache or buttercream are what make the dish a marjolaine, but you could replace the meringue with a very light sponge, stir coffee through your cream, add different types of nuts or a splash of stronger liqueur. It’s also fairly forgiving in terms of presentation as the whole thing is iced, meaning you can cover any cracks or flaws.

When you look at the list of ingredients below, and read through the various stages, you might be tempted to overlook this French fancy for something simpler, quicker and more instantly rewarding. Please don’t. I promise that once you’ve made – and tasted – a marjolaine, things will never be quite the same again.

The perfect end to a meal - crunchy, chewy, creamy deliciousness

Marjolaine (adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz)

For the meringues

Ingredients:

8 large free range egg whites
265g sugar
1 tbsp corn flour
Pinch salt
75g hazelnuts, toasted, de-skinned & very finely chopped
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

Grease and line two non stick baking trays. Preheat the oven 180 degrees C.

Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Combine the sugar, corn flour and salt. Increase the speed on your mixer and add the cornflour and sugar mixture one spoon at a time until stiff peaks form. Divide the batter into two bowls. Sprinkle the chopped hazelnuts into one bowl and the cocoa into another then fold both gently to combine.

Spread the hazelnut mixture onto one tray to form a rectangle approx. 30cm long and 22cm wide. Do the same with your cocoa meringue on the second tray. Bake for 20-25 minutes until light golden brown then leave to cool completely. You can store these in cling film for up to 3 days.

For the praline

Ingredients:

100g golden caster sugar
65g almonds, toasted and chopped

Method:

Line a baking tray with a silicone baking mat. Spread the sugar on the bottom of a heavy bottomed saucepan and cook over a medium heat until it begins to melt around the edges. Drag the melting sugar into the centre of the pan with a heatproof spatula then stir gently until all the sugar is melted. Cook until the liquid is a deep amber colour, then remove from the heat and stir in the chopped almonds.

Pour the praline in an even layer over your baking mat and leave to cool and harden. Once completely cool, blitz in a blender to a coarse powder. The praline will keep for up to a week if you want to make it in advance.

For the chocolate ganache

Ingredients:

180g crème fraîche
280g good quality dark chocolate, finely chopped

Method:

Warm the crème fraîche in a small saucepan until it just begins to boil. Remove from the heat and add your chopped chocolate. Leave for a minute or so, then stir the mixture completely til smooth. It’s important to chop the chocolate nice and fine and to have the crème fraîche nice and hot or the ganache could split. Set aside to cool.

For the praline & vanilla creams

Ingredients:

180g crème fraîche
60ml double cream
30g golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
One quantity praline, as above
1tbsp Frangelico or other liqueur

Method:

In a stand mixer fitted with a whip attachment, whip the crème fraîche, cream, sugar and vanilla on medium speed until glossy, stiff but still shiny. You don’t want to overbeat.

Weigh 180g of your cream mixture into a bowl and stir through your blitzed praline. Set aside.

For the vanilla cream, add the Frangelico to your remaining crème fraîche and cream mixture and stir to combine. Set aside.

To assemble the marjolaine

Slice both your meringues in half lengthways so you have four rectangles of approx. 30cm long by 11cm wide.

Cover a tray with cling film and place one hazelnut meringue on top. Spread 180ml of the chocolate ganache onto the meringue, then top with a chocolate meringue. Put the remaining chocolate ganache in the fridge for the next day. Spread over all the vanilla cream then top with a hazelnut meringue. Spread over all the praline cream then top with the last chocolate meringue. Wrap the cling film round the whole thing nice and tight and pop in the fridge overnight to set.

The next day get your ganache out the fridge and warm slightly until it has a spreadable consistency. Remove the marjolaine from the fridge, take it out of its cling film wrapping and place on the plate or board you want to serve it on. Spread the top and sides with your ganache then return to the fridge to set.

The marjolaine is best served at room temperature. To get the neatest slices possible, use a serrated knife, running the blade under hot water between each slice for a super smooth finish.

Enjoy on its own, or with a small scoop of vanilla or coffee ice cream.

Fresh mint ice cream with flecks of dark chocolate in a rich Bourbon biscuit crust

I love my kitchen. Regardless of the day I’m having, if I can take time to brush down the work surfaces, get in front of the stove and rootle around in the cupboards, I’m transported to a happy place. Preparing food is one of my favourite ways to relax, to completely clear my mind and to be as simple or creative as I choose. Cooking is a joy and my kitchen allows that to happen.

Good for me, then, that I don’t have to share it. I don’t mean with my nearest and dearest – Carnivorous Boyfriend and I will happily cook together side by side (as far as space allows) – I mean the kind of shared kitchen of my university years; the endless piles of washing up, slightly scummy surfaces, disappearing pints of milk and a fridge full of other peoples’ long-forgotten leftovers. My cupboards may be fit to bursting and my ingredients organized in a haphazard way, but they’re mine; I know exactly where everything is and I like it that way.

When I was growing up, my parents shared their house in Italy with a family friend. We’d sometimes go on holiday all together but, more often than not, the friend (who didn’t have any children) would visit outside school holidays, meaning we’d sometimes arrive a long time after he’d left. Down one side of the cool, dark kitchen was an enormous wooden cupboard where we stored dry goods. As it could often be up to six months in between our visits, the contents tended to be stripped back to the bare basics; kilner jars of slightly damp salt and sugar, half a packet of leftover risotto rice, a handful of teabags, a tube of tomato purée.

The ice cream gets its colour from the infusion of mint leaves & a hint of crème de menthe

On arrival, these meagre supplies would be immediately overlooked as the cupboards and fridge were filled with fresh food – glossy black aubergines and delicate zucchini flowers, red-ripe plum tomatoes and earthy lettuces, dozens of yellow-yolked eggs from our neighbour’s chickens, a round of Tuscan bread, a freshly baked cake and baskets of soft, plump fruit – however every so often we’d discover something unusual that this friend has left behind; a jar of unusual spread (although he probably said the same about our Marmite), an unknown brand of coffee or, on some occasions, a bottle of something unidentified.

As a little girl, mint was one of my favourite flavours. Aged about four I managed to stain the mouth of my Spot the Dog soft toy green making him ‘eat’ mint chocolate chip ice cream at a party, and the following year I can remember dragging my parents around for what seemed like hours one afternoon searching for a bar that would serve me the same flavour. I learnt to make my own mint ice cream at home with my Mum, and when we went to the seaside in Italy I’d always opt for the bright green toothpaste-like treat of a mint granita while the rest of my family went for lemon.  Unsurprising then, that when a bright green bottle appeared in the kitchen cupboard in Italy, I decided it needed to be tried.

Crème de menthe is known for its bright green colour and strong minty properties, made by steeping dried peppermint leaves in alcohol to impart their oil. It’s also a key ingredient in the classic grasshopper cocktail, which later evolved into a chiffon pie of the same name – made famous by Nigella – and at 24% proof it packs a fairly alcoholic punch. To all intents and purposes the bright green bottle I discovered in Italy was exactly like this liqueur, but looking back I think that a) my seven year old self probably couldn’t have handled quite such an alcoholic hit on a sunny afternoon, despite the fact that I’d diluted it like squash and b) my parents probably would have noticed and kicked up a fuss. Most likely it was just a mint cordial or simple syrup for cocktails, but either way, whenever I taste crème de menthe, it always makes me think of that hot Italian afternoon in my childhood.

Melted chocolate is flecked through the ice cream then swirled over the top

Last weekend I wanted some outside inspiration in the kitchen, so I asked Carnivorous Boyfriend if there was anything he especially wanted to try. While I’ll always tend towards chocolate in desserts, CB usually heads in one of two directions – a demand for butterscotch on everything (read more about this here), or some sort of pie. In this instance he went for both, excitedly asking if I would make a Grasshopper Pie.

Grasshopper Pie isn’t something I’d ever come across in my childhood. Research suggests that this sugar sweet, chiffon-soft, lurid green concoction is American in origin, inspired by the grasshopper cocktail. A simple, slightly trashy but totally delicious combination of crushed chocolate cookies, marshmallow, cream, more chocolate, booze and butter, it’s unsurprising it was reinvented and presented to the UK market by none other than the great Nigella Lawson. Since Nigella’s first book came out in the late nineties I’m not entirely sure where CB’s Mum got hold of the recipe in 1980s Doncaster, but clearly she was well ahead of the retro resurgence . . .

Looking at the list of ingredients for Grasshopper Pie, I felt a little uninspired. The gloopy marshmallow mix seemed just a bit too sickly and simple, so I decided to have a play around with the basic ingredients and adapt the recipe to something that would satisfy both my kitchen cravings and CB’s request. The result is this mint chocolate chip ice cream pie; a beautiful minty custard frozen inside in a rich, chocolaty Bourbon biscuit base. Like the pie which inspired it, this dessert is unashamedly trashy to look at with a soft green tinge and thick biscuit crust, but achieves some degree of elegance through the delicate ice cream inside.

Drizzle the pie with salty caramel sauce, chocolate fudge or even some melted marshmallow

The addition of dark chocolate to the biscuit crust keeps this pudding just the right side of sweet, but don’t be tempted to use milk or you’ll lose that lovely contrast of fresh mint and bitter chocolate. I’d also thoroughly recommend steeping mint leaves in your custard rather than using peppermint extract for a slightly more subtle flavour, although if you’re going all-out trashy that’s certainly an option. And be careful how much crème de menthe you add – you just want to include a tiny taste for colour and flavour.

I often hear people say that ice cream is a summer dessert. I completely disagree, but if you still need convincing, why not put it in a pie? It might not be the most elegant of desserts, or the most impressive, but there’s something about slicing into a slab of cold ice cream on a buttery biscuit base that will bring a smile to the coldest and darkest of days. And maybe, just maybe, transport you to a warm Italian afternoon . . .

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Pie with a Bourbon Biscuit Crust
(makes one 23cm round pie)

For the crust

Ingredients:

250g Bourbon biscuits (or you could use Oreos)
75g unsalted butter
50g dark chocolate

Method: 

Line a 23cm round tin with baking parchment.

Blitz your biscuits in a food processor to fine crumbs. Melt the butter and chocolate together then stir into the biscuit crumbs. Press the mixture into the bottom and sides of your prepared tin in an even layer and put in the freezer to set.

For the ice cream (adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients:

250ml whole milk
125g golden caster sugar
500ml double cream
Pinch salt
70g picked fresh mint leaves
5 large free range egg yolks
15ml crème de menthe
140g dark chocolate, chopped

Method:

Warm the milk, sugar, 250ml of the double cream and salt in a pan until the sugar dissolves. Add the mint leaves and stir until immersed in the liquid. Remove from the heat, cover, and set aside to infuse for one hour.

Strain your minty milk mixture into a medium saucepan, mashing the mint leaves into the sieve thoroughly to make sure you extract as much mint flavour as possible. Discard the mint leaves and put your remaining 250ml double cream in a large bowl over an ice bath.

Whisk the eggs in a large clean bowl until light and frothy. Rewarm the milk and mint mixture then pour over the egg yolks, whisking continuously until combined. Return the whole mixture to your saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the custard coats the back of your spatula.

Strain your custard into the ice cold double cream. Whisk until cool over the ice bath, add the crème de menthe then chill overnight.

When ready to make your pie, churn the custard according to your ice cream manufacturer’s instructions. Meanwhile melt your dark chocolate over a gentle heat. When your ice cream is a couple of minutes from finished, drizzle a very thin trickle of warm melted chocolate into the ice cream machine, reserving a couple of spoonfuls. It will harden on contact with the frozen ice cream, while the paddle will break it into tiny chocolate flecks.

Remove your pie crust from the freezer. Pour the ice cream into the tart case and smooth flat. Drizzle over the remaining chocolate to decorate. Return to the freezer to set hard.

This pie is best removed from the freezer 5 – 10 minutes before serving to allow it to soften slightly. I served mine with a salty caramel drizzled over, but it would also be delicious with chocolate sauce or even whipped cream and marshmallow for a more literal interpretation of a grasshopper pie.

I’m entering this post into the wonderful Kavey‘s Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream Challenge. Last year she asked me to come up with a special ice cream recipe for her site (these Salty Snickers Ice Cream Bars) and this year she’s spreading the ice cream joy a little bit further with a different challenge every month. February’s focus is custard-based ice creams, and anyone can take part so do get involved, or check back next month for more ice cream inspiration!

Smooth, sweet ice cream with chewy chunks of treacle tart filling & crunchy buttered pecans

In between school and university I took a year out. I’d originally intended to head straight on to my next level of studies, but as friends around me started to plan their various adventures abroad, it dawned on me that this kind of opportunity is pretty much once in a lifetime. When again, until you’re of retirement age, do you get the chance to take a whole year to yourself, to see the world, try new things, do what you want and go where you please?

I spent the first half of the year working in this restaurant to save money for my trip. Working long hours on London wages and living at home with no rent, I managed to save up enough to spend the next three months in South America and another two in Thailand and Australia. The year was unforgettable and –  as with most of my memories – could easily be measured in experiences with food; from clearing tables and calling checks to drinking pisco sours and eating ceviche, discovering pad thai and tom yum, picking beetroot out of sandwiches (the downside of Australia . . .) and enjoying BBQs on the beach (. . . the definite up-side). Surprising then, that with all the unusual sights, sounds and smells on offer, one of my most enduring memories of food from our travels is that of the ice cream.

Sweet & salty, smooth & crunchy - the perfect combination of flavours & textures

Our slight obsession with the sweet, cold stuff began in Thailand. After fresh fruit shakes at breakfast, simple salads for lunch and plates of pad thai flecked with crunchy beansprouts, creamy egg and tiny dried shrimps for supper, we found ourselves on more than one occasion entering a Swensen’s Ice Cream parlour, inexplicably drawn by the tacky neon lights, banana splits, hot fudge bonanzas and sprinkles on everything. Maybe our bodies craved the sugar, maybe it’s because it was insanely hot and the ice cream parlour was practically the only place we could find with air conditioning (the rusty fan on the floor of our dingy hostel simply didn’t cut it) or maybe we were just plain greedy, but ice cream became an almost daily habit.

Once we arrived in Australia, this habit developed into a fully blown addiction with the discovery of Cold Rock. Nowadays practically every shopping mall has its ice cream or milkshake equivalent – a tiny counter behind which sit a huge array of glass jars filled with chocolate, sweets, cakes and candy to ‘mix in’ to your favourite milk or ice cream base – but back then we’d never seen anything like it. Staff would slap your ice cream onto a cold stone slab, sprinkle over your treats of choice then smash and mash all the ingredients together into an amazing lumpy, bumpy usually entirely over-the-top concoction. The results were then squashed into a cup, speared with a tiny spoon and handed over with a sense of ceremony and a large pile of napkins to mop up the inevitable sticky state it would leave you in.

Toffee-like treacle tart filling is baked to toasty perfection & combined with buttered pecans

This was very different to the ice cream I’d eaten before. Growing up we spent our family summers in Italy where gelato was smooth and clean, the only hint of an addition being a small sprinkle of nuts, a swirl of sauce or the scratchy scribbles of chocolate in stracciatella. Cold Rock ice cream was a confection of an entirely more vulgar persuasion – fit to bursting with chocolate and cookies, hunks of cake, sugar-shelled sweets and candied fruit – with the focus more on the contents than the quality of the custard or cream itself.

Fast forward several years and I’m now the proud owner of my very own ice cream machine. While I still love the excitement of visiting an ice cream parlour and picking out flavours, I also absolutely love making my own. Depending on my mood I’ll mix it up – one week it could be the creamiest gianduja gelato, made with hazelnuts steeped in milk and strained to create as smooth a texture as possible, the next I might stir rhubarb into a custard base for the contrast of creamy ice cream and slightly chewy frozen fruit. Sometimes only sorbet will do, and others, it’s all about the mix-ins; deliciously sticky, sweet, and ever so slightly over-the-top. This ice cream falls into the latter category.

Ice cream cones made with rosemary infused pastry are filled with treacle tart ice cream

A couple of months ago I made this treacle tart with rosemary sea salt. Anyone who’s been watching Heston Blumenthal’s latest TV show will be aware of his obsession with salting anything sweet to bring out the flavour, and the addition of herbs was a revelation, providing the perfect contrast to a dessert that can otherwise overstep the mark between sweet and slightly cloying. As I was eating a mouthful of pastry with a scoop of smooth, cold clotted cream ice cream, I wondered if the two could be combined in one treacle tart extravaganza.

Originally I intended to infuse the cream with rosemary, stir some pastry through the custard and lump the whole thing into one. However, after surveying all my ingredients I realized I was moving towards Cold Rock overkill territory – the moment you realize that the eyes of your greedy inner fat person have definitely got a whole lot bigger than your stomach and you’ve simply tried to cram far too much into your poor unsuspecting ice cream base. One scoop can only hold so much.

Serve your treacle tart ice cream in pastry cones or accompanied by little flaky biscuits

Common sense prevailed as I considered that one of the joys of a good treacle tart is the crispy, flaky crust under all that rich, oozing filling. So I baked my pastry blind as snappy little biscuits infused with chopped crystallized rosemary (made with a combination of sugar and sea salt), and kept my ice cream fairly simple with nuggets of treacle tart mix and studs of buttered pecan. I also attempted pastry ice cream cones, on which I had about a 50% success rate; some turned out beautifully whilst others flaked and fell apart as I attempted to remove the moulds. I’ve included some vague instructions on making the cones below as it’s something I’m still experimenting with, but if you want guaranteed success first time I’d bake the pastry as biscuits or in a mince pie tin and serve the ice cream separately.

When making an ice cream with mix-ins, remember that speed is vital so that ice cream doesn’t melt and cause nasty ice crystals later. Big chunks of mixture can cause havoc with the motor of your machine so add them at the end, working quickly to layer the ice cream before putting straight into the freezer. This ice cream can be served straight away, but if you leave it for a couple of days the nuggets of treacle tart will go incredibly chewy with a slight softness round the edge as the ice cream seeps in. I was impatient and dug straight in, so only discovered this last night as we scraped a final meager scoop from the bottom of the tub. Time to make another batch, I think . . .

Flaky, buttery pastry infused with crystallized & sea-salted rosemary

Treacle Tart Ice Cream with Rosemary Sea-Salt Pastry
(makes about 1 litre)

For the ice cream

Ingredients:

Stage 1
500ml double cream
250ml whole milk
125g golden caster sugar
Pinch of salt
Seeds scraped from one vanilla pod

Stage 2
100g pecans
15g butter
1 tsp sea salt flakes

Stage 3
300g golden syrup
25g maple syrup
110g brown breadcrumbs
1 large free range egg
2 scant tbsp cream
Zest & juice of half a lemon

Method: 

Stage 1
Put 250ml of cream in a medium saucepan with the sugar, salt and vanilla seeds. Warm over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved, then remove from the heat and stir in the remaining cream and all the milk.

Chill overnight.

Stage 2
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Melt the butter in a small frying pan then stir in the pecans. Mix til completely coated then transfer to your baking tray. Sprinkle with sea salt and toast for about 10 minutes, turning every so often. Remove from the oven, set aside to cool then roughly chop.

Stage 3
Warm the golden syrup over a gentle heat. Once slightly liquid, stir in the golden and maple syrups and breadcrumbs. Add the egg, cream and lemon zest and juice then transfer to the same tray you toasted your pecans on. Bake your treacle tart filling for around an hour at 190 degrees C, forking up at ten minute intervals to ensure plenty of slightly toasty edges. Once a lovely golden brown colour and slightly crisp to the touch, remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Once cooled blend half the mixture in a magimix to fine breadcrumbs, and tear the other half into bite-sized chunks.

To assemble your ice cream
Churn the vanilla base in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. A couple of minutes before it’s done, pour in your treacle tart breadcrumbs.

Sprinkle some chopped nuts into the container you plan to freeze your ice cream in. Pour over some ice cream, sprinkle with some of your treacle tart bite-sized chunks, then repeat the process in layers until you’ve used up all the ingredients. Give it a little stir if you think the pieces need to be incorporated better, then freeze. Remove from the freezer ten minutes before serving to allow to soften slightly.

For the rosemary pastry

Ingredients:

Stage 2
A few sprigs rosemary, leaves picked
1 egg white
1 tsp caster sugar
Pinch sea salt

Stage 2
85g unsalted butter, room temperature
50g granulated sugar
1 large free range egg yolk
140g plain flour
Pinch salt

Method:

To crystallize your rosemary, brush sprigs in egg white, sprinkle with a little caster sugar and sea salt, and set aside in a warm place to dry out. Finely chop.

Make the pastry using this simple recipe, adding the chopped crystallized rosemary along with the flour in the final stage of mixing.

Roll your pastry out to a few mm thick. You can then either roll around ice cream cone moulds if you have them, press into mini mince pie tart tins or bake flat as biscuits. Bake at 190 degrees C, checking after 10 minutes as these little pastries do colour quickly. If making cones, you’ll notice that one edge becomes slightly flatter where they rest on the baking tray – try turning regularly to avoid this but be careful not to break the pastry – it’s very friable!

Once cooked to your desired colour, remove from the oven and leave to cool before serving with big scoops of sticky, chewy ice cream. Bliss.

Decadent, dark chocolate brownie beneath a rich, creamy cheesecake

Last weekend snow descended on the UK. After one of the mildest winters on record, including un unseasonally warm Christmas Day, we’re finally being reminded what it feels like to be cold. As is always the case in a country where we’re as unprepared for annual snowfall as we are surprised by the heatwaves that regularly occur in the summer, lots of things ground to a halt; thousands of flights were canceled, trains came out of service, motorways slowed to a standstill.

While snow always brings a certain element of chaos, it also adds a sense of peace and tranquility. The world is a different place under its blanket of snow; smells are crisper, scenes softer and sounds swallowed by the heavy sky and thickly carpeted ground. In London the snow never lasts very long – delicate flakes of ice are little match for the combination of traffic, heat and hundreds of thousands of feet pounding the pavements – but for a few hours at least, the road outside our flat stayed covered in a pure, snowy blanket.

Melted chocolate cake covering makes wonderful patterns with which to decorate your dessert

While the outside world was smothered in cool, clean white, the world wide web has been taken over by an altogether different colour over the last couple of weeks; pink. Pink and red to be precise. Everywhere I look, the internet is plastered with these products; red roses, coloured cards and chocolates, pink champagne, personalised Love Hearts and hundreds and hundreds of Red Velvet recipes. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, the urge to think pink has proved irresistible for brands and bloggers alike and, as is often the case at this time of year, it’s all becoming a little bit too much.

I’m as guilty as the next person. Last week I posted this recipe for rhubarb and blood orange ice cream hearts; pale pink treats which shamelessly reflected the consumer messaging of Valentine’s Day in both colour and shape. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a little romantic indulgence, but right now I think I’ve reached saturation point with all things pretty and pink. I may change my mind come 14^th February with the lure of a dozen red roses delivered to the door, but for the moment I want something simpler on my plate. No food dye or dramatic colour, just a good, honest pud, full of all my favourite flavours.

The rich cheesecake contrasts against crunchy hazelnut pieces

A couple of weeks ago I applied to take part in a Valentine’s Blogger competition held by Baking Mad. A little like a baking version of Ready, Steady, Cook (minus the studio audience and snazzy vegetable-themed aprons), the competition saw fifteen of us get sent a box of Silver Spoon Cake Craft products through the post. Presented with everything from flavoured icing sugar to chocolate cake covering, fudge pieces, fruit pastilles, rose water and more, we were given the task of coming up with a delicious dessert that we would like to receive on Valentine’s Day.

I was initially drawn to the flavoured icing sugar, mostly because it wasn’t something I’d seen before. I take part in a monthly macaron making challenge with Mactweets and, thinking it could be an easy way to incorporate new flavours into these treats, set about making a batch of heart-shaped strawberry shells. The icing sugar produced lovely pale pink meringues with a strong fruity flavour. I sandwiched these together with a white chocolate cream before drizzling in dark chocolate (both made with products from the box) to make heart-shaped strawberries and cream macarons. They were good, but being completely honest, to win my heart on Valentine’s Day there has to be a lot more chocolate (and a little less pink) involved.

Creamy cheesecake brownie & crispy, chewy strawberries & cream macarons

The second recipe I made – and the one featured in this post – was inspired by the wintry weather. Having realised that brownies were a better bet than macarons to provide the perfect chocolate fix, I added a layer of creamy cheesecake batter to take them from decent snack to decadent dessert. Inspired by the pure, clean snow lying undisturbed across our garden, the cream cheese is stirred through with chopped toasted hazelnuts and a dash of frangelico for added indulgence. As the brownie bakes, the layer where batter meets cream cheese becomes densely fudgy and delicious, while the contrast between soft, smooth layers and the slight crunch of toasted nuts is utterly divine.

To add a sense of occasion, the edge of this brownie is bordered with tiny chocolate hearts (again courtesy of Silver Spoon) and the whole thing is topped off with shards of chocolate lace, made by melting and drizzling a packet of chocolate cake covering over baking parchment. If you don’t have the time or inclination to temper your own chocolate, it’s an amazing cheat – the melted covering sets hard in a matter of minutes meaning you can pipe the most amazing shapes your imagination can provide before peeling off the paper and decorating your cake.

The perfect last bite - do you love anyone enough to share it with them?

So here it is, my ultimate Valentine’s Day dessert; the perfect combination of rich chocolate, cool creaminess and toasty crunch with the tiniest hint of booze and a few little hearts thrown in for good measure. But not a hint of pink in sight.

Toasted Hazelnut Cheesecake Brownies (loosely inspired by this Cafe Fernando recipe)

I’ve written the recipe below for a 20cm square pan as this is what most people are likely to have to hand. If you want to make the little heart shapes, the same amount of mixture worked in a large 8 cup heart-shaped muffin tray with a little left over (cook’s perks!), but do use your common sense and judge by eye . . .

For the lace topping

Ingredients:

1 x 150g packet Silver Spoon Cake Craft milk chocolate cake covering
1 x 150g packet Silver Spoon Cake Craft white chocolate cake covering

Method:

This will make more topping than you need for this batch of brownies, but it should keep in the fridge for a few days and is just as good eaten on its own.

Cut out a large sheet of baking parchment and lay on a flat surface. Melt the chocolate according to instructions on the pack.

Cut a very small corner off the packet and pipe patterns over your baking parchment as desired. You can swirl together the white and milk chocolates, or leave separate.

Allow to set (this will take a couple of minutes) If you’ve piped one big sheet, break into rough pieces or use a warmed, sharp knife to cut into clean lines. If you’ve piped individual shapes, peel carefully from the baking parchment. Set aside.

For the cheesecake 

Ingredients:

200g cream cheese, softened
75g golden caster sugar
1 large free range egg yolk
Squeeze lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
15ml Frangelico (optional)
50g hazelnuts, toasted and chopped

Method:

Cream together the cheese, sugar and egg yolk. Squeeze in a little lemon juice to taste (this cuts through the richness) and add the vanilla extract and Frangelico (if using). Stir through the chopped hazelnuts and set aside.

For the brownies

Ingredients:

150g dark chocolate, chopped
75g unsalted butter
60g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
Pinch salt
150g golden caster sugar
3 medium free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and line a 20cm square pan.

Place the chopped chocolate and butter in a bain marie and melt slowly. Set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Sift together the flour, cocoa, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk eggs and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the cooled chocolate then the vanilla extract, and continue to whisk until combined. Fold in the flour mixture carefully.

Pour the mixture into your prepared tin so that it comes half way up the pan.

Take your cheesecake mixture and spoon over the top of your brownie batter, taking care not to disturb the mixture so you have two clearly defined layers. Bake in the centre of the oven for 20 – 25 minutes, until the cheesecake mixture is just set but not completely firm to the touch. As always with brownies, err on the side of caution – if you think your oven may be hotter, check them a little sooner.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before slicing into squares.

To decorate:

Take a brownie and carefully place chocolate hearts around the edge where the cheesecake and brownie mixtures meet. Press shards of chocolate lace carefully into the cream cheese mixture on the top. Serve.

Dense, chewy & scattered with seeds

Growing up there was always good bread available in the little loaf household. My mum didn’t regularly make her own – although when she did we’d fall on it fresh from the oven, devouring slabs of buttered bread so hot they still felt slightly doughy – but she’d always buy loaves from the local bakery rather than anything more mass produced. Nothing particularly fancy, just good a wholemeal tin, nutty malted grain or a batch of poppy seed rolls to fill for our packed lunches at school.

With the arrival of a farmers market in more recent years, her loyalty has strayed. The bakery is still there, but while their honest loaves are perfectly good, they pale in comparison to the six-seeded spelt, rustic rye and ancient sourdough on offer around the corner every Saturday morning. While I’d have to agree that the market-bought breads are delicious, exciting and most likely more expertly made than those from this bakery, I still have to sneak a peak in the window every time I pass to see what’s on offer, for old times’ sake.

One bagel is never enough . . .

Behind the counter are two or three shelves stacked high with loaves, while in the window sit trays of old school treats – giant iced buns, cinnamon swirls, different types of tart and shiny glazed doughnuts piled high. It wasn’t often we had these sorts of snacks as kids, but I do remember a couple of occasions when we’d be allowed a chocolate doughnut as a special after school indulgence.  Simpler than their jam-filled cousins these consisted of a soft, sweet  ring of dough, bread-like in texture with a cracked chocolate glaze and just enough grease to slightly seep through their brown paper packaging on the (hurried, no eating in the street for us) journey home.

The first bagel I ever ate reminded me of a bad version of those doughnuts. Taken from a plastic multi-pack and sliced in half it was shiny, solid and almost too tough to eat. A few minutes in the toaster helped it to develop a softer, more bread-like texture but the dough still tasted somewhat stale and slightly too sweet. It wasn’t inedible, but felt a little like a doughnut masquerading as something more wholesome in a bland, ineffective way. I’m not normally an either/or sort of a girl but a thought lodged itself firmly in my head that day – why eat a bagel when it’s essentially an inferior version of a doughnut?

Slightly shiny, crispy crust encloses a soft, chewy centre

Because, of course, it isn’t. As you may have guessed, my first foray into the world of bagels wasn’t the best introduction. Judging the bagel by a plastic bag of mass produced product with a shelf life of weeks is a little like comparing Mighty White to a crusty artisan cob. You can’t. So when I saw that this month’s Fresh From the Oven challenge was to make bagels, I jumped at the chance to try my hand at something a little more authentic.

After trawling various articles and foodie sites, I discovered that bagels have been sold in Brick Lane since the mid nineteenth century and were taken to the US by immigrant Polish Jews where – as is often  the case – they were reproduced and super-sized; a New York bagel is an enormous thing compared to its smaller, British cousin. A good bagel should be dense but not heavy, curiously chewy and slightly crispy on the outside with yeasty notes, an ever-so-slight sweetness and a good hole structure. More than just a ‘roll with a hole’, the bagel is an art form on which essays have been written and over which battles have been fought.  Boring and bland the bagel is not.

Bagels should be baked to the size of the palm of your hand, or try making them in miniature

My first experience of baking these little round rings has been a good one. Poaching bread is pretty bizarre, but lots of fun as you flip the floating rounds of dough, and an absolute must to achieve the taste and texture you’re looking for here. Fresh from the oven these bagels are sublime, but anything over an hour after baking and I’d suggest toasting them to feel the full benefit of their doughy goodness. I didn’t give mine an egg wash hence the slightly more anaemic looking crust, but if you’re looking for more of a golden colour, do give them a brush before baking.

We ate ours straight from the oven with nothing but butter, then again for breakfast the next day with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. Salt beef or cream cheese are other classic fillings, or try them toasted and spread with avocado mashed with coriander, lemon and a little chilli. Anyone with a sweeter tooth will appreciate the joy of spreading these with peanut butter and jam or Nutella, nuts and chopped banana, and you can also amend the recipe below to use different seeds – caraway, fennel, poppy – or stir in slightly more unorthodox additions; raisins, cinnamon, blueberries etc.

Leave your bagels plain, or brush with egg wash for a darker, golden crust

While these bagels are definitely a work in progress, they’re delicious enough to convince me to make them again, and to separate them entirely from the pappy versions I’ve eaten in the past. If you’ve never made your own bagels, I urge you to give them a go.  And if you haven’t heard of Fresh From the Oven, click on the link to find out a bit more about this brilliant baking community, and how you could get involved.

Pumpkin, Poppy & Sesame Seed Bagels (inspired by recipes from River Cottage, Dan Lepard and Delicious Days)

Ingredients:

250g strong white bread flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dry yeast
1 tsp rapeseed oil
165ml warm water
1 tbsp malt extract
Pumpkin, poppy & sesame seeds to top

Method:

Mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, yeast, rapeseed oil and warm water then bring together as a dough and knead until smooth, shiny and elastic – about 10 minutes. Cover the bowl and set aside to rise and double in size – about one hour.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Remove your dough from the bowl and divide into equal balls – 8 if you’re making normal size bagels or 16 for the mini versions. I made a mixture of both but do bear in mind you’ll need to allow for this when working out your baking times. Roll each round of dough into a smooth ball, cover with a cloth and leave for a further 20 minutes.

Now shape your bagel. The easiest way is to stick a wooden spoon in the centre then stretch it out slightly with your fingers. I think it’s more authentic to make them out of rolls, but this is the way that works for me.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add your malt extract. Drop in each bagel, leave for five seconds, then flip over and leave a further five seconds before removing. Place the poached bagels on an oiled tray, sprinkle with seeds and bake for 10-15 minutes if they’re mini, 15-20 minutes for a standard size, or until golden in colour.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Eat. Or toast, then eat. Enjoy.

Charcoal coloured bread is offset by a pat of bright harissa-spiked butter

Black. Not a colour we necessarily associate with wonderful food. Especially those of us who are keen bakers where, unless you’re talking black treacle, black bottomed cupcakes or black cherries (of which I’d argue the latter are really brown and purple respectively), black tends to signify something that has been in the oven too long; in other words burnt.

Try to think of a black food and you’re likely to conjure one of two ends of the culinary spectrum. In the losing category come the burnt items; over baked bread, lasagne left in the oven too long, black bits of onion in a pan that should be caramelized or the singed tips of an otherwise snow-white meringue. At the other end of the scale, black seems to signify something altogether more luxurious; tiny pearls of caviar, dusky black truffle, exotic black garlic or the supposed aphrodisiac qualities of a stick of licorice.  

Crusty slices of black bread scattered with toasted sesame seeds

In the Bocca di Lupo cookbook, Jacob Kennedy goes one step further and suggests that ‘there is something dangerous and sexual about black food’ as ‘without colour we are blindfolded’. While I’m not going to go quite as far as Jacob – we’re talking basic bread here, not the seductively silky, jet-black  risotto that resides in his restaurant or recipe pages – I definitely agree that changing the colour of what you’re eating confounds the senses.

Black bread, in its most recognized form, is a Russian pumpernickel. Made with upwards of ten ingredients including rye, molasses, brown sugar, caraway and cocoa, it tastes exactly as you’d expect from such ingredients – earthy, rich, coarse and wintry, best enjoyed with a scrape of butter, a sprinkling of caviar and a shot of vodka. In contrast, the squid ink baguettes below are an altogether lighter, crisper experience. Apart (of course) from colour, the squid ink imparts little flavour (as you’ll find with dried pastas made with squid ink, spinach or beetroot), lending only a slight softness to the crumb which could, in fact, be because of the olive oil I mixed with the ink at first.

The lack of any huge distinction in flavour from a normal baguette is confusing. And while I wasn’t sure these baguettes would lend themselves especially well to some of the ingredients you’d pair with a nutty dark rye – smoked salmon for example – I was aware that the charcoal black colour needed something bright and full of flavour to lift it off the plate. Thinking of both heat and colour, I opted for a chilli butter.

A crisp crust reveals a soft, slightly chewy crumb

Recently I’ve been enjoying watching The Fabulous Baker Brothers on TV.  For all its flaws – the brothers’ constant chipper chat, some seriously over-staged challenges and their attempts be just that little bit cooler than they actually are – the programme is definitely a good thing. It makes cooking feel accessible and exciting; interesting enough to offer something new, yet easy enough to give it a go at home. And the brothers are clearly both talented and passionate about what they do. So, when I saw them make homemade butter to accompany some bread on the series, I decided to give it a go.

To be completely honest, unless you’ve got the most luscious cream, fresh from the cow and full of flavour, this exercise is a bit of a gimmick. I can’t imagine the cost of cream compared with butter in your average supermarket has very much in it, and in a blind taste test with no additional added flavours, it’d be pretty hard to tell the difference between this kind of homemade butter and something shop bought. But it’s fun. It’s something new. And it gets people excited about food again, experimenting in the kitchen and enjoying what they eat. Which I guess sums up the whole ethos of the Baker Brothers series really.

Two lovely little loaves

So here you have it, squid ink and sesame baguettes with a slightly salty harissa butter. The baguettes aren’t quite as dark as I’d hoped because I only had a small sack of squid ink, but I’ve adjusted the recipe below to include a more suitable quantity. I freeloaded mine from the local fishmonger who keeps the slightly scary and gelatinous little sacks of ink in her freezer, but you can also buy sachets of the stuff online which would make it easier to weigh and is probably slightly more appealing to those of a squeamish disposition.

One final word of warning – make sure the bowl of your stand mixer is firmly locked in place when churning your butter. When making mine I somehow managed to leave it slightly loose, meaning that at around the four minute mark my butter began to swirl at an alarming rate, slopping buttermilk all down the sides of my kitchen cabinets. Not very pretty, or fun to tidy up, but I guess at least it wasn’t squid ink . . .

Crusty black baguette spread thickly with spicy harissa butter

Squid Ink & Sesame Baguettes with Homemade Harissa Butter

For the baguettes

Ingredients:

500g strong white bread flour
10g fresh yeast
10g sea salt
20ml olive oil
12g squid ink
300ml tepid water
A handful of sesame seeds

Method:

Put your flour in a bowl and crumble in the yeast followed by the salt.

In a separate small bowl, mix together your squid ink and olive oil to form a shiny black paste. Mix your paste, plus the water, into your flour and bring together into a sticky dough. Knead by hand or in a stand mixer until your dough is stretchy, elastic and no longer sticky. Cover and leave for about one hour, or until doubled in size.

For details on how to shape your baguettes, see my previous post here. When ready for the oven, slash the tops then wet slightly and scatter with your sesame seeds.

Bake until the crust is nice and crispy – you’ll need to use your smell and touch for this one as these baguettes don’t really take on your standard golden baked baguette colouring!

For the butter (adapted from The Fabulous Baker Brothers book)

Ingredients:

900ml double cream
Sea salt flakes, to taste
Harissa paste, to taste

Method:

Beat the cream fast in an electric stand mixer until the sound changes and it separates into curds of butter and buttermilk This will take between 5 – 7 minutes and will be very obvious when it’s ready – the butter forms into a big lump round the mixing attachment.

Sieve the curds over a big bowl then plunge into very cold water to draw any remaining milk out. Firmly squeeze the curds together underwater to make a rough ball of butter.

The amount of salt you need to add varies slightly depending on the final weight of your butter – a good guide is to weigh your butter then add 2% of this weight in salt. I used a good handful of sea salt flakes and a few big teaspoons of harissa. Simply mash together with the butter in a bowl until evenly distributed, then shape the butter into little pats, wrap in greaseproof paper and the job is done.

This recipe makes a fair bit of butter but do feel free to freeze it. You could also make a variety of different flavours – garlic and parsley, tarragon, rosemary, fresh chilli and ginger all spring to mind.

Enjoy you baguettes fresh from the oven, the crispy crust and warm crumb spread with a thick smear of melting harissa butter. We ate ours to accompany dinner with my parents. As there were some leftovers, I sent my Mum away with a couple of baguettes in her handbag, which they assure me were delicious reheated the next day for breakfast with some soft goat’s cheese, avocado and tomatoes.

Sweet, sharp rhubarb & orange ice compote stirred through a cool, creamy custard

One of the books I’ll turn to time and again when in need of some recipe inspiration is A Year in My Kitchen by Skye Gingell. Inspired by the seasons and full of interesting yet accessible flavour combinations, it manages to be both sumptuous and simple at the same time, and with dozens of beautiful recipes based on a ‘tool box’ of core basics – stocks, spice mixes, flavoured oils, custards etc – it’s something I can’t imagine ever getting bored of. Skye’s enthusiasm for food and avoidance of any overtly cheffy pretension are what really make this book, and my regular use of it is evident in the well-thumbed, slightly spattered pages and rapidly weakening spine.

Surprising, then, that until last weekend I’d not made a single dessert from this book. Looking at my blog you’d likely assume that something sweet would be the first thing I’d want to road test, and while this is often the case – my natural inclination is to scour the index of a new book for sections on sweets and baking – with A Year in My Kitchen I just haven’t felt the inclination. Perhaps it’s the fruity nature of the desserts on offer – I have a somewhat unhealthy in-built radar for anything of a chocolate, caramel or sticky-sweet persuasion – but it could well be that the other recipes have been simply too distractingly good to allow me time to pause and consider pudding.

Cloak your hearts in dark chocolate or leave them pale, soft and delicately pink

I’ve been wanting to make something rhubarb-based for a while now. Growing up I was never a huge fan; my Mum’s stewed rhubarb with its austere amount of sugar and strands of fibrous flesh never really appealed (this is not a criticism of her cooking, I have her to thank for my lack of fillings and it seems that rhubarb can’t help but take on a slightly funny texture when cooked). However, recently I’ve been seduced by the thick stems of forced rhubarb beckoning from the shelves of my local shops, their pale pink skin stretched round iridescent white middles to make them look not dissimilar to a natural stick of rock.

Another obsession at the moment is blood oranges, their gorgeous ruby-red flesh as shiny and covetable as any jewel, and with Valentine’s Day just around the corner (don’t pretend it’s not on your radar, even if you’re the most jaded cynic or don’t like to celebrate the day it’s impossible to ignore), the idea of combining the pinks and reds of these two precious fruits felt like the right thing to do. Knowing I’m not a fan of the soft strings of stewed rhubarb in its immediate state, I set about looking for other recipes, and low and behold, Skye Gingell has a recipe for Winter Rhubarb Ice Cream.

With this recipe, melting hearts are guaranteed this Valentine's Day

Carnivorous Boyfriend and I don’t go in for Valentine’s Day in a big way. It’s our anniversary a couple of weeks before which always feels like a more valid cause for celebration, and when what seems like the rest of the world are shelling out for overpriced set menus in underwhelming restaurants teeming with tables for two, I actually prefer to stay home for the evening to cook the food I want with the person I love. However that’s not to say I’m completely averse to the odd romantic cliché, and when I got a silicon tray with little heart-shaped muffin moulds in my stocking this Christmas, I knew I could put it to use on Valentine’s Day.

The recipe below was a bit of a trial run. If you’re making the perfect Valentine’s meal, you want to make sure you get it right, and I wasn’t 100% sure that it would work first time. I’ve substituted the slightly acidic verjuice (made by pressing unripe grapes) of Skye’s recipe with blood orange juice, and cloaked the whole thing in a shell of very thin dark chocolate. I’d originally intended to use white, but as I rushed to melt it late one evening while the ice cream churned (sometimes the only window of opportunity a working week will allow), my chocolate caught and seized rendering it useless to line my muffin moulds. With no white chocolate in reserve, I resorted to a bar of dark, and in actual fact I think it works well with the sweet, creamy slightly acidic ice cream Just be careful to make your shell as thin as possible to ensure it doesn’t overpower the delicate flavours beneath.

The sharpness of rhubarb & blood orange is mellowed by a cool, creamy custard

Fitting, perhaps, that this recipe is adapted from one of Skye Gingell’s; if I was the kind of person who eats out on Valentine’s Day, somewhere like her secluded, understated and utterly delicious restaurant at The Petersham Nurseries would be high on my list of perfect places. As it is, I’m more likely to be staying in and snuggling down, and if there are any left when Valentine’s Day comes around (which seems highly unlikely in our – ok my – sweet-toothed household), I’ll be more than happy with one of these soft, , slightly tart melting heart ice creams.

Broken hearts should be avoided at all costs on Valentine’s Day. Unless, of course, they’re of the edible, chocolate coated variety.

A heart worth breaking this Valentine's Day

Rhubarb & Blood Orange Ice Cream (adapted from A Year in My Kitchen by Skye Gingell)

Ingredients:

500g rhubarb, trimmed & chopped into rough chunks
1 vanilla pod
150g golden caster sugar
75ml freshly squeezed blood orange juice
25ml water
75ml full fat milk
225ml double cream
3 large free range egg yolks, beaten
200g good quality dark chocolate
50g unsalted butter

Method:

Get an 8 cup silicon muffin tray and pop it in the freezer to chill.

For your compote, halve your vanilla pod and scrape the seeds from one half into a medium saucepan, reserving the other half. Add the rhubarb, sugar, blood orange juice and water and place over a low heat, stirring gently. Bring to a simmer then turn down and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until soft.

Remove the rhubarb with a slotted spoon and reduce the remaining liquid by half. Pour your syrup back over the reserved rhubarb and allow to cool.

For the ice cream custard, pour the milk and cream into a pan with the seeds scraped from the other half of your vanilla pod. Bring almost to the boil then remove from the heat and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until the mix becomes thick and pale, about five minutes. Gently reheat the milk and cream mixture and pour it over the eggs, whisking briskly until combined.

Return the whole mixture to your pan and place over a low heat, stirring gently with a flat wooden spatula until the custard thickens – this should take about six to eight minutes. Remove from the heat, pour into a bowl and allow to cool.

Once the custard has cooled completely, stir through the rhubarb compote. Don’t worry if it’s a little stringy – the strands of fibrous flesh give a lovely rhubarb-ripple effect in the finished ice cream. Pour the whole mixture into your ice-cream maker and churn.

In the meantime, melt your chocolate and butter together in a bain marie. Allow to cool slightly, then remove your muffin tray from the freezer and pour about a teaspoon of the mixture into the bottom of each hole (my tray was a heart-shaped one like this, but please do adjust quantities to whatever you are using). Using a pastry brush, brush the melted chocolate up the sides of the mould until completely coated with a thin, even layer. Return to the freezer to chill until your ice cream is ready.

When the ice cream is almost ready, smooth and creamy but still soft and scoopable, stop the machine. Get your muffin tray out the freezer and use the ice cream to fill each cup almost to the top, allowing a little room to add your chocolate top. Use the remaining melted chocolate mixture to evenly cover the top of each heart, ensuring there is no ice cream visible – it should harden immediately on contact with the cold ice cream.

Return your ice creams to the freezer to set completely. When ready to serve, remove from the freezer and pop the ice creams out of their moulds. Leave for about five minutes to allow them to soften slightly, then you’re good to go.

Serve as they are or with a drizzle of chocolate or caramel sauce. Cheesy romantic references to melting hearts entirely optional.

Dark chocolate cups encasing rich peanut ice cream & studded with peanut butter pieces

If I ask you to describe your most memorable ice cream experience, what immediately springs to mind?

To start off, you might want to put it in context – a European holiday, the lazy heat of a summer’s afternoon, a long queue snaking down the street as you wait patiently for the ice cream van or a stolen after-school treat, still solid from the freezer and stuck to its flimsy paper packaging.

Flavour is likely to come next on the agenda. You might be a plain vanilla kind of person, a die-hard chocoholic, or someone with a preference for all things fruity. The ice cream in question might be smooth and simple, or packed with bits – chocolate, nuts, flakes of this, flecks of that and swirls of sticky sauce.

Smooth dark chocolate with a soft peanut butter centre

The vessel is also an important part of the memory. Licking the jagged edges of an ice cream as it drips from its precarious position atop a cone has always been one of my favourite things about Italian holidays, but you might prefer a cup with its tiny plastic spade for a spoon.  Your experience might involve a single, perfect scoop (David Lebovitz springs to mind), or an enormous sundae bowl with frosted edges, filled with different flavours and topped with scribbles of sauce and cloudy pillows of whipped cream. You most memorable ice cream might even have been unceremoniously stuck on a stick.

All these variables may be unpredictable, but moving on to the taste and texture, the same set of adjectives will inevitably appear; soft and sweet, silky and smooth, rich, creamy and cold. This is ice cream after all; of course cold comes into the equation. But not too cold. You don’t want to experience that rapid constriction and swelling of blood cells that results in the excruciating, if momentary, sensation also known as an ice cream headache. Unless you’re my Mum, who claims never to have had one, citing a wide, low palate as her in-built bodyguard, you’ll have encountered the particularly unpleasant form of pain often referred to as ‘brain freeze’. It’s understandably not very nice, and is unlikely part of your most memorable ice cream eating experience (unless you’re remembering it for all the wrong reasons).

Honeyed peanut ice cream with creamy chunks of peanut butter cup

But what if you could make something so smooth and creamy, so lacking in crystals of ice that it actually felt less cold than a more traditional ice cream?

Enter Jeni Britton Bauer, the incredible alchemist behind possibly some of the best ice cream you will ever eat. Jeni’s self-styled ‘splendid’ ice creams are formulated with scientific accuracy, incorporating small amounts of corn flour to absorb any additional water in the mix, rendering it soft, smooth and – bizarrely – less cold. The overriding experience when eating one of her ice creams is of smooth texture, slow melting butterfat and rich, round flavour; an altogether more gentle – and genteel – experience.

Unfortunately Jeni’s seasonal and signature flavours aren’t available in the UK – she has numerous shops across Ohio and a thriving internet delivery business but is yet to crack our country – but her book of recipes is. After working my way through the Ben & Jerry’s bible and David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, I wanted to try some new techniques and flavours, and Jeni’s book delivers on both. All her ice creams are egg-free, instead incorporating unusual ingredients such as corn flour and cream cheese to achieve the desired texture. Her flavour combinations are unusual and exciting, from those featuring a hint of spice to exotic fruit and vegetables, as well as classics including some of my all-time favourites; chocolate, vanilla, salted caramel and, of course, peanut.

The perfect combination of chocolate and peanuts

The recipe below uses one of Jeni’s ice creams as a base, but also incorporates an adaptation of David Lebovitz’s peanut butter patties, placing the whole concoction in a giant chocolate case for a bit of fun and a play on the classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. It’s rich and nutty, soft and sweet, and studded with pieces of smooth peanut butter patty which contrast wonderfully against the snap and crack of dark, bittersweet chocolate. All these attributes make it an ice cream worthy of any adult palate, but with the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, it’s really just a big kid’s treat masquerading as something more sophisticated.

So grab a spoon, get stuck in and eat as much as you like. I promise it won’t give you a headache (except, perhaps, of the sugar-induced variety).

Honeyed Peanut Ice Cream with Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

For the peanut butter cups
(will make more than you need for the ice cream, but I can’t imagine a few spares are going to go to waste)

Ingredients:

200g smooth peanut butter
50g unsalted butter, softened
50g soft brown sugar
200g icing sugar
300g chocolate (milk or dark, to your preference)

Method:

Line a mini-muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.

In a saucepan, heat the peanut butter, butter and brown sugar over medium heat until completely melted and starting to bubble a little, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and add the icing sugar a little at a time. Stir until completely combined then set aside to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a bain marie. Using a teaspoon, pour a small amount of melted chocolate into the bottom of each lined muffin cup. Pop in the fridge to cool for 10 minutes.

Use a teaspoon to take balls of your peanut butter mixture out the ball. Roll them smooth, then flatten slightly and place one ball in each muffin cup on top of the melted chocolate. Pour more melted chocolate over the peanut butter ball until completely covered with a smooth top, then set aside to cool and harden completely.

For the chocolate cups

Ingredients:

400g tempered chocolate (milk or dark)

Method:

Pour your chocolate into paper muffin cases or silicone muffin moulds, then using a pastry brush, brush it up the sides. Hold them up to the light to check there are no translucent spots, then pop in the fridge to set. After about 20 minutes repeat the process to ensure the chocolate shell is thick enough to withstand breaking.

Set aside until ready to serve.

For the ice cream

Ingredients:

500ml full fat milk
1 tbsp + 1 tsp cornflour
3 tbsp cream cheese
130g crunchy peanut butter (try to use a version with no added sugar or salt)
1/2 tsp fleur de sel (unless using salted peanut butter)
300ml double cream
150g golden caster sugar
1 tbsp agave nectar
2 tbsp runny honey

Method:

In a small bowl, mix two tablespoons of the milk with the cornflour to make a smooth slurry.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, peanut butter and salt until smooth.

Fill a large bowl (or the sink) with ice and water to make an ice bath.

Combine the remaining milk, cream, sugar, agave nectar and honey in a large saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil over a medium-high heat and allow to boil for exactly 4 minutes (set a timer as soon as it starts to boil).

Remove from the heat and slowly whisk in the cornflour mixture, then bring back to the boil over a medium-high heat and cook until slightly thickened, stirring with a heatproof spatula – this should take about 1 minute. Remove from the heat.

Gradually whisk your hot milk mixture into the cream cheese mixture until combined. Set the bowl of mixture in your larger bowl (or sink) of iced water and whisk until cooled – about 15 minutes. You could churn your ice cream now, although I prefer to allow it to chill completely overnight in the fridge.

Once completely chilled, churn in an ice cream maker. When the ice cream is ready, turn into a container folding through chunks of your peanut butter patties as desired.

When the ice cream has firmed up slightly, set your pre-prepared chocolate cups out on a flat worksurface. Using an ice cream scoop, fill your chocolate cups with scoops of the peanut ice cream. Put the filled chocolate cups on a tray and put them back in the freezer.

Remove your ice creams from the freezer about ten minutes before serving to allow them to soften slightly. Enjoy!

Crisp pastry, nutty caramelized custard & soft sweet pears - the perfect dessert

With Christmas just a distant memory and Spring still a fair way off (despite the bizarrely unseasonal arrival of  daffodil or two), it feels like comfort food should be firmly on the foodie agenda. I was therefore excited to discover that over the coming weeks The Guardian will be giving away a series of 36 collectable recipe cards tackling this very subject. With contributions from seven stellar chefs including Yottam Ottolenghi, Angela Hartnett and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the recipes on offer look set to be a little more exciting than your standard soups and stews, promising to inject some serious flavour into the dark, cold evenings ahead.

Velvet smooth dark chocolate ice cream provides the perfect foil for this rich, sweet tart

In this article last week, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall argued against the idea that comfort food is intrinsically heavy, stodgy or carb-laden, suggesting that comfort can as easily be found in a fresh fruit smoothie or clear spiced broth as a rib-sticking stew. What matters most – he explains – is understanding how a dish can satisfy your needs; finding a balance of ingredients in order to delight not just the stomach but the senses too. While I absolutely agree with everything Hugh says – at times the cleanest flavours can be both indulgent and satisfying in their simplicity – I would add an extra element to the equation; the comfort that comes with the preparation of food, as well as with its consumption.

For someone who loves cooking, there’s nothing more satisfying than rolling up your sleeves and getting into the kitchen. And there’s nothing more comforting than the steps and motions required to prepare a dish you love. Making bread is one of my favourite forms of therapy, weighing and sifting, mixing and folding, kneading, shaping and dusting the dough. Custard is another. I love whisking the eggs and sugar into a light, glossy batter, warming the liquid, combining the two then slowly stirring over a flickering flame until the magic occurs and the mixture starts to thicken. Of course the end result when spooned over pies, poured into tarts or frozen as a rich, velvety ice cream is always an incentive, but the process in itself can often be more than enough to bring a smile to my face.

Crisp pastry ready to be filled with a brown butter pecan custard & rum-soaked pears

At the other end of the scale there are the recipes that take you out of your comfort zone, those that require a little more concentration, a hotter pan, a firmer hand or a deeper understanding of technique. Pastry falls into this category for me. While I’ve never had a complete disaster – except for a certain exasperating incident involving an extremely short chocolate pastry which I’m going to choose to ignore – I tend to have at least one wobble at some point during the process; have I over mixed the ingredients, is the dough too thick or thin, will it crumble and crack or burn as it bakes? As delicious as the end result may be, the process – for me – is not something I would call relaxing or comforting.

The recipe below is an attempt to achieve comfort both in baking and in eating, addressing my fear of pastry and embracing my love of custard. It’s light enough to escape Hugh’s category of stodge, but still incredibly indulgent and packed with wintry flavours. The custard is made using dark, sweet rum, crunchy pecans and a rich, nutty beurre noisette, before being poured over syrup-soaked pears. And the tart shell is a revelation – a resilient (but baking to a light and flaky crust) dough that is made (using a stand mixer) in seconds before being pressed straight into the tin with no need for either rolling out or baking blind. Combined, the crisp shell and luxurious filling are sheer bliss, made all the more memorable by the addition of chocolate in ice cream form, the perfect accompaniment for pears.

Spirals of soft pear with crunchy pecan-studded brown butter custard

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned a Jamie Oliver recipe I’d made, an apple, pecan and maple treacle tart. While this pear tart shares similar flavours – soft, sweet fruit, crunchy nuts and sticky syrup notes, it’s an altogether more elegant affair; heavier on the fruit but lighter on the palate, more fitting to be served in a French pâtisserie than as a British pud. And the chocolate ice cream is out of this world. Made with a mixture of 70% dark chocolate and pure unsweetened cacao, it’s incredibly dark and decadent with a chewy, almost mousse-like texture. Because the tart contains custard, I made the ice cream with a mixture of double cream and milk to avoid an egg overload, but it’s still silky smooth and beautifully glossy.

The recipes running in The Guardian over the next couple of weeks should be a wonderful way to survive the winter blues, providing comfort without resorting to classics, and introducing our palates to a gorgeous array of spices, herbs, flavours and textures. My suggestion? Make those recipes for your main course, then try this for dessert. The incredible aroma of rum and browning butter will stimulate your senses, the gently thickening custard make you calm, the oh-so-simple pastry bring a smile to your face and the first incredible mouthful warm your heart.

Almost mousse-like, this is the most decadent chocolate ice cream I've ever eaten

Pear, Pecan & Brown Butter Tart (barely adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz)
(makes one 23cm tart)

For the pastry

Ingredients:

85g unsalted butter, room temperature
50g granulated sugar
1 large free range egg yolk
140g plain flour
Pinch salt

Method:

Beat the butter and sugar at a low speed in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment until just smooth, about one minute. Add the egg yolk and mix for 30 seconds, then add the flour and salt, mixing until the dough just comes together.

Place in the middle of a 23cm tart tin with a removable bottom and use the heel of your hand to press the dough right out to the edges and up the sides. Try to keep the surfaces as smooth as possible. Once the dough is evenly distributed, pop the tart shell in the freezer for one hour.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Get your tart shell out the freezer and prick the base all over. Bake for 7 minutes (no need to line with beads) then give it a check. If the pastry is starting to puff up, push it back gently with a metal spatula, then continue baking for a further 15 to 20 minutes until crisp and golden. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

For the custard

Ingredients:

3 large free range eggs
35g plain flour
150g golden caster sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
45ml dark rum (or alcohol of your choice)
140g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
60g pecans, roughly chopped

Method:

Put all the ingredients except the butter and pecans in a bowl and whisk until combined.

In a large frying pan, warm the butter over a low heat. Let it bubble up, sizzle, then settle down – it should be a beautiful golden colour and smell toasty without being burnt. This is your beurre noisette.

Pour the beurre noisette into your egg mixture, whisking quickly to combine. If there is any sediment at the bottom of the frying pan, try to avoid getting it in the mixture. Pop the bowl in the fridge for around an hour to firm up.

For the pears

Ingredients:

2-3 pears, peeled and sliced approx. half a centimetre thick
20g soft brown sugar
1 tbsp dark rum (or another alcohol if using)

Method:

Toss the pears in a bowl with the sugar and rum. Leave to macerate for fifteen minutes or so.

To prepare the tart:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Lay the pears in your tart shell in concentric circles. Pour the custard over the pears, filling right up to the edges but being careful not to overfill. Don’t worry if you can’t see the pears any more – they will emerge as your tart bakes!

Bake the tart on a baking tray for about 30 minutes, or until beautifully browned. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

For the chocolate ice cream

Ingredients:

560ml double cream
50g cocoa powder
175g golden caster sugar
Pinch salt
100g pure cacao (I used Willie’s 100% Venezuelan Black) , chopped
70g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids), chopped
250 full fat milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Whisk together the cream, cocoa powder, sugar and salt in a large saucepan. Heat the mixture, whisking frequently, until it comes to a rolling boil and starts to foam up. Remove from the heat and whisk in both chocolates until completely melted, then whisk in the milk and vanilla. Blend the mixture in a food processor for 30 seconds until smooth, then chill thoroughly in the fridge before churning and freezing.

To serve the tart:

About 10 minutes before you want to eat, remove the ice cream from the freezer to soften. Set your tart on an upturned tin – this should help to remove the sides. Slide the base carefully off with a knife and put on a serving plate.

Cut the tart into thin slices and serve with a scoop of velvety dark chocolate ice cream or a smidgen of crème fraiche. We ate it on Saturday night with my parents and the last slice was gone by Monday morning, a naughty (but very comforting) breakfast to start the working week.