lapin d'or

The recipes I have in my older baking books are all made with a mixture of butter and lard (or just lard), and minimal or no sugar. One describes the dough as similar to a croissant but a different shape. The proportion of fat to flour is high in all of the recipes I could find.

This summer I had a very good Spanish tapas meal at Iberico, which is quite central and relaxed.

Here is another review of top 10 afternoon teas in London, just published by Hardens http://www.hardens.com/uk-london/16-12-2016/top-10-london-afternoon-teas-2017/?inf_contact_key=1312a1be7b8272006422f35c4507baf882af01f93cb2c9bb51b4d077d3fe1c5a. There is a tea academy in London, but I cannot see any 1 day courses just the longer ones http://www.ukteaacademy.co.uk/

This recent article has some ideas for afternoon tea in London http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/Londons-ten-best-afternoon-teas/ Hope you enjoy your stay in London

Diana I saw that promotion but thought the best by dates on the product info looked very short. Do you know typically how long the dates are on the Valrhona chocolate that Vent Privee supply? I do keep dark chocolate well beyond the manufactuer's best dates but I am not selling my products. I have far less confidence in white chocolate keeping well over a long time but I guess I could freeze it.

All of my scone recipes call for cold milk, and to keep all of the ingredients as cool as possible.

Let me know if I can help, pretty sure this is just a silicone mould, not polycarbonate.

Hi, Could you tell me what the butterfat percentage/content would be for the cream you use in this recipe? In the UK the fat content of creams available ie single, whipping and double are very different. Thanks Jill

Hi Lee Re food culture and history you could do a lot worse than take a look at the proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery. The volumes are available for free download from their site http://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/proceedings/downloads/. Good luck with your course.

John, I use self raising flour most times but if I am working with plain flour I would add baking powder; This ratio is taken from the Nigella Lawson website: Just add 2 teaspoons of baking powder for each 150g/6oz/1 cup plain flour. Many VS recipes use self raising and some baking powder but if the SR flour is fresh it should have enough raising agent in it in my view.

I made this Victoria sandwich cake with apricot jam and custard filling for a recent twitter Sunday bake-off @SundayBakeClub I use a stand mixer to cream the butter and sugar, arms getting old now! I always weigh the eggs and then use that weight in flour, sugar and butter. This book http://www.louisejohncox.com/book.htm published earlier this year in the UK has a lot of recipes for old fashioned UK cakes and lovely stories about the bakery they come from.

A little Drambuie drizzled over hot porridge is delicious. Makes a very special Sunday breakfast.

Basic crepes served with mango chunks that had been sizzled in a pan with maple butter. Good way to use an unripe mango.

Chocolate Fig cake from William Curley's book 'Couture Chocolate'. The cake has a mousse like texture almost and contains chopped figs that have been soaked overnight in a spiced red wine syrup. The recipes garnishes the mini loaves with hazelnuts but I only had pecans. The recipe seemed complicated but the result was good.

For dessert a rhubarb and strawberry fool with crushed pink praline garnish