lapin d'or

Elderberry is a fruiting tree that produces clusters of tiny black berries that make a good jelly to serve with game. The flowers are used to make a cordial as well as fritters. I have also seen elderberry juice recommended to treat flu. I believe Queen Anne's Lace is the name for wild carrot, at least in England that name is used. I think they flower at the same time.

I have purchased cocoa butter colouring compounds in the UK from HB Ingredients but you have to buy quite large amounts (Vantage House sell the same products I believe). I would be very happy to send you some small samples of the red, yellow and blue colour powders (Deco Relief brand) that I have so you can see what you would be getting. I have not used them a lot yet but they were quite easy to work with. The home chocolate factory link sell much smaller volumes of colouring powders but these are relatively expensive for the weight you get. It all depends on how much you are going to need. As Kerry warned in another post, mixing a good green is very difficult, so you may prefer to get your colours pre-made rather than trying to mix them from prime colours yourself. Good Luck

I have ordered sosa products through wild harvest recently and they provided a very good mail order service.

My current favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe somes from a RuthWells post on egullet: CLINK I have made this a couple of times recently and it has been very good. I like the fact that it uses so much chocolate and I do not add nuts just extra chocolate chunks. This is a great way of using up chocolate that has become a bit thick from taking on moisture in my kitchen while making chocolates. I just pour the chocolate out onto parchment lined baking sheets and chop in into chunks when almost set. These cookies have been good from the freezer too, I just warm them a little in the oven. Not too sweet, particularly if you use a darker chocolate. I'm looking forward to trying some other egullet recipes but this is a firm favourite.

Lindacakes, I live in rural Devon in the UK. I buy quite a lot of my stuff mail order but local healthfood shops sometimes come up with good stuff which was how I bought the candied melon. I think there are many variations on the ice-cream, and one book I have soaks the candied fruit in maraschino liqueur but here is a link for general idea of how it goes tutti frutti recipe. I think you can get away with stirring your own marinated fruit mix into a good plain bought vanilla ice-cream (not too sweet). This was much more popular when I was a child, I rarely see it now. Time for a revival!

I have just bought some candied cantaloupe melon to use chopped up in a nougat recipe along with toasted nuts. The flavour is quite fruity, texture not chewy, so I hope it will work well. I didn't want to use glace cherries as I cannot get good ones easily. I was also thinking of putting some candied melon in gingerbread muffins but the melon flavour might get a little drowned as I tend to make these quite spicy. I would use the angelica along with a mix of other chopped candied fruits in tutti frutti ice-cream. Haven't had that for ages! Jill

I have noticed on a commercial bag of liquorice that they use glycerin as a moisture retainer and no gelatin. I am still confused about the difference between black treacle and molasses - they taste very similar to me but you see them both being put into liquorice sweets. Thanks Kerry/Vanessa for the blood pressure warnings - moderation called for. I tend not to eat salty liquorice so that must help a bit. Jill

The health food shops in the UK often sell whole dried liquorice roots which could be used to make your own extract and it is fairly easy to get powdered root from mail order health suppliers here too. I had always assumed it was very hard to make your own liquourice sweets as none of my books have recipes. I am really keen to try it now as I love it. I am not sure if it is exactly the same species but it appears in chinese medicine a lot so I just tell myself it is doing me good and eat lots. Jill

Thanks for the answer JudyB, I hope it gets better as it goes along. Jill

I did not see the start of this new series so can anyone tell me if the french are doing the same sort of televised regional heats. If they are I wish we could see those instead. Jenny Bond is really starting to grate and you cannot even watch a 30 minute programme without getting a load of repeat shots and one liners - just how difficult is it to fill 30 minutes? Jill

I have frozen chocolates a couple of times now and have been fairly happy with the result. I have only done this for stuff to eat at home when I have made too much to eat. I may have lost a little bit of shine but I'm not that good yet that you would notice and I have done very little with coloured/painted shells so no experience of freezing those. I pack up a small selection of different ones in each bag so I can take out a whole bag at a time. I do not have a vaccum pump so I carefully wrap in soft kitchen paper and then double wrap in plastic. As noted above they get put in the fridge to cool before freezing and then when they come out again straight into the fridge for a day and then left in the bag on the counter for a day before opening. I am hoping this freezing process will help me do some taste comparisons later on so I can see if I like the same recipe with one chocolate more than another. I am hopeless at remembering how something tasted even a few days back. The fillings I have frozen include ganache, fondant and marzipan. I have not tried any caramel or fruit jelly based stuff. Jill

I have been using one of those for a few weeks now and it has helped a lot. I bought mine from a UK catering firm where it was described as a cheese knife. I am only working with small batches but you could cut quite a big slab with mine if you needed to. Jill

That is a such a shame. I hate wasting stuff. I am going to try one of the nougat recipes next - I will try and watch the mixture carefully so I get it tipped out before it sets up solid. I did the condensed milk soft caramel recipe at Easter and it was a bit too soft but I think I took it off the heat a bit too soon. I do not like hard caramel so I was a bit hesitant. The caramel tasted good but I had to double dip the pieces to get them completely covered. Little bits of caramel started oozing out of the first shell. Very scary looking. Jill

Do the health food stores not carry them? I cannot think of any substitutes that are going to be any easier to find, and most other flaked ceareals are harder than oats - too crunchy. If I were desperate I would start looking at packets of unsweetened very plain muslei they can have a high proportion of oats. Jill

Hi curiousone, I think if you take any sweet fruited bread recipe and add mixed spices and some citrus flavour (candied orange peel if you can get it) you will be very close. There are hot cross bun recipes on the internet but I do not have a favourite recipe to recommend. Try looking at recipe link and search for hot cross buns. Pannetonne from my experience has the fruity citrus flavours but no spices and I can only buy those near Christmas. I can buy plain fruited buns all year round and I sometimes split them, toast, butter and dust with cinnamon sugar - I quick spiced bun fix. Jill

Teagal, I think the spice mix you used should have been fine. When I make up my own mixed spice powder I usually add some allspice (jamaican pepper). I think the commercial blends can have pepper and coriander in them but if I followed a recipe I would use one from Elizabeth David's Yeast cookery: 2 parts freshly ground nutmeg 2 parts ground allspice 1 part ground cinnamon 1 part ground clove 1 part ground ginger root I like mace in Easter baking so would substitute some of the nutmeg for mace. Jill

Portia, your hot cross buns look really tasty. So good when baking turns outs right the first time, and bread smells so divine when you are baking that it all seems worth the effort. I can eat far too many when they are still warm from the oven. I love the knitted companions - did you make those too? Happy Easter Jill

My favourite simnel cake recipe is Darina Allen's - this was posted on the school's website a while ago - link here simnel cake recipe and scroll down a bit to get to the easter recipes. I think the important thing is to use a marzipan with 50% almonds, if you marzipan with a very high sugar content it can become quite indistinct in the middle of the cake once baked. I like the addition of irish whiskey but it still tastes good without it. Jill

I am afraid I was not organised enough to have home made buns ready for breakfast but I have just put mine in the oven and they should be ready for afternoon tea - outside in the sunshine this lovely sunny day. I have been a bit lazy and not attempted the crosses - just glazed and sprinkled with a few sugar crystals so no good for a purest but they are packed with warm spices and dried fruit so if all goes well they will taste good. I have tried many recipes over the years and never found a favourite so we continue to get different ones each year. I like mine with a lot of spice and in particular dried mace in the spice mix. Look forward to hearing how yours came out Jill

Those springerle mould decorations are fantastic - another excuse for buying more moulds. I was wondering how I could do my easter themed brownies many thanks Jill

Nigella's brownie recipe is my favourite too and it has always been very popular when I have taken a batch in to work. The recipe does call for a lot of chocolate but it is very easy to make and every time I've made them they turned out really well. I have quite a lot of oddments of chocolate leftover form confectionery making right now so it could be time to make some more brownies. Jill

I was looking for something really easy to do at the weekend so I made the 'Mint Meltaways'. This recipe was incredibly simple as you did not need to temper the chocolate you just melted it and added melted coconut fat and the mint oil. I used half plain (60% cocoa) and half milk chocolate but would use a bit more plain next time. The mixture is worked for a little on a marble slab and then framed once it is cool. The mixture is then cut up and the pieces dusted with icing sugar. This is quite a rich mixture with 23 percent coconut fat but I really liked the melting texture and am keen to try it with a few different oils like lime and cardamon. Having the recipes in percentages makes it so easy to scale down as I did for this one as I only wanted a few pieces not 48 oz. I think it is a lovely to book to work with - very clear layout. Jill

I think Dan has just answered the question I was about to ask re mixing cocoa butter colourings - wasn't sure if you could but looks like it should work ok. I am about to buy some powdered colourings but to keep costs down I was thinking surely you can mix a lot of colours from a basic palette. You don't need to buy every colour as ready made? How easy is it to mix the powdered colours or am I pushing my luck as a complete beginner with them? I am going to need some shades of yellow, green, peach and a raspberry colour. It seems a shame to buy 100g tubs of these individually. Dan I love the way you have customised your boxes. Jill

I made my first marshmallows last night and as it was valentine's eve I chose raspberry and rose flavouring. The raspberry puree was made with some freeze-dried raspberries I have just had delivered and the rose from a very strongly scented rose syrup. This flavour combination worked very well and produced a nice soft pink colour but a very strong flavour. I ended up with quite a sticky mixture so cutting up was a lot of fun - no hope of using my heart shaped cutter. Anyway they went down very well at work with lots of people asking how I made them. Thank you nightscotsman for the recipe - I shall be using it a lot. Jill

Liz Seeber has an excellent book list, I have bought from her in the past and I am sure she ships worldwide. She is happy for you to give her a 'wanted list'. Jill