lapin d'or

andiesenji, the recipe you mention that required muffing rings was possible closer to a staffordshire oatcake than your current oatcake recipe. The linked recipe above is for scottish oatcakes which are more like a dry biscuit/cracker whereas the staffordhire oatcake is more like a pancake. Can anyone tell me how Derbyshire oatcakes differ from staffordshire oatcakes? lapin

My first attempt at a water based ganache was a coffee flavour for which I used Trablit coffee extract and some brandy but for the oil I used walnut oil which gave it quite a distinct taste that complemented the coffee. I would try this again with an oil that had a less toasted flavour as the slightly burnt nut flavour was the one that was left on your palette, where I wanted to have the coffee/chocolate flavour dominate. Lapin

Another home cooks book on sauces that I have is the Sauces volume from the The Good Cook Series, Time Life. ISBN 7054 0613X. This has a more international selection of recipes but also more detailed notes/pictures on the preparation of stocks and reductions. I think books from this series can often be found for about £5 from second hand book sellers. It would be worth a look. Lapin

More info on Roux Sauces: This is very much a home cooks book, not heavy french classical but traditional none the less. No foams. Each recipe has serving suggestions at the start. Good basic book but not anything like a 'bible'. 175 pages with lots of pictures. Chapter Headings with info on some of the recipes in each: Intro - advice, equipment (nothing more complex than a bain marie) Stocks -(veal, chicken, lamb, game, fish, vegetable, cooked marinade) no fancy clarifications with egg whites or trendy bags, just a fine sieve. Liaisons & Instant Sauces -(use of egg yolk, starches, cream, blood, breadcrumbs, butter, beurre manie, roux, vinaigrettes) then example recipes ie thai vinaigrette with lemongrass, crustacean oil, pistou sauce Flavoured Butters & Vegetable Coulis - classics such as anchovy, maitre d'hotel .., range of vegetable coulis, tomato, morel, parsley Sauces & Chutneys for Terrines, Pates & Game - port sauce, apple, poivrade, pumpkin, venison & blackberry, peach chutney Sauces for fish - Nantua, champagne, Americaine, Thermidor, Mango, Curried Mussel, Mandarin, Matelote, raspberry scented oyster sauce Emulsion Sauces - mayonniase, gabriche, aioli, tartare, hollandiase, beurre blanc, White Sauces - bechamel, coconut & chilli pepper, aurora, bread sauce, parsley, sorrel, soubise, mornay Brown Sauces - Chasseur, Periguex, Orange, Bologniase, Chicken sauce with curacao, curry sauce which is mainly fruit, onion, curry powder & coconut and almost deliaesque Dessert Sauces - stock syrup, orange butter, creme anglais, liquorice, prune & armagnac, caramel, chocolate, If you are only going to buy one book then this is perhaps not the one as there are clearly more comprehensive ones out there but if you want a primer this is pretty good.

I have had this book for a while, bought it at a book promotion attended by Michel Roux who was very charming. I would guess this is far less comprehensive than the others mentioned above, none of which I have seen, but it is a good book for basic and classical sauces with a few other thrown in such as chutneys and flavoured oils. The layout of the recipes is easy to follow and the photographs are helpful and inspiring. You will not find any unusual ingredients and I think the hardest thing for me to get hold of would be veal bones for the stock. Very happy to provide more detail if you have specific questions about what recipes it contains. Lapin

I don't know if you will still have elderflowers around but if so you could serve elderflower fritters with roasted gooseberries and thick greek yogurt.

I had the bargain lunch at No 6 yesterday and we were looked after extremely well. They were not very busy which is a pity but the weather was bright and sunny so perhaps a lot of visitors had headed for the beach. The bargain menu was £5 a course or 3 courses for £13.50 with a choice of 2 dishes for each course. I had an excellent starter and dessert and the main course was fine, just not memorable; but at these prices it was some of the best value food I have had all summer. The staff were incredibly polite even when a table of four who were only ordering a £5 main course each and water (no wine, no coffee) got sniffy about the choices on the bargain menu. The staff were also extremely courteous when the wonderous uk banking system would not accept somebodies card without a phone call and much questioning. We went for a nice walk along the Camel Trail afterwards which was a lot quieter than walking around Padstow. It is about a 1hour 40 mintes drive for us but well worth the day trip on a bright day. Hope to go back soon Lapin

"For 12 oz of dark chocolate...54%...it's all I have at this point...I used 1 tablespoon of pepper corns and then ground them. I could have used more I think. Next time..." Many thanks Darienne, I will give it a go

I am so pleased you have tried and liked this. As soon as I read your post about the orange szechwan ice-cream I started thinking about doing these flavours in a ganache and wondering wehther to go white chocolate or dark. I have the Recchuiti book so I will try and work with the recipe you mentioned. How much pepper did you use in the ganache? many thanks Lapin

I have been using my heated propagator to keep my moulds warm. It has worked quite well and was only ever used for seedlings for a few weeks in spring so now I feel I get much better value from it. example : small propagator I put a blanket over the top to keep the heat in well and shuffle the moulds around a few times while they are heating. I am not happy with my attempts at layering chocolate - I did this for some large easter moulds but when you bite into the chocolate the layers shear apart and it just doesn't seem rigth. Lapin

Totally agree, Eden Project was a huge disappointment but we spent hours at Heligan and loved every minute. Lapin

I would assume the B is Baume, according to Wybauw a syrup of 30B is about 45% water. Perhaps they want you to add lemon juice to the 30B syrup until the measurement comes down to 18 Baume.

We ate at the Fowey restaurant two nights ago and I am pretty sure I saw Nathan in the kitchen. The meal was excellent, many of the dishes we ate have already been described upthread so I cannot add much other than to say I will go back as soon as a good excuse can be found. We stayed in the hotel and had a lovely estuary view from the room. It was as enjoyable as Gidleigh Park and less formal which I prefer.

I thought tonight was very dull, I guess a boiled egg is no more exciting on paper than toasted cheese but I thought last weeks guys were far more inventive, far more humour. I will be eating at Nathan's in a couple of weeks and am really looking forward to it.

I agree with pastrymama, mascarpone cheese is very very close to clotted cream/devonshire cream. I live in Devon and have never had the cream served sweetened or with vanilla added when served as part of a traditional cream tea with scones. Lapin

There have been some recent answers to this question in this post link

Yes, Amy's eggs with yolks made me smile and I love the look of Kim's jelly belly bark, so colourful.

I bought some bunny moulds on ebay this year and have made a few to sell and have given some to family too. This is my home Easter dispay with the medium size bunny. They all gave me problems with dull spots in places and cracking. They were behaving quite well until I took orders and then they really starting to play up; I should have waited until I knew it was not beginners luck. But it has been lots of fun. I quite like playing with moulded chocolate, at least you can melt it all back down again if it goes wrong. Happy holidays everyone Lapin

The recipes in Greweling's book are also given in percentages and are very easy to scale back to a quantity that is practical for you. I have done many of his formulas in batches that are a quarter or less than the original. So always check the total volume and decide if you want that much before doing the recipe as it stands. Try to buy wholesale but check use by dates with them. If you don't you can find yourself with chocolate that is use by the next month. regards Lapin

Valentine Warner has had a cookery series on TV, ' What to Eat Now', and written a pretty good book to go with it. I would take any recommendation by him seriously.

I have not made this myself but a recipe I have from Chocolate by Sara Jayne Stanes gives a ratio of 4tbs of liquid glucose to 225g dark chocolate. To warm it in the microwave you could try chopping it up with a knife into smaller pieces, microwave briefly and then knead it all back into a ball. cheers Lapin

Hi Darienne, The 'Art of Sugarcraft' series was published in the UK in the mid 1980's and you can often pick them up here second hand, so you might find that a chepaer way of getting the full set. I bought the Sugar Flowers volume 20 years back when I was trying to decorate my wedding cake and it was very helpful to a beginner. More recently I bought Chocolate, quite cheaply from an Amazon seller and that book has some really cute ideas for moulding and decorating with chocolate. regards Lapin

I had a good crab soup at a pub in Craster once. The tree house at Alnwick gardens was lots of fun when I was last there a few years back (no kids necessary) and we have had some good food there too, for lunches and teas. lapin

Although I have yet to cook from it I have a copy of Sweet Sicily, The Story of an Island and Her Pastries by Victoria Granof and this has a number of almond pastry recipes in it. I could not see any that used apricot kernals but I think they are used to add a bitter almond flavour to the marzipan. lapin

This may not help but in the UK the only Valrhona range that was packed in 20kg bags (to my knowledge) was labelled tropilia. They did a tropilia noir in 53% and 70% and tropilia lactee in 29%. I have not used it. They seem to have changed their web site, not for the better. lapin