Pete Fred

I only need the flimsiest of excuses to road test another sticky toffee pudding recipe... On this occasion the excuse was simply the addition of a splash of vinegar to the toffee sauce. I suppose I could've just made the sauce on its own, but where's the fun in that? Here's the recipe. The chef is known for his preserving/foraging/fermenting so it wouldn't surprise me if his vinegar of choice is made from an obscure herb that can only be picked on one weekend a year in a remote part of the enchanted forest. At night. Barefoot. Here, however, he uses Sarson's malt vinegar, which is your bog-standard vinegar that gets splashed on fish and chips in the UK. I am only speculating here, but this addition may be due to the large brown evelope stuffed with cash that Sarson's slid across his office desk. I had neither Sarson's nor nocturnal nonce leaf so used balsamic instead. And... it was good! Just enough sharpness to brighten it up and offset the sweetness a touch. I liked the cake, too; a bit denser than other sponges, with chunks of date for added texture. So overall it was a winner.

I can't believe I only today learned of Ferran Adria's "La tortilla de patatas chips"... I thought it might be a bit gimmicky, but was pleasantly surprised. Obviously it doesn't compare to the real deal, but as a quick 'hack' I thought it delivered. (The late, great Anna N, however, was not impressed).

@ElsieD In the description below the video.

Claire Saffitz's Dirt Bombs (YouTube)... She describes them as a cross between a muffin and a cake donut (hole). They're remarkably light and fluffy, so much so that the first one I dunked in butter disintegrated (hence only five in the bowl). I let the others cool a little more, but they were still fragile. They're nutmeg flavoured, but the cinnamon sugar coating dominates. I could taste the bicarb (baking soda) but that might just be down to the crème fraîche I used (instead of sour cream) not being acidic enough to neutralise. The Dirt Bombs were good. Recommended.

Steamed chocolate pudding (recipe)... The cake was disappointingly dry and crumbly. I didn't have cake crumbs so used breadcrumbs instead, but I doubt that was the issue given it's similar to the one a couple of posts back and by the same chef. Even a lake of custard failed to rescue things, so it must've been poor.

A couple of friends just tried some and liked it a lot. And, to be fair, I was a little more disposed towards it, so I'll probably make it again next time I'm staring at a bottle of maple syrup and wondering what to do.

@ElsieD Nice job. I just rub my moulds inside and out with kitchen paper while they're still hot but handleable. Any bits of crust get scratched off with my thumbnail or a toothpick, but it's minimal. They've never seen water or soap. I only use beeswax now to coat, but I don't remember it being any different when I used 50:50 clarified butter. I can't speak to anything oil-based. The info that came with mine says "To restore the luster of your copper molds, do not hesitate to rub their outer surface with a mixture of flour, egg white and white vinegar." I've never tried it, though.

Maple butter glazed loaf cake by Benjamina Ebuehi (recipe)... Eaten warm, as suggested, it was nicely buttery, but not particularly maple-y. Maybe it'll transform overnight. If not, I can't see there being a revisit..

@TdeV Adapted from a Christophe Felder recipe... Translations for our North American listeners: pâte brisée = pie dough or non-sweetened shortcrust; caster sugar = superfine or regular granulated; cornflour = cornstarch; clingfilm = plastic wrap; oven temperatures are 450°F and 500°F; size-wise, this is for a pie just a touch smaller than 9-inch x 2-inch.

Flan parisien... I go creamy; others prefer firmer. There are no wrong answers when it comes to flan.

NYT Cooking recently featured a cheesy potato gratin... The potatoes weren't particularly large, and the dish was a touch too shallow, so I had leftover cream (halfway up the potatoes, as directed). Next time I'll chuck in some more for extra 'sauce' in the bottom. A meal in itself. That missing wedge is exactly what I ate, and I make no apologies.

Steamed pudding (in the British sense)... Based on this marmalade pudding recipe via Darina Allen, I swapped in Jersey Black Butter (a spiced apple preserve) and Scotch whisky. It was good. The cake was light and moist, without the hassle of whipping up a traditional sponge. I think the one-bowl, breadcrumb thing might become my go-to method for this type of dessert.

Another cookie via bon appétit, this time the Chocolate Chipless Cookie by Shilpa Uskokovic (Tickety-Tok, and possibly paywalled recipe)... Again, a portion of the flour is toasted, but this time in brown butter. For me, this was much more successful because, errrr, butter. I experimented with the thickness and preferred less spread than their version. The chocolate chipless moniker is perhaps a little gimmicky, but as a brown sugar cookie I liked it.

Chocolate Chip Cookies With Olive Oil and Sea Salt by Jesse Szewczyk (Instagram, and possibly paywalled recipe)... They we fine, I guess, but overpromised and underdelivered. I was intrigued by the technique of toasting some of the flour with olive oil, supposedly for a brown butter flavour. It did smell somewhat nutty, but ultimately didn't come through in the finished cookie. Butter is still king. Having said all that, they were better than other vegan chocolate chip cookies I've made, so worth a look if that's your thing.

I had a bunch of egg yolks in search of a purpose so made a big bowl of baked custard from Ottolenghi. Well, it's more burnt custard really, due to the unusual way of making it (here, from last earlier this year). After eating a few spoonfuls I decided such a large quantity was far too dangerous to be within walking distance of, and was wondering what to do with it. A burnt custard tart seemed a reasonable solution... Because I was winging it, there wasn't quite enough of the mix to fill level with the rim for a clean, perfectly flat surface; a good excuse to make even more next time.

I'd never heard of Tate's Bake Shop chocolate chip cookies until Michael Ruhlman mentioned them on his Substack, so I thought I'd try Stella Parks' copy-cat recipe... Mine baked darker than Tate's/Parks', probably because of the dust from using chopped chocolate rather than chips; they also spread more, which might be down to differences in French flour/butter/sugar. I quite liked them: thin, crispy, chocolatey... job done.

It was truly a dark day a couple of years ago when my quince tree succumbed to a strong gust of wind and toppled over. I miss that tree. I was at a friend's the other day and the topic of coings (quinces) came up. She said her deceased neighbour's house was up for sale, and it had a quince tree. The family aren't local so, deciding that nobody would care, we hopped the fence to plunder rescue whatever was there. Sadly, we were mostly too late, with the majority of the fruit too far gone on the ground. But there were a handful where the rot could be cut around and something salvaged. That something turned out to be poached quince... So delicious. I dug out some cake from the freezer and drizzled over a little of the poaching syrup... I really need to replace that tree. In the meantime, here's hoping the house is still for sale this time next year (minus a couple of weeks, of course).

Espresso loaf cake with burnt butter and coffee icing by Diana Henry (recipe)... It was fine, but failed to wow me. I thought the icing was better than the cake, which is the opposite of what @blue_dolphin thought way back on page two (!) of this thread, so don't let me put you off if you like the look of it.

@TdeV The 'recipe', such as it is, was published in the June 2024 issue of Pastry 1 magazine (p118). But all you really need to know is in the two videos I linked to (or here on YouTube). Cut an 18 cm (7-inch) disc of puff pastry. Prick all over with a fork. Peel, core, and halve three or four apples. Slice thinly (1-2 mm). I used a mandolin. Arrange, overlapping, in concentric circles. Brush with (clarified) butter. Sprinkle with sugar (light brown in US). Bake at 180C/350F for around 45 minutes until... it looks nice. Brush lightly with neutral glaze or simple syrup, if you like, for a bit of shine. Tuck in while still warm for peak apple tart.

A friend gave me some of her abundant apples, so I felt a tart coming on... This might have decided for me that a tarte fine aux pommes is the best thing you can do with a handful of apples (sorry, Tarte Tatin). Even with crummy store-bought puff pastry it was epic: a strong apple flavour, the parts where the edges caught the heat, the soft purée where the apples cooked down, the delicate crispness of the pastry. All that was missing was the butteriness of a decent puff. I'll have to revisit this when the weather turns more autumnal and the kitchen cools. (I might have to improve my layering technique to reach the heights of Alex Croquet, though. And with clementine season on the horizon, I'm curious to try his tarte aux clémentines.)

Tarte au riz et aux amandes croustillantes (rice pudding and crunchy almond tart) from an old (errr... 90s) Christine Ferber recipe... Rice pudding is enriched with egg, egg yolk, crème fraîche and butter, then combined with almond cream; the flaked almonds are mixed with egg white and icing sugar and baked until golden and crunchy. It was fine but another one that's less than the sum of its parts. I'd have preferred the rice pudding on its own with an almond cake chaser, to be honest.

I rarely eat pasta but have recently been on a cacio e pepe trip after noticing that my local supermarket started carrying the bronze die pasta that @weinoo mentioned, with its starch enhancing benefits. A couple of Serious Eats articles I read are nothing new-new, but speak to this subject. And re-reading them just now, I'm curious to give the pre-soaking method a go. (The original Ideas in Food blog is now closed, but 1-minute pasta is discussed here, as well as a couple of other hacks.)

Possibly the buzziest pub restaurant in London at the moment is The Devonshire. I heard the chef owner on a podcast mention the sticky toffee pudding, and was curious to give it a go (recipe here)... Oops, forgot its bonnet... I wasn't sure what to make of the texture; very light and moist, and not really like a traditional STP sponge. I thought it was operator error on my part - the batter didn't look right - but I found a couple of instances online where you get a decent look at the crumb, and mine doesn't look too dissimilar, so maybe that's how it's supposed to be. I still can't decide if it's actually great, or just a bit weird. (Interestingly, a Tom Kerridge recipe I made a couple of years ago is remarkably similar but employs a different procedure and baking method, as well as having a bit less liquid and using suet as the fat rather than butter.) The toffee sauce was good, the gelatine giving it a really nice gloss and body. Purely for illustrative purposes I mocked up another plate but didn't eat it, obviously...

Lemon polenta cake... I forgot the baking powder but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. I like dense almond cakes drenched in syrup anyway, so this was a happy accident. I make this fairly regularly whenever life gives me lemons. It's a Nigella Lawson recipe, but I think she just added a soaking syrup to The River Cafe's version, and they got it from any one of a thousand nonnas back in the old country.

All purpose flour: ½ cup + 1 tablespoon + 1¼ teaspoons Oui, chef! Also, don't forget you can dilute 10⁄11 of a shaftment of fresh yeast in 1⁄32 of a pottle of water if you don't have instant yeast.