Pete Fred

A fruitcake from Raymond Blanc... This contained raisins, cranberries and sour cherries. The batter was made by the reverse creaming method and produced quite a crumbly texture that reminded me of a Gateau Basque. It was good. For anyone who's seen Raymond's television series and remembers "Adaaaam!", there's a cute story to go with the cake... "Once upon a time there was a Cornish woman who loved to cook. Lilian Gladys Johnson was her name. She baked lots of cakes, and one of her favourites was a fruitcake. She called it her 'cut and come again cake', and it sat on a table, but not for long because her family helped themselves, cutting a slice ... and coming again, for another slice, or a pinch of moist crumbs. Well, with all that baking she was lucky to have a helper, her little grandson Adam. It was there, in the kitchen with his grandmother - and with his mother - that young Adam discovered a real enthusiasm for cooking. He grew up to become a chef. The story is sweeter still because I am proud to call Adam Johnson my protégé. I am also honoured to share that recipe for his grandmother's cut and come again cake."

I took a Beetroot and Ginger Cake (Ottolenghi) to a small gathering... It's pretty similar to carrot cake but makes a nice change. You can't really tell from the lighting but the colour of the beetroot is quite vibrant (due to adding vitamin C powder to the batter).

I do not, unfortunately. But I doubt it's anything too fancy. Possibly just a light caramel deglazed with cream, then Poire William liqueur and/or the pear roasting juices mixed in. Something like this, maybe, but sadly no photo.

I saw this ginger cake with pear caramel the other day and thought it looked good. From a Michelin starred restaurant, so feel free to award yourself one if you pull it off.

@ElsieD I don't see why not. Any nut butter would work, I guess. I've never done it myself with this recipe, but have swapped peanut butter successfully for tahini in hummus. @TdeV I increased the tahini to 100g (mine is the dark type). The mix-in were: 125g dates/prunes/dried figs; 50g raisins/dried cranberries; 100g walnuts; 40g dessicated coconut; 50g seeds (sesame, sunflower, pumpkin). I prefer a chewier flapjack so use 225g oats and keep the dried fruit and nuts chunky for a variety of texture. And salt! Double the recipe for a 9 x 13-inch tin.

This jar of tahini won't eat itself so I returned to an old favourite: Halva flapjacks (oat bars)... It's based on a Dan Lepard recipe, but I increase the tahini and stuff it with add-ins, in this instance: dates, figs, prunes, cranberries, raisins, walnuts, coconut, and seeds (sesame, sunflower and pumpkin). They keep well, and if you squint hard enough are almost healthy.

Yup, a dozen 55g (2 oz) cookies. And when is it not a good idea to double a recipe!? 😉

That's the one (although I only had non-jumbo oats and I threw in a few more dates). I rolled 55g of cookie dough into balls. For the thicker ones I flattened them into Ø 6 cm discs and baked at 180C. For the thinner ones I flattened them into Ø 7 cm discs and baked at 160C. They don't spread much. Thanks for the Lebovitz cookies. I shall add them to my adventures in tahini. 🙂

Now that I have a pot a tahini to use up, I took the opportunity to make some tahini and date cookies by Benjamina Ebuehi that had been on my to-do list for a while... They were good, with a nice chew and a pleasant halva flavour. Simple to make and vegan, too, if that's your thing. A couple of adjustments for larger, thinner cookies... But overall I preferred the thicker ones.

Update: I gave some to a colleague who loved it, and her husband said it’s the best cake he’s ever eaten. To be fair, neither knew what tahini was before I told them (!) so they may have simply been dazzled by the novelty, but just goes to show…

It's a pleasant cake, just not quite what I was expecting. The fudginess is partly down to immediately inverting the cake to flatten it. There was a bit of dome so I think I would reduce the leavening next time, or maybe just level it with a knife. The topping is lovely, and the white chocolate chunks in the batter caramelize on the base of the tin... It's very easy to make and something a bit different for a curious baker. Recipe here.

Tahini Cake with Lemon and White Chocolate from Honey & Co at Home... I'm usually a fan of Honey & Co creations but this was a bit of a mixed bag. The topping was delightful (mascarpone, cream cheese, cream, sugar, vanilla, rum). I could've (and did've) eaten it by the spoonful. I was less convinced by the cake, though. It was a little too fudgy and I doubt I would've known it was tahini if I hadn't poured it in myself (the recipe they riffed on was originally peanut butter so perhaps that works better). It was certainly different. Maybe it'll grow on me. Dunno. 🤷‍♂️

Rose Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookie by Thalia Ho... The rose didn't really come through. It might be the brand of rosewater, but I'd definitely have to up it if I bothered again (although it's tricky to judge the balance between 'a hint of' and full-on skin toner).

How to turn stale cake into Danish truffles. (A pinch of salt and a generous hand with the jam and booze won't do you any harm either. 😉)

Romkugler (Danish rum balls)... Blitz together old cake or Danish pastries, oats, jam, rum and cocoa. Roll in coconut or cocoa powder. In this instance I used walnut cake, cherry liqueur and some syrup from a jar of sour cherries. The texture, despite appearances, is actually quite smooth and truffle-y. Pleasant.

For almost everything that calls for ground almonds I just buy a bag of the stuff made from blanched almonds. Very occasionally I might make my own if something a little more rubble-y might be nice (there's a Tarta de Santiago and a couple of almond tarts that I do it for). I probably should experiment a little more with unblanched or roasted as I often read about the benefits of leaving the skins on and blitzing your own. The handful of times I've bothered, though, I'm not sure it was worth it; but that may be down to the quality of the supermarket nuts I have access to <shakes head ruefully>.

From "Casablanca: My Moroccan Food" by Nargissa Benkabbou, Rose and Almond Ghriba... These are quite soft and cakey. No fuss, just make a paste from almonds, sugar, butter, baking powder, egg, rosewater. Simple. Quite nice.

Lidl occasionally have Amarena cherries in syrup. I usually buy half a dozen jars. So good.

OK, I may have finally run out of things to do with egg whites (for the time being 🤥). I was curious what Œufs à la Neige/Îles flottantes/Floating Islands would be like with the meringue cooked in the microwave. Turns out it works rather well. Who knew?!. I didn't have any flaked almonds to hand otherwise I would have toasted a few and strewn them atop. The one on the left was drizzled with a traditional dry caramel, but I find that too crunchy and tooth-bothering, so the other was squirted with a tube of salted butter caramel. Both islands floated on shop-bought crème anglaise. Do not judge me. The last couple of whites were used up in a dozen sour cherry amaretti from an Ottolenghi recipe...

Nah. Just a hobby. Too much free time! 🙂

Still working my way through a freezer drawer of egg whites. This is a Macaroné du Poitou... Fancy name but it's pretty much just a big slab of amaretti or a giant almond macaroon, consisting of ground almonds, sugar and egg whites. Simple and tasty.

I was very taken with the Paul A Young brownie from last week. In fact they're so good I made some more... This was baked a little longer (pulled at 82C) for a firmer set. The wet-look is more an artefact of dipping the knife in hot water. There is a recipe and a video of him making them on daytime telly. (Or on YouTube if that won't play in your location.)

No update for a few months. I hope this is down to the OP finally living their best life in canelé paradise, rather than descending into madness. Anyway, this deep dive was in my feed today. I'm not sure that it generates more light than heat, but somewhere in there might be the key that unlocks the puzzle for @JeffGCor anybody else who's struggling with this little pastry.

They're Dorie's Moroccan Semolina and Almond Cookies. She writes of them... It was a picture in a French magazine that won my heart and set me to dreaming about what these cookies would be like. In the picture, the sugar-coated cookies were cracked — I later learned that in Morocco the cracks are often called smiles — and you could see the slightly rough crumb in the crevices. I couldn’t tell if the cookies, sometimes called ghrieba, sometimes ghoriba, would be airy or substantial, but I was betting on a shortbread-like texture, and I was right. I was also betting on a certain very agreeable graininess because of the semolina. Semolina falls somewhere on the texture continuum between whole wheat our and cornmeal; it’s golden and it’s high-gluten, which is why it’s the flour of choice for pasta. In a cookie, it provides a bit of bite and a slight grit, the kind of presence the French would call sablé, or sandy. And then there’s the almond flour, for flavor, of course, but it also adds another mysterious layer to the cookie’s surprising elegance.

I took some Semolina Almond Cookies (Dorie Greenspan) round to a friend's... I had a feeling I'd posted them here a few years back, and when I checked I was a little surprised to read that I didn't particularly rate them at the time. 🤯 Not sure why. I've made them several times since and think they're delightful. I can only think they must've been better the next day and I didn't bother to follow up.