Moroccan-style rainbow chard pie
Rainbow chard and Swiss chard are interchangeable in recipes, but the rainbow variety is prettier. Picture gorgeous jewel-coloured vegetation, with beautiful pink, orange, yellow and red stalks and big crinkled ... Read More
Spiced poached pears with Christmas pudding ice cream
Last week I took the daring step of taking all the half-opened bottles of red wine out of my wine rack. There were seven. It’s probably a good thing wine ... Read More
Spiced sticky date, pecan and coffee cake
This is, essentially, sticky toffee pudding in cake form. All of that gorgeous treacly, butterscotch flavour, with crunchy sugary dates and a gentle undercurrent of warm spice, but much less ... Read More
White chocolate, raspberry, pistachio and cardamom blondies
That basic combination of butter, sugar and chocolate appears in so many permutations, but it probably beats any other for sheer gastronomic satisfaction. Sure, dairy is nice – a lovely ... Read More
Strawberry, citrus and pistachio polenta cake (gluten free)
I was always taught, by cookbooks and various culinary TV shows, never to cook a strawberry. You should never freeze them either; something about their high water content means they ... Read More
Spiced apple bundt cake with ginger icing
Apple puree is a very versatile thing to have in your kitchen. Made by simmering peeled, cored, chopped cooking apples with a little water until they turn to mush, and ... Read More
Rhubarb and Ginger Brack
There’s something intensely comforting about a tea loaf. It’s solid and robust, a good, proper, old-fashioned cake. It often has a lovely crunchy crust around the outside, while the inside ... Read More
Festive Gift Wrapping Ideas
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas which means you’ll soon be preparing gifts for your loved ones. Once you’ve found the perfect present it’s time to get wrapping! ... Read More
Cacao or Cocoa: What’s the difference?
Chocolate is healthy – right? Not quite, but like most ingredients, how you process them makes a huge difference to their benefits (or indeed their disadvantages). That’s definitely the case ... Read More
The beautiful benefits of Star Anise
Thanks to its distinctive taste and aroma, star anise is often used in rich and delicious dishes and is an important ingredient in the well-known spice blend Chinese 5 Spice, ... Read More
Bee pollen: The latest superfood trend
Considered one of nature’s most nourishing foods, bee pollen is creating quite a buzz around the world. Even celebrities, such as Victoria Beckham, are raving about the multitude of benefits ... Read More
Long Peppers: The forgotten spice
Long peppers, Piper longnum, are the fruits of an aromatic, perennial climbing plant native to India and South Asia and now found cultivated in Indonesia and Thailand. It’s a spice ... Read More