September Granola

I've always been fascinated with the idea of looking at food as a culture and how, in looking at it that way, you can take inspiration from different regions, diets or even time scales in the case of British Nostalgia baking. Last year, my big favourite was South East Asian food. I still look to the styles of cooking there a lot now, by creating a nutritious Chinese-style stir fry, or picking up some sushi for lunch in town.

At the moment, I am really interested in 'health foods' -raw, vegan and even Paleo. These are focused on eating healthily, naturally and simply. Because of this, they can often be seen as restrictive, which is why I wouldn't look to eating in any of these ways exclusively. This last month, I've been eating as a pescatarian, which I will be blogging about very soon. This, in comparison, was a very relaxed diet as I could eat everything but land meat, and there were times, say when travelling across country to the Bird Fair when finding lunch was pretty damn hard. However, I really love how choosing to eat in this more natural way causes you to be a much more creative chef. Juices are obviously a big one for this, being totally natural, raw and plant based. At York Station's Filmore and Union, they make the most delicious juices, and I am starting to look into getting one of my own.

So when I found out that Belle Gibson who I follow on Instagram, was launching a new app, The Whole Pantry, I was pretty stoked. The app features wholefood recipes and 'Lifestyle and Wellness guides'. It is especially good for anyone looking for healthier snacks, and all the recipes, I believe, are vegetarian and gluten free.

When yesterday, I decided to stock up on a breakfast staple of mine -granola -I looked to The Whole Pantry for ideas. Belle's recipe didn't include any oats at all, which I though was an impressive use of ingredients. My granola ended up quite different due to the ingredients that I had to hand, but I loved some of the methods and flavours in this. The use of coconut oil rather than butter or sunflower oil is one that I will be using all the time now, and having a splash of vanilla essence gave my mix a floral undertone that made me think of the scents of late summer. You can play around with this as much as you like too; just stick roughly to the ratios of dry to wet ingredients for optimum results. I've used cup measurements for this, as it seemed to be much easier for the recipe.

September Granola

• Two cups of rolled oats OR flaked coconut.
• 1-1.5 cups of mixed seeds. I used pumpkin, sunflower and sesame.
• 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts such as pecan, almond, walnut or hazelnut.
• 3 tbsp honey, agave syrup or malt rice syrup.
• 2 heaped tbsp (1/4 cup) coconut oil, melted.
• 1/2 tsp seasalt flakes (optional)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• Ginger: 2cm cubed fresh grated, or 1 tsp dried.

Preheat the oven to gas mark one / 125'C.
Simply mix all the ingredients together, and tip on two lined trays. Pop them in the oven, ideally both on the same mid-low shelf, and bake for 30 minutes, turning once. For a crunchier bake, which I prefer, leave for forty, but keep checking it. The granola will catch quite quickly, so make sure that you're keeping half an eye out on it.

 Toppings inspiration anyone? Plums or apricots and figs -perfect fruit for the summer-autumn season.

Take Three

#1. Taking advantage of later summer opening times, Mum and I treated ourselves to an ice cream at the new parlour in town, which sells local Yorkshire Wolds ice cream. Today, they were trialling a new flavour, pistachio. This has got to be my favourite ice cream flavour, but it isn't one that I come across often, so I was pretty pleased. I wasn't the only one, it seemed, as we got the very last scoop out from the box; so hopefully we should be seeing this flavour more often. It was the perfect antidote to the confusion of the stormy, humid weather that we've seen this week.

#2. Congratulations to my gorgeous Mum for graduating from a Master's degree of science with clinical research. I am so in awe of the fact that this is now her third degree... I have a lot to live up to! It was a busy day of cancelled flights down to Southampton, but I am so proud.

#3. Happy summer holidays! I am finally off for the next six weeks. I've ended up baking twice in two days -flapjacks and lemon drizzle traybakes -and I am looking forward to taking inspiration from my Flavour Thesaurus to start experimenting a little more, like in this post. Today's leisurely lunch was a wrap filled with turkey, cooked peppers, and guacamole (which I make with avocado, lemon juice, mango chutney and chopped chillies). Delish.

Passionfruit Sponge Cake

I hardly need an excuse to bake, but my Mother's birthday this week gave me the perfect reason to get the mixing bowl out midweek. It lead to a funny sort of day; diving into M&S first thing to grab some passionfruit, via a gorgeous deli for almond croissants; carefully taking my precious parcels into school, then back out to a short trip to Leeds, before dashing back home again to get the oven on.

I strained out the pulp of the passionfruit and used my fail-safe Victoria Sponge recipe, replacing the vanilla essence with a spoonful of the fruit pulp. I've heard that you can purchase passionfruit extract to get a stronger depth of flavour in the sponge. While that was baking, I whipped up my first ever batch of passionfruit curd, using a recipe from Nigella Lawson. I was surprised at how quick and easy the curd was to make, so I will most definitely be making a few more fruit curds in the future! I was getting a little pressed for time at this point; so I tidied up and left everything to cool overnight. 

 5:30am the next morning, I was in the kitchen again prepping the cake. After sandwiching the curd between the sponge layers, I made half a batch of my cream cheese frosting, replacing the butter with a tablespoon or so of left over curd. I couldn't use e electric whisk without waking everyone, so for the next half hour, while I warmed up the croissants and finished getting ready I kept on nipping back to beat the icing, and seem to get perfectly acceptable results for spreading over the top. I think marscapone would taste even better, with just a little icing sugar beaten in, as an alternative, so do try that too and let me know what you think.

By half past six, breakfast in bed was ready for my  Mama, and the cake, finished with a sprinkling of pale pink pearls, was lit. I had to leave for my early train at 7, but not before I'd made sure that my gift had been opened and the day's surprises revealed -namely a spa package courtesy of my Father to the Feversham Arms.... I'm so jealous! Sufficed to say, I am pretty pleased with our efforts for this year -my Mother is by far the easiest person to buy for! Who do you like to treat? 

Passionfruit Curd

• 5 passionfruit
• 50g unsealed butter
• 1 large organic egg 
• 1 egg yolk
• 75g caster sugar (I used golden)

Blitz the passionfruit pulp in an electric mix, and strain it into a bowl. Save a small amount of the unstrained seeds.

Melt the butter gently in a heavy based saucepan. Beat together the eggs, yolk and sugar and pour into the saucepan, along with the passionfruit juice, stirring continually until the mixture begins to thicken.

Add the reserved seeds, and remove from the heat. Decant all this into a sterilised jar or two, and leave, ideally overnight, to cool.

Betty's at Malton Food Festival

On Saturday, whist at the food festival, I had booked myself into the cookery school marquee for a lesson with Betty's. I was pretty pleased to have booked early and got a place, as I have since heard that the demand for tickets was so high that the event could have easily sold out ten times over. I've been wanting to book myself into one of Betty's courses for a while now, but I've been stuck in trying to pick exactly which one to go on; so this was a good introductory taste.

I think that there were about ten of us in all, and I was partnered with the lovely Anne, who was also new to the Betty's school experience. We spent an hour cheerily working through together, helping each other out with juggling pans over the hob and passing around our ingredients. The lesson was hosted by Amy and Lisa, both senior tutors at Betty's Cookery School in Harrogate. I'd actually met Lisa back in November when she was doing a demonstration at the Country Living Christmas Fair. They both guided us all through the dishes step by step, checking up on us all the way, so that nobody was left behind, or with anything other than delicious results.

We made potato rösti and pikelets, which are like a flat crumpet. The rösti were absolutely, mouth wateringly gorgeous, filled with Gruyère cheese and special Betty's bacon lardons. My Father got hold of my finished rösti, and before we'd even left the tent it had shrunk in size considerably! I won't be sharing either recipe, since I don't believe that they are publicly available, but a tip for the rösti is to partially boil the potato the night before, and not to be shy with the butter -this is not the most healthy of dishes!

The pikelets were lovely too; I'm not entirely sure exactly how they differ in terms of ingredients to crumpets, but since they don't require extra equipment like crumpet rings, they are much less fuss to make; simply needing to be poured in small batches like pancakes onto a pan, ideally a crepe pan if you have one. We were each given a pot of Betty's own lemon curd for the pikelets, along with a recipe card to make our own. I am really pleased about this, as I can honestly say that it was the best lemon curd that I have ever tasted; full of flavour and with a decent kick of sharpness to it. I ate a couple of my pikelets warm the next day, slathed with the lemon curd and served with fresh strawberries, which was heavenly.

I thoroughly enjoyed the session, and I will certainly be looking into booking myself a full day's course with Betty's in the future. The whole team ensured that the session ran smoothly despite the atrocious weather on Saturday, and helped to make the event a really enjoyable experience. If you ever find yourself in the North Yorkshire area, do try and book yourself in for a lesson, or afternoon tea at on of Betty's Tearooms. You won't be disappointed.

Back to Basics -Victoria Sponge

Happy Easter everyone! Sorry about the quiet week; I've been a little bit busier than expected (namely, the renewed need for revision in preparation for exams...) and I've spent much of the past two days in bed ill, feeling rather sorry for myself. I've been having to take things slowly, attempting my first bit of food this evening -still a bit much for my stomach -and staying in bed way longer than usual; I'm normally an early riser for somebody under-twenty and I couldn't imagine staying in bed all day every weekend and holiday!

So it seems appropriate that my planned post is about going back to baking basics and keeping it simple. While I have been becoming increasing adventurous in the kitchen, even more so in my daydreams, I thought it would be worthwhile going back to square one and reintroducing myself to the classic Victoria sponge. In pretty much anything that I bake, I can always find a little issue that stops it from being perfect and so I felt that going back to this old staple was needed for a quiet weekend.

When I was younger, I was never particularly bothered about a Victoria Sponge. I found, too often, that the cakes presented to me were dry and gritty and plain; why chose blandness when your childish hands can reach for a soft rich chocolate cake? In my eyes, there was never a contest.

Of course, my tastes have developed much more now, and I have found myself appreciated the simple sponge. Buttercream is more popular at the moment than mounds of whipped cream (yuck!) and a few considered additions can make all the difference. Recently, a friend and I shared a slice of Victoria sponge, laden with strawberries and truly, it was five minutes of heaven. The cake was cooked beautifully, soft and full of air and lightness, but moist and creamy as you bit into it. That is my idea of a good sponge.

You can hardly alter a classic, but a little addition of cornflour -an ingredient I've blogged about here -does add a little something...

 

• 225g butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 free-range eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract/paste
• 210g self-raising flour
• 15g cornflour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• milk (about 2-4 tbsp)

Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180'C. Grease and line two 20cm cake tins.
Cream the butter and sugar together for a good few minutes, until lightened in colour and 'fluffy'. You know the drill by now, I'm sure. Add in the eggs slowly, one by one, adding a tablespoon of flour inbetween each to avoid any curdling. If you can be bothered, separate the eggs first and give the whites a quick beating beforehand to help make the cake even lighter. You'll be able to add the eggs more slowly this way too. Beat in the vanilla extract, before folding in the flour, cornflour and baking powder. If needed, add in the milk -you're looking for a dropping consistency where the cake mix will fall off an upturned spoon in a satisfying blob. Spoon into the cake tins as evenly as you can.

Pop into the oven for 25 minutes until golden, and the sides are coming away from the tins. Allow to cool, before turning out onto a cooling rack. Once cold, fill and ice your cake. I wanted to make a slightly more transport-friendly cake this time round, so I omitted the buttercream and added only some of my homemade damson jam. For my buttercream recipe, click here. Equally, white chocolate buttercream would be nice too. If leaving the top plain, dust over with icing sugar.

 Packman cake!! ;)

Lemon Cupcakes

Last week I showed you my cupcake designs inspired by a Cath Kidston competition. I made a few batches of these over the week due to various commitments and requests for sugary treats, and I think that I have just about nailed the perfect recipe. Previously, I found that plain cupcake recipes either give me too much of a sloppy mix resulting in heavy cupcakes, or are based on a classic sponge which is to dry a recipe to work for portion-sized cakes. Then I hit upon the idea of using cornflower to thicken the mix and give a light texture. I am an advocate of creaming butter and sugar together, rather than blitzing the butter into the dry ingredients, because it is so easy to be left with a few sneaky lumps of butter. I also like to use lemon curd to give an extra tangy kick.

Lemon Cupcakes -makes 12 large cupcakes or 18-24 fairy cakes

• 60g butter, at room temperature
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• Zest of 1-2 lemons
• 2 tbsp lemon curd (optional)
• 10g corn flour
• 150ml lukewarm milk, ideally whole
• 150g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt (if butter is unsalted)

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3, 170'C
Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl for around five minutes, until creamy and fluffy. Gently beat in the egg -if I have time, I like to separate the egg, give the white a quick beat, then slowly add them in, egg white first. This gives a lighter texture and helps to ensure that the egg doesn't curdle. Beat in the zest and curd, if using.
Mix the corn flour with a little of the milk to form a paste. Add in the rest of the milk slowly to the corn flour paste, stirring well to avoid any lumps. Gradually add half of this to the creamed butter mix. Makes sure that is incorporated, and add in half of the flour with the baking powder, mix, then keep on adding and alternating the milk and flour to the mix until everything is combined. If using, add the salt.
Note: to make vanilla cupcakes, omit the lemon zest and curd, and add vanilla essence to the milk.

Spoon into the cake cases so that each is around two thirds full. Bake for 20-25 minutes -if making smaller cakes, keep an eye on them after 15 minutes -until lightly golden, and they spring back when touched. While they cool, get making the icing. You could simple spread over a little lemon curd, topped with a circle of fondant icing, or make my lemony buttercream:
Lemon Buttercream:

• 250g icing sugar, sifted a couple of times
• 50g butter, softened
•  Zest of 1 lemon
• 3 tsp lemon curd
• Milk -I needed 10-15ml.

Gently cream the icing sugar and butter together. I usually do this by hand to save mess. It always amazes me how it all comes together when it looks like there is nowhere near enough butter for the amount of icing. Add the zest and curd, then start to beat, adding milk a drop at a time until you have the right consistency. The icing should be stiff enough to hold it's shape for piping. Continue to beat for at least five minutes with an electric mixer until the icing is nice and light. Transfer into a piping bag, and get icing!

Spring Cupcake Decorating

A few days ago I noticed a novelty cake decorating competition by Cath Kidston. I had offered to bring some cakes in for the students in my lower-school form group, so I decided to hit two birds with one stone, and I hit the shops for supplies. Whilst looking for inspiration from magazines, recipe books and Pinterest, I quickly began to realise that making anything fantastically 'novel' and good enough to be worthy of note wasn't exactly going to be easy. But competition or not, I felt like going crazy with decorating cupcakes, so I got stuck in!

 I found a gorgeous flower cake topper mold from the weekly Cake Decorating magazine, which provided some inspiration. I made lemony sponges using lemon zest and lemon curd, topped with a swirl of lavender-coloured buttercream to match my cupcake cases, bought for me by the gorgeous Miriam for my birthday this year. I cut out circles of white fondant icing, and topped with the floral pink toppers. Possibly not novelty, but perfectly pretty!

 I will, however, admit to spending over two hours just on decorating the cupcakes -plus the time it took me to bake them! Mind you, I would be happy to spend all day doing that.

During the weekend, whilst looking for inspiration, I picked up this ganache mouse from Betty's. For research purposes, obviously..!

They were also doing marzipan sponge pigs, as a kind of variation on fondant fancies: "Genoese butter sponge pigs, coated in marzipan and filled with vanilla buttercream and raspberry preserve." Sounds lovely, and from previous experience, tastes even better! I have been looking at cooking, baking and decorating courses recently, and to be able to make something as complex as these is something of a dream of mine...  I think, for now though, I will focus on the cupcake basics -and why not, when they taste so good!?

Recipe Salvaging

Today's post was supposed to be on a new scone recipe that I wanted to try, but I ended up with a bit of a mess! I haven't made scone's in a while, and though this was a simple plain scone recipe, it all turned out somewhat sloppy. So I thought I'd do a post on salvaging recipe's that haven't turned out *quite* perfect.

So things are easier to fix than others; forgotten sugar can be easily slipped into a cookie or biscuit mixture whereas pastry must be approached with care.

Curdling can be dealt with if it isn't too severe -in mayonnaise, an extra egg yolk slowly beaten in can help to bring the emulsion back together; and if a cake mix starts to separate before the flour is added, gentle folding in of the dry ingredients can help.

Butter is a big factor. In pastry you want it to be really cold. I actually like Nigel Slater's suggestion of grating in really cold butter from the freezer. Just make sure that you only cool what you need as over-chilling it in the freezer can change the consistency of butter, spoiling it for anything else that you need it for. If you've used too-soft butter in a cookie dough, consider chilling in the fridge for 15 minutes. A lot of recipes suggest doing this for this reason.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how I had to reheat some runny choux pastry. With a whisk and some elbow grease, the resultant chouquettes showed no negative effects. I think that the best thing that anyone can do to improve a recipe is to not worry. Do your best to adjust the consistency and quantities of ingredients, and remember to glaze or flour whatever you're making, because finishing touches make all the difference.

So what of my scones? I was worried about them being heavy from the extra work caused by folding in extra flour. And yes, they were a little small, wonky and crispy, requiring a lower oven temperature, longer baking time and foil cover. But you know what? Inside they didn't look any different to the expected results and, served warm with clotted cream and rosehip jelly, they tasted lovely.

Have you got any tips on sorting out misbehaving recipes?

Winter Warmers

To celebrate our successful move into our new house, we decided to round off one of our hill walks with a indulgent Sunday lunch at a village pub. My parents are big on walking; when they were in the early stages of their relationship they were living some miles apart, and each weekend Dad would drive up to Mum's and they'd cover miles of countryside on long walks. As a consequence, I've grown up being driven two hours or so across to Wales on the search for decent walking country.

During the first few weeks after we relocated up North, my Father and I went walking every weekend while my Mother worked on her dissertation. It was still warm in the last throws of summer, and we'd sit on top of a hill, staring at the view as we ate cream cheese and seasonal fig sandwiches, marvelling at our proximity to an abundance of walking locations.

Sunday, however, was our first walk of 2013. We drove up and down precariously steep hills before parking up outside our chosen pub in one of the picturesque estate villages. And.. yuck! We started the walk on a steep hill section that was thick with mud. It was hard going on my ankles, especially as I was only wearing light trail shoes rather than proper walking boots! It was pretty fun though, and we only passed two pairs of walkers aside from us, taking the same route in the opposite direction. About half way through, just as we came up into an open stretch the clouds opened up and blew freezing sleet straight at us. My trousers weren't quite up to the onslaught, and when we reached the pub an hour later I was utterly soaked. Good fortune then, that we were presented with the best roast I've had in a long time.

My parents both chose roast beef, which was so beautifully pink and tender that even I'd of been happy with it. I chose belly pork, which came with crackling, vibrant apple sauce and such delicious gravy that I couldn't stop gushing about it. At a few pounds more than the usual pub roast the price reflected that quality, and it was well worth it. I'm afraid that I have no photos, but it looked as good as it tasted!

I got changed as soon as we got home, and resisted them temptation to curl up by the fire and have an afternoon nap like an old man. A couple of hours after getting back, I decided to make a loaf of bread, using the sour rye flour that I had picked up from a gorgeous independent patisserie.
In Paul Hollywood's How to Bake it was suggested to use two tablespoons of black treacle for added richness. As I leafed through some of our older books, I discovered that this wasn't a new idea at all... "add in the yeast with the molasses" instructs Martha Day in Complete Baking.
Had I read the instructions beforehand, I would have started earlier... the proving time was stated as eight hours! I quickly began calculating how to get it done -initial rise until half past nine, knock back and reshaping, have a quick catnap until half eleven, preheat oven and bake... It was looking set to be a long night! Luckily, being sat by the fire, the dough rose fast enough to be ready to go in the oven by ten, and the whole thing was finished before half past. Technically, a faster rise loses some of the depth of flavour, but with the rich flour and addition of treacle, I wasn't too worried.

And I didn't need to; the rye cob cooked faithfully in the allotted time with a good crust and soft inside. When baking, I always have a tin of water underneath the bread, which creates a steamy atmosphere that really improves the texture of the bread.

I'd like to bake this again on a slow Saturday, and serve with avocado and a poached egg.
*Sigh*

Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes.

Yesterday, I stumbled home an hour and a half or so later than usual after an afternoon practical exam; I  think it went well, but I was pretty tired by the time I got home; my eyes kept shutting on the train and I was somewhat concerned at what might of happened if I'd actually fallen asleep and missed my stop...

Luckily, Dad was on hand with a speedy, tasty dinner. I arrived home to a stir fry with prawns and a sweet chilli sauce. When making a quick stir fry during the week, I'll typically pick up a box of mixed stir fry veg, some fresh noodles and maybe a tin of water chestnuts too. I'll then have a look through my copy of Ching's Fast Food for inspiration on sauces, marinades and extra bits to spice the meal up. For a first attempt, my Father's stir fry was pretty good!

Afterwards, of course, we had to have pancakes for Pancake Day. I miss having our gas hob, which had a fabulous cast iron griddle attachment that was perfect for firing up for American-style pancakes. Yesterday, we got a saucepan out instead, and went for the classic English with sugar and lemon. We used a recipe from the old Katie Stewart recipe book, that somehow claimed to make 12 pancakes from the batter. We didn't even get five! Pancake batter isn't exactly high tech though, so a second batch was soon delivered for helping no.2.

We don't tend to add sugar to any drinks, so we've no need for a sugar bowl. As I hardly wanted to dump a bag of sugar on the table, I grabbed a teacup and saucer and used that to serve the sugar and all the slices of lemon. Cute, non?

Who else had pancakes yesterday (who didn't?!) What did you have -English, American or crêpe? When we have American pancakes, it has to be maple syrup, often with a poached egg first if they are for breakfast. What was your choice of topping? I personally liked Lakeland's crêpe stack:
Here's to quick and delicious meals!

Cinnamon Couquettes

It's a good thing that I'm no vlogger; as I have spent the last couple of days with no voice! Luckily it seems to be due to a cold rather than another episode of laryngitis, which is a real pain. My voice has started to come back now though, thanks to spending much of the day alone working. Its funny though; you know how they say that you don't appreciate something until you've lost it? Well until today, I didn't realise how much I sing to myself when nobody is around to hear! Every time I opened my mouth to hum to myself, a sound more like a braying donkey than Beyoncé left my lips, so I soon shut up.

There is only so long that a girl can stay tied to her desk, so after a few hours work I had hit the recipe books. I was tempted by a baked cheesecake, but I still wasn't feeling up to a cold bike ride down the road to our nearest shop to get cream cheese. Instead, I got out my faithful Little Paris Kitchen by Rachel Khoo, and went straight for the chouquettes.

Chouquette, the sweet sister of gougère, is a kind of choux pastry. You'll be more familiar with choux in the form of éclairs, profiteroles and huge caramel-covered croquembouche towers, but chouquettes are lovely too; more of a tasty treat than the full-on indulgence of it's cream-filled cousins.

I've altered the recipe very little; I find it best not to meddle with pastry! My only change is in the choice of flavourings, which I am very pleased with.

 At first I wasn't too worried about this; I've made Rachel's gougère before but in the end I was actually surprised to get any chouquettes at all; I used too large a pan and the mix cooled down before it could be properly beaten, and consequently I had a very runny mix. Undeterred, I slapped the pan back onto the heat, got out an egg whisk to smooth out the inevitable lumps, and beat it all into submission. I was expecting a big sloppy mess, so I couldn't believe my eyes when after a few minutes baking the little balls of dough had tripled in size quite happily. They were all a little wonky, but I was so pleased that I managed to save the pastry that it didn't matter.

Cinnamon Chouquettes

• 125ml of each milk and water
• 100g butter, cubed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 170g strong plain bread flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon and a sprinkle of nutmeg, combined with the flour
• 4 eggs
• Icing sugar and cinnamon for dusting

Preheat the oven to 180'C, gas mark 4. Make sure that all your ingredients are weighed out and to hand, and that the flour is in a container that allows it to 'shoot' into the mix in one go. Whenever something is added into the mix it will suddenly look lumpy and unpleasant, but keep beating all the while and it will soon be smoothly incorporated.
First, heat the milk, water, sugar, salt and butter over a high heat in a medium pan.

When the butter has melted, turn the heat down low and quickly tip the flour cinnamon and nutmeg in. With a wooden spoon, beat the mix furiously until the dough comes together cleanly in a smooth ball. Remove from the heat, and continue to beat until cool enough to touch. Now add in the eggs, one at a time. Here you should have a glossy paste that will hold it's shape when piped.

Place a piping bag with a 5mm nozzle into a tall mug to support it, and spoon in the pastry. Hold the piping bag at 90' and squeeze out walnut-sized balls, around 2cm apart. Before you lift the piping bag away to pipe the next chouquette, flick it sideways to avoid tall tips that will burn. According to the recipe you should get 20-30 chouquettes, although I, despite loosing some pastry, got a few more.
Dust with icing sugar and cinnamon -I forgot to do this on my fist batch but it didn't seem to matter -and place in the oven for 20 minutes until risen and golden.

While the chouquettes are baking, you can quickly make up some cinnamon butter. I just keep adding each of the ingredients until I am happy with the balance of sugar butter and cinnamon, but loosly base you amounts on this:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 50g soft brown sugar
• 4 tsp cinnamon

Melt the butter and stir in the sugar and cinnamon. That's it!! Spoon this onto the chouquettes once they have started to cool to get a gorgeous, caramel-y topping.

How amazing is the view behind our house? I keep on finding myself working over here instead of in the box-filled study....

These should last a couple of days in an airtight container, but are so light and moreish, I doubt they'll last that long...