There's a magic potion that we keep in our house. A potion with uses in many arenas from the bathroom to the kitchen (and some would say the bedroom; but I wouldn't listen to those guys). It can nourish, add complexity and add flavour without too much trouble. It can revitalise and it can heal and it tastes great! Of course this elixir is non-other than the much-valued and much-utilised olive oil. A commodity that has been used for thousands of years in the Levant, it is older than Lebanon itself. The best way I could describe the value of olive oil to Lebanese people is that it holds the same place in our hearts that butter does to the French. With the added caveat that olive oil is the broody, more complex older brother to butter - it adds something completely different to dishes and well...it's good for you. I love olive oil in all sorts of recipes but something that has been on my mind lately has been its use in desserts - on ice cream, in biscuits and in cakes. This recipe is ridiculously simple and the olive oil taste subtle. It is a great introduction to the use of olive oil in sweets but complex enough for those who love a good olive oil cake. The olive oil 'buttercream' is rich and decadent and elevates this dessert but you should use it sparingly! Anyway, here is the recipe...

Ingredients
Cake
125ml great quality extra-virgin olive oil
300g icing sugar
300g self-raising extra-fine flour
Zest and juice of 2 clementines (or 1 orange) and 1 lemon
3 medium free-range eggs
100ml milk

Olive 'Buttercream'
3 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
6 tablespoons of icing sugar

Method
Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease and line a large cake tin. Whisk the eggs and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the olive oil and beat rapidly. Add the zest and juice of the citrus fruits. Add the milk and whisk again. Sift the flour into the mixture in three parts, folding in after ever third of flour. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Pour into cake tin and cook for 45 minutes until browned and then turn down the heat to 160C and cook for a further 10 minutes or until a knife inserted into the centre yields a 'dry' crumb. Cool in the tin and then transfer to a wire rack. To make the olive 'buttercream' mix the icing sugar into the olive oil and it should form a thick pasta akin to buttercream. The flavour is intense so you only need one 'quenelle' of the stuff per slice in my estimations. Slice the cake and serve with the 'buttercream'.

January is waving goodbye. Christmas and New Years Day are a distant memory. Diets and to-dos are dissolving. Winter is still here. There is an upside to this all - it's still cold enough to overindulge and rationalise that the excess is necessary. Sometimes you just need that comfort from something. We each have our own little secrets. Mine is this rice pudding. I guess it's no longer a secret. Creamy, rich and totally comforting. This is one of those desserts that's simple and decadent. You can serve this with whatever topping you'd like. I opted for caramel but I also really like this with fresh berries. For someone who claims to not have a sweet tooth I seem to be blogging exclusively about desserts. I guess the blog reflects how our diets change over time.

Ingredients
125g short-grain rice (I used arborio)
100g caster sugar
1 litre full-fat milk
1 vanilla pod
150-200ml double or whipping cream
3-4 tablespoons icing sugar
dulce de leche

Method
Pour the milk and sugar into a saucepan and heat up. Add the split and scraped vanilla pod/beans to the milk and continue to heat until the sugar has dissolved. Add the rice and simmer for up to 30 minutes or until the rice has expanded and completely cooked through. Take off the heat and let it cool down completely. Take out the vanilla pod. Whisk the double cream with the icing sugar. Fold the cream into the cooled rice. Spoon into bowls and add as much dulce de leche you would like to each serving. You could add bananas if you want but it's not necessary.

The Lebanese way of living dictates that food plays a central part in everyday life, social occasions and revelry. Celebrations are especially grand affairs where families, friends and neighbours come together to not only salute the happening of a certain event but to also indulge by eating lovingly prepared food. Something in the Lebanese psyche equates food and love and nowhere is that better shown than during a celebratory event, be it a wedding or otherwise.

One of the most elusive but enticing celebratory dishes is something known as meghli, a spiced rice-based dessert made to commemorate the birth of a new child. It is one of the things I most look forward to during family gatherings and on occasion have made it as a dessert on a regular week-night. Some things are special and as such are reserved for befitting occasions but I believe we can elevate meghli into becoming a quintessential Lebanese dessert. Flavoured with caraway, anise and cinnamon and topped with a multitude of optional extras, meghli is a real show stopper.

Ingredients
200g rice flour
2.5l of water
200g of sugar
20g caraway seeds (ground)
10g aniseed (ground)
10g cinnamon (ground)

optional extras: dessicated coconut, blanched almonds, pine nuts, pistachios and sultanas.

Methods
Pour two litres of water in an adequate saucepan, reserving 500ml in a glass jug. Add the sugar to the pan and heat up to boiling point (making sure the sugar has dissolved). Mix the remaining ingredients into the reserved water making sure to mix through thoroughly. Add the mixture to the sauce pan and once again bring to the boil. Turn the heat down and let the pan simmer, whisking as it cooks. This will keep bubbling for 30-45mins until the rice flour has thickened the meghli considerably. It sounds like hard work and I guess it is but it'll be so worth it. The cooked mixture will yield twelve small bowls/pots which you should fill as soon as you turn the heat off. Cover the tops with cling film to avoid the meghli forming a skin. You can eat it warm but generally it's eaten colder. Sprinkle with any of the optional extras and tuck in! Addictive, isn't it?

I think I could live off bread. What a peculiar sentence. I mean I think I could continue to live/subsist/scrape through (delete as appropriate) if I limited myself to only eating bread everyday. Bread in all its lovely mutant forms. I like pasta, I like noodles, I like rice and I like potatoes but I could substitute all those to live in eternal bread happiness. No more ravioli, no more ramen, no more paella and no more chip...Okay maybe I overstated the point but bread makes up a sizeable part of my diet (and there's nothing diet about it). I dream about crispy, pillowy (still going with this adjective), light and airy bread. The intense savoury bubbles and the comforting texture of a good loaf is my idea of simple undemanding bliss.

 
One of my favourite breads is the sweet egg-yolk-enriched French classic: brioche. One of the best examples I've ever had was at the renowned Poilane boulangerie in Paris. It was a thing of simple design which excelled in the smaller details (beautifully darkened crust, buttery smooth crumb). Although brioche is hard to resist I often get left with half a loaf (maybe more) going stale and in need of quick use and one of my favourite ways to use it up is in my bread and butter pudding. There are three essential components to elevating a bread and butter pudding into a top-class dessert and they are: 1) the 'custard' that sets this has to have an intense vanilla flavour and have a smooth mouth feel; 2) the pudding needs a crispy sugar-covered top to give a different texture to what's underneath and an added sweetness (I haven't included too much sugar in the milk mixture); 3) a personal touch - mine is soaking the sultanas with rose water (amaretto works too, especially if you elect to use ground almonds in the recipe). Check these three things off and you have your own delicious dessert that you can show off this Christmas.

Ingredients
300g brioche
100g butter
75g sultanas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons rose water
100g caster sugar
25g soft brown sugar
25g ground almonds
600g milk
2 large eggs

Method
Butter a baking dish and preheat your oven to 200C. Soak the sultanas in the rose water and a little sugar for 15-20 minutes. Slice your brioche into 1cm slices and butter both sides. Drain the sultanas and place them at the bottom of the baking tray before layering on the brioche slices. Whisk the eggs and caster sugar together until pale and fluffy and then add the milk. Add the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly before pouring over the layered bread (make sure to get all the top slices of brioche wet). Mix the brown sugar and ground almonds together and scatter on the surface. Dot any remaining butter on top. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes or until the 'custard' has set and the pudding has expanded. Take off the foil and brown under a grill. Let it cool down and serve it warm with ice cream. This is a perfect alternative Christmas dessert.

If I knew you were coming, I'd have baked a cake. But what use is waiting when I could have the cake all to myself? Luckily my gluttony is negated by the level of which my hunger is sated when I eat a slice of this cake. This is a cake that looks much more difficult to make than it actually is and is perfect as a dessert or as a part of an afternoon tea. Unfortunately by using fresh fruit the cake doesn't last beyond 2-3 days at room temperature but that shouldn't be a worry. I had a moment of inspiration a week or so ago after I posted on my twitter account that I had found frozen strawberries and ground almonds in my freezer. I asked my followers (that sounds ridiculous) for ideas but it seems they're much more shy and retiring than they make out! That wasn't a worry though as I soon had a flash of creativity. This is not a million miles away from a classic Lebanese cake known as sfouf that I made before (click here) but the emphasis here is less on spice and more on the interaction between a crumbly almond base and moist fruit pieces. This is definitely a crowd pleaser :-)



















Ingredients
a handful or so of strawberries (approx. 300g)
150g ground almonds
150g butter
125g caster sugar
125g self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
50g Marcona almonds (flaked)
icing sugar for dusting

Method
Heat your oven to 180C. Grease and line a 13'' cake tin. Mix all the ingredients minus the strawberries and the flaked almonds. The cake mixture should be quite thick but that's okay. Scoop half of the cake mixture into the cake tin and then layer with the whole strawberries. Pour on the remaining half of the cake mixture on top of the strawberries (you can use a moistened spatula to spread evenly). Top with the flaked almonds and bake in the oven for 45 minutes or so or until the surface of the cake is golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and serve with a dusting of icing sugar. If you want to spoil yourself serve with clotted cream ice cream.

There's something amiss in the dining room. There are five places set but only four of us are present. I look around and shrug my shoulders. My father is always late. He spends hours doing something that should take half an hour. The scary thing is that I'm pretty sure I'm inheriting that trait. The more I realise how similar I am to my parents and the more I push to be different, the more aware I become of how all the paths in front of me are leading to the same destination. But that's okay.



















Sometimes you can't rush things. I like spending time mulling things over but I think that my dad could represent Lebanon in the Olympic mulling-things-over team. Not that there is such a thing. Sorry to disappoint. It takes another twenty or so minutes before he's back. He was at the supermarket, he says. He didn't buy much, he adds. My dad has a habit where he sticks by a simple set of essentials that he buys on every trip to the supermarket. This hasn't changed for years. Bread, eggs, milk, cheese and bananas. The thing is, those are all staple food items but he has one extra issue to contend with - he always buys far too much. In his mind it's better to have too much than to have too little. Not that I necessarily agree with that theory but he'd grown up in a country during a long civil war - you had to always stock up just in case.

The bread, eggs, milk and cheese all get eaten before their expiry date but the bananas always linger. As banana connoisseurs know, there's nothing wrong with a browned banana, but when they turn that unappealing colour the collective mindset changes and bananas get left to rot. Herein lies the problem. We always have too many bananas going off at the same time. So over the years we've had to find a way to use them. Aside from smoothies or milkshakes, this is probably the simplest and tastiest recipe you could make. I've layered it with crunchy peanut butter and nutella to make this really difficult to resist but having it naked (the cake, not you) is just as rewarding.

Ingredients
3 overripe bananas - mashed
130g of butter + more for greasing
250g plain flour
2 large eggs - lightly beaten
150g soft brown sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
a sprinkle of cinnamon + nutmeg
peanut butter (optional)
nutella (optional)

Method
Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and flour a cake tin (1kg capacity). Whisk the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time. Add the bananas. Sift the other ingredients into the mixture and work until fully incorporated. Pour into the baking tin and bake for 45minutes -1 hour or until browned and a toothpick comes out of the deepest part clean. Cool on a wire rack. Cut up into big portions and serve up with peanut butter and the nutella or a vanilla cream. This is no-nonsense and decadent in a different way. It'll keep at room temperature for four days (covered in cling-film).

My vitriolic criticism of all things related to the superfood trend may have been a little short-sighted. I mean, shouldn't we celebrate a trend that allows us to eat antioxidant-rich and utterly delicious foods such as avocados and (dark) chocolate? Maybe I'm a hypocrite but beyond that I am a glutton. A recent study by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (published in the Journal of Internal Medicine) has reported that consuming chocolate cuts the death rate in heart attack survivors. Previous research had shown that antioxidant levels in dark chocolate was conducive to lowering blood pressure and aiding gastrointestinal health. Chocolate isn't just delicious but it's also good for us. The Mayans and the Aztecs had it right some centuries before chocolate was brought to Europe by the Spanish. Chocolate is an aphrodisiac, a drug, an addiction and everything that is good in life. This is a celebration of that.




















Ingredients
Chocolate Brownie Cake
100g butter
150g caster sugar
50g brown sugar
130g good quality dark chocolate (I used 76%)
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
1/2 a tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Clementine Crème Fraîche
1 x 300ml pot of crème fraîche
2 clementines
4 tbsp icing sugar

To line the cake tin
1 tbsp of butter
1 tbsp cocoa powder



















Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the cake tin and line with cocoa powder. Shake off the excess. In a pan heat the chocolate, sugar, butter and golden syrup on a low heat until fully incorporated and as smooth as possible. Whisk the two eggs until frothy and doubled in volume. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the vanilla extract. Take the chocolate mixture off the heat and place in a cold bowl. Whisk the eggs into the mixture vigorously before adding the flour (along with the other ingredients). Make sure everything is incorporated and then pour into the cake tin. Cook in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick yields a slightly wet crumb (for a soft and chewy centre). Take out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. You can reheat and serve it warm with ice cream but I prefer whisking up a nice clementine crème fraîche. Zest the two clementines into the pot of crème fraîche and add the icing sugar. Whisk until incorporated and put in the fridge for five minutes. Cut the brownie cake into segments and spoon on the crème fraîche. Mmm.

Something about the term superfood really grates me.  I mean I've never imagined a blueberry in a cape or an avocado ridding the world of all tyranny. Sure, I believe in the power of consuming foods that are nutritionally good for us, but this talk of foods we must be consuming (and buying at a premium) to rid ourselves from potential ailment and disease doesn't sit well with me. I do believe there is a relationship, if not direct correlation, between diet and health (physical and mental) and we shouldn't sneer at sound advice. The term superfood (as used in marketing terms) is just used as leverage by the supermarkets and suppliers to charge an exorbitant amount for something that was 50% cheaper last year and it's my belief that this isn't sound advice.

Okay, so this is clearly fuelled by demand and supply, but this illusory demand has been created by the media and their shit-mongers. I'm here to give you a piece of really good advice. You don't need to spend £10 on goji berries or have a shot of aloe vera before breakfast. No, what you need in your life is...brace yourself...you might have heard this before...it's...balance! Oh how simple was that? Eat your greens, don't fry everything, switch to using rapeseed (canola) oil, make sure you get some fibre, drink plenty of water and exercise once in a while. There's also no problem in treating yourself every now and then so don't feel bad about it. To both completely remove the shackles of faux-nutritionists and parody the superfood ideal, I've used blueberries in my version of a shortbread tart (and topped them with clotted cream). You could alternatively make biscuits out of this recipe by rolling the dough and baking it on a flat tray. Either way I hope you enjoy this. Bon appetit!

Ingredients
150g plain flour
25g rice flour
50g sugar
100g good quality butter
100g of blueberry jam
50g of clotted cream
a few blueberries to decorate

Method

Mix the two flours, the sugar and the butter in a bowl by hand. You want to form the ingredients into a dough that just about sticks together (hence the term short). If it's not quite right you can use a splash of water or milk to get it there. Refrigerate the dough for half an hour before diving into equal sized balls. Grease a muffin tin and place one ball in each mould (should make about 12) before pressing down in the centre and working to the sides of the muffin tin (so you have a hollow muffin base shape out of the dough). Bake until golden at 180-200C making sure to prick the bases with a fork every 3 or so minutes to stop the dough from expanding. Cool on a wire rack before filling each shortbread base with a tablespoon of super-duper blueberry jam and a teaspoon of clotted cream. You could use any other kind of jam if you aren't convinced by the muscles of the humble blueberry - I think apricot is pretty damn delicious. Make yourself a pot of tea and have some fun.

I have a love-hate relationship with cupcakes. Maybe it's just that I find cupcakes rarely satisfying enough as a dessert or a snack. They're one of those things that I find really challenging to make, let alone perfect. It's taken me three batches to get to a level where I was happy enough to publish a post on them. Contemporary cupcake places rely heavily on the icing or frosting to mask an inferior base. For me the base is the hard part - if the actual cake element isn't up to scratch then the frosting is but a layer of polish. Maybe calling it a base is a mistake. The cake simply has to be worth eating. Just like a muffin has to be delicious beyond the top. We can't just go around eating the tops and leaving everything else!



















In order to find a cake I was happy with, I experimented around with different techniques and recipes but settled on one that I thought could yield results similar to what I was aiming for. I used a pound cake recipe and then drizzled some of the cakes with syrup before layering on the buttercream. I made three different cupcakes: lemon, strawberry and rose, and ultimate vanilla. I think the strawberry and rose cupcake was the most successful but my guineapigs came to different conclusions.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

150g plain flour

125g caster sugar

125g unsalted butter - softened

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons of baking power

Syrup

1 part sugar

1 part water

flavouring (for the rose syrup: good quality rose water; for the lemon syrup: juice and zest of a lemon; for the vanilla syrup: vanilla extract)

Buttercream

85g butter - softened

160g icing sugar

flavouring (I used strawberry extract for the rose and strawberry cupcake and vanilla extract for the other two cupcakes)

Method

Sift the flour and baking powder three times and set aside. Whisk the other ingredients on a fast speed setting for 3 minutes until the mixture has expanded and paled in colour. Add the flour and baking powder and whisk for an additional minute. Spoon the mixture into eight muffin size cups and let rest at room temperature for half an hour. Bake at 180C for 20 or so minutes until golden and puffed. Whilst the cakes are baking you should make the syrup of your choice. When the cupcakes come out of the oven (and are still hot) you should poke the surface of the cakes with a toothpick before layer a teaspoon or two of syrup. Let the cupcakes cool and then make the buttercream by working the icing sugar slowly into the butter. Add the flavour and then using a piping back (or a palette knife) layer the buttercream onto the surface of the cupcakes. That's your chance to be creative (and messy; see pics).

Figs hold a special place in my heart. They remind me of being quite young and of my grandparents. That subtle floral taste from a freshly picked fig is a memory that lingers at the back of my mind. I don't remember the first time I ever tasted a fig (I'm sure I was still in nappies) but it's a taste that evokes so many different thoughts and so many different visions. I love this time of year because a friend of my father has a fig tree (yes, here in London!) and he usually sends a box over when they've sufficiently ripened.

















Figs are a fruit so delicate that they should be eaten within three days of being picked or they'll start to spoil. I don't think we made it past the first day with these. I was fortunate enough to prize three or four away to use in this classic Lebanese semolina cake that's lightly spiced with turmeric. This is a great accompaniment to tea or, more enticingly, ice cream.

















Ingredients
2 cups semolina
1 cup flour
1/2 cup ground almonds (optional)
1/2 a teaspoon turmeric
1/2 a tablespoon baking powder
1 cup of melted butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 cups of full-fat milk
1/2 cup of water
3-4 ripe figs
1 tablespoon of icing sugar

















Method
Preheat the oven to gas mark 4 (180 degrees C). Mix the dry ingredients and then work in the melted butter. Slowly whisk in the milk and then the water. Mix well until a relatively thick paste is formed. Slice the figs as thick as you like (you could dice them). Pour the mixture into a greased cake tin and layer the figs on top. Dust the figs with the icing sugar. Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool for 20 or so minutes before serving it with tea or ice cream. I served this with a shop bought apricot ice cream.

It was maybe 1AM when I finally put my head on my pillow ready to turn in for the night but my mind was racing. In that period between sleep and consciousness my mind always seems to go through a shut-down ritual of analysing events that had occurred that very day. Maybe it's a way for salient themes and events to be transferred into my long-term memory. This twilight period also produces an opportunity for me tease out creative ideas and hypotheses. What if I hadn't had that last piece of piece of pizza? What if I read more instead of wasting my time watching Micky Blue Eyes (for the third time)? Why can't I get to sleep? Why are there no desserts with cucumber as a starring ingredient?

















In all fairness it wasn't the first time I'd thought of using cucumbers in a sweet dish. The thought had crossed my mind a few months back whilst preparing a simple salad. Surely there was room for a crossover with a vegetable that didn't really have a distinct flavour that only pertained to savoury foods. And then it clicked...Candied cucumber cheesecake!

...Or so I thought. Several hours spent in the kitchen trying to produce a candied cucumber amounted to nothing (nothing particularly tasty). In fact I lost track of the candied cucumber experiment and moved on to make cucumber jelly, cucumber jam and a flavoured cucumber juice. The taste of all three had promise but didn't match the creamy cheesecake I wanted to pair it with. The subtle cucumber taste was lost in a sea of cream cheese which rendered it as useful as adding a flavourless jelly to the mix.

















Either way that meant that the cheesecake I was making had to rise to the occasion and well this recipe never disappoints me. This is in fact my very own creation that is based on a few of my favourite cheesecake recipes. I'm a big fan of moist just-set cheesecake and this recipe is perfect for that. Even without the crazy cucumber idea!

















Ingredients
Filling
2 x 300 gram packs of cream cheese
300 ml double cream
3 x tablespoons of cornflour
1 x large egg
half cup of sugar
2 x teaspoons of vanilla extract

Base
1 cup crushed digestive biscuits
half cup melted butter
1/4 - 1/2 cup of sugar

















Method
Add the ingredients for the base in a bowl and mix together until starting to bind. Transfer to a buttered baking tin and press gently to give an even base. Put the tin in the freezer for five minutes whilst you're making the filling. Before commencing with the filling you should turn on the oven to gas mark 4 and make sure your oven shelf is in the centre of the oven. Put the sugar and cornflour in a bowl and add the two packets of cream cheese. Work with a metal spoon to a softer consistency, making sure to incorporate the dry ingredients in fully. Crack the egg and beat it in. Switch the metal spoon for a whisk. Slowly pour the double cream in whilst whisking the mixture. Make sure not to beat the mixture too much - it should be dense but also quite light on the wrist; you just want to get some air in the filling. Pour two teaspoons of vanilla extract into the mixture and slowly work it in making sure not to cut the air out.

















Take the baking tin out of the freezer and gently pour the filling on top. Try and make the top as even as possible. Put the tin in the preheated oven for 30 minutes (it should be getting a brown ring at this point). Now you have two choices - dry cheesecake fans need keep the cheesecake in for up to 10 minutes (the cheesecake should have a slight wobble in the centre) whilst those who prefer a more moist centre (like me!) should turn the oven down to a lower temperature and keep the oven door ajar. Once the cooking time is up, transfer the tin to a wire rack and let cool for 3 hours. After the 3 hours are up put the tin in the fridge overnight (you could eat it then, but I think letting it refrigerate adds more to the consistency) and voila! A slog, but a damn good cheesecake!

Now that the summer has unofficially receded I feel it is a good point to highlight what a great year it has been for British Strawberries. The harvest this year has been unusually sweet and also beautifully scented. Nothing comes close to the smell of freshly picked ripe strawberries.

I know this is another strawberry recipe but I feel that we have to make use of them whilst they're in season. This recipe adds an earthy, slightly perfumed, hibiscus sauce to the mixture of cream, meringue and strawberry and moves it beyond an ordinary Eton Mess.

















Ingredients
Strawberries and Cream
1 pot double cream
500g strawberries hulled and quartered
1 tablespoon icing sugar

Hibiscus Sauce
handful dried hibiscus flowers
250ml water
125g caster sugar

















Meringue
250g egg white
250g caster sugar
250g icing sugar


Method
Meringue
Preheat the oven to 110degrees C. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form and add the caster sugar. Whisk again until stiffer peaks are formed and whisk in the icing sugar for a few minutes. Spread onto a non-stick baking tray and cook until crispy and dry.

Hibiscus Sauce
Add a handful of dried hibiscus flowers to the sugar and water and slowly bring to a boil. Let the mixture simmer until it thickens into a syrupy mixture and reduced 1/3. Cool down and then take the hibiscus flowers out.

















Assembly
Whisk the cream until soft peaks form and then add the sugar before whisking to a firmer peak. Crumble meringue into the mixture and fold in. Add the strawberries and fold in. Add some of the syrup and fold in. Serve in a dessert glass and top with more strawberries and more hibiscus sauce. Summer in a glass, it's a shame it's gone.

One of my culinary obsessions is good salt. I love being able to feel the crunch of good natural sea or rock salt on certain foods and I also love the flavour altering qualities real salt has on many ingredients. One of those ingredients that's transformed by a good pinch of salt is of course caramel. Lovely lovely caramel. The taste sensation produced by combining these two ingredients is nothing new but I feel that it's an important component in elevating a banoffee pie into something more special. The interplay between the newly altered caramel taste, the biscuit base, the bananas and the cream is so good that you'll really have to try this for yourself. I'm lucky I got pictures of this in time because my tasters scoffed it all up! Also, please click on the pictures to see them in their full glory!

















Ingredients
Dulce de Leche
1 can of condensed milk
enough water to immerse the can (and more to keep topping up the levels)
a pinch of Maldon sea salt

















Biscuit Base
crushed digestive biscuits
enough butter to hold the base
2-3 tablespoons sugar

Topping
1 banana
1 pot whipping cream
3-4 tablespoons of caster sugar
70% chocolate for grating

















Method
Dulce de Leche
Remove the label from the can of condensed milk. Pierce it in two places (on the top) with a can opener and immerse in a heavy based pan with enough water to cover 3/4 of the can. Boil the can for a good 2-3 hours to get a sauce-like consistency. Boil it for longer to get a firm caramel. You need to watch the can. Keep adding water so it consistently reaches 3/4 of the way up. Let it cool and scoop out the goodies. Alternatively put some trousers on and buy a can of ready made dulce de leche at the supermarket.

Biscuit Base
Crush some digestive biscuits (but not to a completely fine grain). Add enough melted butter and the sugar so that the crumbs stick together. Place the base at the bottom of of a lightly buttered circular mould onto a plate and refridgerate for 15 minutes. You could freeze it for 5 instead. But who has room in their freezer? Take it out so you can layer on the other stuff.

















Topping
Scoop on the dulce de leche on to the biscuit base making sure not to go all the way to the edge of the mould. Sprinkle in a few flakes of the Maldon sea salt. Slice a banana and place the slices on top of the dulce de leche and the biscuit base. Whip up the cream with the sugar and add one spoonful ontop of the banoffee pie (this is my perfect ratio but add more if you feel like it). Grate the dark chocolate to finish. Watch the scavangers totally annhiliate your pie. Feel good about yourself.

One of my life goals is to open an ice cream parlour. I know, it doesn't sound like I'm aiming for much but I really love ice cream. Really really love ice cream. Hell, I love all its cousins too. Granita is a Sicilian dessert of semi-frozen sugar syrup and fruit (almost like a slush) and I love it too. This combination came about from a brainstorming session I had with two friends when thinking about how cool it would be to open an ice cream parlour with our own flavour creations on sale. This really bought out the child in me and I guess cooking in some respects does that to you. Kids are unbridled gluttons and you need to get into that mindset to really push the boundaries of what you can do with desserts. As a kid I used to love eating the spicy cinnamon jawbreakers and here I combine it with a healthy fruit kick to make a hot and cold granita.

















Ingredients
1 1/2 cup strawberries hulled and mashed
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cinnamon stick broken into two
a pinch of cayenne pepper
a squeeze of lemon

















Method
Heat the water, sugar and cinnamon slowly on a pan until the sugar has melted and the mixture is about to boil. Take off the heat and let it cool down. Hull and mash the strawberries and then add to the syrup mixture when it has cooled down. Fish out the cinnamon bark/stick and leave on the side for later. Add the pepper and lemon juice and give it a good mix. Put it in a sealable container and then put it in the freezer. You need to work the mixture with a fork every 30 minutes until it is solid. You could do it more or less regularly depending on the texture of the granita you prefer (I left it a bit longer to get bigger chunks). Scoop out into a glass and place the cinnamon on top for decoration before serving.

"Would you like some clafoutis?" I ask a friend. He looks confused, perhaps running through his head the question in search of some sort of resolution. "Clafa-what?" he replies, looking nonplussed. I choose not to reply, because trying to explain myself with words would be an empty gesture. Instead I take out the dish of clafoutis and cut him a slice. He looks around it trying to make sense of what it is. "Are those...olives?" he asks in disbelief. "No. Cherries. Just eat,' I urge him on. I can see the sense of relief on his face. He likes it!

















Is there a better feeling in the world than cooking something people enjoy? Most of my friends wouldn't really know what I was referring to when asking if they'd like some clafoutis. Infact they'd think I was insane and/or masquerading as an Adria brother or a Blumenthal. I mean...olives? But that could work...hopefully. This clafoutis was a little less adventurous, giving an oriental (in the original sense of the term) spin on a traditional French dessert. Unlike some recipes I've seen, I quite like a barely set centre. Overcooking this dessert is sin. I also pitted the cherries and let them marinade in an orange blossom mixture for a few hours. Anyway, here's the recipe.

















Ingredients
300g cherries pitted
1 1/2 tablespoons orange blossom water
a swig of white wine vinegar
300ml milk
3 large eggs
80g caster sugar
60g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
icing sugar for serving

















Method
Pit the cherries and place them in a bowl with 20 grams of sugar, the orange blossom water and the vinegar. Cover them and let them sit for a few hours. Lightly butter a baking dish and place the cherries at the bottom. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Beat the eggs and the remaining sugar together until pale. Add the milk, salt and vanilla extract. Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter over the cherries and bake for 30-40 minutes or until puffed and golden. Let it cool down before sprinkling the icing sugar on top and then it's ready to serve!

So how does one alter the idea of what moghrabieh can do as an ingredient? One must seek inspiration from his stomach, of course. A few blog posts ago I said my gluttony was firmly skewed towards the savoury polar extreme and I'm here outing myself as a liar. I'm a glutton, nothing else. Sweet, savoury, bitter, sour...Absolutely anything. I'll try the vast majority of things for that new kick (balut excluded). I subscribe to Anthony Bourdain's philosophy - being a picky-eater is such a first-world luxury. But I guess you can argue that so is haute cuisine. Moderation is the key and we all know it. It's just hard to admit it.

















In search of a sweet kick I went to the dark side. I used moghrabieh to make a dessert. I know, it doesn't sound right. But what's right, right? Anyway, the cherries were infused with Orange Blossom and the moghrabieh flavoured with vanilla and oranges. This was much more delicious than I'd anticipated but it possibly needs some tweaking. Any ideas? Maybe chocolate pieces?

Ingredients
handful of cherries
glug of orange blossom water
vanilla pod
one medium orange zested
two handfuls of moghrabieh
milk
water
cream if you're feeling indulgent
sugar
sprig of mint to garnish

















Method
Remove the stones from the cherries and sprinkle with sugar and pour on the orange blossom water. Leave in the fridge for an hour before making the dessert. Initially place the moghrabieh and a glass or so of milk and the opened and scraped vanilla pod in a pan. Gently heat until the moghrabieh is nearly fully cooked and then add the cherries. You may need to add water to thin it out if it's getting too thick. Cook until the moghrabieh is tender. You might want to stir every two or three minutes. Turn off the heat when cooked and add the cream and orange zest. Serve in a bowl with the mint and voila!

Next up on this blog: something for the carnivores.