Landlocked Mermaid

We all know that I love to have a go in the kitchen. I don't often shy away from baking projects (gelatine being the obvious moment where I do shy away!) So it surprises me that it has taken me this long to have a go at jam. Especially as the recipe is so simple. What do you need to make jam? Equal parts fruit and sugar. That's it. Well, a thermometre helps too. I recently treated myself to a ThermalPro thermometre as part of a "bulking up a necessary Amazon order to get free P&P" situation. My hope is that having a digital thermometre will revolutionise my hot sugar projects. Accurate readings must mean accurate sweets, right? Eeeeehhhhh. The honeycomb I made the other week did not mix properly and I will get onto what happened with the jam. Thankfully, these happenings seem to be down to human error rather than malfunctioning tools so there is at least that. I decided to make damson jam. Growing up we had a number of damson trees in the garden and one year we ha...

It was my partner's birthday last month, which is an excuse for cake if I ever did see one. However, as I mentioned in the cannelloni post, I have really been struggling to get flour in! I'm guessing it's a pretty wide spread thing, my news feeds are full of flourless recipes. A friend of mine recently shared a delicious looking cheesecake she had made and was kind enough to pass on the recipe. Here was my thinking: Birthday + cheesecake inspo - flour = Birthday cheesecakes! Birthday cheesecake While I am very grateful to my friend for sharing her recipe, I ended up not using it. It was from the Philedephia cook book and was verging on the more technical side of things for my liking. Namely, it used gelatine. For absolutely no reason at all, I am terrified to make a recipe which calls for gelatine. Not to be deterred, though, I took to the internet to search for a cheesecake recipe which used soft cheese but not gelatine. And the internet provided! I came across this recip...

In case you missed it, it was my Birthday this week. I am 29 whole years old. Although, I fear I can remove the "29 whole years" of that sentence and it would still be true! Now, my Birthday often creeps up on me - I think it's because of how short February is, maybe? I don't know. But I had a whole extra twenty hours this year - so if that was not an excuse to do something then I don't know what was. The best birthday cakes are a pile I have bought many cupcake recipe books over the years despite having zero patience for the intricate icing they often demand. I turned to these for inspiration for my cake. The first was very much too much faff for me to deal with and none of the flavour combos seemed worth using, so I turned to the second which I found for 80% in WHSmiths many years ago: Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. I have no idea where the Primrose Bakery is but I am apparently powerless to a £3 cookbook. (I got one for Chinese food at the sam...

A few weeks ago, my favourite YouTube channel SortedFood posted a video where two of the presenters cooked a Swiss roll without a recipe. As usual, it was all very hilarious and sparked an idea which had been mooching around my head for a while. I love Arctic roll. It was always a treat my grandparents would have in the freezer for when we visited. While living on my own I definitely demolished an entire roll to myself on more than one occasion. (Don't judge, you'd do it too!) Presently, it is a treat I deny myself because of the unnecessary plastic packaging and it is so rarely on offer. But watching the Sorted boys flail about the kitchen gave me an idea. I can make ice cream. They just provided me with a recipe for Swiss roll. Why not put the two together?! That's a good looking forkful! Was it genius or just plain crazy? Well, after the fact, I can tell you it was a mix of the two! I used this recipe as a base for my sponge and the ice cre...

My partner and I like to have sweet treats in the house. Because we don't buy them from the store anymore (other than the occasional comfort food fueled need), I tend to make things which are quick, easy, and adaptable. Cookies are a firm favourite of mine, as we know from previous posts . I love a good bit of cake, but only every now and then. Cake is not an everyday snack, in my eyes, but cookies are. So I took to the internet to find a good cookie recipe. I found this one from GoodtoKnow.com. My initial cookie desire was to make Ginger Crunch Creams - try and curb a craving, avoid buying the real thing and whatnot. The original recipe was for chocolate chip cookies, but I just didn't include them and poured in the ginger. (Thankfully, not three tablespoons this time!) This recipe also says to include an egg as the dough is forming but when it came to adding it, I felt it wasn't necessary. The dough was forming nicely enough and it meant this recipe was now vegan! ...

A while back, my mum and I went to the Chinese supermarket in Birmingham. I went with the goal of getting condensed coconut milk (for fudge) and dumplings (because I love a good dumpling). As well as coming away with a few other gems, I came back with gyoza skins with the aim of making my own dumplings. I decided to have a go this week. Pretendy Duck Dumplings I figured I should start with something simple, in case it all went horribly wrong. It was also a little bit of an impromptu decision, so I hadn't shopped specifically for it. But I remembered that we had the Linda McCartney vegetarian shredded duck in the freezer. Nothing says simple like hoisin duck dumplings. At the very least I know the flavours work, and that I'm not likely to make myself sick from not cooking it properly! All you need. INGREDIENTS Linda McCartney vegetarian shredded duck, Hoisin sauce, Gyoza skins. These are so simple to make, it is hardly worth writing out a method!...

Pizza is a staple in my household. Between my partner's Italian heritage and the fact that pizza ticks all my boxes (cheese, carbs and tomato), it's a miracle we don't have it every night! As with most of our food, we try not to get the shop made stuff. Sometimes it's unavoidable, feeling poorly or lazy or pressed for time. But most of the time we make our own. Dough and everything. And if you follow my personal instagram account, you'll see we make it rather regularly! We like to use Jamie Oliver's dough recipe, with a couple tweaks and a variant my own salsa recipe for the sauce. My favourite thing about home made pizza is overloading on the toppings. Yeah, shop bought and takeout pizzas have structural integrity but they never have enough toppings. I have been overloading pizzas since university. Sometimes they don't always come out circular. DOUGH INGREDIENTS 500g plain flour or OO flour. (The OO is finer, but Morrisons have stop...

My partner and I like to watch a lot of SORTEDfood . It's funny, there are some great recipes, and I little love them all. They have a food made three ways video and recently we found their one on ice cream which reminded me that I used to make ice cream all the time! I know it has done nothing but rain these last few weeks, but it is June after all. And if that is not the perfect time to start making ice cream again, I don't know what is. A summer treat In the past I have made a raspberry ripple, chocolate, and bubblegum (at Dylan's request before they went vegan). Last weekend at the Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park I had a caramel and honeycomb ice cream. I decided I wanted to recreate that, as I know how to make honeycomb . But feeling a little more decadent, I decided to go for fudge instead of caramel. I kind of messed up the fudge by getting impatient and not heating up enough, so it did not set properly. But hey, it was going into ice cream and...