Rough Puff Sausage Rolls

One thing that I love about the patisserie course is learning new skills. I thought I was pretty clued-up before but there are always things to learn and a few weeks ago it was puff pastry. Practicing pastry so often doesn’t come cheap though and using butter actually makes the product unstable, as it has such a low melting point. Although we were all shocked on our first day to see Fabrice advocate the use of pastry margarine in lieu of butter, when it comes to rough puff, I’m now a convert.

Windfall Plum Tart

Now, though there may be a photo of a beautiful plum tart here, this article is really to showcase a trade secret I learnt on the first day of my part-time Patisserie course in Leeds (more posts on that to follow!). And that trade secret is a little thing called almond cream. In my previous ignorance, I’ve called almond cream a frangipane but was pulled up pretty quick on this by my tutor Fabrice, who sighed very loudly when I described the recipe in front of us as such. Apparently, a frangipane has twenty per cent crème patissière stirred into it. This means that every recipe I’ve made in the past that’s called its filling a frangipane has been downright lying to me. The cheek! Once I’d overcome this revelation, in class we set about making the stuff. And boy is it good. Soft, sweet, moist and dense. What’s not to like?

The Scilly Isles: Adam’s Fish and Chips

In my eyes, there can be no better holiday destination than the Scilly Isles. To celebrate finishing the MA and the hand-in of the dissertation, Roger and I travelled by taxi, train, ferry and then by smaller boat to spend a few weeks on our favourite islands off the coast of Cornwall. A weird coincidence with Roger is that when we first started going out, he once wistfully described a book he used to read as a child that had a tiny little picture of Tresco Island in it, and told me that he’d dreamed his whole life about going there one day. This heart-rending tale set me off on an epic account of family holidays and idyllic childhood memories, which made him rather jealous (most things do), but it also drove my mum to the internet, where she immediately sourced a free space on Bryher campsite for two weeks for me and Roger to live out his dream. And so a summer holiday tradition was born.

Plum-go Chutney

Sorry if this is a boring photo, but you can't really sex up chutney.

It’s no secret that I love fruit straight from the tree at harvest time, but when I got back from the Scilly Isles and took the train home, our neighbour Ken gave us a BUCKET of plums and I began to feel pretty scared that they might go off if I didn’t deal with them quickly enough. The end result was that I embarked on a large-scale operation of chutney and cake making. We had crumbles coming out of our ears and compotes filling up the freezer, not to mention sauces and pickles taking up every empty jar.

After I’d made an old favourite (Nigella’s Chinese-style plum dipping sauce), I began to consider the other options that were open to me. Having looked up a few recipes online, I decided to make a few jars of mango chutney: with plums. Hence “Plum-go” chutney. Basically, all of the spices are the same as those that you’d find in a mango chutney and it does taste very similar. It’s a good idea if you’ve got a glut of fruit to use up, rather than shelling out for precious mangoes!

It’s finished! Off to the Scilly Isles to celebrate!

Dissertation strikes again...

This dissertation is getting hectic now. One month until the big hand-in and I’m getting pretty wound up, constantly re-writing drafts! My letters from America have finally arrived, so I need to get analysing them. Summer is lovely, from what I’ve seen looking out of the window. Apart from a few epic barbeques, no food had been cooked but many crisps and snacks have been eaten. I’m going to take a little break for a month until everything’s blown over. Until then, this is what I’ll be up to…

Macaroons

When the going gets tough, I make macaroons. Now, in breaks from the dissertation madness, recently I’ve been trying out with great success the Ladurée-type macaroons that they sell everywhere now for a pound a go. Let me tell you- they are so easy to make. I made some tiramisu ones, and then some pistachio. But after six or seven, I did actually get a bit sick of eating them, so offloaded them onto friends and family. What I class a REAL macaroon are these ones here. I could make them in my sleep and it’s the go-to recipe for a leftover egg white.