Belated Secret Santa Party

Two of my old friends (who had one of the most glamorous weddings I have ever been to, on the coast of Greece, but that's another story) are having a belated Christmas lunch / secret Santa party. We were asked to bring something, so, not succumbing to the Christmas theme (it is, after all, after 6 January and therefore some might say bad luck to do all things Christmassy), I decided to make a loaf cake. 

I chose one of my new favourite baking books, Cake Days by Tarek Malouf and the Hummingbird Bakers and published in 2011. It's a beautiful, girly pink hardback book and follows the wonderful Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, also one of my favourites from which I have baked most of the recipes.

I chose the Blueberry and Soured Cream Loaf.I've made it before, and it tasted beautiful - soft, moist and just the right sweetness. Stats are below:

190g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing

190g plain flour, plus extra for dusting

190g caster sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

25ml sour cream

120g fresh or frozen (but defrosted) blueberries - I use fresh, and slightly more than they say,as I like my cake rather more blueberry-ish

One 1/5x17.5cm loaf tin with 7.5cm sides.

Serves 8-10 (or one hungry man)

I took advantage of this recipe to try out my new Kitchen Aid flex edge beater, a Christmas gift from my boyfriend. For anyone who cares, it worked wonderfully - no need for a spatula part way through mixing, perfect. and for anyone that doesn't have a Kitchen Aid - get one, it's changed my life. I have one in Boysenberry:

 Now for the science bit. Preheat the oven to 170 C, and then grease and dust your baking tin.

I like to start baking with all the ingredients ready before I start, so had everything weighed out, the butter softened (in a small pan over heat, as the butter came straight out of the fridge) and the flour, baking powder and salt sifted into a bowl. 

I whisked together the sugar and butter at a medium speed until the butter and sugar mix had paled slightly and looked light and fluffy. One by one, I added the three eggs to the mix (still on medium speed in the KitchenAid) until they were fully incorporated. Then added the sifted flour, baking powder and salt to the egg and butter mix, half at a time, until the flour was just incorporated. Finally, I added the sour cream.

Then, I switched off the Kitchen Aid, clipped out the bowl and mixed in the blueberries by hand with a spatula. Once they were evenly mixed in, I poured the mix into the prepared baking tin.

The cake was ready after for 50 minutes. My oven seems reasonably hot, so it may need a little more in other ovens and I'd recommend (as always) testing with a skewer to make sure that no baking mix sticks to it. It smells beautiful - maybe I could eat it now and make another for tomorrow.....?

Zilli weekend

So let's begin with the first recipe. I cooked with my father on Thursday night and (re-)discovered The Zilli Cookbook, by Aldo Zilli. He was born in the Abruzzo region of Italy and learnt to cook from his mother. He now owns the Zilli Fish restaurant and Zilli Cafe in central London. The cookbook we used was published in 2003, is in hardback with a nice cover (see below) and well weathered. After flicking through, I loved so many of the recipes, that I borrowed/stole the book from my father to use at home.

The recipe I chose to cook last night was simple - I had some scallops from Cornwall that I had decided to defrost, and wanted to cook something that wouldn't overpower their flavour. So I chose Spaghetti with Olive Oil, Garlic and Chilli:

4 tablespoons of good olive oil

3 Garlic cloves

2 fresh red chillies, de-seeded and chopped finely

400g spaghetti

100g parmesan cheese - I used Comte, as I had a lot from a recent trip to France. This does NOT work as well as Parmesan, as it has a lighter flavour and is softer, so is stickier than Parmesan

10 fresh basil leaves, torn

2 tablespoon fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I used a little more than this, as I love fresh parsley)

Serves 4 (this is pretty accurate, or two people plus one hungry male), preparation and cooking time c25 minutes

A pretty simple dish this one - For anyone interested, I chopped the garlic with my new Christmas present, a Joseph Joseph garlic rocker. If you don't have one, I recommend you get one - it's very effective, easy to clean and leaves you without that 48 hour garlic smell on your hands. Lovely.

I heated the olive oil in a pan on medium heat until it was hot enough to sizzle, and then sauteed the crushed garlic and chopped chillies for a couple of minutes until the garlic was soft. In parallel, I cooked the spaghetti until al dente, drained and kept a cupful of the pasta water.

When the pasta was drained,I added the oil mixture into the pasta with a splash of pasta water.The recipe suggests that you can discard the garlic from the mixture, as the flavour is already in the oil - I chose not to. I also added grated cheese and mixed in well. It was slightly sticky (due to use of Comte rather than Parmesan I expect) but tasted beautiful. I added pepper, but no need to add salt unless you want to.

The recipe suggests serving with the basil and parsley sprinkled on top - I chose to stir them in immediately before serving, which worked well. 

Finally, I briefly sauteed the scallops in some olive oil and lemon, and then served with the juice from the scallops poured over the top of them. To finish off,I squeezed a lemon over both the scallops and the pasta, which added a bit of extra bite to the pasta. 

Feedback was very positive, so it's an easy win!! However in future, I'd 1) use Parmesan or Pecorino and 2) use more garlic. Enjoy!

First post - the beginning!

So, yet another food blog.... what makes this one different? Probably not much except that it forms part of my New Year's Resolution to cook more, so writing this blog may make me stick to it!


I've decided to choose a cookbook and, Julie & Julia style, cook my way through it. The book of my choice is still tbc, but I'll be reporting back on each recipe as I go along. I'll also be recording the other recipes I've tried out (successful or not!) in case anyone's interested.


So...here goes...