South West Food Bloggers

For some time now, I've wanted to meet up with fellow food bloggers in South West England. Although my company is based in Dorset, I am going to be spending much more time in the area soon, and wanted to get together with my follow foodies to meet up.

Having looked for various groups to join, I couldn't find any, so I decided to set about creating one. I will be organising meet ups and exciting fun-filled foodie events in the region over the coming months, so please do get in touch and say hi, and watch this space.

I will be in touch with more information as soon as possible, but I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Making Christmas

I will be participating in Let's make Christmas, hosted by Vanessa Kimbell. I will be posting later today on what I will be cooking, so please check back here soon for the recipes!

For more information, see Vanessa's blog.

Autumnal delights - using up the last of the quinces

Seize the opportunity to cook with these beautiful, exotic, mysterious fruits while you can. Most good greengrocers and supermarkets are selling them at the moment. This is a lovely, autumnal recipe, which fills the kitchen with gorgeous aromas of roses and pears whilst cooking. The flesh of the quince is surprisingly rock-hard, so as you can see from the photo, I left the woody cores in whilst cooking the fruit. Feel free to cut them out if you are feeling more dexterous than I was! Serve the baked quinces as a dessert with yoghurt or crème fraîche, or with cooked meats for a main course. A couple of cold slices of bakes quince make a delicious accompaniment to cheese and biscuits too.

I’ve decided to get a quince tree for the garden. Having looked into varieties, I am thinking the Serbian Gold might be good. Do, please, let me know if you have any recommendations (@gofreecakes on Twitter)

Baked quince with honey and spices

Serves 4

Ingredients

3 large quinces

5 heaped tablespoons brown sugar

450 ml water

5 tbsp honey

5 cloves

2 star anise

Juice from 1 lemon

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4
2. Cut the quinces in half. I like to leave the peel on, but you can peel the fruit. They do brown very quickly though, so work quickly at this stage of the recipe
3. Pour the water into the pan, and add the sugar, honey, lemon juice and spices.
4. Place the quince into the water as soon as they are cut (and peeled, if you are peeling them)
5. Poach for around 10 minutes until they give a little when you inset a knife
6. Place the poached quince into a large baking dish and cover them with a little of the cooking water (around 1/3 of liquid works well)
7. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes until soft
8. I core the fruit once it is cooked, by scooping the core out with a spoon as I find it easier to do this once the fruit is cooked

Wimborne Food Festival - the recipe!

Well. we all had a fantastic time at Wimborne Food Festival at the weekend. Fortunately, the weather was kind, and the event was packed out as ever.  It was such a great opportunity to catch up with other interesting and inspiring food writers, particularly Josceline Dimbleby and Lucas Hollweg.

As it was National Baking Week, I just had to demonstrate a cake, and my cake of choice was a very tasty Chocolate & Pear cake using lovely local, seasonal conference pears. I was thrilled to hear that so many people in the audience went home and made this cake straight away, to great success. For those of you who wanted the recipe, it is below. Hope you like it!

Chocolate & Pear Cake


Ingredients:



·        85g butter
·        85g dark chocolate
·        85g caster sugar
·        1 tbsp brandy
·        3 eggs, separated
·        85g ground almonds or hazelnuts
·        4 very ripe pears, peeled, halved and cored


Method:


1)        Grease and line a 25cm springform tin
2)        Preheat the oven to 180 / Gas mark 4
3)        Melt the chocolate and butter together
4)        Stir the brandy and leave to cool
5)        Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until pale and thick.
6)        Fold the melted chocolate and hazelnuts into the egg and sugar mixture
7)        In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peak
8)        Fold one tablespoon of egg whites into the chocolate mixture, followed by the rest of the mixture in two additions.
9)        Gently pour the mixture into the prepared tin
10)        Lay the pear halves into the mixture in the tin
11)        Bake for around 40 minutes
12)        You can dust with icing sugar and serve with crème fraiche

Wimborne Food Festival

Tomorrow afternoon, I will be demonstrating in the main tent at Wimborne Food Festival.

I will be making delicious cakes, it is National Baking Week after all, made with lovely local seasonal ingredients, and my cakes will be gluten free too!

For more information please see their website:

http://www.wimbornefoodfestival.co.uk/events-demo.php

I will report back after the demonstrations with recipes. Hope to see some of you there!

An interesting lunch, let's say

I just thought I would share this with you quickly.

I recently went to lunch at the delightful James Ramsden's house. James was working on this piece for the Guardian Word of Mouth:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/oct/07/the-worst-menu-ever-devised

As a much more articulate writer than me, I urge you to read his piece, but I just thought I would share the photos with you. Please do share your thoughts of your guilty pleasures...

Les canapés

Kipper and kiwi: a match made in heaven ?!

The most successful lunch dish

The sausage crumble was actually ok with the addition of some fennel seeds. Cabbage in milk....just no

The pie was really nice, apart from the turnip

And finally....

An apology

I'm sorry I have been so bad at blogging recently. I will explain why very soon. In the meantime, I hope you will bear with me. It's been a crazy few weeks.

Charlotte x