Mother's Day Afternoon Tea

Like last year I thought I'd make La Mama an afternoon tea for Mother's Day this year, as well as a few lovely presents. A model child! I scoured my books to see what I fancied making a few weeks in advance. I'm prone to stressing out and with a few elements to make I needed to be organised! I think it turned out pretty well, it's a great excuse to get my nice cake stand out! I wish we had room so I could keep it out but alas it only comes out on special occasions! Keeps it safe I suppose. It went down extremely well and there were enough leftovers to feed us for a few days - what a shame it meant eating cakes and scones for days!!

My savoury section was a Smoked Mackerel Pate, an adapted recipe from the National Cookbook by Oliver Peyton (review to come next week). The original recipe was a kipper pate which I made and was completely delicious so I decided to make it with mackerel. It's super easy, completely ridiculously easy so I thought it would be a good choice when I had other things to make. Certainly a lot simplier than a ham terrine like I made last year. The recipe is just smoked fish, softened butter (though not half the amount stated - no need if the fish is moist), cayenne pepper, tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and plenty of lemon juice. I will make this pate again and again, delicious. Served on toasted ciabatta with cornichons - the king of all pickles!

The next element was Hazelnut Blondies from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. I made some peanut butter blondies the week before from Eric Lanlard's Home Bake (again, review to come soon) and the result was quite different but both very tasty. I changed the pecans stated to hazelnuts and made only half the amount. They ended up pretty thin but this wasn't a problem. The white chocolate was melted in with the butter so it made the blondies pretty sweet and squidgy which was a nice contrast with the crushed, crunchy hazelnuts. I'd had hazelnut blondies from Marks and Spencer in their Valentine's meal deal this year and they came with some salted caramel so I decided to do the same thing. Really added another dimension to the flavour. I didn't make the caramel - it came in a jar from Marks. It's very tempting just to grab a spoonful of it every time you're in the kitchen!

My rosewater choux buns. These started out in my head as rosewater eclairs with pretty pink icing, things didn't quite go to plan. I knew I had to buy rosewater but I could have sworn we had red food colouring in the house. It was too late when I found out we didn't! Then it turned out we didn't have the right nozzle on the piping bag so I decided to make choux buns instead. Oh well! My icing had rosewater in it, it was a little too liquid but it kept my coloured sugars, heart and glitter on the top so it was fine. I also put rosewater in the whipped cream. It was quite a subtle flavour - I didn't want it to taste like perfume - but it worked well. Not as impressive as I had imagined it but still quite nice. I had to add glitter to something!

I used Raymond Blanc's recipe from his new Kitchen Secrets book. The recipe was great and made lovely choux pastry. They were a little bit greasy but they had a good flavour.

Lastly I made the Brown Sugar and Mascarpone Scones from Lorraine Pascale's Baking Made Easy which I reviewed last week. I was so happy with this scones. They were really light and rose beautifully. They weren't overly sweet as I thought they might be and they were the perfect foil for some jam and cream.

They were simple to make, I did it by hand rather than in a food processor and the mixture was made in about 5 minutes. I have lots of mascarpone left so I think I'll make a pasta dish with the remainder but I think I'll have to start buying mascarpone regularly as these scones were so yummy.

The food was all washed down with some jasmine tea. I love my Celia Birtwell mug, a great find from TK Maxx. Roll on the next afternoon tea! I have many more recipes that can be tried out!

After all those cakes I feel I need this gorgeous domed cake stand in my life. So pretty and an amazing price. A trip to Ikea is now on the cards! I don't actually cook big cakes but that's not the point! If not I could get this mini cake stand instead. Aw!

Baking Made Easy - Lorraine Pascale Cookbook Review

This week I was testing out Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale. Having enjoyed her television series I went to borrow the book from my local library. After leafing through I promptly went out to buy my own copy! I thought she came over really well on BBC2 and that her recipes truly looked easy. She made it look like I could actually bake a decent loaf of bread or perfect a cake. But who am I kidding, I'm a sucker for a baking book and if it promises to make things simpler then all the better. That said, Ms Pascale had some making up to do, I didn't enjoy her cupcakes from Ella's Bakehouse in Covent Garden in the least. http://cookbookgoodness.blogspot.com/2010/08/london-town.html Heavy and boring and really not worth the price. I didn't return on my last London trip

The book itself has 100 recipes, everything that was featured on the show and more. The chapters are straightforward: breads, cakes, savoury baking, desserts and patisserie, dinner party, sweet treats and basics. There is a nice, laid-back introduction and a few baking tips, including a great one about lemons - wash ordinary lemons in hot, soapy water and ta-da - you have unwaxed lemons! Probably isn't a revelation to many of you foodies but I was impressed!

The first recipe in the book is for croissants, probably not the first item I'd start with in an easy baking book. It might have also been nice to have step-by-step photos for such a (relatively) complex recipe. The finished articles do look delicious but I have to say they're not something I'm sure I'd tackle. It gets better though and so many of the recipes sound gorgeous, I'd say I'd attempt 70% of the book which isn't bad at all. Same old, same old but where are all the photos? The ones that are there make the food look very inviting but there aren't nearly enough, especially for the cakes. I bet a lot of us buy certain cake books to delve into and admire the photographs then stick it back on the shelf! Well, when someone is making something as complex as a three-tiered red velvet cake I want to see a photo of it, not just a very attractice lady smiling over a bowl! We did see the finished product on the show but I do think it's a major downfall in a book. Photos aside, in tradition with Lorraine herself I had to take some photos of my food and share them with friends! Though they weren't taken with my phone and I'm afraid I've already eaten everything so there's no point coming round! I also don't deliver things on a moped, shame! I chose to make her pizza dough, mostly to try out my new pizza stone. I'm very scared of dropping it! Lorraine's was topped with prosciutto, mozzarella and fig but mine was ham and pineapple to keep La Mama happy. As you can see my tomato puree caught a little but it was fine. The stone made the edges really crispy and light but the middle of the pizza was still pretty doughy. Disappointing. Maybe the dough didn't rise enough, it was hard to find a warm place in the house at the time. The recipe was easy to follow though and it's nice to be able to make just 1 batch of dough. So not great but I'll try it again and see if it works better next time. Rachel Allen's recipe works better for me so far. http://cookbookgoodness.blogspot.com/2010/09/rachel-allen-bake-cookbook-review.html

The next I tried were the big fat breadsticks, I tweaked these so they were more like bread rolls as we'd run out of bread that day and were too lazy to go and buy some! Like a complete dunderhead I halved the recipe but I went ahead and put the bigger amount of yeast and salt. Oops! Strangely I think the bigger amount of yeast actually worked as these rose really nicely and the texture was great. Unfortunately the salt was a bit too much! But I was still really happy with these and would definitely make these again and again. I thought they looked really nice too. Finally, a bread that works, and I think I'll increase the amount of yeast again. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/big_fat_salt_and_pepper_59413

Last of all I made the hazelnut and lemon madeleines. These went down extremely well in our house, La Mama is fanatical about these little cakes. I liked that the eggs were whisked first to get in as much air as possible into the mixture. Mine look a little anemic as I cooked them in a silicone madeleine dish and the bottom didn't get a chance to colour. I'm going to look into getting a proper tin as I think silicone bakeware really messes with the texture of a cake. It's great for ease of use but I can't help feeling that my cakes sweat in the silicone. But these were still really good and I'm looking forward to trying out new variations.

So all in all I'm pretty happy with this book and am excited to try out other recipes to see if they are successful. I'm trying out her mascarpone and brown sugar scones for my Mother's Day afternoon tea this sunday, fingers crossed they are delicious - not sure what they are meant to turn out like as there is no photo! Grrrr!

Mexican Food Made Simple Cookbook Review

After my visit to Wahaca in London, I was inspired to pick up my copy of Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers. It's been on my shelf for a while, probably due to the kinds of chillies you need to make a lot of the recipes. So I got online and ..... ta da!:

I am now the proud owner of four kinds of Mexican chillies - mulato, chipotle, ancho and pasilla chillies. Thomasina gives her tried and tested favourites in the first chapter in the book which is really useful, as is the supplier details at the back which is very comprehensive. I bought my chillies from http://www.casamexico.co.uk/ and they were posted really quickly. The smell was really nice as I opened the packet, almost chocolately. It boded well!

The book has a great introduction, how Thomasina came to love Mexican food and all about the basics of Mexican cooking. There are 5 pages about Mexican ingredients, most of which you can find in supermarkets now, bar maybe corn tortillas.

The chapters are really nicely set out and include Salsas, Sauces and Relishes, Soups, Street Food and Slow-Cooked Main Courses. For some recipes such as the Simple Roast Chilli Salsa and the Chipotles en Adobo (which seems to be the basis of a lot of dishes in the book) there are step-by-step photos so you know how things should be looking. I like this, especially with a whole new type of cooking. There is also a guide on how to fold a burrito and how to eat a taco. The photography is vibrant and attractive, there just isn't enough of it. I want to know what the Citrusy Chickpea Salad looks like, or the Mexican Sponge Cake with Strawberry Jam. I think it's even more important to have images of desserts to refer to. This is a shame. The titles all sound delicious though.

The first things I tried were the Ham and Cheese Empanadas. These were really simple to put together and the recipe was easy to follow. We had ham left over from a big roast ham we had cooked over the weekend so the leftovers were perfect. The mustard added a gorgeous background flavour and the cheese and mayonnaise made a gooey sauce. There was no photo of this dish but I think I got the look kind-of right! They made a really nice lunch with some salad. I'd be happy to make these again.

Next was the Barbacoa, a slow cooked meat dish. Lamb or mutton was suggested but I used pork as I don't eat lamb, I think beef would work just as well. This was made in 2 stages; first I had to make Diana's Delicious Meat Marinade with my newly obtained ancho chillies and some dark chocolate as well as various herbs. The dried chillies had to be soaked first but this was very straight forward and it was just a case of whizzing all the ingredients together into a paste and marinading the meat overnight. This marinade smelt gorgeous, a really rich scent. Stage 2 involved red wine and tomatoes and cooking the dish for 4 hours. After all that was it worth it? Disappointingly it was a little bitter, probably because of the chocolate. It wasn't inedible but it wasn't the amazing taste I was expecting. We had enough for 2 servings so the 2nd day I mixed in a little tomato ketchup to try and sweeten the sauce a little. This worked quite well and I enjoyed it a lot more. I would make it again but I'd put a lot less chocolate. Again, no photo of this dish - I'm guessing she couldn't make it look very attractive, neither could I!

I couldn't pass up making some churros, though I was terribly lazy and just put dollops of the mixture into the oil instead! It didn't results in the lightest of churros but they eased my churros cravings with some cinnamon and vanilla sugar. Flour, oil and water = deep fried goodness. Maybe I'll make some slightly more refined ones next time!

All in all I think I was happy with this book! It's a great shame about the lack of photos for an awful lot of the recipes and my Barbacoa wasn't brilliant after all that effort. But now I have such a variety of chillies I'll have to test out more recipes!

London Trip - Food Roundup

Last week I had a great time away in London. It seems to be a 6-monthly visit now which is great, it involves lots of plays, shopping and eating. Lovely! I saw 5 plays in 4 days so needed plenty of delicious food inbetween.

I finally made it to a few places I've wanted to try for ages, and it was interesting to see how the menus compared to their cookbooks if they exist. I tried Leon for the first time http://www.leonrestaurants.co.uk/ at their Great Marlborough Street opposite Liberty. It's a pretty small branch but we were only after a quick lunch. I recognised quite a few things from their cookbooks, including their meatballs and salads. We went for a couple of wraps, the Grilled Chicken with Aioli and the Slow-Cooked Shredded Pork. They were both delicious with lots of raw cabbage and lemon juice. I was worried there would be too much garlic in the aioli but I couldn't really taste it which was a little bit disappointing but it was much better for those around me! I'd definitely grab one of these again.
For one evening before the theatre we grabbed a bento box and a sushi selection from the huge range at The Japan Centre on Regent Street. It's an amazing places with the biggest choice of soy sauce I've ever seen. Miso soup paste is so cheap here compared to normal supermarkets. The bento box was sadly quite lacklustre though, lots of dry rice underneath the goodies which is healthy but pretty boring. The salmon was delicious as were the strips of veg but the potato tempura was just blah. Really affordable though so it was well worth trying something new. You can't go far wrong with fresh sushi though, our other choice was delicious.

These beautiful cakes are from L'Eto Caffee on Wardour Street - my new gourmet food street! Amazing! They have so many gorgeous looking desserts in the window, all very tempting. We went for a Raspberry and Rosemary tart and a piece of Honey Cake. The tart was very interesting. I was afraid the rosemary would overpower the raspberry but it was a really nice combination which I'd like to try myself. The guy serving us told me it was a very good choice indeed! The Honey Cake was equally delicious, like a giant piece of baklava. Mmm! It was a very generous portion but there were certainly no leftovers! There was also a Blueberry Cake in a similar layered fashion in the window. Next time, next time!

More sushi, this time from Wasabi on Oxford Street. Such a gorgeous selection and very affordable. We always seem to end up here after a day of shopping. Their soups are delicious and I feel all virtuous and healthy after eating something from there. I'd really love something like this in Manchester close to my work, it would make lunchtimes much more fun and would keep me away from the biscuits on offer! Well, maybe...

A trip to London is not complete without visiting a branch of Paul, usually the Covent Garden branch as it's close to one of my favourite shops - the Betsey Johnson shop. If I had a ton of money I would stock up on all the garish Betsey clothes and anything that had a skull on it! I had to make do with some leopard print gloves instead.

This time in Paul they had some gorgeous looking choux buns for a limited time, The Grand Choux Collection. We went for a Raspberry and Violet Choux. There was also a banoffe, chocolate and a strawberry and cream one. This sounded the most unusual, plus it was the prettiest. It had raspberry puree at the bottom and then lots of chantilly cream. Wonderful and light. Lovely.

Plus it's just not a Paul visit without bringing back some Bacon Fougasse. I haven't made fougasse in a while, I think I'm going to try the recipe in Lorraine Pascale's book.

Discovered another Hummingbird Bakery on Wardour Street too which was great as we weren't heading towards the V&A Museum this time. I wasn't quite as excited this time round, not quite sure why. There just didn't seem to be that much choice. I thought the little boxes were really cute though.

La Mama chose a Chocolate Malt Cupcake, one of their daily specials. Not quite sure why she chose it as she doesn't like chocolate cake! But it was very light and wasn't too sickly.

I however decided against a cupcake and went for a Frosted Brownie instead. I was very much hoping for the Raspberry Cheesecake Brownie I've seen in their book but despite me popping in everyday they never had them :-( Maybe it's a seasonal thing. This brownie did the trick though. Just the right amount of chocolate and the perfect brownie texture.

Another Wardour Street find was the Princi Bakery http://www.princi.co.uk/ Stunning, simple sandwiches of parma ham and foccacia plus a big selection of freshly baked pizza slices, Italian hot dishes and lots and lots of desserts. I went back twice for a custard filled deep fried pastry, I can't remember now what it was called but it was desperately fattening and delicious, as pictured above!

We discovered a new cupcakery however on the way back from spending up at the TKTS box office - Sweet Couture. A tiny shop as cupcakeries usually are. Service was pretty rubbish but the cakes were great and light. The girl serving was on the phone giving directions to a friend for ages and just blanked us. Almost gave up but there was only one Red Velvet cupcake left! The other one was Peanut Butter. http://www.sweetcouture.co.uk/

To finish off our cupcake trials we got a selection of mini cupcakes from Lola's in Selfridges. So, so cute. From left to right we got Peanut Butter, Rocky Road, Red Velvet and their February special Black Forest. Gone in an instant but all well made.

Even though they're mini you still get all the features of the normal-sized cakes which I was really impressed by. A nice way to try several flavours and not appear too greedy!

I didn't take photos but we also ate at Wahaca in Westfield shopping centre http://www.wahaca.co.uk/ , Thomasina Miers' small chain of Mexican restaurants. I've had her Mexican Food Made Simple cookbook for a good while now but have never had the right chillies to make things, but no more! I have made an online order and I am now the proud owner of 4 kinds of Mexican chillies! I was obviously inspired by my Wahaca visit. The restaurant had a nice atmosphere about it, it was lunchtime and wasn't too busy, plus there were colourful skulls on the wall - brilliant! We chose 4 street food dishes, you don't get a huge amount but it was great to be able to taste 4 different things. We chose 2 taco plates - Pork Pibil and Chicken Mole, and 2 tostadas - Mackerel and the Chicken Guajillo. I did mean to order a taquito plate instead for forgot! It was nice to have 2 hot servings and 2 cold, the dishes come out as they're ready rather than all together which worked fine. The pork dish was really fiery but delicious and the mole sauce was deep and rich. Both tostado plates were light with loads of lime juice, I particularly enjoyed the mackerel one. And to finish - churros! Mmmmm! Some of the best I've eaten. Loads of cinnamon sugar and completely delicious chocolate sauce which I'm not ashamed I tried to drink when I'd run out of churros to dip!! It was so thick that it took a while though! Luckily I was sitting in a corner! The Hibiscus Water was also a gorgeous, refreshing drink and the service was excellent. Very glad I made it here.

Also no photos but we had lunch at the National Dining Rooms at the National Gallery. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/visiting/eat-and-drink/eat-and-drink/*/viewPage/2 I bought the cookbook by Oliver Peyton a year ago but yet again have never used it (so addicted to buying books!) but it compares very well to what they serve in the resturant. There was about a 15 minute wait as it was very busy but once we sat down we weren't bothered by anyone and people could take their time. We chose from the Bakery menu, I had a slice of chicken and ham pie served with a green salad, it had massive chunks of chicken and ham hock and it was lovely. La Mama had a hot salmon and smoked haddock pie, also with a green salad. The dishes came with 2 side salads of your choice but our waiter asked if we wanted a mixture of everything which we said yes to. We were a little disappointed with our green salads - didn't seem much like a mixed salad to us - until our waiter apologised and brought us a massive plate full of delicious looking salad items!! It suddenly felt much better value! There were massive chunks of charred butternut squash with goji berries, stir-fried cabbage with red onion, chargrilled fennel and grated celeriac. Great to be able to try everything. We would definitely eat there again and I'll have to test my book out soon.

Had a lovely meal in Belgo in Seven Dials. Again, somewhere I've wanted to try for a couple of years but it was never a meal time as we were going by! It's opposite the Cath Kidston shop, only bought a cowboy plate this time, quite impressed with my self-discipline! Great menu here and an amazing range of Belgian beers, I would have partaken had it not been lunchtime. I'm not a big drinker but I love all the fruit beers on offer. We went for their Lunchtime Menu, great that it's offered at the weekend too. I had the Spit-Roasted Chicken with Chili and Ginger and Frites. Couldn't taste the ginger but the chicken was beautifully tender and the sauce was fiery. A huge portion too. The chips were great. My mum had the Beef Carbonnade which went down incredibly well. So much so that we had to recreate it when we got home. I think we did a pretty good job.

Recreation of my mum's Carbonnade from Belgo:

1 bottle of Lindemans Kriek Fruit Beer. Could be any darker beer but I think the cherry beer adds such a nice flavour.

8 dried prunes

800g of braising steak

1 onion (we used diced shallot)

a touch of flour to coat the steak when frying

300ml of beef stock

1 bay leaf and some dried thyme

Fry the diced onion in a little oil until translucent. Add the flour coated beef and fry until browned. Then add the rest of the ingredients and cook, cook, cook on a low heat until the meat falls apart. You could also cook it in the oven. As with most casseroles it tastes much better the next day, we cooked it again for another hour. Delicious with rice or mash.

Phew, epic post - I'm off for a rest!

Barefoot Contessa Back To Basics Cookbook Review

I love watching Barefoot Contessa on UKTV Food and the Food Network. Her relationship with her husband Jeffrey makes me smile, they are still so gushing about each other after all the years they have been together. I laughed so much at this week's 30 Rock episode when Liz Lemon said she wanted Ina Garten's life - "I'm like that woman on the Food Network whose husband only comes home on the weekends, and spends the rest of the time eating and drinking with her gay friends."! The Barefoot Contessa summed up in one sentence!

I've wanted a few of her books for quite a while but they're fairly expensive, though they seem to be coming down in price on Amazon now. I have managed to find a couple at the library however so they'll have to do for now. Plus she has a new book coming out later this year. Exciting! I hope there's a TV series to accompany it.
I chose to try out Ina's Back to Basics book. This was her most recent cookbook, released in 2009. The book's tagline is 'fabulous flavour from simple ingredients'. I'd agree with that though the ingredients aren't necessarily that simple in parts of the UK.

The book is split into 7 chapters including cocktail hour, soup, dinner and dessert. Nice and simple categories. There are some lovely photos of her kitchen extension (!) and address and phone numbers of everyone who helped build/decorate it. I wonder if she got some freebies??

She talks about using seasonal produce and how certain ingredients like salt and parmesans can be the key to a great dish. There are also dos and don'ts throughout the book to help people cooking for guests, such as 10 no-cook things to serve with drinks and how to set a table like a pro. Rather than seeming too Stepford Wives they are quite nice tips like sitting down at your made-up table to check if you will be able to easily see your guests on the opposite side.

The photography is gorgeous and there is at least one picture for each recipe. Completely mouthwatering.

My first dish was the Tuscan Lemon chicken. I used chicken thighs rather than a whole flattened chicken. The list of ingredients was only short so that was definitely a win and it was easy to prepare.

There are some nice tips included with the recipes, such as how to butterfly a whole chicken or information about some included ingredients. This dish was cooked on a grill in her book but in cold England it was cooked in our oven and it was lovely. The chicken was really moist and the skin was crispy. Lemon and chicken are always heavenly. Very nice indeed and indeed a good basic recipe.

My second dish was her Mustard-Roasted Fish. It looks very white and bland but it was really delicious and a great dish to make when you're in a hurry as the sauce takes no time to prepare and the fish bakes for around 12 minutes. Red snapper was suggested, I used tilapia. The mustard didn't overpower the sweet fish and the capers added a great zing. Will try to make sure I always have the ingredients in for this dish when I want something quick and yummy to eat. I used half-fat creme fraiche too so it's not too fattening. Another good basic.

I think it's quite an aspirational cookbook, though everything is feasable. Everything looks lovely but there's no way that I could afford to cook everything from it. No doubt some of the ingredients would be more readily available in the US and therefore cheaper but unfortunately soft-shell crab aren't so easy to come by to make sandwiches (though I will be using the accompanying remoulade recipe for other things). And the quantites in the book are quite astounding! I always joke about how much food she makes in her programmes, it's like she's feeding 10 people when she's only cooking for 2! She must have 3 extra fridges for all the leftovers she must have! But wow, her recipe for Bay Scallop Gratins calls for a pound of fresh scallops to feed 3 people!! Eeks! And 3 pounds of pork tenderloin for 6 people!

So ignoring the huge quantites and the accompanying huge food bill I do really like the book. Not as down to earth as Bill Granger's basic cookbook but definitely lovely to look through and there are enough recipes I'd want to make to justify buying it. I was meant to make East Sticky Buns this weekend but my car's M.O.T took over my life for a couple of days so they're back on my cooking wishlist. As is the Italian Wedding Soup and White Pizzas. But they'll have to wait as I'm off to London for plays, shopping and cake!

The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook Review

I am carrying on testing my cookbook collection, this time trying out my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook which I've had for quite a while. I love to look through it and swoon over the cakes at regular intervals but I've always been afraid of making anything from it! I really like cupcakes, as previous posts have shown, but I'm not the best at baking - especially not at making buttercream/frosting. I'm a big fan of the Hummingbird Bakery's cakes when I'm on holiday in London. It's probably a good thing I don't live anywhere near one of their shops! The red velvet is the ultimate cupcake, alas I have not tried making them from this book yet - would they really compare to the ones you can buy in store? The book itself is nicely presented and would catch the eye of anyone with a love of those pretty little cakes. It's not just cupcakes though, there are also recipes for brownies, pies, muffins, biscuits, cheesecakes and full-size cakes. There are full-page photos of each of the recipes which is always useful, especially when making cupcakes. I want to see what the frosting should look like and what they use as toppings to make them look extra pretty. The amount of recipes you get is great, 15 for cupcakes alone. Everything looks delicious, can you put on weight just by reading a book? I hope not! And the cakes are truly the ones that they sell in their shops, not just quickly invented to sell a cookbook. Does that mean the recipes are foolproof though?

I do find the quantites a little too much. I don't want to make 12 cupcakes if I'm only baking for 2 people, but with the recipe only needing 1 egg you're trying to split an it equally. Tricky!

My first trial was for Banana Loaf. I'm sure this is something a lot of people make regularly but I've never had a go before. The recipe was easy to follow and didn't take too long to whip up. The oven was a little too hot so the top coloured before the rest of the loaf cooked all the way through, however it didn't taste at all burnt!! Phew!!

The mashed banana did sink a little as you can see in the photo, the outside slices were certainly nicer than towards the middle but the flavour was really lovely, especially with the addition of cinnamon and ginger. It's a comforting snack which was great to take to work for morning break. I'd probably make a smaller quanitity next time so it cooks properly all the way through, plus I end up getting a bit bored with something if I have too much of it. Mostly happy with this first recipe.

Then, my nemesis. The cupcake. Argh - frosting! It's such a simple recipe but it goes wrong for me everytime! I've fancied making (eating) the Marshmallow Cupcakes since I bought the book so thought that's the recipe I'd choose to make. The cake was easy to make, I did halve the recipe so made 6 instead of 12. My cases were of an average size, I think I bought the Tinkerbell design from a New York baking suppliers. The mixture made a good 5 and then the 6th cake was a fair bit smaller. Not too bad. They didn't rise a huge amount but they were very flavourful, they weren't so great the next day though as the sponge had gone a little soggy.

But the frosting, oh dear. I still haven't cracked it! Icing sugar, butter, a little milk and some vanilla extract. What could go wrong? It was looking way too dry, then for a few seconds it looked brilliant, then I think I put a smidge too much milk and it was lost!! It was also a lot more yellow than in the book as I went a little vanilla mad! Not a complete fail but no-where near as beautiful as it should have been. It did harden overnight but it was a choice - soggy cake but better frosting or yummy cake but liquid frosting?! Liquid frosting methinks. Such a shame. It did taste nice and the marshmallows were lovely but yet again I can't make frosting. What is wrong with me?! Maybe I didn't mix the frosting for long enough or I just added too much milk. Do I blame the recipe? Boo, will try again when I'm feeling braver! But for now I'll keep cupcakes as an item to buy rather than to make!

So all in all it's hard to know whether to recommend this book or not. It'd be great to hear some opinions on whether the recipes have worked for you or not. Could be I'm just meant to stick to savoury. But for £4.99 from The Book People I think it's worth buying just to salivate over!

Leon Book 2 Cookbook Review

This week I wanted to use up some beef mince from the freezer and really fancied a chilli. Having gone through my latest intake of cookery books I found a nice looking recipe in the new Leon Book 2 book by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent. I had borrowed their first by Allegra McEvedy, but didn't really think enough of it to purchase myself. The style of the book was really original and interesting to look through but what really disappointed me was the lack of recipes compared to the size of the book. Information about ingredients and colourful pictures is lovely but the recipes didn't start till well after page 100. This is specified on the cover 'Ingredients and Recipes' but still not enough for this recipe-mad lady!

This book gets going much earlier, page 26 in fact. Huzzah! There is a nice section about food to have in your larder and freezer and a few pages on what you can grown at home, be it on a windowsill or in a larger garden. The recipes themselves are split into fast and slow fast food. The fast food can be prepared in 20 minutes or less and the slow fast food takes longer to cook but reheats well and is ready when you are. There is also a cocktail section at the back (lovely!), a few extra recipes and some Leon stickers. Who doesn't like a sticker?! We had some salad to finish off so from the fast food section I used their recipe for a caper and anchovy miracle sauce. A simple dressing but they had me at caper and anchovy! Just olive oil, lemon juice and parsley are added and it made a delicious, tangy dressing for my tuna and avocado salad.

Next time I'll chop my capers a little finer and add a little more olive oil so it's a little more liquid but I was very happy with the taste.

Then came the Leon Chilli Con Carne from the Slow Fast food section. It took a couple of hours to cook and made enough for 3 meals between 2 people. To be honest I was a little underwhelmed by it. It had some nice herbs and spices in it but it didn't really wow. I would have probably added some fresh chilli and maybe some Worcestershire sauce for more of a tang, just something to wake it up a little. It was very passable and went well with rice and mash but just a bit blah. And 6 portions worth of blah!! Ah well.

I was going to make Potatoes Leon-aise but there was too much chilli to eat! I might have a go this weekend and add it to next week's blog. Again a simple dish but simple can be more impressive if it works.

I really like the design of the book though, it's a little quirky which is personalized with photos and stories. The food is nicely presented and photos are large and bright. It feels like a really friendly book. I like the fact that they're making healthy food fun with dishes that are family friendly. Once Summer comes I know I'll come to this book for some interesting salad recipes and the cocktails will need testing! I'm also impressed that I own a book that tells you how to make your own salami - ox runners anyone?

So a small boo for the chilli but a yay for the salad dressing and hopefully more dishes in the future.