Hazelnut & Chocolate Chip Cappuccino Cake – A glamorous cake that is coffee flavoured with chocolate chips, hazelnuts & a creamy cappuccino frosting. “Let’s Have Cake” for Doves Farm 40th Birthday I love baking as regular Lavender and Lovage readers will know, and I also love to bake celebratory cakes, so when Doves Farm approached…
Vegetarian
Mum’s Recipe for Michaelmas Dumplings
Mum’s Recipe for Michaelmas Dumplings – My mum’s recipe for fluffy apple filled dumplings that are cooked with seasonal blackberries. This is a wonderful way to end an autumn meal, whether it be for the family during the week or a celebratory dinner party. Serve these dumplings with fresh pouring cream or home-made custard. Hedgerow Harvest…
Preserving the Season – Seedless Blackberry Jam
Preserving the Season – Seedless Blackberry Jam: A delectable taste of the season, this lovely bramble jam is seedless, and is perfect on toast, crumpets and scones as well as in homemade cakes. You can also heat it up to drizzle over ice cream or dollop it on top of baked rice pudding. Hedgerow Harvest Part…
Preserving the Season – Rowan & Apple Jelly
Rowan and Apple Jelly – A deliciously smoky, tangy and jewel-like jelly that goes perfectly with game, lamb, cheese and charcuterie. Made with “free” foraged berries from a tree on the lane opposite our house, and with windfall apples from our orchard. Hedgerow Harvest Part One The red berry tree waved its branches provocatively in…
Quick Sweet Pickled Cucumbers
Quick Pickled Cucumbers: An easy and very quick pickled cucumber recipe, which is ready in 24 to 48 hours. Perfect for that summer glut of small cucumbers. Serve these pickled cucumbers with cheese, charcuterie, sandwiches, smoked fish, hot dogs or burgers. Using your Summer Glut of Cucumbers I can almost sense and smell autumn in the…
Vanilla & Summer Fruit Pavlova
Vanilla & Summer Fruit Pavlova – A large celebratory pavlova with a crisp and chewy meringue base which is topped with summer fruits, cream and fruit curd. I used a selection of mixed berries with mango and two fruit curds – raspberry curd and passion fruit and mango curd. *Paid collaboration with Baxers* Summer Pavlova…
Marinated Goats Cheese with Stem Ginger
Marinated Goats Cheese with Stem Ginger – A delicious recipe using local Welsh goats cheese with ginger, fennel, star anise, basil, orange & garlic in olive oil. This recipe is easy to make, requires minimal cooking (just on the hob top) and is the perfect dish for an al-fresco summer gathering served with crusty bread…
Rainbow Heirloom Tomato Tart
Rainbow Heirloom Tomato Tart – This beautiful tart is easy to make and would make a stunning centrepiece for any summer buffet table or as part of an elegant picnic. There are only three main ingredients in the tart recipe, which relies on delicious British heirloom tomatoes, onion marmalade and puff pastry. If using non-butter…
Cheesy Roast New Potatoes with Wild Garlic
Cheesy Roast New Potatoes with Wild Garlic – This recipe is so easy to make and takes advantage of two seasonal stars of Spring, Jersey Royal potatoes and Wild Garlic. It’s made a little more decadent by the addition of cheese which melts over the roast potatoes – and who doesn’t love cheesy potatoes. with…
Wellness & Flowers at RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Wellness & Flowers at RHS Chelsea Flower Show – A virtual tour around the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, where I was just two days ago. Walk with me around this most fragrant and beautiful of British institutions, and enjoy my top three gardens, including the Viking Cruises Wellness Garden, which won a Gold Medal, as…
A Visit to Halen Môn Sea Salt PDO on Anglesey
A Visit to Halen Môn Sea Salt PDO on Anglesey – One cold but sunny morning, I set off to Anglesey, just an hour from where I live in North Wales, to visit Halen Môn Sea Salt Saltcote, for a private behind-the-scenes tour and a salt tasting experience. Today’s post is an overview of my…
Welsh Shearing Cake (Cacen Gneifo)
Welsh Shearing Cake (Cacen Gneifo) A traditional recipe for a Welsh seed cake, and one that would have been served to the sheep shearers during shearing season. This buttery cake would have originally used bacon fat in place of butter, although the caraway seeds and peel are authentic to older country recipes. A Traditional Welsh…
Smoked Cheese & Onion Straws
Smoked Cheese & Onion Straws – Made with excess Festive ingredients, such as puff pastry and smoked cheese from the cheese board, these are posh enough for cocktail nibbles as well as being perfect for the school lunch box, and, these tasty little smoked cheese numbers are easy to make and are loved by all…
Vanilla Honey Pikelets with Blueberries & Yogurt
Vanilla Honey Pikelets with Blueberries & Yogurt – Easily made, these “Pikelets”, also known as “Crempog” in Wales, and “Scotch Pancakes” or “Drop Scones” in Scotland, are delicious little, fluffy pancakes resembling a thin crumpet, and are perfect for breakfast when served with honey, yogurt and fresh blueberries. Wake Up Better for Pancake Day Breakfast,…
Velouté de Noël
Velouté de Noël – This rich, thick and creamy soup hides a secret, it’s made with a selection of cooked festive vegetables that are left over after Christmas dinner; roast parsnips, potatoes, carrots & sprouts are whizzed up in a Vitamix Ascent blender, on the soup setting, resulting in a hot, creamy Velouté soup in…