All That I'm Eating

Recipe ideas for budget meals, everyday cooking and a little indulgence. Travel inspiration and restaurant reviews too.

Rhubarb and Elderflower Crumble

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baked Rhubarb and Elderflower Crumble
Elderflower has been an ever present flavour throughout my life. When I was younger it was always such a treat when we had a bottle of elderflower cordial or pressé in the fridge. I would relish the flavour trying to make it last as long as possible. I remember making ice lollies in the summer; orange juice, blackcurrant squash or lemonade but it was always the extraordinary elderflower lollies that got eaten first. Elderflower seemed rare, elusive and exclusive.   

Last year on a foraging trip I found some elderberries which meant only one thing: a few more months and I could finally pick fresh elderflowers. I had been waiting to pick some for as long as I can remember and that time has now come. Off I went with my basket on my bicycle to sniff out these delicate flowers. 
Every patch of cow parsley set the heart racing, it does look very similar. There was much cycling, stopping, sniffing and looking and finally I found some, not quite where I remember it, proudly bursting forth in flurries of white. After carefully sidestepping the nettles, running away from bees and avoiding the inhalation of small insects I picked three nice blooms. read more

Hot Cross Bun Bread and Butter Pudding

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Hot Cross Buns
 Easter provides an opportunity to make things you don’t normally make; Simnel Cake, Chocolate Nests and Hot Cross Buns to name a few. If the weather is horrible it provides time to bake at leisure. This is a recipe for when you have bought or made too many hot cross buns in all the Easter excitement and they have gone a bit stale. It could also be used to disguise a less than perfect batch of homemade hot cross buns. It’s a brilliant way to make the most of this lovely, fruity spiced bun. Warm, crisp on top, gooey centre; what more could you want? You will need:  4 Hot Cross Buns,  Butter for spreading and a bit extra,  1 egg and 2 egg yolks,  3 tbsp caster sugar,  410g can condensed milk, A little extra milk Marmalade (optional)

Slice the hot cross buns into four or five slices and butter on one side. I thought I’d be lucky to get three slices but four or five can be easily accomplished with a little perseverance. If you want you can put marmalade on the buttered side too for an extra citrusy zing. Put the buttered slices into an oven proof dish. 

Whisk together the egg, egg yolks and sugar with until well combined. Empty the condensed milk into a saucepan and add two tbsp milk. Heat gently until almost simmering and then pour into the egg mixture whisking all the time. If you’re particularly exuberant with the whisking and subsequent calorie burning it would be rude not to reward yourself with extra pudding. Pour the custard over the bread and leave to soak in for a few minutes.

If the pudding is looking a bit parched and there’s not a drop of custard visible, pour over a little extra warmed milk. This will depend on the size of the hot cross buns you use. Put a few small knobs of butter on top of the pudding.  read more

Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart with Rhubarb and Blood Orange Compote

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Dark Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart Mix
You can’t have Valentine’s Day without a little chocolate. This tart is great because you can make it in advance and leave it in the fridge so there is no last minute pudding fretting! It’s beautifully rich and very easy to make; made even easier if you use a food blender for the pastry. If pastry is your nemesis, it used to be mine, I have a previous post that will make you feel much more relaxed about constructing this tart.

Start by making the pastry. Blend 50g cold butter with 100g plain flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add 15g caster sugar and 25g chopped, toasted hazelnuts and then bring the pastry together with one small egg. Persevere it will get there in the end but you can add a little cold water if you think it needs it. Wrap the pastry in cling film and chill in the fridge for half an hour. I would recommend making the pastry when you’re as sure as you can be that the phone won’t ring and the doorbell won’t go because otherwise there’ll be pastry all over the place. read more

Rhubarb and Custard with Blood Orange Sauce

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rhubarb
Rhubarb makes a wonderful crumble and a devilishly good fool. Its astringency can cut through the most fatty of foods and its delicate colour is about the only thing around at the moment that isn’t green or brown. It’s also citrus season with Satsuma’s, tangerines and blood oranges galore. It seems a shame to eat all the members of the orange family just for their cold preventing benefits.  

I was one of those children who would pick out the sourest, most mouth puckering and sharpest of sweets. Sherbert wasn’t quite tart enough for me and so rhubarb and custard sweets were my saviour when all the sour apple ones had gone. They soon became my favourite; when you were turning the sweet over in your mouth you never knew if you were going to get a burst of sour or a shot of sweet. Although I do enjoy one of these sweets occasionally I have moved on to a more grown up version.

This is the very first of the English forced rhubarb I could get my hands on. It was nestled amongst a load of potatoes, swedes and cabbages; poking its pink feet out asking to be picked up. Admittedly my first thought was crumble but on my travels I walked past a sweet shop and my thoughts turned to rhubarb and custard. read more

Honey Roasted Persimmons

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Persimmon

There are so many vegetables around at the moment and fruit is a little thin on the ground. To save me turning into a cabbage I felt I needed something other than a clementine to lift me out of my Savoy stupor. Persimmons (or Sharon Fruit) were something that I had never tried; for some reason they were forever unobtainable. I did manage to get hold of them eventually and was then thoroughly perplexed as to what to do with them.

My dilemma was ended when I asked Twitter how to deal with the situation. Roasting them in honey was my favourite suggestion and so I went about constructing honey roasted persimmons. I was very excited.
I had three persimmons to deal with and not a clue where to begin. The leaves didn’t look particularly appealing so off they came with a little persuasion. Slicing them in half also seemed like a solid start. It was sort of apple meets peach but they smelled of nothing in particular. read more

Caramelised Apples

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Apples are everywhere at the moment. They are falling out of trays at the market, falling off the trees along the road and falling onto my plate at any given opportunity. As much as I enjoy an apple on its own, it has to be a good one mind, sometimes you can have too many to know what to do with. Apple cakes, crumbles, pies and flapjacks are all lovely but I wanted to enjoy some apples at their very best and not shrouded by too many other flavours. read more

Damson and Apple Crumble

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baked damson and apple crumble
Crumble is the food I turn to when the evenings start getting darker and it starts getting cooler. Especially this damson and apple crumble. The way the sweet, slightly tart fruit of choice bubbles and seeps through the crunchy, crumbly, biscuity top is a sure fire way to warm you from inside to out. What I love about crumble is that it’s so versatile; the fruit is whatever fruit you can get your hands on.  I think that a person’s crumble is as unique as their fingerprint. Some crumbles are like a great wave of shortbread on top of the fruit, some are all big and little bits scattered willy nilly all over the place, some add extra sugar on the top, some add nuts and some add oats. Whatever your crumble style, it’s your own.    Recently I bought some damson jam out of politeness at a local market. I don’t even like jam. When I got home I wondered what on earth I was going to do with it. I got some crusty white bread, some soft unsalted butter and a dollop of the damson jam and it was a revelation. I’m ashamed to say that the loaf and jar were consumed in one sitting. What have I been missing out on all these years? It turns out I do like jam but was left wondering where damsons had been all my life.  When I noticed some lovely damsons outside my local greengrocer I just had to have them – I’d run out of jam for one thing. They were crying out to be made into a crumble. As I didn’t have that many of them I added an apple to make it go a bit further and add a little sweetness. This damson and apple crumble was absolutely fantastic. The damsons add such richness and gorgeous colour, the apple is just detectable in the background giving it a lovely homely feel. This crumble had extra caramelised bits on the edges of the dish and peeling them off and chewing them has to be one of the most enjoyable things there is. If you’ve not had damsons before or are unsure how to deal with them then I urge you to give this a try. Crumble is such a tried and tested favourite, how could it go wrong?

Top Tips

Just like the crumbliness of your crumble is rather personal, so is what you choose to serve the crumble with. Cream, custard or ice cream? If you go for cream is it single, double, Gold Top or clotted? If custard, ready made or home made? If ice cream should it be vanilla with or without vanilla seeds or should it be clotted cream ice cream? It’s all very complicated and someone will always be upset no matter which you choose. I always opt for cream because I can stir it all together in the bowl and pretend I’m 8 years old again.  read more

Blackcurrant Summer Pudding and Red Gooseberry Fool

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Summer is a wonderful time for unctuous puddings. Sweet ones, sharp ones, gooey ones and normally in some shade of pink. I wish I had the willpower to buy millions of summer berries and freeze them so I can knock up a pudding anytime I fancy, but I can barely resist them enough for them to make it to the saucepan. How can you go wrong with inky blackcurrants and vibrant gooseberries? Over the weekend I had occasion to make luscious puddings with both of these fruits. First a slightly sweet, sticky blackcurrant summer pudding and then a sharp, creamy gooseberry fool.  read more

Panettone and Marmalade Bread and Butter Pudding

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There are some things that are tasty on their own but become even more so when transformed into a soft, squidgy, sumptuous (and very traditional) bread and butter pudding. This wonderful celebration of stale bread is one of my favourite puddings. It is exactly what you want from a pudding; sweet, light but also filling, warm and most importantly delicious. I think to describe it as stodgy is highly unfair. read more

Quince and Apple Crumble – adventures with the quince

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The quince used to be a hidden fruit. It seems it was embarrassed of its furry skin, ever varying sizes and odd looks. I had heard rumours of it returning to its former glory and I kept my eyes peeled and nostrils ready for a sight or a whiff of this mysterious fruit.  read more


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