Excited to have got my hands on the new James Morton book, ‘How Baking Works‘. This feels like the book I should have written, so very interested to see what he has to say. I also cleared out my cupboards a bit (with a little help from my mum) and unearthed an ancient tin of condensed milk (which can’t go off, right?). This prompted me to make a Dan Lepard chocolate cake, and a tin of no-boil fudge. Unfortunately, the oven decided to break while I was baking the cake, meaning I baked it for twice as long as I should have, the first stint at a very low temperature. So I’ve ended up with something much drier than it should be, and singed around the edges for good measure. It’s a testament to Dan’s recipe that it tastes good nonetheless.

Recipes:

• Cow pie (pictured above), with handmade puff pastry made on my Bread Ahead course – The Recipe Wheel, Rosie Ramsden
• Brown sugar chocolate cake (aka the cake of sad – see above) – Dan Lepard, Short and Sweet
• Cheat’s fudge – Sweets Made Simple
• Chicken Shawarma – The Five O’Clock Apron
• A four-strand plaited loaf – plaiting directions from Brilliant Bread

Without a recipe:

• Sausage pasta
• Chicken burritos
• Parsnip risotto (from the freezer)
• Fish curry (with Spice Tailor sauce)

Reading this week:

• Amateur Gourmet wonders what’s going on in food blogging. Those ads just aren’t bringing in money any more, at least for him – now the demand is all for sponsored posts. It looks like online advertising and publishing are changing again. I know that for me, blogs that mainly run sponsored posts aren’t that interesting – even when scrupulously disclosed, and well done.
• Just a flat-out compelling piece of writing – and not what it sounds like at all: How to lose weight in 4 easy steps. (via Jenny at Dinner: A Love Story)
• Paul A Young and Morgaine Gaye have collaborated on some futuristic sweets for FutureFest, on at Vinopolis this weekend (full disclosure: this event is being organised by Nesta, my current employer).
• Why children should be fed adult dishes – some of the ideas behind Claire Thomson’s book, The Five O’Clock Apron.
• The ever-wise Bee Wilson on the inexplicable Bulletproof Coffee, and why lots of butter won’t make us better: “we search in vain for the single substance that will make us healthy”