My breadmaker <3

Just in case you feel inspired by the french crusty update but haven't yet invested in one of these, I thought I might show you my breadmaker - the Morphy Richards Fast bake 48268.


Brushed stainless steel, 12 settings including a fastbake setting, 1.5lb AND 2lb loaf capacity and I have even started on the crust control yet.

But for me the most appealing feature isn't that it can bake you a loaf of bread in as fast as an hour and ten minutes or indeed it's unique retracting blade. No, for me it's most redeeming feature has to be the little window on it's lid so that you can see what's going on inside.


You can see it go round and round and round. And then up and then round and round again. And then up and then up some more and slowly, you can see it turn brown :)

The 48268 is simply leagues ahead of Morphy Richards cheaper version, the Compact Breadmaker 48245. Morphy Richards have tried to do it justice by listing it's programmable timer as a feature. This obviously comes as standard for the 48268 and unfortunately just makes the 48245 seem even more shit. Oh dear 48245 :(

My only word of caution on the 48268 is to not bother reading the manual - it's only really good when you have greasy hands and need something to wipe them on.

If I were a lesbian, I would really fancy...

...Kathryn Hughes from The Guardian for her article on the knork.


I love to see this amount of enthusiasm on something which people take for granted. I have been a closet fan of the knork's sister, the spork, a hybrid of the spoon and fork for sometime now and had no idea that someone else could spend so much time, not only thinking but writing on this subject.

In a parallel universe somewhere, I would be a successful writer like Kathryn and holding hands, we would go for long walks in Richmond park on Sunday afternoons. We would talk about her article on the knork and my critically acclaimed article on the spork. She would recite her Freudian views on cutlery and I would talk about how Spudulike are the perfect food outlet to showcase the spork.

"But oh..." I would sigh "...wouldn't it be amazing if someone could invent a hybrid of the two. A hybrid of two hybrids. A spork and knork as one..."

It doesn't take more than a heartbeat for her to pull me toward her shouting;

"Why, the sporkife!"

"The sporkife? Why didn't I think of that?!"

Why didn't you think of that Jeanette. Anyone could think to invent the spork but the person with the type of mind to think up the knork, well, anything is possible with that mind. Anything. Including the sporkife. God, she's amazing. I could make love to her right now, I would think to myself.

"Then Spudulike wouldn't need to give knives with their sporks. Hell, they wouldn't even be handing out sporks now there's a sporkife." I exclaim.

I look into Kathryn's eyes now filled with the same tears of joy that run down my face. We both stand motionless, consumed by the mutual love of knorks and sporks that brings us together. Two minds, one sporkife.

Delia's mincemeat

I've already got carried away with Christmas this year. I've already bought the snowman shaped biscuit cutters to make the biscuits that will decorate the tree and have made two massive jars of mincemeat and three Christmas cakes; one for the boyfriend, one for me and one to give away as a present although I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep up the pretence that I'm going to give it away. I used this recipe last year and was pleased enough with the results to make it again this year!

Using these fancy jars makes for an awesome Christmas present. Nanna will be very impressed.

Ingredients
450g Bramley apples diced into small pieces
225g shredded suet
350g raisins
225g sultanas
225g currants
225g whole mixed candied peel, chopped into small pieces
350g soft dark brown sugar
Grated zest and juice of 2 oranges and 2 lemons
50g almonds cut into slivers
4 tsps ground mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
6 tbsps brandy

Method
Combine and thoroughly mix all ingredients except the brandy. Cover and leave overnight. The next day pre-heat oven to gas mark 1/4 (yes, a quarter) and place the mixing bowl, covered with foil into the pre-heated oven for three hours. Remove from oven and stir occasionally until the fat coagulates. Now stir in the brandy and spoon the mixture into sterilised jars.

And to sterilise your jars, wash them in warm soapy water, dry and place them in a medium oven for 5 minutes or until completely dry.

Breadmaker bread recipe

I know it might seem silly giving a recipe for something which you don't actually make but breadmakers can be surprisingly difficult to get right.

In the past, I had been following the recipes from my breadmaker's manual and was quite content to pretend to be pleased with its results. Indeed, I would chew disappointingly on my heartburn-inducing stodge happy to bypass my taste buds in favour of the pleasure of eating something 'homemade'. The novelty was obviously quick to wear off.

I thought I'd give it another chance and use a recipe not featured in the manual. Since then I have been making bread practically every day for the last week. I've even taken it out of permanent hibernation from under the sink and have put it pride of place next to the microwave. That's a good thing - my microwave is amazing.


Gone are the days of bland, indigestible stodge. Say "Bonjour" to French crusty!

Ingredients
350ml water
1 tbsp skimmed milk powder
25g butter
540g strong white flour
1 and 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp light brown sugar
1 sachet dried fast-action yeast

Method...if you want to call it that
Place ingredients in breadmaker in order listed and use basic small setting. Or if you breadmaker is super fancy like mine, then use French setting.

Homous

My friend once told me that on the one and only occasion she could be bothered to make homous she discovered that it "didn't actually require as much oil as you might think." She said that as long as your put enough garlic and lemon juice in it you could pretty much get away with making it oil free. This inevitably sent my mind into homous overdrive. Imagine eating as much homous as you wanted! Because obviously 'oil free = fat free', and 'fat free = being able to stuff your face silly with it.'

The opportunity to make it arose when cleaning out my cupboard, I found a bag of dried chickpeas which on every previous occasion I had pulled out to cook, I would frustratingly shove it back in the cupboard because I would realise that I had absolutely no idea what to do with them. But this time was different. This time I had the motivation of fat-free homous at the back of my mind.

So how to cook them? Well, Nigella writes that you should soak them in water overnight with a tsp of baking powder and bicarb, drain and the next day, immerse them in water and put them on the stove with the lid on at a simmering heat for up to three hours. Nigella even mentions how the 'nutty' smell of the chickpeas will spread through the whole house and how enjoyable it will be for you. Nigella must have simply been boiling some nuts that day because my house ended up smelling of dead cat fur. And that was despite the bay leaves I had put in for extra flavour.

So when you're ready, blitz together two cups of the cooked and cooled chickpeas, three tbsps of tahini, the juice of one lemon, four cloves of garlic, a tsp of cumin and then, with the food processor still on, pour hot water into the funnel a little bit at a time until you get the homousy consistency you're after. And I know we're after a low-fat homous but just for authenticities sake, stir through a tablespoon of olive oil.

If you're a sucker for sun-dried tomatoes then add five to the food processor. For those who like olives in their homous sandwiches but couldn't take any more embarrassing olive-falling-out-of sandwich-and-on-to-lap moments, then simply blitz a handful into the mixture. If you use kalamata olives, it makes it go purple!

Halloween cupcakes

I guess it's a bit late to be making a post about anything Halloween related. Supermarket stackers are no doubt already pulling all the Halloween confectionery from the shelves. Somewhere out there, hardcore Halloween enthusiasts are starting to realise that it won't be 31st October again for a whole year and asking themselves "Do I have enough energy to drag myself down to Sainsbury's to check out the half price chocolate witches and reduced vampire make-up which would really come in handy for fancy dress parties?".

I made these ones with a friend. At first orange seemed like a great idea because it meant we could make pumpkin faced cupcakes which worked for the one at the bottom in the middle but then confused us when we wanted to do anything that wasn't orange which is why every other one looks a bit naff unless you try to imagine another colour in the background.

To make the orange Royal Icing simply whisk an egg white for about 20 seconds until a little bit frothy. To get enough to cover about a dozen cakes, just use about a third of the egg white and then slowly keep adding sieved icing sugar with a couple of drops of red and yellow food colouring. When it gets firm enough to roll into a ball, dust some icing sugar on a clean surface and roll out. I used a cup to cut out the circles to go on top and some ready made tubes of 'writing icing' for drawing. Oh and I heated up about 2 tbsps of apricot jam with a tbsp of water to make a glaze which was then painted on the cakes to enable the icing to stick.

Chanelle has a tantrum on Ready Steady Cook

It's all too easy to bitch about this princess but seeing as she had never crossed over into the food/restaurant territory, I never had the means to warrant a good old Chanelle rant.

So imagine my joy when I saw her on Friday's edition of Ready Steady Cook!



What confuses me about this video is the number of opportunities Brian Turner has to head-butt Chanelle but turns them down. That's fair enough Brian. After all it's a family show and it's shown before the watershed but that really doesn't explain why you had to hug her instead. We'd rather be watching Deal or No Deal.

Slump in Italian wine sales

"Wine could make a good antibacterial mouth wash to fight tooth decay and a sore throat, according to Italian researchers." says The Telegraph.


Does that mean we can expect next weeks news to report that British researchers will recommend that you should gargle with cider?

The Anti-Borough Market

Have you had it up to your nostrils with trendy farmers markets? Are you sick of pretending that you like smelly French cheese? Do you want to spend your Saturday mornings anywhere BUT browsing organic foods you've never heard of surrounded by middle-class, half-arsed hippies? If the answer to any of these is 'yes' you may want to pay a visit to one of London's lesser known markets; Lewisham Market.


To be honest, I don't really mind Lewisham. I mean, it looks OK from the window when you pass through it on the train. That is until the day you pluck up the courage to get off the train and see the local shops and suddenly recall all the times you've heard bad things on the news about locals getting shot. Then comes the day when you finally visit the market on the weekend. It's then. That first visit to the market when you add up everything and start to realise why it has such an undesirable reputation. It is, in a nutshell, rough. But boy oh boy, is the fruit cheap!


Take a look at this lot for example. A massive bag of grapes, an equally stuffed bag of bananas, a box of mangoes, fourteen plums and two pineapples. All for £5!

Is it organic? No! Is it fair trade? Not likely! Is it at least fresh and of good quality? Hardly ever!


Look at those apples. OK, so they're quite pale compared to the ones from Borough Market (on the right) but then again, you're paying a pound for the whole bowl. So who cares if they've been on the pavement? I certainly don't!


Box of mangoes with strange black spots for £1? Yes please! And to think you could have bought the 'disease-free' variety in Borough Market for double!


And who needs all those fancy pastries and muffins when there's a perfectly good doughnut stand? They are fresh after all! I didn't see that man making that really delicious muffin before my eyes. Who knows where it could have come from?


We'll ignore that for now....


And don't worry if you couldn't find what you wanted at the market - Iceland will probably have it.

Nutella cake

Seeing as every other food blogger under the sun has done the Nutella cake (e.g. here, here, here, here, here and here) and not wanting to feel left out, I thought I really should do it as well. Not to mention the fact that I've been desperate to see how satisfying it would be to empty a whole jar of Nutella in one go.

Ingredients for the cake
400g jar Nutella
125g soft, unsalted butter
6 eggs, seperated
120g dark chocolate
100g ground hazelnuts
1 tbsp Frangelico, rum or water

For the ganache
125ml double cream
125g dark chocolate
1 tbsp Frangelico, rum or water

Beat butter, Nutella and Frangelico together until combined (BTW, I don't think Frangelico really exists. It sounds like it's been made-up, like Brangelina or frenemies which is why I used rum instead). Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, saving the egg whites for later. Add the ground hazelnuts and melted, cooled chocolate. Fold in whisked egg whites and bake in a lined 23cm springform tin at gas mark 4 for about 45 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the ganache, you simply heat the cream over a LOW heat to which you add the chocolate then keep stirring until it has melted. I really stupidly started doing the stupid washing-up and didn't see the cream bubbling away with the chocolate inside, burning at the bottom of the pan. This, really unfortunately, led to this mess:

(Warning: Some readers may find the following pictures offensive and/or disturbing)


ARGGHH! How could I mess up something so simple? And what IS that yellow liquid? I obviously couldn't spread that on top of the cake and so had to go to the Co-op AGAIN and once AGAIN be convinced that their "dark" chocolate really does have a cocoa content of 63% and above. Why isn't there such a thing as a Waitrose Local? The second attempt went much more smoothly because I was actually paying attention. This is what it should look like:


Ahhh, much better! This was then lightly whipped and then spread on the cooled cake. I found that it took on the consistency of butter cream although judging by the other blogger's attempts, I'm not sure how ganache is meant to look.


Even though there's a whole jar of Nutella in the cake, I think perhaps it would have been better to add some extra sugar as it is rather rich and hence not great for children even though you might think that kids would be this cakes target demographic. It is ultimately a tacky but fun version of Torta Caprese which, after Christmas cake, is one of my most favourite cakes. And maybe if I didn't have such a stuck up view of chocolate nut cakes, then this one would soon be winging its way to my best cakes list for its fudgy, brownie-like qualities.

(And if you're planning on taking photos of the cake, it's probably best not to display it on that really naff Argos plate your Mum fobbed off on to you because even she didn't want it.)

Apricot jam

I thought there was some big secret behind jam. That it took days of preparation and then hours of cooking and required loads of sugar. Well, I was right about the sugar bit, in fact I was rather shocked to discover how much sugar goes into jam. The cooking bit however, I was wrong about. It took only a couple of hours from start to finish to knock up four jars of the stuff and now that I know how easy it is, I feel like I can't stop myself now.

I already tried out strawberry jam last week. Laughing, I put my half-price, half-eaten punnet of strawberries into the saucepan expecting to get two teaspoons worth of jam at the end of it:

"There's no way I'll make enough jam to make this experiment worthwhile. Aren't there like a million strawberries in a jar of jam? I'm sure I've read that on the label before!"


But no, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find a healthy sized jar-portion sitting in the bottom of the saucepan after my experiment. Which is why I've now moved onto apricots.

Ingredients
1.5kg apricots (after stoning)
1.5kg white granulated sugar
1 lemon
Approx. 10 almonds from inside the apricot stones

This will give you enough for four medium sized jars however you can make however much you want based on how ever many apricots you have. Basically, once you've taken the stones out, weigh the apricots and this will give you the weight of sugar you will need.

Half the apricots and place in the biggest saucepan you have with the sugar and juice from one lemon. Boil for about 30 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. In the meantime, you can get on with the almonds. That is, if you choose to put them in, as I only actually put them in one of my jars.

Crack open about ten of the stones to get the kernels and then blanch them for 2 minutes in boiling water. Skin them, halve them and place on a paper towel to dry out until you need them.

Now you're meant to do the Wrinkle Test on the jam which is now my most favourite test in the world! (And I reckon I passed it with flying colours). It involves eating warm spoonfuls of jam that have been spread on the surface of a chilled plate. If the jam wrinkles when you tilt the plate after a couple of seconds, then it's set and you can take it off the heat. If not, then let it boil for a few more minutes. You should really chill your plate in the freezer before hand but I did mine under the cold tap for a few minutes which is probably a bit of a waste of water and hence not very good for your Water Footprint - that's like your Carbon Footprint only muddier. Once it has been taken off the heat, Delia suggests dispersing the scum collected on the surface with a knob of butter but I found it easier to skim it off and disperse it in my tummy :)

After eating the scummy jam, leave it to cool for half an hour and then divide into sterilized jars. Sterilized jars, just to remind you, are jars that have been washed in warm, soapy water and then dried in the oven on a medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Apparently you should wait a few months to let the jam mature. If you're concerned that you won't have the willpower to go through with this, then I recommend getting your mum to come around and hide them. Just don't get your senile grandmother to do it or in a couple of months time, she would've forgotten where she'd put them.

Super headline

"Superfoods fly off shelves as Britons get healthy" according to The Independant.

Of course they can fly. They can also see through walls and save children from burning buildings!

Cowabunga dudes!

I've been wanting to do an update on this pizza for months now but was always worried that a self-respecting food blog would never do a pizza update for fear of never being taken seriously ever again because after all, any old fool can make a pizza. But seeing as I'm not a self-respecting food blog I thought I might as well do the update anyway.

Before you ask, no I haven't put the pizza straight on my dining table. That happens to be an unnecessarily large cutting board. Back to the recipe...

Ingredients
1 pound bread flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 tsps active dry yeast
1 and 1/2 tsps sugar
1 tsp salt

I found the recipe for the base here before you think I actually have the culinary knowledge to make up something this simple myself.

Combine the water, oil, yeast and sugar in a jug and leave for a few minutes until it starts foaming. Stir the salt into the flour. Mix the two together to form a dough but don't bother kneading it - it's not that type of dough. Now divide it into two and put one half in the freezer for next time unless you're planning on eating pizza two days in a row or actually have a 24 inch pizza pan as the recipe states. Like my kitchen is even that wide! Then leave the dough to rest for at least 24 hours although I found it even better after two or three days. So once it's rolled out and placed onto an oiled pizza pan, spread on about 3 tbsps sun-dried tomato puree and then about 6 tbsps of passatta. I like to use a red pepper, a red onion and lots of salami for my toppings and then about 150g of grated mozzarella. And for the love of God, put the toppings under the cheese and not on top unless of course you like dry, burnt-out vegetables. Bake for 12 minutes at gas mark 7.

Sainsbury's Gu puddings offer

I still can't understand what Sainsbury's are getting out of this. Gu products have become such an integral part of my diet that putting them on offer is like putting bread or milk on special offer.

The novelty of the glass ramekins has officially worn off though. They're taking up so much room in the kitchen cupboard that I'm considering taking them down to the glass recycling bin. Either that or everyone will be getting ashtrays for Christmas this year.


Oh and don't bother with the lemon souffle - it's very greasy and leaves you feeling like you want to brush your teeth for the rest of the evening. Go for the vanilla cheesecake or the tiramisu, or Tiramigu, should I say.

Killer bananas

From the country that bought you Chinese Whispers, how an innocent text message about a dying grandmother can turn into complete chaos.

The Copywopydoodah cake: Part 2

Apart from getting a great shot down my friends top, this is the best photo I have of the Copywopydoodah cake before it was completely demolished. See the white, milk and dark chocolate stripes? And I made a "25" out of dark chocolate to go on top! Although someone already ate the bottom of the "2". Note to self; don't bring a cake you put your heart and soul into to the pub full of drunk friends :(

"It's THEIR cake now!" I said to myself though gritted teeth.

She'll HATE me for putting this one up.


Fingers crossed that a Choccywoccydoodah scout is reading this and wants to give me a job!

The Copywopydoodah cake: Part 1

Three of my friends are having a joint birthday party this weekend, despite the fact that their birthdays aren't really that close together and spread over two months. They've already shot themselves in the foot by setting the precedent for people to give joint birthday presents. So obviously their birthday present from me will be a cake. But not just any old cake. This one will be three times as big but hopefully won't look like something from 'Pimp That Snack!'. It will be a Choccywoccydoodah cake.

(Oh and it also means I can use up some of the Green and Blacks cocoa I bought from Waitrose about two years ago when they were buy one get one free.)

Usually for birthdays I'll make that foolproof chocolate cake by Nigella although I don't actually know which of her books it's from - it's the only recipe I've ever written down whilst watching one of her shows because, like everyone else, I'm usually transfixed with her lovely bottom and can't bear to take my eyes off the screen for as long as it takes to write down a recipe.

Ingredients for chocolate cake
400g plain flour
250g caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g cocoa
2tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt

175g unsalted butter melted and cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml cold water

142ml tub sour cream
3 large eggs
1tsp vanilla extract

Method
Mix dry ingredients until combined. Add the butter, corn oil and water to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Briefly whisk the eggs, sour cream and vanilla extract together and then beat into the rest of the mixture. Divide between two loose-bottom cake tins and bake at gas mark 4 for about an hour.

Do this another two times so that you have six cakes in total. You'll also start to realise what it must be like to be a machine in the Mr Kipling factory.

Once you have all six cakes lined up, you can start to sandwich them together. I did this using a chocolate buttercream icing made up of 400g melted dark chocolate, 350g unsalted butter and about 750g icing sugar. And yes, I went through the effort of sieving it. Make sure you fill up all the cracks - you don't want any weak points in this structure.


Now this is the part when you might want to reconsider making the cake. The buttercream icing was just to sandwich the cakes together and not to cover it. To cover the cake I needed something which could hold this skyscraper of a cake together. Something to keep it rigid, yet something runny. Something sticky and something funny. I needed caramel.

Ingredients for chocolate caramel covering
350g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
150g golden syrup
3 397g tins condensed milk
1tsps instant espresso powder/coffee granules
300g dark chocolate

Method
Gently bring all ingredients (except the chocolate) to the boil, stirring constantly. Turn heat down to a simmer and continue stirring until mixture becomes thicker and darker. This should take about 15 minutes. Break chocolate into pieces and stir into the caramel until dissolved. Leave to cool before spreading on the cake. Prepare to be amazed at how easy it is to use.

After cooling the cake in my fridge overnight, I was finally able to add the final layer of solid chocolate. I melted down 1.5kg of Belgian chocolate ...

"!!!!!!!!"

Yes, 1.5kg of chocolate to cover the cake which may seem exciting now but you will probably be so sick of chocolate at this stage that you will want to wash up the bowl instead of licking it clean. I allowed the chocolate to set before painting on the dark and white chocolate stripes to complete that Choccywoccydoodah look which you will hopefully see in Part 2!

BREAKING NEWS: Ainsley Harriot IS a 'winner'

We obviously already knew that he was a winner when he took over from Fern on Ready Steady Cook. But now thanks to the graphics department at the BBC (because they obviously couldn't think of any other chefs) Ainsley is now the face of victory over the smoking ban. See how he's waving to the losers? That's genius juxtaposition.

And it would seem that chefs aren't the only people who will benefit from the smoking ban. According to this really shit report from the BBC that reads like something out of Women's Own, the paparazzi will be able to get more shots of celebrities who step outside from bars and restaurants to 'have a fag'...I am loving the logic behind that.

We just have to hope that the chef shortage won't get so bleak that Ainsley is drafted to work in some country pub and has to quit TV for good.

Chocolate mousse

My boyfriends imminent house move has given me a panic that most people get when moving house. A panic which makes me want to throw out as much stuff as possible to make the process of moving house a lot less stressful. Not that it's even my house or me who'll have to do the moving of things. But still, I want to do my bit and using up his food seems to be the best way I can help. And I'm sure he'll be thanking me when he doesn't have to carry that bar of chocolate to our new place. It also means I can get him to do reviews on the food I make;

"I'm new to mousse, so don't really know how to review one. I've only ever had mousse two or three times ever, so am a bit short of a frame of reference about what makes a mousse good or bad. This one seems to be very much like the ones I had before, though, and those ones were made by proper chefs (or at least a well-calibrated mousse machine in a factory) which must mean this one's very good.

Uncle Jen will probably say it came out wrong for some weird reason, like she does with everything. Probably this time she'll moan because there was a slightly thick, chewy crust on top that tastes quite strongly of golden syrup. That's not supposed to be there, she'll say, also mentioning as an aside that she threw three previous secret attempts away because they seemed too runny.

However, the thick, chewy, syrupy/chocolatey crust is a secret lovely bonus! Like those thick lumpy bits you get in Easter eggs where the chocolate's gone too thick. They're a treat THEY don't want you to have because they're JUST TOO NICE - and so is this mousse's thick crust.

The first one had a huge lump, about the size of a large kidney bean, right at the top in the middle. What a treat. The second one (pictured) had a more uniform consistency. Both were very chocolatey and syrupy and quite fluffy, which, to my extremely stunted palette, is what a chocolate mousse should be like.

So I'll give this chocolate mousse a final score of eight Mars bars out of ten Mars bars. Recommended." Cmdr Zorg

Ingredients
100g dark chocolate
1 and half tbsp water
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 eggs, separated

Melt chocolate in a double boiler with the water and syrup. Take off the heat and beat in egg yolks one at a time. Whisk egg whites until stiff. Fold into chocolate mixture and divide between the two non-stackable ramekins I got with some very tasty Gu puddings.

(Recipe comes from Nigella's How To Eat.)

Annoying habits: leaving teabags next to the sink

Isn't this the worst thing? Why are people so afraid to put a hot teabag straight in the bin? Are they worried that the heat from the teabag is so intense that it will melt a hole through the bin liner? Or is it because the sink is closer and lets face it, we want to get that milky goodness down our necks faster than we can care to think about the correct disposal of the used bag?

Surely the above example is illegal. Not only have they put it IN the sink but it has also been hidden by the sponge - probably on purpose because they wanted to rid themselves of the responsibility of binning it. Some innocent will come along shortly, fill up the sink to wash the dishes and horrified, they will scoop up the soggy bag into their hands. Lets just hope they were wearing gloves.

Oh my godfathers. This has to be the worst kind of bag-disposing laziness I've ever seen. We can only hope that someone uses the sponge from before to mop up that spillage. Then at least the other bag should be discovered. Perhaps in the future, spoons should come labelled with instructions on how to squeeze excess liquid out of teabags.

Potato fraud

"At least two leading retailers are under investigation for selling Israeli potatoes as 'British new potatoes' and may face prosecution. They cannot be named for legal reasons." says The Times


"The alert follows a potato survey in South Wales..." probably carried out by the man above.

Banana loaf cake

I've had issues in the past with banana cakes. Mostly to do with getting carried away with the amount of bananas in the mixture which in turn, the flour can't support and the end resulting a banana flavoured lump of stodge. Then there are the politics of the differences between banana cake and banana bread, although I think I've come to the conclusion that they're pretty much the same thing and all turn out the same way - more cakey than bready.

This one is essentially a banana madeira cake. It's light and very nice cut into slices and spread with honey. Try making it the night before so you can have it for breakfast the following morning. Just don't tell the people eating it, the state of the bananas when they went into the mixture. And it's probably for the best if you try to forget it as well.

Ingredients
175g unsalted butter
175g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
225g self-raising flour
2 large, very ripe bananas

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and beat until combined but don't worry if it curdles - it always turns out fine. Mix in the flour and finally mash the bananas and mix them in. Pour mixture into a lined loaf tin and bake at gas mark 4 for about an hour.

How far is too far? The bananas in a banana loaf cake

I was thrilled to see these three rotting bananas in my Nan's fruit bowl today when visitng her for my weekly knitting session. Thank goodness I deliberately bought five bananas instead of the two she had asked for when buying her shopping almost six weeks ago now. I knew she'd never get through them all!

'Now I can make a banana cake!' I thought to myself. Only to completely forget that running home is probably not a good idea with bananas in my bag which resulted in that one splitting open. If you look closer, you can see one of my hairs stuck in it.

The problem is now that I'm completely overloaded with mouldy bananas as I had been saving up these two that 'went off' at the end of last month.

Don't worry, I'll lob that bit off.

Naff foods I like but have always been afraid to admit liking #3

Cocoa powder. As in eating it with a spoon straight from the jar when I'm craving chocolate.

Like last year when I ate all the chocolates from the Advent calender in one go. And the same the year before then, and the year before then, and the year before then, and the year before then...

New York Holiday

There are only a few good reasons I have ever considered going on a diet for. Once was to look good for my boyfriend on our first date (because I'm shallow like that) and most recently because I knew I'd be going on holiday to New York and wanted to be able to stuff my face when I got there. So after a not-so-gruelling eight weeks of cutting back, I was finally able to let myself go on the cheesecakes, pastrami, club sandwiches and pretzels.

(N.B. Rather annoyingly I only bought batteries for my camera on the last day of the holiday and even then I kept forgetting to take photos of my meals which is why I have only really have a breakfast, a slice of cheesecake and a box of chocolates to show.)

We spent most mornings at this diner recommended to us by the bloke at reception at the Casablanca where we were staying. Apparently, it was the inspiration behind Seinfeld although we didn't see him there so I'm not sure of the validity of that claim.

This is a before and after photo of our breakfast. Note how the plate which had my Eggs Benedict on, isn't in the 'after' photo as it had to be promptly taken away as we were using up so much crockery that they needed some back for their other customers.

Or maybe it's because we needed a whole plate for the empty packets of butter, jam and syrup - all mine.

Our whole day seemed to revolve around maximising our calorie intake. It was thoroughly enjoyable yet to reach our potential, we had to step back and look at things mathematically.

Wake up early + Go to bed later = Get in another meal

This conclusion might have been a bit more useful if we had actually managed to stay up past 11pm but because of the time difference and all the walking, we were well and truly beat. Walking around did have it's benefits though;

Wake up early + Go to bed later + Walk everywhere = Get in another meal and plenty of snacks

Walking everywhere meant we were able to convince ourselves that we were burning up vast amount of calories and therefore needed three slices of cheesecake every time we passed a deli. The cheesecake below was a fine, if not the best example, of one of our fuel-ups, not that I can remember the name of the place it's from. I did however manage to make a tit of myself by asking the man behind the counter if it was a New York cheesecake. "Yeah, sure!" he laughed. Mustn't forget to make a fool of myself in front of the locals! What other stupid things could I do? Ask the hotel porter how much is a good amount to tip him? Yeah, that'll do.

One of the places I was desperate to visit was Chocolate Haven. After stopping off for lunch in Greenwich Village, I asked the waiter if he knew of a chocolate shop called Chocolate Haven and if it was any good. He said he hadn't heard of it but that I should most definitely check out Jacques Torres on the corner of Hudson Street because it looked like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and does the most amazing cookies. Of course when we get there we realise that Chocolate Haven and Jacques Torres are indeed the same shop and that it does indeed look like the inside of Roald Dahls mind (as do the chocolates).

The pistachio marzipan sticks out in my mind more than the others. Although there was a chai tea flavour fondant covered in white chocolate which was equally memorable. Eating them, however, makes me realise how grateful I am for Belgium being so close to the UK and having such a huge influence on the chocolate back home because as nice as they were, they still don't compare to the quality of chocolate we get here. That still didn't stop me from bringing home a whole carrier bag full of Baby Ruths and Zagnuts though!