Category Archives: Picnics

Sourdough bagels

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I’ve long made bagels and they are a thing of beauty and deliciousness. I have made sourdough ones but not with any regularity. But recently I started making them again. They take a bit more time, in that they need to be left to rise in their own sweet time, far more than yeasted bagels. I rushed them last week and they were dense – still delicious but not so airy and light.

I tend to shape these into little round rolls first and then puncture a hole with a wood spoon handle. I tend to make these with a smaller hole than my yeasted bagels. Who knows why.

Unlike yeasted bagels these can also be left to prove for 48 hours in the fridge (maybe even longer but I’ve never left them that long), so if there aren’t that many of us, I tend to cook a batch up in two lots so we have fresh bagels for two days running. I can’t do that with yeasted bagels as they really have to be cooked the day after making (after an overnight prove in the fridge, ie they don’t ‘last’ that long in the proving stage).

If you want to make them totally vegan then don’t egg wash them.

You can of course use 500g of just white flour, or mix in a bit of wholemeal. I’m always looking for a more gut-friendly diversity so I add Vanessa Kimbell’s Diversity XXX flour. TBH these days I add 10-15% of it into almost all my bakes but here I use 20% (100g of 500g is 20% isn’t it? I failed maths..)

I think this recipe is, at least in part, from Edd Kimber but I adapted it a while ago. (I love Edd.)

What you need:

185g active sourdough starter
250g warm water
1 tbsp of sugar or barley malt syrup
1 tsp of fine sea salt
400g strong white bread flour
100g Diversity XXX flour

I mix everything together in my Kenwood Chef food mixer with the dough hook. I leave it on low for ten minutes. Then I turn the dough out onto an oiled surface, cover it with a bowl and leave it for an hour. After an hour I give it a gentle knead for ten seconds, leave it for an hour and then knead it again for ten seconds. If your house is very cold you might want to do this one more time. I kinda go on dough-feel (and no I’m not very good at it either).

When you’re ready to shape the bagels, when the dough feels lighter and a little more yielding, then cut it into 6/8/10 depending on how many you want to make (this makes eight regular sized bagels for me). I roll into little balls using my hands, then make a hole with the handle of a wooden spoon, stretching the hole out a little.

Place on a parchment lined tray.

I now leave this out, covered with a tea towel, for about another hour before putting them in the fridge overnight. I also think they benefit from coming up to room temperature after taking them out of the fridge but I never have time to do this so I put them straight away into the boil process. Note these really benefit from two days in the fridge (unlike yeasted bagels) so what I tend to do is cook them half one day and half the next so we get fresh bagels two days running, the second lot being all the more flavoursome for a two day prove.

Boiling and baking

Bring a pan of water to the boil. Some people put things in the water to make them more of a bagel (I don’t know what but stuff that makes it apparently taste more bagely) I can never be bothered. When the water is boiling I plop two in there – if you can get more in without them hurtling into each other than do. I give them a minute or two until they float and puff up a little, and turn them with a slotted spoon, another minute or two, then take them out and rest them on a tea towel. When all are done put them back on the parchment lined tray, brush with beaten egg if you want and scatter with seeds if you want and cook at 220C for 14/15 minutes. Check after 12.

These are really very good.

No/low alcoholic chocolate mulled wine (a thing of beauty)

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Some years ago I posted about a recipe I’d found for chocolate mulled wine, and indeed I made this for some years. But I stopped drinking about five years ago and life changed and I’d not made it since.

But last week, in preparation for some friends coming round to make wreaths, I decided I’d try to make it again but this time as a no-alcohol version, this was the original plan. This was in part inspired by another girlie-get together a couple of months previously, around the fire pit, where my friend Tracy had brought round some Captain Morgan no-alcohol rum which proved a big hit. I still had some left so I decided to use that as the basis for this no/low alcohol version.

I’m very much not a throw things in a pot kinda girl. I like a recipe and instructions. Sure I sometimes – often – then vary a recipe but I always like a framework to work to. So I was super pleased with how this worked out. I realised, as I started to make it, that I didn’t have the 750ml of liquid the original recipe called for. So I started to panic a bit, looked in the fridge, found some ginger beer, realised that still wasn’t enough to get it to 750ml, panicked some more and added some red wine (hence the low-alcohol title of this post). However you could easily just make this with all no-alcohol rum, or half that and half ginger beer, or what I did. What I did is reproduced below but bear in mind you can, as I did, vary what you use. Add a bit of booze if you like or not.

Chocolate in mulled wine? Don’t knock it til you try it. Don’t be tempted to use anything other than 100% cocoa here. I used Firetree which is the best 100% but you could also use any 100%, most of it is awful on its own but here it could shine. The Fiori di Sicilia essences were, if I say so myself, inspired in this as it adds a wonderfully citrusy note to everything.

Bottled up wouldn’t this make a fabulous present for someone? Shake it up and heat it up before serving. My husband said it was one of the most delicious things he’d ever tasted.

Feeling REALLY pleased with myself over this.

Ingredients:

750ml some sort of liquid, see above. I used 500ml of no-alcohol rum, 150ml of red wine and 100ml of ginger beer. I used this Captain Morgan rum and this gingerbeer.
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon of chilli flakes
1tsp ground mixed spice
5 whole cloves
100g dark muscovado sugar (you can also use just normal caster/granulated)
80g 100% cocoa chocolate of your choice (I used Firetree), broken into pieces.
A good few drops of Fiori di Sicilia. Of course you can make this without this ingredient but I use it a lot in my cooking and I really think it’s worth buying, you can use it in so many things and it lasts for ages.

Put everything together in a sauce pan and heat through gently until the chocolate has melted. Then either serve immediately or cool, put in the fridge and heat up as required. This will happily see you through Christmas!

Sourdough (English) muffins

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I’ll get straight to the point. These take time to make but most of that time is resting the dough in some shape or form. You have to cook them slow and low. But they are delicious and they freeze really well. I got the recipe from Facebook, from one of the many sites I follow about sourdough. The original says to use active starter, mine was a few days (in the fridge) old and it did it no harm. But I’ve adapted it slightly. You’ll need to start these the day before you want them. The bulk ferment (the bit where it stays out at room temperature for 10-12 hrs or as long as as possible) takes a long time so best to start these in the morning of the day before you want to eat them. Note you cook these on the hob, not the oven.

Ingredients

250g whole milk
115g water
55g butter (unsalted)
20g honey (or sugar, if using sugar add it with the flour)

75g starter
500g bread flour (I used 50g of Hodmedod’s Sourdough School’s Diversity XXX blend and the rest white but you can also use half wholemeal and half white depends how wholesome you want them to be)
A gently heaped teaspoon of fine grain sea salt

Method

Put the milk, water, butter and honey together in a sauce pan and gently heat til all melted then let it cool for ten minutes. If you’re using sugar then add it to the flour mixture next.

In a large bowl – for this is what you’ll eventually mix everything in, add the starter (sugar if you are using) and then add the milk/honey/water/buttery mixture and mix everything together, now add in the flour and salt. You’ll get a rough dough. Cover it and leave it to rest for 30 mins.

Now over two hours, every thirty minutes, you give it a gentle knead/fold and stretch. When this is done put in a clean bowl (oil with some olive oil) and cover it with a tea towel or a plate if you have one big enough. You leave it out for a looong time for the bulk ferment, or as long as you can. The original recipe says 10-12 hours. But if your kitchen is raging hot then probably half this. I think I left mine out for about 7 hours. Then transfer to the fridge for a day or two. I left mine in for two days.

When you’re ready to make them turn out the dough on a clean surface/board that’s been oiled or lightly floured and roll out to about 1.5cm thick. You don’t want it too thick. Get a biscuit cutter that’s the size you want the muffins to be – mine was about 6-7cm – and cut out as many as you can, transferring them to a baking tray which has either been lined with baking parchment or dusted with polenta. Re shape the dough and roll out again until you’ve used it all up. You’ll have one left that you’ll probably shape by hand. This will be the sacrificial muffin.


Leave out like this, covered with a tea towel, for about an hour. Heat up a cast iron frying pan – big as you got – but make sure you have a lid for it. You can also use a Le Creuset but make sure the heat is low. You can’t rush these babies.

When the pan has warmed up put in the sacrificial one to try out the heat of the pan and how long they take. It’s really worth doing this. Of course I thought I knew best so I ruined four finding out the hard way that my heat was too high.

Eventually I worked out mine took about eight minutes each side, on the lowest gas setting. You want them to be gently brown, when done turn over and do the other side for eight minutes. Keep an eye on them, it’s easy for them to burn but be raw in th middle (this is also why you don’t want them to be too thick to start with). Note they do puff up a bit when cooking.

Cook in batches, put on a cooling rack and then eat. With bacon and egg, sausage, cheese and chilli jam, hummus and carrot, whatever you like. They are SO tasty and freeze beautifully. Of course you can also toast them but I had mine fresh.

Sourdough sandwich loaf

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I’ve been making sourdough for fifteen years, either in a boule shape or a baguette shape or, sometimes, as little rolls. But the thing I really wanted at times was a soft sandwich loaf, but made with a sourdough starter.

There are lots of recipes for such going round the internet and this is one and it’s lovely. I sometimes add a bit of wholemeal flour, or some seeds, but there’s no doubt this should be predominantly white flour for that full soft sandwich experience. The one pictured here used a wholemeal starter but otherwise 100% white bread flour.

It makes for a very soft loaf that produces great sandwiches and is nothing like its crusty trad-sourdough boule cousin, lovely though that also is. Also fantastic toast. Some recipes I’ve seen use butter, in the dough and to brush the top with, but I don’t eat butter so I use olive oil. This makes two small loaves or one big one. I make mine in my Pullman bread tin which is 33cm x 10cm. I’ve yet to leave the lid on all the way through cooking to make a perfectly square loaf. What I do is leave it on for the first 20 or so mins then take it off for the last 10/15 mins.

Anyway this is what you do:

600g bread flour, white or a mix (see intro)
300g tepid water
150g sourdough starter
30g honey
30g extra virgin olive oil
10g fine sea salt

This is way easier and less hands on than traditional sourdough and you rest it in the tin you will cook it in, so no banneton needed. What I do is put everything in a stand mixer and mix it up with a dough hook for ten minutes. Then I rest it for an hour and give it a gentle knead and fold after one hour, then rest it for another hour, then give it another gentle knead. Then I place it in the tin it will be cooked in (I sort of roll it up like a giant swiss roll but you can also shape it into two boules and place them end to end) and let it rise at room temperature for as long as I have but until it kinda doubles in size.

Then I put the lid on (but if you don’t have just cover it with a tea towel) and put it in the fridge overnight.

In the morning I take it out and leave it at room temperature just for as long as the oven needs to come up to temperature: 250C.

Then I put it in the oven (if you have a Pullman, with the lid on if not do I need to point out you don’t put the tea towel in the oven?) for 15 or so minutes then take the lid off and let it cook for another 15/20 mins at 220C. As soon as it comes out coat the top of it with more olive oil (or melted butter).

It keeps really well for several days and like I said makes great toast.

A deceptively plain but tasty cake. Spiced chai bundt cake.

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This is a Donna Hay recipe, from a few of her books, most notably Modern Baking which is an, I think, under-celebrated baking bible. I’ve made this cake for many years and it’s a firm favourite in our house and needs few ingredients – we keep a stash of chai tea on hand especially for it and the rest are store-cupboard/fridge staples. It’s also a good way of using up too much milk.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon of loose chai tea (if you can only find tea bags just open them up, one tablespoon is about two tea bags’ worth)
Two tablespoons of boiling water
375g of self raising flour
330g of caster sugar
two teaspoons of mixed spice
4 eggs
375ml of milk
250g of butter, melted
two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

What you do

Preheat oven to 180C. I use a 9′ savarin/bundt tin for this – specifically this one. Butter the tin and dust with flour and shake off the excess.

Put the loose tea in the boiling water and let it steep for 5/10 minutes, whilst you melt the butter and let it cool.

Note: you’ll need all the tea mixture for the cake, ie the tea leaves and the water.

Now you can go ahead and put all the ingredients, including the tea mixture, into a freestanding mixer and whisk it until combined, or if you want to do it the old fashioned way then you can do butter and sugar – cream together, then add the vanilla extract, eggs, flour, mixed spice, tea mixture and milk.

Pour the batter into the cake mould and bake for about 35 minutes. Mine usually takes 40 but you can check after 30. Do check it’s done with a skewer inserted – it should come out clean. Leave it in the tin for about ten minutes, I loosen mine around the edge and the middle ring bit with a knife and then turn out.

It’s a really lovely, moist cake that keeps for a good few days and is so much nicer than you think it might be.

The best flapjacks you will ever make (a bold claim)

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Many years ago, I co-founded a parenting website called I Want My Mum (so named because I said this a lot when I was pregnant and after I had my first born). It was a small but wonderful little site and many of us are still friends today. Aside from mothering tips we also shared recipes.

From somewhere I got this recipe for flapjacks and they were amazing. I shared it on the board and then lost it and then over the years wondered how I’d ever find it when anyone ever talked about flapjacks…. But a wonderful woman called Sarah Green saved it and started making them.

Recently I asked on Facebook if anyone (I’m friends with lots of ex-IWMMers) just happened to have it. “No,” a few said “but Sarah Green makes the best flapjacks”. Sarah was at choir but when she came back she said “the recipe I use is the one YOU posted all those years ago.” The fact she had kept the recipe (and was so generous, she could so easily have just said it was her recipe, after all it wasn’t actually mine, I got it from somewhere) made me unfeasibly happy.

So to avoid having to hunt for it again, here is the original recipe with Sarah’s additions.

250 unsalted butter
Grated ring of one unwaxed orange
325g golden syrup
325g rolled oats (Sarah sometimes replaces 50g of oats for 50g of oat bran which is a great idea)
75g light muscovado sugar

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. You need a tin of about 28cm x 20cm which you line with baking parchment.

Put the butter, orange rind, golden syrup and brown sugar in a pan set over a low heat and stir until the butter has melted and everything is coated. The add the oats to the pan and mix it together. Tip the whole lot into the tin and spread evenly.

Bake for 15-20 mins. Don’t overcook or you’ll lose the lovely chewy texture. You know it’s done when it’s just beginning to go golden brown around the edges but don’t panic cos the mixture will be really soft still.

Leave in the tin to cool completely and it will set. Don’t be tempted to take it out before it’s cool. When it is, take the whole thing out of the tin, holding the edges of the baking parchment and cut into slices as desired.

I will make these again and post a picture but in the meantime enjoy them!

Romana’s cake, aka traditional Italian cake for everyday occasions

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Growing up with a Mamma who was an excellent cook, we had largely home made everything. But the cakes and biscuits we did have were nothing fancy, because they were things my mother learnt in her own mother’s kitchen. Looking back at my own cookery books, from my own adolescence, I was struck by how basic the recipes were.

I had a Katie Stewart cookbook which I thought was the height of sophistication but looking back at it now, the ingredient list was small and simple. Everything has evolved to be so much more sophisticated, and complicated now. That’s not a bad thing.

In February I went to visit my north Italian family in Parma. Romana, my cousin, had made this cake. It was plain and simple but we loved it, especially my youngest who ate it for breakfast and for tea.

It’s very usual to have such a cake as this and it be presented at various times during the day, until there’s nothing left. It’s part of its life journey that it should go slightly stale towards the end, so you can refresh it by giving it a hot dunk in morning caffe latte or tea-time lemon tea. I asked Romana for the recipe and here it is, I’ve put its most basic incarnation here plus a few small additions (in brackets) which make it a bit extra special. But don’t veer too far from the original. This cake is not fancy, doesn’t want to be and therein lies its beauty.

Oven to 180C you need a tin of about 9″/23cm, base lied with baking parchment.

300g of 00 or plain flour (I sometimes use 200g white flour and 100g wholemeal)
180ml of whole milk (semi skimmed will do)
150g caster sugar
2 eggs
100ml of olive oil (you can use extra virgin if you are so inclined, I’ve also used 50ml of lemon infused/50ml of normal olive oil)
3 teaspoons of baking powder
100g chocolate chips. This cake really benefits from those store board tiny chocolate chips but I have so much chocolate that I just chop up that)
(A really fabulous addition is to use Bakery Bits’ Fiori di Sicilia essential oil, this elevates it massively as well as smelling amazing and making the cake taste SO Italian.)

Mix the caster sugar with the oil, add the eggs, then the flour, then the milk and baking powder. Finally mix in the chocolate chips and the Fiori di Sicilia if using. Put in the tin and bake for about 40 mins. Check after 30.

This is great for taking to work/school in lunch boxes as it’s a very well behaved cake when travelling.

Also if anyone is interested in the approx macros for this whole cake they are:
Total weight: 931g
Protein: 60.2g
Fag: 157.7g
Carbs: 430.2g

Fibre: 29.5g
Sugars: 189.6

Update August 2025.

I now make this in my mini loaf cake tin to make..mini loaves and they are so cute and take about 20-25 mins.

Tamsin’s Houmous

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I’ll have to add a picture anon and also I can never really decide how you spell houmous so I hope that will do.

Here’s the thing with me and houmous. I’ve never really liked home made, or at least I have never made any at home which pleases me.

But all this has changed. I went to my friend Tamsin’s house; Tamsin is an inaugural member of my Suffolk Chocolate Club and it was her turn to host, and she made this amazing houmous which now I make and it’s, amazingly, still amazing when I make it.

The key is a really whizzy blender. I make mine in my Sage Super Blender, which is not its real name. I find if I make it in my Magimix it needs far longer to make it smooth.

You need (I’m so sorry about the formatting, not sure what’s going on with WordPress atm)

A 400g tin of chickpeas drain the liquid and keep it separate
50ml of the chickpea liquid (but you might need a bit more, I never do though, you can keep it though for aqua faba if that’s your thing – it is mine)
60ml lemon juice, this seems to be about 2/3 of my little organic lemons. Don’t forget you can grate the peel and keep it in the freezer, for something else.
60ml extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
Half a teaspoons of paprika
1 tablespoon of tahini
1 teaspoon of sea salt

Blend it all up til smooth, serve with a drizzle of very good olive oil.
It’s really good. The recipe says you can add 100g roasted red peppers to make it into red pepper houmous.

What I also do now is halve the houmous (how many ways are there to spell houmous?) when it’s done and then, to one half I add a small cooked beetroot and briefly whizz it up again and it makes for something even yummier.

Lavosh

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Lavosh are a bit like Italian Linguette – flat breads that you use with dips. They are so easy to make, the dough can be kept, balled up into individual portions for extra convenience, in the fridge for a day or two, ready to be rolled out and baked and you can have fresh lavosh on the table in under 20 mins.

You need, for eight lavosh

1 teaspoon of dried yeast
125ml of lukewarm water
1 teaspoon of caster sugar


300g of 00 flour (or just plain if you don’t have 00)

60ml of extra virgin olive oil

1 teaspoon of sea salt plus extra for sprinkling

1 egg white

Some herbs for atop, I’ve used basil here but you can use anything you like, fresh rosemary would be nice, as would dried oregano.

Mix together the 1 teaspoon of yeast, 125ml of lukewarm water and the teaspoon of caster sugar in a small bowl and give it 10-15 minutes until the top is frothy.

Whilst you are waiting for this mix together the 300g of flour and one teaspoon of salt in a bowl, make a little well and pour in the 60ml of extra virgin olive oil.. When the yeast/water/sugar mixture is frothy, pout this into the flour mixture too, and mix together until you have a rough dough. Knead this gently for a few minutes (if you need to you can do this on a lightly oiled chopping board or surface) leave for five minutes, go back and knead it again for a a minute or so (nothing strenuous is needed) leave it for another five minutes and by this time it should be smooth. Now leave it covered with a tea towel in a bowl in a warm place until it’s risen slightly. You could also put it in the fridge at this stage and carry on the next day with the cutting up into portions and rolling it out.

When it’s risen slightly cut into eight portions. I then roll them up into balls and with a rolling pin roll them out until they are long and thin. You can then cook, as below.

But if you haven’t previously kept the whole dough overnight you can cook some now and some – balled up in portions or as one big lump of dough – tomorrow as long as you leave the dough in the fridge at about 4C.

Basically when you are ready to bake them, preheat oven to 200C.

You can then either place baking parchment on a baking sheet and put the rolled out lavosh onto it, brush with the egg white, press in the basil leaves or whatever herbs you are using and sprinkle some salt. Then cook for about 12 mins until golden brown.

Or what I do is I preheat the baking sheet with the oven and when the oven is up to temperature the baking sheet is hot. I have separately prepared the lavosh onto the baking parchment (I have a re-usable silicon one). I take out the hot baking sheet and gently slide the lavosh on the baking parchment onto the tray. This way the lavosh puff up more but it’s really not necessary. Then bake as before

They are ready to eat pretty much straight away and are absolutely delicious with dips.

Pretzel Rolls

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The food writer Nicola Miller introduced me to what I think is the best bacon roll, from 5 Angel Hill in Bury St Edmunds. Their soft pretzel rolls, filled with salty bacon slices can see me going pretty much all day. Few breakfasts do this.

So when I saw this recipe for soft pretzel rolls in BBC Good Food magazine a while ago, by Edd Kimber (who I think is a genius and the only person I pay for on Substack) I had to make them.

I gave up hope of making them so they looked like pretzels, mine just look like in the picture. They make great rolls for sandwiches, sweet – but not too sweet – and soft. And of course with bacon for breakfast, and maybe an egg. I also really like them on their own.

The baked bicarb bit is a pain but you only need to do it once to yield a jar of baked bicarb which lasts for a good few batches, and it is worth it (I’ve done it without and they are fine but the baked bicarb does add something). I’ve reproduced the recipe here, eversoslightly tweaked, largely to help me as the way it’s laid on in BBC Good Food I always found confusing.

For the pretzel rolls (makes eight)

500g strong white bread flour

7g dried yeast (I use Dove’s Farm)

25g dark brown muscovado sugar

300ml of luke warm water

50g unsalted butter
(I sometimes put 50g of fridge-cold butter into a jug of 300ml of just boiled water and wait til the butter melts, thus cooling the water, and then wait until the water is at the sort of temperature that when you dip your finger in it feels neither hot or cold)

1 teaspoon of salt

For when ready to bake

2tbsp baked bicarb (see later)

An egg for egg wash

Sea salt for sprinkling if you want.

I put all the ingredients for the pretzel rolls (not the ‘for when ready to bake’ bits) into a food mixer with dough attachment and mix for ten minutes. Then I take out the dough hook and leave at room temperature for an hour (less if it’s really hot).

When ready, take the dough out and divide into eight. You roll each piece out into a long sausage and then shape into a U then cross the ends up and over. If you get stuck just YouTube How to shape a pretzel but don’t get fixated on making large holes or gaps. You can also just shape these into little normal buns. Place on parchment covered tray.

Then you can either set these aside for – as the original says – 20 mins (covered with a cloth) or do as I do which is put them in a fridge which is at 4C (on a parchment covered tray, covered with a tea towel). I bake them the next day. Note these won’t keep for ever in the fridge so if you want them the next day, make them late afternoon/evening.

When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 200C and bring a large pan of water to the boil put in the two tablespoons of baked bicarb (I will tell you how to do this at the end). Take your tray of pretzel rolls out of the fridge. Depending on how big your saucepan is you put in, say, two pretzel rolls and a time and boil for 20 seconds each side (flip over using the slotted spoon). Take out the pretzel rolls with a slotted spoon and place back on the parchment covered baking tray.

When all are done like this you brush the rolls with beaten egg, sprinkle with sea salt if you so desire and bake them at the 200C for 20 mins. They will be a rich golden brown. As soon as you are able to place them on a cooling rack, off the parchment (otherwise they can go soggy). Wait as long as you can to start enjoying them.

Once cooled these also freeze beautifully, I defrost them in the microwave on the defrost function for about 2 minutes.

Baked bicarbonate

Preheat oven to 120C. Foil line a baking tray and pour a whole tub of bicarbonate of soda (the sort of size you get in the supermarket) . Spread out so it’s all even and bake for one hour. When cool put in a specially marked container so you have it for next time.