Chocolate chestnut cake (a perfect alternative to Christmas cake)

3 Replies

I discovered this recipe in Delicious magazine (the original is here), a couple of years ago. I’m a total sucker for chocolates and chestnuts which is why I paired with Lumi to make Chocolate Chestnut Truffles. (Please note I don’t make any money from these truffles and never have.)

Anyway I made this and it has become a bit of a classic in our house and I like to make it in the run up to Christmas, when you want to give yourself over to festivities but aren’t ready for the full Christmas pudding/Christmas cake yet. Not that I ever make either – I do like them but in small doses. At Christmas in our house I make Chocolate Chestnut Rum Roulade (which I really need to add to this blog before the recipe slips away).

The original recipe calls for a very small cake tin – 16cm. I toy every time I make this with buying a special tin but feel so reckless doing this as I have so many cake tins already. However, the smallest diameter one I have is 20cm so that’s what I make it in and it’s absolutely fine. But if you want a taller, more towering cake then you may want to invest. The cooking time doesn’t seem to change, for me, in the wider tin.

You need:

60g sultanas, put them to soak in 60ml of port, sweet vermouth or whatever nice liqueur you have. I think Cointreau is nice but this year I soaked mine in Plum Liqueur forgetting, foolishly, that I had some Panettone flavoured spirit which is divine (from Selfridges). Give them a really long soak.
100g butter cut into little pieces, it can be from the fridge
300g vacuum packed chestnuts
130g crème fraîche (original recipe calls for 130ml but I just put in 130g as I measure everything into a bowl, atop the scales)
30g plain flour
half a teaspoon of cinnamon
half a teaspoon of ginger
200g of 70% chocolate, chopped into small pieces
3 eggs, separated yolk and white into separate bowls
60g caster sugar

Later, for the ganache

100g 70% chocolate, again chopped
160ml double cream

A tin of 16-20cm (see intro) lined with baking parchment, at the very least on its base, and oven preheated to 160C.

What to do:

First things first: put the sultanas to soak in the liqueur of your choice. I tend to do this in the morning of the day I want to cook, but you can also do it the night before. When you do use the sultanas you’ll need to drain them of the liqueur and if I time it right, I use the liqueur in the cranberry sauce I make (I just stir it in once the cranberries are done, but you could also do it before they cook). If this doesn’t work for you you could whip some cream up with the left over liqueur, to serve with this cake.

In a food processor, blitz together the crème fraîche and the chestnuts.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, spices and a pinch of salt.

Now you want to melt the chocolate and butter together over a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water, and you want to take it off before all the chocolate is melted – just carry on stirring – or the chocolate may seize up. I do this part – the chocolate and butter melting – on a fairly large bain marie and I end up using the top part of the bain marie to mix everything together when the time comes. But otherwise, don’t worry: just get a big bowl and decant your chestnut and crème fraîche from the blender into that and this will be your bowl where everything, eventually, meets.

Once the chocolate has melted, put it aside to cool for a bit – about ten minutes. Then mix it into the chestnut and crème fraîche mixture; one at a time stir the egg yolks into this mixture, until everything is fully mixed and then add the flour/spice/salt mixture.

Whisk together the egg whites until stiff, then take a little of the beaten egg whites and mix it into your cake mixture to loosen it. Then taking a large-ish metal spoon as it makes it easier, gently fold the egg whites into the cake mixture. Don’t forget the sultanas, if you haven’t drained them do so now and add them into the cake mixture. It will be a fairly thick mixture, level it out and bake it for 30-35 mins. I admit mine took a bit longer, more like 40mins but the numbers have worn out on my oven dial so it’s possible it was too low. It’s done when a few crumbs of mixture are still clinging to a testing skewer.

Leave to cool for ten minutes in the tin, then turn out. The bottom of the cake will become the top of the cake. You can easily do this bit the day before but, day before or not make sure the cake is thoroughly cooled before you ice it.

To ice the cake, put the chocolate and cream in a bowl again on top of a pan of simmering water. Again: do not let the bowl touch the water underneath. Stir until the chocolate is nearly all, but not quite, melted then take off the heat and keep stirring.

Let the ganache cool for about ten minutes then slather on the cake using a spatula. You can then adorn it quite opulently if you like or leave it plain. It is quite a plain looking cake but there’s no shame in that. The original suggests things like sugared almonds, marron glacés, sugar sprinkles…you get the idea. In the photo here I used caramelised white chocolate and praline covered pistachios which are beautifully green on the outside. I got them from Melt and I loved the colour contrast (not to mention the festive green). They are insanely expensive so I’m only giving you this as an idea, not suggesting you spend all that money on buying a cake topping decoration.

Store in the fridge but bring out for about half an hour to chambré before serving. Truly delicious. And rich.












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

Leave a reply

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

5 Replies

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.

Cheesey, pleasey buns. Excellent with soup

Leave a reply

Despite loving home-made soup, I often feel it’s not ‘enough’ for a meal. Sure, crusty sourdough is more than acceptable. But when you want to up the calorie or yum factor, these are the things to make. An enriched brioche dough made into buns, which yield and ooze with cheese. You can make these rolls separate, as stand alone buns on a tray, but I like making them together in a round tin so you have to split them after baking. You can make them the day before you need them, or start them early in the day if you want them for the evening. But either way think of these a good half a day before you want to eat them.

These were originally in Delicious magazine.

Oven when you get to that bit: 180C.

For the buns you will need:

250g plain flour
Half a teaspoon of salt
One teaspoon of fast-action dry yeast
15g sugar
125ml whole milk
Two large eggs
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature and diced.
A bit of extra butter for later, melted

The filling:

100g ricotta
50g mozzarella cut into little pieces
25g parmesan grated, plus extra to sprinkle atop
One tablespoon of ground black pepper

I use my Kenwood stand mixer for this. You could of course also do it by hand.
Put the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl (the stand mixer bowl if that’s what you’re using), make a little well in the centre and then add your milk and one of the eggs. (Don’t add the butter just yet.)

Using the dough hook (or a fork and then your hands but if you do this the recipe recommends you mix the butter into the flour first, before adding the egg and milk) mix everything together until a smooth and elastic dough forms. I know mine is done in my stand mixer because it all groups around the hook. This takes about ten minutes. If you do it by hand it make take more or less time, depending on how angry you are and how ferociously you knead.

Now, if using a stand mixer, add the butter a few pieces at a time and continue kneading/mixing until everything is incorporated. I find it goes really greasy and there are a few moments of panic but everything does come together eventually.

Form a dough, put it in a bowl, cover and refrigerate overnight or for a few hours.

A couple of hours before you want to eat them, take out the dough and make the filling by mixing together all the ingredients in a bowl. Then divide up the dough into six pieces, roll each piece out into a rough circle. You will need to put an equal amount of filling into each them pinch the roll shut and put each bun seam side down in the tin (which you have lined with parchment paper). Because I can end up with unequal amounts of filling, I usually portion it up separately so I know I have enough filling for each and one bun doesn’t end up with too much/too little dough.

When you’ve done these to all the buns, cover with a tea towel and leave for about 90 mins (will depend on how hot or cold your kitchen is) until about doubled in size (this is always so hard to tell but do your best). About ten mins before you think they are done, preheat your oven to 180C.

Beat the remaining egg, brush the buns with it and then bake for about 20 mins, until golden. When out of the oven brush with a little melted butter and sprinkle with parmesan just to up the fat content here…ha ha..Allow to cool ideally before eating. Any that are left over can be kept in the fridge and softened in a suitable microwave setting for about 10-15 seconds to 40 seconds (know your microwave!)


Plum and Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Cream

Leave a reply

This is a slightly adapted recipe from The Waitrose magazine and it is wonderful. Soft, moist, delicious, simple. Just the perfect cake to have in.

You need a round tin measuring 20cm/8″ lined with baking parchment – you can line just the bottom.

Oven to 190C, cooking time 1hr

Ingredients

150 plain or spelt flour

75g ground almonds

Two teaspoons of baking powder

Zest of an unwaxed lemon

Pinch of salt

Three eggs

200g caster sugar

180g natural yoghurt (I used Greek organic)

100ml of very good (or as good as you can) extra virgin olive oil

400g ish of plums stoned and cut into pieces

(I’m sorry, there’s no reason for these gaps in between the ingredients, I have no idea why WordPress does this, if anyone knows do let me know!)

Lemon Cream

225ml double cream
Two tablespoons of lemon curd

Preheat the oven to 190C. Mix together the flour, ground almonds and baking powder and then add the lemon zest and the salt.

Whisk together – preferably using an electric whisk or your arms will fall off – the eggs and sugar until pale and thickened. About 5-7 minutes. Then slowly whisk the yoghurt and olive oil until all combined.

Now slowly fold in the dry ingredients. I used the whisk to do this but switched off if you see what I mean.

I placed the plums on the base of the cake tin and poured the mixture over the top. Mine was done in an hour, but after 20 mins I covered the top with foil. Yours might need a tad longer – check with a skewer or dry piece of spaghetti, it should come out clean.

You can serve this nicely warm, about 30 mins out of the oven. Or you can let it go cold. In warm weather, store in the fridge and to take the chill off give it 10-15 mins in the microwave. Serve with the cream which you have whisked together with the lemon curd – it all comes together very nicely, very fast.

Tamsin’s Houmous

1 Reply

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.

Yorkshire Eclairs

Leave a reply

These were a beautiful accident.

We had guests coming, and I had planned to make normal eclairs, stuffed full of white chocolate cream. But as I went to get the mixture out of my Kenwood mixer, I noticed the whisk attachment, which I’d had for about twenty years, had splintered and broken. There were really sharp filaments of metal sticking out, and I couldn’t risk the possibility that some had got into the mixture (and you can’t really sieve eclair mixture). So I had to start all over again.

However, my Magimix food processor whisk wasn’t strong enough to give me that really ribbony eclair texture, so I knew the dough would be too soft to pipe. But I wasn’t about to waste a whole other mixture so I thought sod it, I’m going to pour it into my Yorkshire Pudding tins – which are like shallow four circle shapes per tin – that’ll contain the mixture. And it worked beautifully. You could treat these like a normal eclair, by splitting them and coating the top with chocolate and injecting the insides with cream. But I didn’t want the faff after such a relatively stressful baking morning. So I just placed the cream on top, put some berries on and as an homage to the usual chocolate topping I poured on some Bare Bones Chocolate Syrup (seasonal produce) but you don’t need this latter.

Just to bring everything up to date here are the recipes for the eclairs and the white chocolate cream.

Eclairs (makes eight in my Yorkshire tins)

125ml water
50g butter
75g plain flour
3 medium eggs (at room temperature, this is important)
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180C.

Put the water in a sauce pan with the butter and salt and heat until the butter has melted. With the heat still on, beat in with a wooden spoon, the flour. Mix around vigorously until it forms a dough and doesn’t stick to the sides of the pan.

You can let the mixture cool here, you’re meant to, I never do.

Put the dough in a stand alone mixer with the whisk attachment on, then add the first egg. When fully incorporated add the other egg and then the third. Strictly speaking you only add enough egg til it comes together to form a thick, ribbon-y dough, that is to say that when you lift the whisk out of the mixture it leaves trails of visible ribbons behind for a few seconds. But I just add three eggs in and if you’re making Yorkshire eclairs the consistency of the dough should be thick, but it doesn’t matter if it’s not super thick because you’re not piping it.

When the dough has some substance to it, pour it into your Yorkshire tins (you do not need to grease them in anyway). Bake for about 25-35 mins. Longer will give you a dryer, crisper eclair if that’s what you want. For this recipe, ie in this shape, I like them a bit fluffier and softer so I check after 25 mins.

When cool, dollop on the white chocolate cream and top with berries and you are good to go. Once assembled eat immediately.

The eclairs can be kept in a tin for a day or two but they will soften. I rather like them like this but you may not.

White chocolate cream

Ideally make this just before you do the eclairs (even the day before) so it can set in the fridge.

You need 300ml of double cream and about 100-125g of white chocolate.

Heat half the cream in a saucepan, break up the chocolate, as small as you can, and then pour the heated cream over the top of the chocolate and stir until melted. (You can of course just put both together in a bowl and melt over hot water but I find that’s more of a faff.) When it’s all melted, put this chocolate/cream mixture in the fridge until it’s cool. When it is, mix in the other half of the double cream and whisk until stiff. It’s now ready to serve when you are.

Lavosh

Leave a reply

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

2 Replies

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.

Iced coffee, perfected

1 Reply

I first wrote about iced coffee, made using an ice cream base, nearly ten years ago. Since then I’ve (I think) perfected it.

This is ludicrously easy to make if you have an espresso maker, a bit more laborious if it’s only a stove top. The mixture keeps in the fridge for about a week (or at the very least the life of the cream you add but you can also add the cream, if you like, at the mixing stage, or leave it out altogether if you absolutely must). All you do when you want to drink it is add ice cubes to a glass, milk of choice and then a good dollop of the iced coffee mixture. You will need to taste it to make sure it’s right for you.

I make the base mixture quite strong so it goes further and isn’t so tooth-achingly sweet.

This is what you need and just mix all together and store in the fridge until needed.

397g Waitrose Condensed Milk (for those, like me, who boycott Nestle, it’s great to know that Waitrose now makes its own condensed milk and it’s cheaper than Nestle’s)

400 ml of espresso, you can go higher if you want.

80ml or so of double of single cream, see what you have in.

A pinch of ground coffee