Recipes

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Apple cinnamon pancakes

We’ve slipped into the dark now, it’s black before 6pm. It’s not cold – far from it – but damp, dank. The warmness of the last few weeks is unnerving. It’s one thing having record-breaking hot days in July, quite another to be pushing 20c when the Halloween decorations are up. When the rain holds off there is consolation in the glorious colours of the season. The air smells of leaves and moss.

It was half-term last week, and there was barely time to take a breath, what with daytrips, parties and playdates. Plus for some reason I’ve been struck with the need for autumn-cleaning, scrubbing every surface, shining windows and shampooing carpets. Which is difficult when much of the floor is covered with lego, marble run and train tracks.

Half term looked mainly like this

The warm and the rain and the school holiday means there’s been not much allotmenting. I started the mass clear out back on 9th October, stripping down sunflower stalks, bean supports and the enormous courgette plants. But the soil is just not ready to be fully covered yet – the cosmos are still magnificent, and the chrysanthemums are finally coming into their own.

Starting the yearly clear up – 9 October
Look at the detritus of grass and weeds that was hiding beneath the beans and courgette plants

On Sunday I picked an armful of Chrysanthemum ‘starburst’ plus – unbelievably – several dahlias, which are still coming and show no sign of giving up yet. In a few weeks we’ve gone from colours of summer to colours of autumn.

Squash, dahlias, chrysanths – colours of autumn
A magnificent harvest of starburst chrysanthemums this year

Speaking of autumn, it’s the perfect time to stock up on English apples, and these pancakes a very agreeable way of using them up. It’s a simple pancake batter, augmented with a grated apple or two, and warmed with cinnamon. I like this kind of simple, economical baking – plus the whole family will eat them, which is a bonus. Whisk them up in seconds, scoff on a Sunday morning, then any leftovers are very nice as a Monday snack with your morning coffee.

Apple and cinnamon pancakes

Apple and cinnamon pancakes
Serves 3-4 people

Place 200g plain flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp caster sugar and 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon in a bowl. Using a box grater, grate in 1 or 2 small eating apples (there’s no need to peel them). Crack 2 eggs into the bowl, splash in 150ml milk, then whisk the lot together with a balloon whisk. It will start off looking lumpy and unpromising, but after a few seconds will come together nicely. Stop when the batter looks smooth.

In a non-stick frying or crepe pan, melt a good knob of salted butter, then stir this into your batter. Then it’s just a question of cooking the pancakes – dollop tablespoons of batter into the hot pan, cook until browned on the bottom, flip, cook a little more, then whip them out. Keep going until all the batter is used up, then just gobble them up. I think these are best with golden syrup.

Also this month:
Harvesting: Cavolo nero, chard, chrysanthemums, dahlias. Could be harvesting cosmos but I’m bored of it now.
Also: Began clearing allotment. Pruned shrubs in garden (yes I know it’s the wrong time of year). The forced paperwhite narcissus and amaryllis are poking heads through the compost.
Cooking & eating: Apple pancakes. Gingerbread. Black bean and chorizo chilli. Baked squash. Cauliflower and chorizo cheese. Enjoying a glass of red wine for first time in about six years.
Also: A visit to Ludlow to stock the freezer up with pheasants, veal, beef ribs, sausage, bacon and duck. Space Centre in Leicester. Batsford Arboretum. Cleaning every surface and ordered a new sofa to replace the one that Gertrude has destroyed. Attempting to not allow the permanent political and economic crisis to bring us down: ordered my Christmas turkey, which is 15% more expensive than last year, but at least we can afford to get a turkey in the first place.

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Beef in beer

The lawn is confettied with golden leaves and the seed heads are helicoptering down from our neighbour’s tree. There’s no denying that autumn is here – though the air is still warm, days are marked with wind and drizzle. After the brief summer of shorts-and-t-shirts, I’m back to wearing two jumpers and ancient socks. It’s OK. August was so busy, and September rather trying, so a slow October is called for. I think I always go through a mourning period at this time of year, in denial that summer (and with it all that LIFE!) has gone. There’s a few weeks of learning to let go, and more so this year because school starting was such a shock to our normal way of doing things.

Having said all that, it’s not winter yet, not that you’d know it from a trip to the supermarket. Waitrose is already flogging Lindt Santas, and guess what’s made its yearly appearance in our kitchen, a good month earlier than normal. Aldi stollen and panettone – staple winter carbs in our house – are back. I welcome them with open arms.

Panettone and stollen have made their arrival to the kitchen a good month earlier than normal

This warm-yet-autumnal weather means it’s time to harvest the squash. This year I planted out 10 plants of a few varieties – an ornamental gourd mix, a few crown prince, a few black fatsu, and a few pumpkin. The fatsu disappeared without trace, but the gourds thrived. This week I harvested a box full, plus a few crown prince and a fat halloween pumpkin. Given the hot dry weather in August, and the general neglect that I expect all my allotment plants to tolerate, it’s a good haul.

Grow your own halloween – mixed gourds, crown prince squash and a pumpkin

Of course the flowers are still coming, the dahlias in particular enjoying the recent wet. Cosmos are hanging on, and the chrysanthemums are now thinking about putting on a show. The colour of late September and early October is magenta, with the amaranth, cosmos and dahlias making a striking contrast with the borlotti beans and autumn raspberries.

Magenta hues of amaranth, borlotti beans, cosmos and dahlias

The hops are past harvesting for beer now but I’ve taken a few strands for drying, for Christmas displays. Their soporific scent fills the sunroom.

A few hops for winter arrangements

A word of note for the sunflowers, which struggled to get going this year but come September claimed their magnificence. All of these are the side shoots from one single plant, which sadly got blown down in last week’s high winds. It’s decline warns me that it’s time to get tidying up, clearing away the summer debris before the cold comes, but I can’t quite find the energy just yet.

Late September vases

I’m hankering after ‘proper’ food again. Slow cooking, big flavours, made from an hour or two pottering in the kitchen. A few weeks back we were having grilled sardines with tomatoes, but now we’ve tipped to autumn bowl food. Last weekend we made a monkfish curry with a Goan recheado spice paste. And this week I want something from closer to home: beef in beer it is. You can veer to the Belgian-style Carbonnade if you want to with the addition of mustard and juniper, but I keep it plainly Anglo-Saxon: beef, beer, onions, mushrooms and stock are all that you need. Cook it low and slow, and float a few dumplings on the top to finish.

Beef in beer with onions and mushrooms

Beef in beer
Serves 4

Oil
2 large onions, finely sliced
300g mushrooms (white or chestnut), thinly sliced
800g (two supermarket packs) braising steak, diced
1 dessertspoon plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon tomato puree
1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
Thyme leaves picked from 3-4 stalks
400ml beer or pale ale – I used Old Speckled Hen
2 low-salt beef stock cubes – I use Kallo
Hot water
Salt and pepper

In a heavy-bottomed casserole, heat the oil and fry the onions with a large pinch of salt on a low heat until very soft and slightly golden. Don’t rush this stage. It can take up to 30 minutes to get there, and it’s important for both flavour and texture of your casserole that they are very soft and very sweet. Give them a stir every now and then to ensure they don’t catch.

Meanwhile, pile the mushrooms in a dry heavy-bottomed frying pan on a medium heat. Cook for 10 minutes or so, turning every now and then, until golden and most of the moisture has evaporated. I don’t add any oil to the pan, as I don’t think it needs it – just ensure they get a stir to prevent burning or sticking. When they’re done, add them to the onions.

In the same pan as you cooked the mushrooms, dry-fry the meat cubes in batches until browned. Again, I don’t add oil here, as if you’ve got a good heavy pan they’ll cook just fine without it, and there’s less of a clearing up job later. Once browned, tip the meat into the casserole with the onions.

Deglaze the pan with about 400ml of boiling water, and add the stock cubes to dissolve. Set aside for a minute or two.

Now attention goes back to the onions. Stir in the flour, tomato puree, thyme, sugar and a good grind of pepper, and cook on a medium heat for a minute or two until the mixture is well combined. The idea is to cook the tomato and flour out a little to remove their raw taste. Now tip in the beer, and give it a good stir. Bring to the simmer. Add the beef stock from your frying pan, and again stir together.

Pop the lid on and stick it in the oven for about two hours, until the meat is yielding. Taste and adjust the seasoning if it needs it (you may need more salt, pepper or sugar). If it’s too wet, leave the lid off and pop back in the oven for 20 minutes or so to reduce down. Serve, or leave to go cold and reheat the next day, when it will be even better.

If you want dumplings – and why wouldn’t you – simply toss together 4oz self-raising flour with 2oz suet and a pinch of salt, then add a few spoonfuls of cold water to bring to a dough. Shape into balls and pop onto the top of the stew before returning to the oven for 20 minutes or so to cook. Lid off or on, depending on if you like your dumplings wet or crunchy.

Nb. I like measuring my dumplings in ounces rather than grams, as it gives rise to the feeling of being homely and traditional. That, plus I find the 4/2 ratio much easier to remember.

Also this week:

Harvesting: Cavolo nero, kale, chard, last raspberries, last tomatoes (still green), gourds and squash, borlotti beans, dahlias, cosmos, last sunflowers, first chrysanthemums, hops

Also in the allotment/garden: Trimmed the shrubs, a job that should have been done in spring. Thinking about tidying the allotment and can’t quite find the energy, time or motivation to do it. Thinned autumn-sown annuals. Drying hops and borlotti beans.

Cooking and eating: Monkfish curry, crispy cakes, raspberry and chocolate sponge, sausage ragu, apples, pears, still a bowl of tomatoes on the side.

Also: Started the RHS Level 2 course in Principles of Plant Growth and Propogation at Winterbourne House at the University of Birmingham. Reading the Tucci Table, because Stanley Tucci is a God amongst men.

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Melon & strawberry granita

What a month we’ve had. Hottest day ever, and the driest summer in what certainly feels like forever. We’ve had the builders in for the last four weeks, so this hot spell has coincided with us having no shower, no bath and only limited access to a loo – I’ve been begging access to friends’ bathrooms at every opportunity. We’ve both eased down now that the Commonwealth Games have happened (both of us benefited from A LOT of work rooted in the B2022 cultural programme) and there’s been actual days out, actual holiday feelings. My friend moved to Vietnam (which I consider to be most rude) and one-by-one the kids are ending their time at nursery ahead of starting school in September. And then, of course, Birmingham turned into a party town for two weeks whilst the Games were on. This city has been hungry for so long – for recognition, for investment, for fun, for coming together – and we grabbed our opportunity with two hands. What a brilliant time to be in Birmingham.

A brief trip to London for the CBeebies Prom at the Royal Albert Hall
The Alexander Stadium looking resplendent
Our latest tourist attraction – Centenary Square has been rammed for days as people visit this fella
Perry has become an established member of every household with children in the city

All of this means that the plants have been somewhat abandoned lately. I’ve done the odd bit of weeding, mainly to remove three foot tall fat hen plants – but am only watering the allotment once a week. And of course everything does perfectly well with a little neglect: the nasturtiums run rampant, the cerinthe and ammi are miraculously still going, the squash are fattening. The switch to late summer colour is coming in now, so alongside the pale, delicate cornflowers, achillea and wild carrot comes the dinner-plate dahlias and blood-red amaranth. Sunflowers are waiting in the wings. The wild brambles, which I long ago gave up on, are now repaying me with punnet upon punnet of sweet black fruit.

The squash have taken off in the heat, and doing fine with only one water a week
Two seasons in one true: delicate cornflowers, ammi, wild carrot and phlox alongside the shouty dahlias, tansy and amaranth. What you can’t see underneath is the pile of courgettes, beans, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries.

If there were more time I would take out the three slug-eaten dahlias and pot them up in hope of a second coming, and all the flowers (and veg for that matter) on the allotment would be getting a weekly feed and daily water. But there isn’t more time, so I live with what’s possible. Incidentally I’m purposefully not cutting the dahlias too much this year, as most of them are new plants and I don’t want to put them under undue pressure, so it’s just the odd bloom, here and there.

This week’s pickings end up in jam jars and charity-shop finds – this all happens on the worktop by the kettle, which isn’t pretty, but is real life.

Today’s recipe is shamelessly stolen from Instagram, from the wonderful Prue Leith. It’s a granita, perfect for these hot sticky days, but instead of using a stock syrup it’s made using whole, over-ripe fruit that’s simply blitzed in the food processor then frozen. You give it a stir with a fork every hour or so to break up the ice crystals. I love the idea of whole fruit being hidden into ices, and Harry and I make banana-chocolate-milk lollies often; this is simply a more sophisticated version of that. Add a splash of booze if you want to up the flavour.

Melon and strawberry granita
In a blender or food processor, blitz up one over-ripe melon (I use cantaloupe) with a handful of strawberries until smooth. Add a splash of booze if liked – I think damson gin or blackberry vodka would be good here. Then move the whole lot to a tupperware container and pop in the freezer. Set your timer to go off every hour and when it does, stir the mixture with a fork to rough up the ice crystals. When it’s all frozen, but still slushy, it’s good to go.

Freeze the squished fruit but remember to stir with a fork every hour or so to break up the crystals
When frozen but slushy, it’s ready to serve

Also this week (month):

Harvesting: First raspberries, last blueberries (not a great year for them, the plants are tired and they need more water), blackberries, dahlias, last gladioli, amaranth, cerinthe, ammi, calendula, wild carrot, first scabious, snapdragon (coloured mix only, whites still not in flower), achillea, cornflower, phlox, a very few early cosmos, tansy, stick beans, dwarf beans, last broad beans, courgettes, chard, last potatoes. Could be picking carrots, cavolo nero and russian red kale but can’t bring myself to do it yet. Borlottis and squash doing well. Also getting beets, carrots, beans, peppers, tomatoes and blueberries from my folks.

At home: Dug up all the dahlias from the garden due to slug apocalypse and potted them up. Bought selection of slug-proof plants from Wildegoose Nursery to trial in replacement. Can’t see the garden anyway due to building waste and the fact the lawn is constantly covered by a tent or a paddling pool.

Cooking and eating: Blueberry muffins; a lot of whole fruit (cherries, nectarines, strawberries still); Purple prickle pancakes from the Gruffalo Cookbook; Blackcurrant ice cream; Sautéed courgettes with everything; Roasted beet and carrot salad with feta; A daily coffee, which is still such a novelty that I have to record it here.

Out and about: Dress rehearsal for B2022 Opening Ceremony, plus athletics, rhythmic gymnastics, a few B2022 Festival sites and numerous meetings with Perry the mascot; the kids are all obsessed with him. CBeebies Prom. Wildegoose nursery. Numerous Bearwood bathrooms.

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Sausage and (broad) beans on toast

It’s hard to believe that high summer is upon us already. As ever we’re trying to catch our breath, from several intense weeks of event management (me) and back-to-back fabrication projects (him)…but there is an end in sight. Which is well, because this time of year needs to be savoured, noticed, enjoyed. Harry and I disappeared to Sussex at the weekend to visit old friends, armed with bucket and spade. It’s so noticeably hotter and dryer down there, with golden fields ready for harvesting and sun-kissed calm seas.

We practically had the beach to ourselves

Back home, it’s time for a few remedial allotment jobs. The fruit cage, which never quite served its purpose, finally gave way to old age and was precariously close to collapse; it’s now been half taken down (because to take it apart properly would take too long and Matt’s always at work) so it sits haphazardly on its side, no longer a threat to Martin’s dahlias but at just the right height for me to whack my head on every time I take a look at the blueberries.

The fruit cage is no more

I’ve done a more thorough job of staking. My birthday present from Matt was my very own hammer, meaning I finally whollop the homemade oak stakes into the ground myself. Chrysanthemums, dahlias and sunflowers have now been supported with stakes and string – not the prettiest way of doing it, but it works.

Dahlias are supported with stakes and grids of string
The starburst chrysanthemums also need staking, as they can get to a good 5 feet tall

The week of hot weather has brought the harvest on. We have a sea of cerinthe, ammi and gypsophila, which is unexpected and joyous. Nestled amongst them are two courgette plants, which in the weekend I was away managed to give birth to two giant whoppers (marrows already!); I need to keep a closer eye on them. Behind them the climbing beans are finally starting to climb, and the sunflowers are shooting up. I like the mix of flowers and veg jostling for space; our allotment always takes an age to reach fruitfulness but when it does, it’s so satisfying.

The cerinthe, ammi and gypsophila have exploded, framed with beans and courgettes
Cornflower and calendula interspersed with self-seeded nasturtium

I’m now picking the last of the broad beans, plus the first of what I think as high summer flowers – the cornflowers, calendula, and this time for the first time, wine-coloured snapdragons.

Yesterday’s basket, with broad beans, chard, cornflowers, snapdragon and ammi

It’s the time of year when I have to make time for veg and fruit processing – as well as the broad beans I also had a trug-full of peas, which I had grown intending to eat as mange tout, but Harry was so in to eating peas from the pod, I left them in for a little longer. It look an hour to pod this lot, accompanied by Claire Balding walking the Sussex and Kent countryside on Radio 4’s Ramblings. Note the blueberries, coming fast now from my Mum’s bushes and also our own, plus the piddling handful of red gooseberries, the only ones to survive the pigeon attack.

Colanders of beans mean an hour’s podding
There’s potatoes too, a salad-drawer’s worth with more to come

On the flower front, I am not much of an arranger, but I do enjoy the contrast of the tall foxglove spire with the froth of ammi and gypsophila. There’s the odd dahlia now, plus jam jars full of English summer flowers – some garish, some tasteful, but always making a house feel more like a home.

Dahlia, foxglove, ammi, gypsophila
Garish: clashing colours of calendula, sweet peas, foxglove and cornflower
More tasteful: single shades of sweet pea alongside wine-coloured snapdragon

What to do with all the broad beans and peas? It’s a good question: both these vegetables have a tendency to glut, and given that Matt’s not home so much, there’s only really me who will eat them. I blanched the lot, to give them a few extra day’s life. Some will make their way to a creamy, herby, garlicky pasta dish, and others I’ll blitz with lemon and garlic to make a beany-hummousy-dip. And then there’s beans on toast, or even better, sausage and beans on toast. The sausage is actually a kind of do-it-yourself chorizo, made from minced pork, paprika, garlic and fennel. The beans are broad beans and peas. Hash them together in a frying pan, perhaps with a few sliced potatoes and a fried egg, or just a bit of feta, and you have an easy flavour-packed brunch, lunch or supper dish.

Sausage and beans on toast

Sausage and beans on toast
Recide serves 4 but if it’s just you, the ‘chorizo’ will store in the fridge for a few days, or can be frozen for another day. Inspired by River Cottage Reunion, though I’m not slavishly following their recipe

First, pod enough broad beans and/or peas for four people, or you could use frozen. Blanch them in boiling water for two to three minutes, then drain. If they’re really big, pinch the broad beans out of their skins.

Make your ‘sausage’. Take 250g pork mince and squish it together with 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon smoked hot paprika, 1 teaspoon sweet paprika, two chopped cloves of garlic and a good pinch of salt. Set aside for a few minutes to allow the flavours to come together.

To cook, heat a large frying pan and crumble in the sausage mixture – you may want to add a little oil to the pan to get things going. Brown the meat all over, then add one thinly sliced red onion and the beans/peas. Hash the meat and vegetables together, turning in the paprika-stained oil until it’s all cooked through. You could add a slosh of white wine to get a little steam going. Finally add some chopped parsley to finish.

Serve on toast with a fried egg, or perhaps a little feta cheese. Sliced cooked potatoes and courgettes are also a good addition to this.

Also this week:

Harvesting: Blueberries, a handful of gooseberries, cos lettuce, first chard, last broad beans, peas, first courgettes, mangetout, new potatoes, ammi, cornflowers, calendula, foxglove, gypsophila, dahlias, nasturtium. French beans, beetroot, courgette, raspberries, and blueberries from Mum’s garden. From the shops, excellent English cherries, proper tomatoes, early corn, watermelon and strawberries. Excellent Amalfi lemons from Cowdray farm shop.

Cooking and eating: I really need to start making an effort again. Blueberry, raspberry and gooseberry crumble cake. French bean and potato salad. Flapjacks. Sarah made two outstanding salads at the weekend: green beans with an orange dressing and toasted hazelnuts, and a freekeh salad with pomegranate, mint, parsley and finely diced red onion. Also a home-made fish finger sandwich at The Lobster Pot near Bognor. I find I have to have a coffee a day now in order to function, and there is always wine in the fridge.

Jobs: Staking flowers on allotment. Planted out dahlias and salivas in the garden, which is now in that straggly in-between stage that lies between early and late summer. Feeding pots once a week. Watering allotment. And WORK, all the time, obviously.

Also: Reading nothing, I am too tired. Watching very little, I don’t get time. Visited Chichester, Arundel and Denman’s garden in West Sussex, a dry gravel garden, very interesting, but Harry not happy so no time to linger.

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Lamb tagine

My life feels more locked down now than it did during Lockdown. I’ve been trying to unpick why…a combination of a work boom (I’ve currently got 10 projects on the go with more in the pipeline, and some of them are deeply complicated), tempered with the age of Zoom (no-one goes anywhere any more, we’re at home chained to desks and video calls) and of course it’s February so even if we do venture out, there’s the gale force wind to contend with. Matt’s business is also running at its limits and he often works 7 days a week, so when my work ends, childcare and housecare begins. Somewhere, somehow, a social life or a creative life seem to have edged away.

Now obviously we are extremely blessed and I am aware that moaning is not really on – but running two businesses is hard and the juggle is real. There’s only so much that can be taken out before something has to go back in…sometimes I need to press pause. I was on a video call with colleagues in Bangladesh the other week (Bangladesh! Because it’s 2022 and that’s how we work now!) when this chap wandered onto the flat roof next to my office window. Did I stop the meeting to swivel the laptop around and show him to the group? Of course I did.

This chap has been wandering around our garden in the February sunshine

I mention all this because whilst I do have time to look at visiting foxes, I don’t seem to find time to really cook anymore. Obviously I make food….but I don’t really cook. Dinners need to be ready pretty much instantly, to refuel in the 30 minute gap between bath time and bedtime stories. And if Matt’s working at the weekend then there’s no real point in making extravagant dishes, for who will eat them? It’s such an easy slide into the world of convenience and fast cooking, but I am realising that my soul needs slow. The devoted attention to a puttering stew. The gentle tap of a wooden spoon when creaming butter and sugar by hand. The satisfaction of turning a mess of flour and water into dough as soft as a baby’s bottom.

So I’m trying, even if only once a week, to make something more involved. Last week it was sausage rolls with rough-puff pastry, plus a tray of parmesan pinwheels with the leftover pastry scraps. This week, it’s tagine.

Sausage rolls and parmesan pinwheels
Redemption comes in many forms; a big pan of bubbling lamb tagine being one of them.

This tagine comes from Rick Stein’s French Odyssey, and used to be a family favourite until we both got so busy that we forgot to make it. Matt actually made this back in the very very early days, to give me the impression that he could cook. (Note – he’s an excellent cook, he just doesn’t do it very often). There’s room for your own take on the veg: he adds green peppers, I add sweet potato.

A word on the meat. If you can, don’t use lamb at all – go for mutton. You’ll get a better flavour and a better texture for long, slow cooking. For this I used a half leg of Herdwick mutton that I picked up in the Lakes last year; it’s been in the freezer obviously. I boned the leg and cut the meat into generous portions, and then meat AND bone went into the pot (it’s all flavour). Lamb shanks or shoulder would do just as well.

The ras el hanout is essential and can be found in any supermarket or halal shop. Mine actually comes from a Moroccan souk, brought back by my friend Claire as a holiday souvenir (this was pre-Covid, which says a lot about the antiquity of my spice box). You will require a very big pot to hold this vast dish.

Moroccan lamb tagine
From Rick Stein’s French Odyssey. Makes 6 very generous portions.

2kg lamb or mutton – ideally on the bone – leg, shoulder or shanks
Olive oil
4 teaspoons ras al hanout
450g carrots, chopped into generous lengths
200g onions, sliced
8 new potatoes, such as Charlottes
1 can tomatoes
75g dried apricots
2 tablespoons honey
1.2 litres or thereabouts, chicken stock
3 bay leaves
salt and pepper
400g sweet potato, peeled and chopped into generous dice (optional)
1 green pepper, chopped into generous lengths (optional)

For the spice paste:
4 garlic cloves
2 small red onions or shallots
1 red chilli
Stalks from a small bunch of coriander
salt and pepper

For the spice paste, put the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth – let it down with a drop of water if needed.

Trim the meat of any excess fat. If using shoulder or leg, you will want to remove the bone and dice the meat into generous chunks. Shanks can be left whole. Season with salt and pepper.

In a very large pot big enough to take the whole stew, warm some olive oil and brown the meat (plus any saved bones) on all sides. This will need to happen in stages. Once browned, set the meat aside.

In the same pan, heat a little more oil and add the spice paste. Soften for a few minutes on a low heat. Add the ras al hanout and cook for one minute, then tip in the onions, carrots and potatoes and turn over in the spice. Add the tomatoes and stock, and bring to a simmer.

Return the meat plus any saved bones to the pan. Add the apricots, honey, bay leaves, salt and pepper, then cover. Either cook on the hob or put into a slow oven, 160c.

After one hour, check the stew, give it a stir, then add the peppers and sweet potatoes if using.

Return the stew to the hob/oven, and cook until the meat is tender. Lamb will need a total of about 2 hours, mutton a little longer. Check the seasoning and add more salt, pepper or honey as required. If the stew is watery, cook with the lid off for the last thirty minutes or so.

This is perfectly good the next day. You may want to fish the bones out before serving – cooks perk. Serve with couscous.

Also this week/month:
Cooking and eating: Very little, I live off tea, pasta and toast. Matt made some cumin-spiked potato cakes to go with the tagine. Black banana cake. Some seasonal rhubarb and blood oranges have made it to the house, as have the first hot cross buns of the season.
Allotment: It’s still there despite the gales. Sowed snapdragons. At home, the iris reticulata is flowering, as are the amaryllis and paperwhites.
Also: Indoor child entertainment is the order of the day: Legoland Discovery Centre, Sealife Centre, YouTube, Lego and Star Wars.

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Pickled nasturtium pods

Today has been about assessing wind damage. The teasels, sunflowers and chrysanthemums all came a cropper at the weekend, the heavy stems keeling over horizontally in the strong wind. Inevitably the flowers then turned their heads towards the sun, meaning the stems are now bent at right-angles – not a great look for cut-flowers. The colour palette is gradually changing now as we head into late summer, with the first dahlias and sunflowers coming through, and the feathery spider chrysanthemums looking promising.

Attention is moving to the late summer crops now – cosmos, sunflower, chrysanthemums and squash

This is such a strange year for growing. It’s mid-August and the broad beans are only now coming into their own – today I picked a load to have alongside the first courgette. The first courgette, and it’s 9th August! Last week I planted out tiny savoy cabbage and kohl rabi seedlings for a winter harvest, mainly in hope rather than expectation.

Tiny little savoy cabbage seedling plated out amongst the nasturtiums and broad beans

I’ve been picking flowers for drying as well as for the vase. Tansy, cornflowers, poppy heads and teasels are sure-fire winners. I do not hold much hope for dried marigolds but I think it’s worth a go to see how they fare. The strawflowers – backbone of winter dried flower arrangements – are not looking hopeful, however. They languished in the cold-frame for weeks (I had to re-sow a few times due to slug damage) and therefore got planted out late, just a week or two ago. In my experience it’s the late summer to autumn plants that really thrive on our plot so there is still a chance, but we’ll need the weather to be kind (sunny, warm) for a crop.

Flowers for drying: cornflowers, poppy heads, tansy, marigolds, teasels
The frothy romantic vases of cosmos, cornflower and achillea are still coming, now dotted with early white pompom dahlias

Whilst I am harvesting, there has not been so much of the epic afternoons of fruit and veg prep as usual. Just one big bowl of blackcurrants to be topped and tailed, and beans in dribs-and-drabs to pod. The blueberries are now cropping, plus a few errant blackberries that survived the winter weed, and the raspberries still a few weeks away.

Even in late July and August we’re still podding broad beans. Blackcurrants are finished now but the blueberries and blackberries have begun.

Produce processing is a summer chore that is also a joy. Chore because the task HAS to be done regardless of how much other work is in the way….but a joy because there is the chance to properly engage with what we’ve grown, be present in the moment and in the season. Soft fruit, green leafy veg and tomatoes are the usual time-takers, but this year I added a new one to the list: nasturtium pods.

Nasturtiums run rampant across our plot, all self-seeding after just one sowing years back. I do use the flowers and leaves in salads but mainly they’re there for the bees. Allotment neighbour Susan asked me the other day if I ever pickle the pods for poor-man capers, and the honest answer was Nope, I have never done this. Until now.

Pickled caper pods whisper to me of times past. They are product of the pottager and cottage garden; I can easily imagine them on an Elizabethan table as on a trendy salad in 2021. I have never eaten them but am drawn to the idea of an English, home-grown alternative to the caper. Here’s what you do – I can’t comment on the outcome as yet but will report back in November.

Pickled Nasturtium Pods (poor-man’s capers)

For one jar of pods, harvest about 100g of nasturtium pods. These are the seed pods of the nasturtium which swell and ripen once the flower has gone over. Pick them over for stems and errant leaves, then give them a good rinse under the cold tap.

Pick over nasturtium pods to remove stems and dirt, then rinse under the cold tap

Put the pods into a dish with 15g salt and 300ml water. Put the lid on then leave in the fridge in a day or two. The salting process helps to mellow the flavour of the final pickle.

Leave them in a water-salt solution for a few days

When you’re ready to finish the pickle, clean and sterilise a glass jar and lid. Rinse the nasturtium pods and dry them well on kitchen paper. Pop the pods into the jar with a pinch of herbs and spices (I used 1 tsp coriander seeds and two bayleaves). Black peppercorns, dill and white mustard seeds would all be good. If you like a slightly sweeter pickle add 1 tsp sugar. Then fill the jar with white wine vinegar until it reaches the very top, about 200ml.

Rinse and dry, then bottle up with white wine vinegar, herbs, spices and maybe a touch of sugar

Pop the lid on then leave to pickle and mature for at least one month before eating.

Bottled nasturtium pods. Leave for a few months to mellow before eating.

Once mature, the pickled pods can be used in place of capers – in salads, on pizzas and with cheese.

Also this week:
Harvesting: Cornflowers, cosmos, tansy, last ammi majus, marigolds, dahlias, first sunflowers, teasels, achillea, last lavender, first courgette (FINALLY), nasturtium pods, wild rocket, a tiny handful of climbing beans, broad beans, chard, blueberries, first blackberries, last gooseberries. Could be harvesting kale and cavolo nero but leaving them for a little while longer. Every trip to Grove House leads to a bootful of beetroot, potatoes, stick beans, carrots and more blueberries.
Also: Pulled up lettuce and peas. Planted out strawflowers, lupins, delphiniums. Sowed beet spinach, salad rocket, quatre saison lettuce and mustard leaves.
Cooking: The weather has turned rainy with a chill in the air, so roast pork belly it is. Mousakka with summer squash instead of aubergine. Chocolate roulade with strawberries.
Also: Trip to Liverpool for work, the joy of a cappuccino in a new city. Inspiration for new shades of achillea and echinops at Highbury Hall.

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Chocolate almond macaroons

Sun shining, a day out to the nearest edge of the Cotswolds for a first posh lunch out as a trio since 2019, then an ice cream in the shadow of Broadway Tower. Cow parsley, buttercups, long long grass, hawthorn blossom and stinging nettles.

Broadway Tower

Back home, the foxgloves are in flower, majestic spikes of pink, peach and white, marked with spots of purple and orange. Foxgloves are absolutely in my top 5 flowers – so architectural and plain weird – and even better, these all self-sowed so cost not a penny. Here I’ve placed them with alliums and sweet william for an interesting mix of height and form.

Foxgloves, sweet william and allium now cropping

I made a big batch of chocolate gelato at the weekend, overcome by the hot weather. It was good – very good – but even better are these chocolate almond macaroons that use up the left-over egg whites. They’re now my go-to recipe whenever we have egg whites hanging around, say after a carbonara or custard, and – unlike meringues, which never get eaten – they’re a firm favourite for both pre-schoolers and early-middle-agers. I found the recipe from a blog about living in a vicarage, so this is recipe is also known as Church Biscuit No.70.

Chocolate almond macaroons

Chocolate almond macaroons

2 egg whites
200g ground almonds
30g cocoa powder
175g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180c and line a baking sheet with parchment. Sift the almonds, cocoa and icing sugar into a bowl and using a wooden spoon, mix in the unbeaten egg whites to a firm dough. Simple.

With wet hands, roll out walnut-size balls of mixture and place on the baking sheet, flattening each one slightly as you go. Bake for 11-15 minutes, until dry on top and slightly cracked. You want to keep a certain squishiness in the middle. Cool before serving.

These last several days in the tin and are good on their own or as an accompaniment to ice-cream.

Also this week:
Harvesting: sweet william, foxgloves, last of the spring rocket, last of the chervil.
Allotment and garden: Watering twice a week (it’s not enough, no rain for two weeks now) but the veg are still small despite the warm weather. Admiring the roses, now at their peak. Delphiniums just coming out whilst the aquilegia go over.
Eating and cooking: Lunch at The Fish of asparagus with brown shrimp followed by Fowey mussels. Rhubarb ice cream at Broadway Tower. Cost a fortune but a joy to be out at last. Made chocolate gelato from the Rick Stein Venice to Istanbul book. Eating more Greek salads than most Greeks at present.
Also: Reading Under a Mackerel Sky, Rick Stein’s memoir.

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Chocolate-mint semi-freddo

The sun has re-emerged and out we come, like worker bees. In the past week, overtaken by this new solar energy, I have forked over half the vegetable and flower beds, whilst Matt has hacked away at the brambles in the wilderness. The thick manure mulch that I put down back in November has hardened into a sepia-toned cake, flecked with straw, but once the fork goes in the soil beneath is light, open and moist. I am pleased by the investment of both effort and cash. As we work we are accompanied by a symphony of bird song.

Slowly shifting the earth of the veg patch; peas and broad beans have been planted at the rear
Removing the creeping buttercup in the cut flower bed; see the difference once the top cake of mulch is worked in

It’s slim pickings now, of course, and will be for several more weeks. Had I been more organised I could have been picking tulips and sweet fennel at this time; as it is, I have only just got around to planting out the biennial honesty and sweet fennel that I sowed last spring. Last year’s sweet william are showing no sign of flower; for some reason, biennials behave like triennials in this ground – they take two years to get established and then in year three, we are overtaken by blooms. And speaking of biennials – I am leaving a few parsnips in the ground this year, to see what their flower looks like; as part of the carrot family I have high hopes for a whooper umbellifer.

Last of the 2020 parsnips plus a few surprise baby leeks

I come home with dry hands, grubby nails and a head full of plans. The planting map from a few weeks back has been revised, drawn pedantically to scale by Matt using Google maps as a guide. As ever, I am wondering how I will fit it all in – but we will, as we always do.

Revised plan for 2021 allotment – pedantically drawn to scale by Matt using Google maps

The sudden warmth has transformed our kitchen. Asparagus is on the table a few times a week; there’s the salt-kick of anchovy and olive against the sweet onion of a pissaladiere; proper burgers and pink wine. I’m also thinking about ice cream. Is it too early in the year? Not a bit of it.

This recipe for chocolate mint semi-freddo comes from Rachel Roddy’s wonderful book Two Kitchens, which my friend Annette raved about until I felt duty bound to get a copy of my own. Ordinarily I would be excessively snobby about mint ice cream but this has been a revelation; using really good fresh mint is the key. What you get is a bar of frozen mint cream, chocolate and air: predictably enough, we have come to call this Fake Vienetta, which both over- and under-plays its worth.

Even if you don’t like mint make this anyway, because the semi-freddo base is sensational; just leave out the herbs and flavour with citrus zest, or vanilla, or you could leave the mixture plain but stir in chopped nougat before freezing. It can be served straight from the freezer and manages to be rich, light and creamy at the same time.

This makes a massive bar of semi-freddo, enough to fill a 1kg loaf tin; you could halve the recipe to make it more manageable.

Chocolate-mint semi-freddo
From Two Kitchens by Rachel Roddy

The night before, warm up 500ml double cream with five stems of fresh mint, then transfer the lot to the fridge to steep overnight.

The next day, chop 60g good dark chocolate into a rubble along with a few extra leaves of mint.

Finely chop mint, and reduce the dark chocolate to rubble

Now gather three bowls and an electric whisk.

Separate 4 large eggs, yolks into one bowl and whites into another.

Whisk the egg whites until thick. (If you whisk the whites first you don’t need to wash your beaters as you go along, but work quickly so there’s no risk of egg white collapse).

Strain the flavoured cream into a bowl, remove and discard the herbs. Whisk until thickened.

Add 100g caster sugar to the yolks then whisk until pale and thick – the ribbon stage.

Whisk the egg whites, then the flavoured cream and lastly the egg yolks and sugar

Fold the cream into the egg yolk mixture gently but firmly, then fold in the egg whites – it’s best to do this in two or three stages. Lastly, fold in the chocolate and chopped mint.

Fold into an airy mass then add the chocolate and mint

Line a large (1kg) loaf tin with cling film, ensuring that plenty is left to hang over the sides. Gently tip the semi-freddo into the tin, then fold the clingfilm one the top so that it is entirely covered. Freeze for a good 12 hours until firm.

Freeze in a lined loaf tin until firm, about 12 hours

To serve, slice straight from the freezer. No other accompaniment needed.

Eats straight from the freezer

Also this week:
Sowing and allotment: More broad beans, more peas, sunflowers, and I’ll start the climbing and dwarf beans in the next few days. Direct sowed carrots, parsnips and dill on allotment, and carrots and lettuce at home. Also planting up pots for summer. Dug over much of the flower and veg patches. Planted out broad beans and peas. The first lot of broad beans that we direct sowed a month ago have not come up.
Cooking and eating: Asparagus. Proper burgers. Pissaladiere. Rock cakes and banana flapjack – nursery food, which of course Harry completely rejects. Joy of joy – rose wine!

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Chelsea buns

When the world shut down, a year ago this week, I remember going into a retreat of my own making. Home and garden became a sanctuary; I avoided news and social media in an act of self-preservation and focused instead on sowing seeds, being with my family, finding stillness and contentment in the unfolding wonder of spring. Twelve months on I find myself having to do the same thing. Recent events are so deeply distressing, I feel raw. And angry. So do many of my friends.

I do what I can to have a positive impact on the world, both in my professional work and my personal life (for goodness sakes I have even been moved to join the Women’s Equality Party this week), but sometimes it can feel immovable. So this poem, by the writer and thinker L. R. Knost, feels appropriate:

Do not be hardened by the pain and cruelty of this world
Be strong enough to be gentle
To be soft and supple like running water
Gracefully bending around sudden turns
Lithely waving in strong winds
Freely flowing over sharp rocks
All the while quietly sculpting this hard world
Into ever deeper beauty
Gently eroding ridged rock into silken sound
Tenderly transforming human cruelty into human kindness
Remember true strength is found not in the stone 
But in the water that shapes the stone

Meanwhile there is slow progress with the seeds. The sweet peas and broad beans are shoving up their lime green shoots, and I have started sowing the hardy annuals – cornflower, toadflax, honeywort – and a few bush-type tomatoes for the veg trug. It’s all slow and steady, which suits the current mood. I am told by friends in Worcestershire that the blossom there is not only out but almost going over, whilst here, an hour north, the trees are bare. We still wait for daffodils in shady areas. A late spring can feel both a hindrance and a blessing – for although the long winter is hard, when the warmth finally arrives, its presence is doubly appreciated. I distract myself with line drawings of this year’s allotment plan, good intentions of blocks and rows that will inevitably become a jumble when we actually come to plant in May.

The first very rough planting plan for 2021

Onto buns. I was going to write that Lockdown has seen our household become mad about buns but actually, I don’t think the pandemic has anything to do with it….yeasted dough has been a slight obsession since youth. Every few weeks I will make a batch of something or other, Harry and I will snaffle a few, then the rest get bagged in the freezer ready for another day. Once frozen, individual buns can be put straight into our rickety counter-top oven at 150c for a few minutes until they are hot and crisp. Cinnamon buns are my usual, but they can also be simple round fruited buns, Scandi-type twists, apple buns…really I am not fussy.

I first attempted Chelsea buns years ago, only to experience crashing disappointment when they emerged from the oven as solid as rocks. This time around, encouraged by the wonderful fellow bun-obsessive writer Regula Ysewijn, I have success. But there are things to mention.

First, over the years I have realised that the judging criteria of a home-made bun has to be different from the shop bought ones: mine will inevitably be wonkier, stickier and probably a bit heavier (no steam injection ovens in these parts). No matter.

Second, I use the Bertinet method of mixing, working and proving dough. It’s not my place to repeat it all here, but you can look it up at www.thebertinetkitchen.com. In short, the dough begins far wetter than you think it should be. Work it by hand in the right way, and the mess miraculously transforms into dough as pert as a baby’s bottom. I suppose you could use a mixer, but I don’t have one, and in any case I actively enjoy the tactile squelchiness of getting my fingers into dough. Remember to remove any nail varnish first, though, as it will inevitably be ripped off by the dough, which is stickier than a swamp to begin with.

Thirdly, Chelsea buns should never (in my view) be messed about with. There has been a tradition of making Chelsea buns in this country since at least 1711, and as such this is no place for yuzu or chocolate or chilli any of that kind of thing. I want a classic Chelsea of the kind that I sold in Cooks Bakery in the 1990s: they should be square, tightly coiled, studded with more fruit than is perhaps wise, crunchy on top and soft beneath. The trick is to roll the dough as thinly as you can manage, and to ensure the filling is very soft before attempting to spread it on your dough. Finally, be sure to use the correct size tin so that the buns squash together as they rise.

Chelsea buns rolled and proving
Baked, golden and burnished, but also wonky. Such is life.

Chelsea buns
Adapted from Oats in the North Wheat from the South by Regula Ysewijn

Makes 12 buns, using a 39x27cm tin

For the buns:
500g strong white flour
5g fine salt
15g dried yeast
60g caster sugar
300ml milk
70g unsalted butter
1 egg

For the filling:
225g unsalted butter, very soft
145g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
175g currants or raisins

For the sugar syrup:
30g granulated sugar
3 tbsp water
caster sugar, for sprinkling

For the buns, gently warm the butter with the milk until it is melted. Cool a little – it should feel simply wet when you touch it, not hot or cold. Place the salt in the bottom of a large bowl, then put the flour and sugar on top, then yeast in last. Stir to combine using a plastic scraper. Whisk the egg into the milk, add to the flour, then combine using your scraper to a sticky mess. Tip the lot onto a work surface, then work with your hands until it comes together into a springy, worked dough – about 5 to 10 minutes. Do not add extra flour. This video explains the Bertinet technique of working dough. When it is ready, put the dough back into a bowl, cover with a tea towel, then leave to prove in a warm place for at least one hour, until puffed and roughly doubled in size.

In the meantime, prepare the filling by mixing together the butter, sugar and cinnamon until it is very soft and whipped.

When the dough is ready, preheat the oven to 200c and line a roasting tray or baking tin with greaseproof paper.

When the dough is ready, lightly flour your work surface. Gently encourage the dough out of its bowl, and ease it out onto the surface using your finger tips. Do not punch it; treat it firmly but gently. Roll out the dough to a rectangle that is about 2mm thick – basically, as thin as possible. It should be facing you horizontally, with the long edge facing you.

Smear the top half of the dough with a third of the filling, then fold the bottom half over the filling. Roll it again to flatten it out.

Smear the remaining filling over the dough, dot with the dried fruit, then roll up lengthways to make a long roll. Ease and firm it together with your hands so that it is roughly the same size all the way along.

Cut evenly into 12 slices, then place cut-size up in your tray. There should be a small space between each bun. Leave to prove for another 15 minutes or so.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and fully cooked through.

Whilst the buns are baking, make a syrup by gently melting the sugar into the water then bubbling until this and sticky (do not stir else it will crystallise). When the buns are cooked, immediately brush with the syrup and sprinkle lightly with caster sugar.

Cool before eating. Best eaten on the day they are made, so freeze any leftovers then reheat in a warm oven before eating.

The joy is in ripping apart each sticky caramelised layer

Also this week:
Sowing: Starting the hardy annuals, so toadflax, honeywort, cerinthe, cornflowers, plus tomatoes.
Harvesting, cooking and eating: Last of the cavolo nero and pentland brig kale, salads from the veg trug. Cooking Viennese fingers; Italian sausage rolls spiked with chilli, fennel and oregano; egg fried rice with fat prawns bought in bulk from the Chinese supermarket.

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Rock cakes

Week four of Lockdown 3 brought snow, sleet and several sleepless nights, a rich mix of gloom if ever there was one. Though I have to admit that the garden, frosted with ice, is a thing of beauty.

The forsythia edged with snow
An ice sheet formed on the blueberry bush

By the weekend I even succumbed to some classic kids’ cookery, made purely for my own enjoyment – I have never used mini eggs this early in the year before, but currently we have to do whatever gets us through the day.

I have never made these so early in the year before – but whatever gets you through the day…

But then, on Saturday, Harry slept through the night again – and then he did it again – and slowly I begin to feel less like a husk and more like a real, thinking, living, person. Not fully replete with vim but with life enough to think about baking something beige. And so I come to Regula Ysewijn‘s latest book, Oats in the North, Wheat from the South: A History of British Baking. It is, as the name suggests, a love letter to the great baking traditions of Britain, singing the joys of iced buns, lardy cake and simple plain toast.

The History of British Baking by Regula Ysewijn

I have written about Regula before and I have to state up front that a) she’s a wonder, b) I am deeply jealous (she gets paid to write about buns!) and c) I often think we could be good friends. This is a woman who waxes lyrical about giant pies from Yorkshire, who is deadly serious about the Kentish Huffkin and who insists that Chelsea buns should only ever be square (quite right). An Anglophile Belgian, she has a romantic view of our baking tradition that is fun for the Brit to read: as she rightly points out, our baking may be simple, but we are one of the few European nations to have a tradition of making cakes, buns and biscuits in our own kitchens, with our own hands; in France they wouldn’t dream of making their own patisserie, but buy it instead.

I was also pleased to see this statement at the start of her beautiful book and it makes me wonder why author’s notes like this are not more common?

Why are statements like this still so rare?

Whilst I do intend to have a go at the aforementioned lardy cakes, in my fragile state I thought it best to start with something quick. Regula has a double page spread devoted to Brighton Rock Cakes and their brother, the Fat Rascal. On close examination the recipes are precisely the same except that Rock Cakes are dusted with sugar and perhaps a cherry or two, and Fat Rascals given an egg wash.

Now, I used to live on Rock Cakes as a teenager, as I considered them the only thing in the school canteen worth the calories. The Fat Rascal, however, whilst I have heard of them, was never something that we ate. According to Regula they are an old Yorkshire tradition, but in recent years the famous Betty’s Tea Room in Harrogate have taken out a trademark which prevents other businesses from selling them. (Point of note: this is clearly outrageous and I struggle to believe that it is even legal. Would the Italians only allow one company to make spaghetti?!)

I then enquired my Professionally Yorkshire friend Helen to ask she knows anything about Fat Rascals and she replied in the negative, but does remember that Rock Buns (note – buns not cakes – this is Yorkshire afterall) were a regular event in her house. She duly WhatsApped me her Mum’s hand-written recipe, which calls for marg and mixed fruit. Helen’s Grandad Stokes was a baker and he didn’t sell Fat Rascals or Rock Cakes/Buns and now that I reflect on it, we didn’t have them at Cooks Bakery in Upton On Severn either. Perhaps they are home-cooking in the truest sense of the word.

Helen’s mum’s recipe for rock buns

Regula’s recipe for Rock Cakes uses plain flour rather than self-raising, and currants rather than mixed fruit. This is probably true to the oldest recipes; I think that sometime during the 1970s supermarkets began to sell bags of mixed fruit and that become the housewife’s choice, rather than individual packets of raisins, currants and the rest. My mum certainly never dreamed of having anything other than mixed fruit in her baking cupboard. Regula also adds a touch of mixed spice, which is new to me for this kind of simple bake, but a nice touch.

It occurs to me now that the Rock Cake is akin to the American scone, for they add eggs to their scone mix and sometimes also cream, making for a more cakey texture. I presume the early settlers took their recipes with them – but more research is needed. The movement of food cultures around the globe will never cease to be fascinating.

Rock buns fresh out of the oven – you can see that they are fat, and could be thought of as rascals
Dusting with pearl sugar lends a pleasant crunch

Rock Cakes
An amalgamation of Regula’s recipe, Mrs Annett’s recipe, and my own instinct. Makes 6.

225g self raising flour
100g caster sugar
1 tsp mixed spice
pinch of fine sea salt
75g unsalted butter, cold, diced
1 egg
up to 3 tbsp full fat milk
50g raisins or currants
pearl sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 200c. Line a tray with baking parchment.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spice in a bowl. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs – you can use a food processor for this but I always use fingers to save on the washing up.

Beat the egg with 1 tbsp milk, then tip into the flour mixture. Use a blunt knife or dough scraper to mix the liquid to a loose shaggy dough – add more milk if necessary. Once the dough starts to come together, add the fruit. Very lightly knead then turn onto a floured surface.

Cut into 6 pieces using a knife, then gently ease them into a rounded shape – they don’t need to be perfect. Transfer to the baking tray, brush with milk and sprinkle on a little pearl sugar (or granulated sugar if that’s all you have).

Bake for about 15 minutes, checking after 10 to see that they are baking evenly. They are done with risen, golden and no longer moist on the top. Cool slightly before tucking in – these are best eaten on the day they’re made.

All things beige and beautiful – rock cakes are only lightly studded with fruit

Also this week:
Garden: Cut back the front garden hydrangea – it will either never recover, or will come back a monster. The ground has been covered with snow and hard with ice, but now we have gentle rain and a sleepy sun.
Eating and cooking: Anything beige due to sleep deprivation and the January blues. These are the days of toast that drips with butter. Chocolate easter nests (in January!). Also making the most of seasonal citrus: Forced rhubarb simmered with orange zest then turned into crumble. Roast chicken flavoured with seville oranges and thyme. Orange jelly.
Also: Spotted parakeets in both Warley Woods and Highbury Park. Listening to Lockdown Parenting Hell with Josh Widdecombe and Rob Beckett, for much needed relief.