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So I have this habit of taking traditional things and doing my own take, usually the same but just with more veg, and all from scratch , no tins or boxes allowed except tomatoes or tuna. This was similar. A creamy pasta sauce, but replacing some of the cream or milk with pumpkin purée, and a dash of vinegar. Super tasty, lighter than the regular version, but smooth and velvety, bursting with flavour. We spiced it differently to normal, of course, and added veg. It would have been beautiful with bacon and parmesan too, or other veg like asparagus, courgette, aubergine etc., but was still excellent without. Ingredients: 250 g pasta 2 TBSP butter 2 TBSP flour 3/4 c milk, warm 1/2 c pumpkin purée 1 TBSP balsamic vinegar 1/4 c white cooking wine 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp nutmeg 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp cayenne 3 red onions diced half a head of garlic, minced 2 peppers, 1 red 1 yellow, diced Black pepper to taste 1 TBSP olive oil 1) Cook pasta according to instructions. 2)Make a roux with the butter, flour and milk: melt butter in a saucepan. Add flour and stir it in until it forms a uniform mass. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring after each addition to avoid lumps. Add the pumpkin purée, spices, wine and balsamic adjusting quantities to taste and consistency. Stir, pepper, set aside. 3) Heat oil in a pan. Sauté veg in the olive oil. 4) Toss pasta and veg together, pour sauce over it, and serve. Optional cheese to grate over the top. Filling and tasty, velvety but with a bit of a tang to bring all the flavours out. It is an incredibly chameleon-like meal, able to shift to fit the mood, your fridge, tastes or dietary requirements. I hope you enjoy! Note: When in doubt as to how to make flat flavours pop more, add acid not salt. Vinegar, lime or lemon juice or wine depending on what it is.

After a morning of playing in the snow with Little Bit, we decided to have bacon and eggs for lunch, and for good measure (hiking in the cold takes energy!) I decided to throw in some pancakes. Getting the milk from the fridge, I noticed the last of a tub of cottage cheese that needed using, and decided to use that instead. I also used a tin of peaches (it is winter, so no fresh ones), including the juice. Some spicing later and we got to try it out. The batter on its own came out very tasty and I will definitely be making these again, and the added bonus of the peaches was great! Note: If you don't have cottage cheese, use about 1/2c milk and 1/4 c of peach juice instead and you should get a similar result (without the creamy melted pockets from the curds). Ingredients: 1 1/2c flour 3 tbsp sugar 3 tbsp melted butter 3 tsp baking powder 2 eggs 3/4c cottage cheese 1/2 - 3/4c peach juice (from the tin) 1 tsp ginger 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tin of peaches, sliced 1) Mix the dry ingredients together, then one by one add the liquids, stirring well after every addition. Add the amount of peach juice to get the pancakes to the right consistency (wet enough to dollop, but not runny). 2) Heat a griddle pan or frying pan and melt butter. Add 1 large spoon of batter per pancake and cook on medium heat. 3) When small bubbles start appearing and the pancake is able to lift gently from the pan with a spatula, lay out a couple of slices of peach (or a peach half if you so choose) in the wet batter, then flip the pancake and cook until done. The inner consistency around the peach slices was slightly wetter than pancakes normally are inside, but they didn't suffer for it. The juicy peach slices worked well with the spiced batter, especially alongside a poached egg and some bacon. I wasn't sure how the cottage cheese would do in the pancakes, but it mostly melted away, just adding creaminess to the batter. I found that a small drizzle of maple syrup worked particularly well over the top, but they stand up equally well without any dressing up whatsoever! And Little Bit loved them too...

I love my morning porridge, and the Baked Porridge we've been having recently has been very tasty, but once in a while it's nice to switch it up. I don't tend to buy breakfast cereals because the sugar content is through the roof, and instead decided to make my own granola. It's been ages since I last did it, but I am rather pleased with how this came out. Little Bit and I were snacking on it dry when it came out of the oven, and it's been a hit for breakfast in yogurt. The clumps are quite small, but if you want them bigger, just add more of the molasses. Ingredients: 2 c oats 1/2 c almonds, finely chopped 1/3 c walnuts, finely chopped 3 tbsp chia seeds 1/2 c hazelnuts, finely chopped 1/4 c pine nuts, chopped 3/4 - 1 c tahini 1/4 c raisin molasses 1) Mix all ingredients together on a baking tray. Bake at 170°C for 30-45 minutes until toasted and golden brown. Allow to cool and then serve with milk, yogurt or plain. The raisin molasses hadn't been the plan, but I picked it up in the Turkish grocery story strapped to the tahini as though they belong together, so when I put the tahini in, I figured that the raisin molasses might as well follow. It is not too sweet and has a relatively light flavour. I quite enjoy the combo and think it came out well in this, but the granola could work well with honey instead. I plan on playing around a little with different combinations over the next few months for different granolas, so stay tuned!

This started out as a trialled tweak of the Orange Date Cookies back in the autumn. In a taste test of the two, we liked the Orange Date Cookies better on certain characteristics. The rest of the Grapefruit Prune Cookie dough was put in the freezer and forgotten about. About a month ago though, craving some cookies, we pulled it out and had a few cookies, and it turns out that although very different to the Orange Date Cookies in taste and texture, they are nevertheless very good in their own right. I therefore set out to try to recreate the recipe and the tweaks I had made at the time. I ran out of molasses though, so this batch was half honey and half molasses. I have put a few away in the freezer again and will try a fully molasses batch soon to compare them. In the mean time though, friends we visited for the weekend were willing to be guinea pigs for us and approved the cookies, as did both their little one and Little Bit. Ingredients: 1 c butter, softened 1/2 c white sugar 1/2 c dark brown sugar 1/2 c oat flour ( I blitzed oats in our coffee grinder for these) 1/3 c molasses OR 2 1/2 tbsp molasses and 2 1/2 tbsp honey 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 2 eggs 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cloves 1 tsp ginger 2 c flour 1/4 c dried grapefruit peel 3/4 c prunes, chopped 1) Cream butter and sugar in a bowl. Add oat flour and molasses (and honey if using) and mix well. Soak grapefruit peel in a cup of hot water. 2) Stir vanilla and eggs into butter mixture, then gradually add dry ingredients. 3) Drain grapefruit peel, and add with prunes to the dough. Mix well. Drop onto greased cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls. 4) Bake at 180°C for 8-10 minutes until golden on top. Cool for a few minutes then enjoy warm! These turned out very well. They are softer and spread more than the orange date cookies. I find them closer in texture, and sort of in taste, to ginger snaps than tollhouse cookies, Hubby finds them to more closely resemble oatmeal cookies. It's like trying to decide which facial features a child got from each parent though, and in reality the cookies are their own thing, not bastard versions of anything else. To make them a little firmer and have them spread less, I might try adding an extra 1/4 c of flour next time. They also came out darker than I had anticipated. Initially I though I had let them go too long, but let the next batch go less time and they were actually less good. Tanner it is then! I was then worried that they would be too hard and crisp, but not at all. They stayed moist over the next couple of days and were lovely and soft without being sticky. Overall though, I am delighted with these. Let me know what you think! Book Pairing: While baking these I was listening to Dante's Inferno. I read it before, years ago, but find that it stands up very well to a second reading.... well, listening. Dante and Virgil found themselves dealing for passage from circle to circle with the demons who guard Hell, as they pass souls in a a flaming pit. Dante's imagery is very evocative and he is an enjoyable narrator, I only wish I knew more about some of the historical figures he encounters as it would be easier to follow some bits. The verse nature of the book does well in audio version but the downfall of the medium is that I don't have access to text notes. Oh well.

As mentioned in Day 58 of The Challenge Did I mention that it's pumpkin season? We have bought a few (I won't say too many) again. I love pumpkin soup and we have it every year. This time though, instead of the traditional creamy spicy pumpkin soup, we went for chunky with a different range of flavours, still warming, but differently so. Ingredients: 1/2 pumpkin (or 2 small ones which is what I used), chopped 2 onions, chopped 1 head of garlic, chopped 1 red pepper, chopped 2 sprigs of fresh thyme 2 sprigs of fresh oregano 1 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 2 tsp zathar 2 tsp urfa biber (Turkish black chili) 3 c vegetable broth 1 tbsp olive oil Salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat oil in the bottom of a pot and sauté onions until translucent. Add garlic and peppers, and cook for a couple of minutes before adding pumpkin and broth. Throw in herbs and simmer for 20 minutes. 2) Add spices and simmer for a few more minutes, then taste test and check vegetables for tenderness. Dead simple, warming and tasty. Perfect after a walk in cool autumn weather!

Now, I know this is a weird one. It is as odd an idea as it sounds, but hear me out. They actually worked quite well. Done the first way, no one could tell they were turnippy. They were moist, tender spice cookies. Here's how I arrived at these. I've been cooking with Little Bit since he was tiny. He has a toy kitchen of his own, and he frequently "cooks" for us and has us try his meals. Sometimes they are things he has seen us make, sometimes not so much (like strawberry and banana soup). I want to encourage his creativity and interest in cooking, so I like to try out his ideas. Sometimes they are a direct request to cook together, like "Mama, we can make pear sorbet", sometimes just an idea in play, like "Mama, smell my turnip cookies". Either way though, I try to honour them and make his ideas a reality, and show him that they are viable. So hence the idea of turnip cookies, from my 3-year-old asking me to smell his turnip cookies. I don't know if he really registered that it was an unusual idea, or when a few weeks later, we bought a turnip and made the cookies, I don't know if he made the connection between the two. Cooking to my 3-year-old's imagination is an interesting challenge though, which I enjoy taking up. I spent a couple of weeks turning the idea over in my mind and playing with flavours I could pair with the turnips before settling on these two variants. The first batch, I had wanted to be almond and spice cookies, and so they were, but less almondy than I wanted as I discovered that I was out of almond extract when I went to start baking. I played around with different proportions of different sugars to achieve the flavour I wanted in the first batch, too. The second batch is a heavily adapted spiced molasses cookie from Claire Saffitz's book. As for the turnip itself, I wasn't sure how best to include it. Raw, like grated carrot in a carrot cake? Or precooked somehow? And if precooked, then in what way? I ended up going with the pre-cooked idea, first boiled and mashed, then roasted and blitzed. In terms of just eating the turnip, the roasted one was beautiful, but in terms of the cookies, the boiled ones were more subtle. The roasted ones somehow developed a strong negative turnip flavour from somewhere that wasn't apparent at every bite, but often enough that it bugged me a little. I would therefore steer clear of that method and boil the turnip for both cookie variants. I decided against the raw, grated ones as I wasn't sure how bits of turnip would work, rather than being smoothly incorporated into the cookie dough. Recipe Cook time: approx. 1 hour -- Portions: about 30 cookies -- Difficulty: Easy Almond and Chocolate Spiced Turnip Cookies Ingredients: 1/2 turnip (small) for 1/2 - 3/4 c boiled and mashed turnip 3/4 c butter, soft 3/4 c light brown sugar 1/2 c white sugar 1/4 c dark brown sugar 2 eggs 1 1/4 c ground almonds 2 1/4 c flour 5 cloves, ground (5 is Little Bit's favourite number. Very important!) 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cardamom 1/4 tsp cumin 1 tsp bicarb 1 tsp vinegar syrup (from pickled peaches) OR 1/2 tsp molasses and 1/2 tsp vinegar 100 g dark chocolate chips 1) Boil the turnip until fork-soft and mash. Cool. 2) Cream the butter and sugars together in a bowl. Beat in eggs, then the turnip. 3) Mix in the dry ingredients and combine well. Add vinegar and chocolate chips. 4) Place teaspoonfuls of cookie dough on a lined cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes at 180°C. Molasses Turnip Cookies Ingredients: 1/2 turnip 2 tbsp butter 3/4 c butter, melted 1 1/2 c dark brown sugar 2 eggs 1/4 c molasses 1/4 c liquid honey 1/4 c milk 3 3/4 c flour 1 tbsp baking soda 2 1/2 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp finely ground black pepper 1/2 tsp allspice 1/4 tsp cloves 1/2 c oats 2 tsp apple cider vinegar (Or homemade rosehip vinegar) 1) Cut the turnip into cubes and roast with the butter at 180°C for about 20-30 minutes, until fork-soft. Cool. 2) Cream the cooled, melted butter with the sugar. Beat in the eggs, then the molasses and honey. 3) Blitz the cooled turnip with the milk until smooth and add to the batter. Mix thoroughly. 4) Stir in the dry ingredients, mixing well, then add the vinegar (this is important both for the flavour balance and to activate the baking soda). 5) Roll dough into 1" balls and place on a lined cookie sheet. Bake at 180°C for 10-12 minutes. Both of these cookies turned out very nicely indeed, although, as stated above, I would stick with boiling and mashing the turnip for both recipes, as the roasting brought out some less desirable flavours. On the whole, I wouldn't know which of the two I liked better. Everyone I shared either with (and not just sycophantic family members who have to tell me they're good) said that they enjoyed both cookies. Each time, I waited until after they had been tasted to divulge the tuber secret, just to avoid a placebo or nocebo effect. Overall, odd as turnip cookies sound, I can't work out what it should be any odder an idea than carrot cake, or red velvet for that matter, which was traditionally made with beets. Side note, I've started using a silicone baking sheet mat instead of greasing cookie sheets. I find it works across different types of cookies and therefore doesn't waste the extra butter or shortening. Feel free if you prefer to grease your cookie sheets or to use baking paper instead. Swaps and substitutions: In both recipes, the different proportions of white to brown sugar can be played around with, although be aware that this will affect the texture and flavour of the cookies. Try preparing the turnip different ways - raw, boiled, roasted - and see how it differs. See how the difference between smooth incorporation and pieces (I would recommend small pieces) of turnip affects the flavour profile. As with the sugars, the proportion of honey to molasses can be played around with in the second recipe. It shouldn't affect texture too much, but it will change the flavour balance a little - darker and deeper with more molasses, lighter and more golden with a higher honey proportion. Try adding some almond extract - only 1/2 tsp or so to the first recipe, as I had intended (and plan to do at the first opportunity). As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

I picked up fresh Burrata (such a delight!) and then wasn't sure how best to use it. We had lots of plums on hand, so I ended up making a spicy plum sauce, served on toast with the burrata split open over the top. To complete the lunch, we had it with sautéed mushrooms and scrambled eggs. This was quick, easy and delightful after a morning at the zoo with Little Bit (he was most excited to see the goats and the excavator. It takes all sorts I suppose!) Ingredients: 4 slices of bread, toasted, (I used tresse) 1 pink onion, chopped 1 tbsp vegetable oil 5 plums, pitted and chopped 1 small red chilli, chopped 1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 1/2 tsp almond extract 1 tbsp ground almonds 1 tsp cinnamon 1 ball burrata 1) In a small saucepan, heat the oil over medium flame. Add the onions and chilli and sauté until tender. Add the remaining ingredients except for the burrata and the toast. Cook, stirring regularly until the plums are beginning to fall apart. 2) Serve the toast on two plates, dividing the sauce and the burrata between them and allowing the cheese to ooze. The creamy burrata balanced the spicy and sweet plum sauce and the eggs gave everything a relatively neutral counterbalance. The toast provided some bite to oppose the softness of the plums and the almost custard consistency of the burrata. Overall, I was quite happy with this. I would maybe just tone down the spice a little next time. I loved it but it was a little much for Little Bit, who was perfectly happy with eggs and mushrooms instead.

As for many people, Macaroni and Cheese is a comfort food. I've grown up with it and don't usually mess with it too much. I do like adding different vegetables to it though, cutting down on the carbs and cheese with a little bit of extra green. Spinach and broccoli are particular favourites. Making it the other day though, I realised that I was out of white cooking wine for the roux. I had already planned on adding pumpkin and apple to the mix, so decided to go all out and make the roux using apple sauce. Unfortunately I also was low on cheese (no points for advance planning and preparation!) so it was under-cheesed, but aside from that, the seasonal twist worked really well! Ingredients: 1kg spiralli pasta 2-3 c pumpkin, chopped 1 onion, chopped 3 apples, chopped 2 tbsp butter For the roux: 3 tbsp butter 3 tbsp flour 1 1/2 - 2 c milk 1 1/2 c apple sauce 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar 3ish c cheese, grated 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 1 1/2 tsp Pul Biber 1/2tsp sumac 2 tsp dried orange peel Pepper to taste 1) Boil the pasta until almost al dente. Place pumpkin, onion, apple and butter in a baking dish and roast at 180°C while prepping the rest of the ingredients. Check and stir occasionally. 2) In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour to make a paste. Add milk gradually, stirring well after each addition (adding it too fast will lead to a lumpy sauce). 3) When all the milk has been incorporated, add the apple sauce and start incorporating the cheese bit by bit. Add the vinegar (even a splash more if necessary to get a smooth sauce) and the spices. 4) When all the cheese is melted, taste test, then mix the pasta, veg and sauce together in a casserole dish. Bake at 180°C for 35 - 45 minutes, until browned and crisped on top to your liking. I love this variation on macaroni and cheese. It could do with a little improvement next time though. I needed more cheese, and although it looked like I had masses of veg when I put it in to roast, I think it could do with more. I would aim for equal parts pasta and veg next time. We had it meatless this time, but it could work really well with some little bits of bacon. Otherwise, though, I was delighted with the texture of the sauce and the flavours of the dish as a whole. The boys loved it too, which is always important!

I've been doing a challenge on Instagram where there is a different ingredient each week around which a dish needs to be built. This week's ingredient is lemongrass. "Easy. I'll do a Thai curry," I thought. "But how about something new, too? How about something sweet with lemongrass. Maybe a lemongrass coconut panna cotta. No, it's Lent and I won't get a chance to try it. How about a savoury lemongrass panna cotta then? Hmmm. That's an idea. With what?" So in the end it turned into still crunchy stir fried veg with the warm spices from a curry, the panna cotta sitting on top of the veg with the cool flavours, and a chilli sauce drizzled over the top with the heat. I was not sure how any of this would work, starting with the panna cotta. Would it gel without a lot of sugar? And then how would it all come together. I wasn't sure until I made it exactly what I was going to put in the hot drizzle. In the end though it came out nicely. Ingredients: For the warm base: 1-2 sweet potatoes, cut into fat matches 3-4 carrots, cut into fat matches 1 -2 red peppers, cut into fat matches (1 onion thinly sliced if you have one, which I did not unfortunately) 4-5 cloves of garlic, sliced 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp mustard seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds 1/2 tbsp cumin seeds 2 tsp cumin 1 tbsp cooking sake juice of half a lime For the panna cotta: 1 l of coconut milk 2 stalks of lemongrass, chopped 1 small chunk of ginger, finely grated 2 packets or 70 g gelatine 6 drops of fish sauce 1 tbsp cane sugar Juice of 1 lime For the chilli sauce: 1 red chilli, chopped fine 1 tsp rice wine vinegar Juice of half a lime 1 tsp honey Topping: Coriander leaves Sesame oil Crispy millet (I soaked some millet grains in a little whey then put it in a cooling oven) 1) Prep the Panna Cotta in advance. Pour the coconut milk into a saucepan and warm gently. Add ginger and lemongrass and leave to infuse for at least an hour. 2) Bring the panna cotta back up to a gently simmer and add other ingredients except for the gelatine. Taste test then you have a choice. Either strain the bits out of the cream or, as I did, leave them in. I liked crunching on bits of lemongrass later. Add gelatine and simmer gently, stirring for about 5 minutes, then pour into small individual serving containers (eg ramequin pots) and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours, or overnight. 3) Heat oil in a wok. When the oil is hot, add the mustard, coriander and cumin seeds. When they start to pop, add the garlic. Fry briefly then add the vegetables and other ingredients. Cook at high temperature for a few minutes then reduce the heat. Cook until the sweet potato and carrot are cooked but still crunchy. 4) In a small simmer all ingredients for the chilli drizzle. Partially blitz and set aside. 5) Plate it all. Place the veg on the plate, tip a panna cotta out on top (I placed my ramequins in hot water for a few minutes to loosen the edges. I did it a little too long though and some of them were a little softer than I wanted.) Drizzle chilli sauce over it, then place coriander leaves around and millet crisp over the top of the panna cotta. This was a hit! I would do a few things differently next time though. I had hesitated about whether to do the veg in a wok or the oven. I did it in the wok in the end but I think another time I would do them in the oven to have crispiness to them rather than crunch. Also, I don't know that I would try to loosen the panna cotta in the cups first. Maybe just run a hot knife around the edge instead. As it was, the panna cotta melted a little fast, producing a (re)constructed Thai curry. The panna cotta was good on it's own and I would like to try it again with different pairings. It could also work as a dessert but would need a tangy coulis because it is quite rich.

These Cherry Brownie recipes three ways- two cherry and almond white chocolate blondies and one cherry and dark chocolate brownie recipes - are the result of multiple tangents after discovering that I was missing ingredients for successive recipe variations that I had originally set out to make - passion fruit, cocoa powder, orange juice - leading to the first iteration of the cherry and almond blondies... It thus wasn't planned out in advance, but rather assembled and devised as I went, with Littler Bit as my helper (she was more interested in taste-testing every stage than anything else. And in going through the cake decorating things and commenting on them, and asking if we could use them on various things. E.g., with sprinkles in hand, "These are for ice cream", and with food colouring, "Can I put this in yoghurt?", and with the almond extract, "Is this for cake or cereal?"). Anyway, assembled with multiple changes of direction midway through, this wasn't necessarily how I would have made Cherry Blondies otherwise, but such is life... as a Type C mom anyway. Having made them and being happy with them, but... the recipe kept going around in my head for days, so I decided to try two new variations side by side a few days later. All three of these wound up being quite different, from taste, to colour, through texture and how sweet they were. Two are blondie recipes, and one is for dark chocolate brownies. Recipes Cook time: 15-20 minutes prep, 30-35 minutes in the oven ~~ Portions: (how big do you cut your brownies?) approx. 20 brownies ~~ Difficulty: Easy Cherry and Almond Blondies, Take One Ingredients: 4 eggs 2 c sugar 4 TBSP oil 3/4 tsp orange extract 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 3/4 c (250g) white chocolate, melted 1 c tinned cherries, blitzed 2 c flour pinch of salt 3/4 c flaked almonds 1 c dark chocolate chips 1) Beat the sugar and eggs together. Stir in the oil and the extracts, mixing well before adding the white chocolate and the cherries. 2) Stir in the flour and salt until just combined, followed by the almonds and the chocolate chips. If the batter feels to thick, add a little of the cherry syrup. 3) Pour into a brownie pan and bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool thoroughly before serving. Cherry and Almond Blondies, Take Two Ingredients: 3 eggs 1 c sugar 1/2 c butter, melted 1/2 tsp almond extract  1/2 c (~200g) white chocolate, melted 1 c fresh or frozen cherries, puréed 2 c flour 1 c flaked almonds 1/2 c triple chocolate chips 1) Beat the sugar and eggs together. Stir in the butter and almond extract, mixing well before adding the white chocolate and the cherries. 2) Stir in the flour until just combined, followed by the almonds and the chocolate chips. 3) Pour into a brownie pan and bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes. Allow to cool before serving. Cherry and Dark Chocolate Brownies Ingredients: 4 eggs 1 c sugar 1/2 c butter, melted 1 c fresh or frozen cherries, puréed 1/4 tsp almond extract 1/2 tsp vanilla extract  1/2 c (~200g) dark chocolate, melted with 1 TBSP milk 2 c flour Pinch of salt 1 c flaked almonds 1/2 c dark chocolate chips 1) Beat the sugar and eggs together. Stir in the butter and the extracts, mixing well before adding the dark chocolate and the cherries. 2) Stir in the flour and salt until just combined, followed by the almonds and the chocolate chips. 3) Pour into a brownie pan and bake at 180°C for 30-35 minutes. On the whole, I was happy with all three of these, although that does not preclude the possibility of more playing around with these in the future. The first variation of the blondies was tasty, with a very strikingly distinctive hot pink colour to them. What they had in colour, they lost in taste, though. Having used tinned cherries (due to the peripatetic nature of that particular recipe development, that is what I had on hand), the cherry flavour was less present than I had hoped, but the colour was brilliant. I also used a little too much white chocolate and too much sugar so they came out tasting too sweet to me. Having said that, they were most definitely kid-approved, with both Little Bit (who usually has less of a sweet tooth) and Littler Bit devouring them at any opportunity. I had liked the idea of using the orange extract with the cherries, and while it did work, I found that using the vanilla as well muddied the flavour-waters a little, so to speak, so I would strike that one out next time. Instead, I would add some orange zest to really lean into that flavour combination (but given my pantry scarcities I seemed to encounter on that particular occasion, I didn't have that on hand either. At least, not fresh. I do still keep Dried Orange Peel as a pantry staple). I would also use orange juice instead of cherry syrup to moisten the batter, leaning into the citrus notes and cutting some more of the sugar. Attempting to balance out the sweeter, higher, flavour notes, I added dark chocolate chips. Unfortunately, I added too many of them (I know? Right? I didn't think that should be possible...) So again, the flavour profile was a little muddied, and so in the subsequent variations, I cut the chocolate chip quantities significantly. Texture-wise, they were moist and squidgy, well within the normal blondie texture range, but I liked the almond flakes in them, so I kept those in the subsequent recipes. I am aware that nuts in brownies or blondies aren't everyone's thing, though, so feel free to just skip those if you so prefer. Overall, tasty, and I would make again, possibly just tweaking one or two things. Blondie Variation two, I don't think I would tweak much. For blondies generally, I have discovered that I prefer to eat them once they have cooled. Because of the white chocolate, I find that if eaten hot, the only flavour that really comes across is sugar. As they cool, more subtle flavours are allowed to emerge. In the case of variation two, the flavours when it was hot were sugar and almond, which were overpowering. As they cooled, however, I found that the flavours were more balanced. I would possibly still cut the almond extract a little to showcase the cherry flavour a little further, though. These were on the slightly cakier end of the normal brownie texture continuum. Adding a little more liquid next time would not go amiss. Despite this, they were lovely and moist and stayed so the whole time that we had them around - almost a week, in fact. The downside to these was that, using the frozen cherries, although the flavour was more pronounced, the colour was darker. Still visibly pink brownies, they lacked the pop of colour that variation one had. Maybe if I need that colour in future (like for Littler Bit's pink birthday coming up), I try doing half-half tinned and frozen cherries - get the colour and flavour? The dark chocolate and cherry brownies were delightful. The cherry complemented and deepened the dark chocolate, while the chocolate added richness and counterbalanced the sweetness. These ones were a little on the fudgy end of the texture continuum and quite sticky. It could have been that they were pulled out a couple of minutes early (what made me think that baking two batches of brownies back to back while doing bath-time and bedtime for the kids would be a good idea, and after a nursing shift, no less?) The other possibility could be the extra egg compared to the second variation of blondies. With the sugar content lessened, the 4 eggs could simply be too much. I might try these again with one less egg. Beyond that, though, and I'm not saying the fudginess really was even a bad thing, I was happy with this one. The original brownie recipe I grew up with, for dark espresso brownies, is my dad's, and he was teetering on the verge of mildly offended that I had felt the need to play with what is generally agreed to be a rather excellent brownie recipe. When he tried these though, he did succumb to their call and recognised that although possibly not the healthiest lunch option on his visit, they were tasty and addictive. Swaps and Substitutions: Try using different citrus extracts, zests or juices in any of these; just adjust the other extracts accordingly. I went with almond and vanilla in the brownies here, but orange could be delectable! Try different nuts, cut into different sizes to play with texture. Try adding 1 TBSP of cream or milk to make the recipes squidgier. Try swapping the almond extract and flakes for coconut. Book Pairing I am listening to The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon at the moment. Set in the late 18th century in Massachusetts in the wintertime, the story follows a midwife in her community. Right at the start, there is a murder, and the community is in uproar, people taking different sides. I am not very far in yet, but it is beautifully written, and I am completely won over to the main character's side. I just hope I am not betrayed by her later on! I wasn't listening while baking, but had been just before on my walk home from work, and so as I was stirring batter, my mind kept wandering back to the bookish world I had just left and mulling over where the story might take me. So far, it has been lots of fun!