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As mentioned in Day 77 of The Challenge These were experimental, and came out very well. I wanted bread to go with our lunch. But we were out of bread, so I was going to make baking powder biscuits. But I was out of butter, so I decided to make corn muffins, but then realised that I had used the last of the eggs and milk already. So I made corn muffins with what I had - Apple sauce and apple juice instead of the eggs and milk. They were a bit sweeter than normal, and a little moister, but they worked! Ingredients: 1 c flour 1 c cornmeal 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 c sugar 2 eggs 1/4 c sunflower oil 3/4 c apple juice 3/4 c apple sauce 1) Mix together the dry ingredients. Gradually add the wet ingredients, mixing well to prevent lumps. 2) Spoon into muffin cups or into a prepared cake tin. 3) Bake at 200°C for 25-30 minutes. These worked very well? They are certainly more sweet than savoury, and worked best with just butter, no jam or chutney really did justice or had its own justice done on these muffins, but they were tasty never-the-less. In future, I might use a little less apple sauce, and probably cut the sugar a little. Definitely worth a try for a bit of variety though!

After how good the Ginger and Pear Blondies were, the idea of trying a variant using rhubarb immediately came to mind when I had a load of some of the biggest rhubarb I've ever seen (thanks to my dad and this year's freak weather conditions). These were beauteous. The acidity of the rhubarb played off against the sweetness of the blondies and apple like that was its sole purpose on Earth. I'm loving the flavour possibilities of blondies! Ingredients: 1/2 c butter, melted 1 c brown sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/8 tsp baking soda 1 c flour 1 1/2 apples, diced 2 sticks rhubarb, diced 1/4 c milk 1) Place the diced rhubarb in a saucepan and cover with water. Simmer gently, reducing the liquid. Stir regularly! 2) In a large bowl, cream the brown sugar and butter together. Beat in egg and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix well. 3) Stir in the apples and rhubarb. Add enough milk or whey to make the batter thick but pourable. 4) Bake in a prepared baking tin at 175°C for 30-35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. I loved these! The flavours played well and they were moist and caramelly and beautiful! You must try these while rhubarb is still in season! Even Little bit liked them and he is not always a cake person. Maybe a little on the cakey side, but that isn't a bad thing. They were moist and caramelised and beautiful.

Fall is here! And with it all those deliciously autumnal fruits like plums! What better way to celebrate the season on still-warm days than a plum smoothie, a marriage of the end of summer with early fall? Cool but warmly spiced, this smoothie hit the right notes. I don't usually share smoothie recipes as they are so basic, but I really liked the flavours in this one and couldn't resist! Ingredients: 2 c whey 1/2 c hazelnut yogurt 1/3 c raisins 1/2 c oats, 6-8 plums, pitted and roughly chopped 1 fig, quartered 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao A pinch of fenugreek 1/4 c chia seeds Place ingredients in a blender and whiz until smooth. Serve with gingerbread and enjoy! Enjoyed by all of us, although Little Bit was too busy sucking on his gingerbread to finish his smoothie until later...

I made this on a whim to change up our lunch menu from soups for a day. I had a vague idea of what I was heading for, but layered as I went and am delighted with the result. The crust was a little experimental, using cottage cheese instead of milk to bind the flour-butter crumbs together. I wasn't sure how the texture or taste would hold up, but they did, really well as it turns out. The filling had a vaguely Mediterranean leaning to it, with some garlic, olive oil and lemon. Ingredients: 1 c flour 1/3 cold butter, diced 1/3-1/2 c cottage cheese pepper 1 aubergine, chopped 1 courgette, chopped 1 tomato, sliced 1 onion, sliced 4 cloves of garlic roughly crushed 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp thyme A squeeze of lemon juice 200g feta, crumbled 1) Place flour in a bowl and add diced butter. Rub the flour into the butter until it is all mixed together, forming a crumb like mix. Add pepper to taste. 2)Add cottage cheese and stir in, bringing all the crumbs together to form a dough. Wrap up and chill for at least 30 minutes. 3) Place aubergine and courgette in a bowl and salt generously. Leave for 10 minutes. 4) Roll out the pastry and line a tart dish with it. 5) Place aubergine and courgette in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Place in a clean bowl and toss with feta, garlic, olive oil, thyme, lemon juice and then spread evenly over the bottom of the pastry. Place tomato and onion slices over the top and bake at 180°C for 20-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the veg is tender. This came out how I had hoped it would and made an excellent lunch for the three of us. Salting the aubergine and courgette ahead of time drew out some of the liquid, making the tart less wet, and also added a nice aspect of seasoning. The cottage cheese crust, surprisingly baked with flecks of red in it, and was very tasty. I will be making this variant again! Overall this came out well! I hope you enjoy it too!

I wanted to try out an idea my sister had had recently in using syllabub - an 18th century cream and wine based dessert - instead of frosting. I chose to do a lemon cake as I find the flavours light and well balanced, and to match them up, added lemon zest to the syllabub too. I used a Gewürztraminer, a German white dessert wine, to whip into the cream as its sweeter, lighter flavour seemed appropriate. I used my mom's lemon cake recipe for these and it worked beautifully. Try it out with your favourite lemon cake! Ingredients: 3/4 c cream 2 tbsp sugar 1/2 c sweet white wine 2 tsp lemon zest 2 tsp lemon juice Blueberries to top 1) While your cupcakes (or cake) are in the oven, beat the whipped cream and sugar with a whisk until you have stiff peaks. Add in the white wine and zest and beat well. Taste and adjust sugar, zest or wine. Add lemon juice and mix well. 2) Allow the cupcakes to cool then top with syllabub and blueberries. I like frosting, but sometimes it is too rich and too sweet. I found that this hit the right notes, with some sweet, some zest and a lot of airy lightness. I want to try syllabub as a frosting replacement for other cakes too now, using different flavours. Maybe rum and chocolate next?

I wanted to play around with using fresh rose petals and thought a risotto might be a way of playing around with the flavours. It didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped, and the rose flavour was fainter than I had intended, but it was a tasty dinner and an interesting experiment, so I thought it worth sharing. Interestingly, the flavours came out more once I added some honey. Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 sweet potato, chopped 3 c fresh rose petals, mostly yellow 1 1/2 c Arborio rice 3/4 c whey 2 1/2 c rosé wine 1 c parmesan 1 tbsp honey 1) Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a saucepan and add the Arborio rice. Sauté until translucent then add the whey. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. 2) Meantime, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and sauté onion until translucent. Add sweet potato and cook until tender. 3) Gradually add the rosé to the rice as the liquid is absorbed, and continue stirring. 4) When sweet potatoes are tender and just beginning to brown, add rose petals and cook, stirring, until they wilt. Set aside. 5) When the liquid has been absorbed into the rice and it is tender, add parmesan and stir in. Add honey and then vegetables. Serve hot. This one had mixed results. It may be that the combined whey and rosé were too acidic. Or it may be that the parmesan was too strong a flavour for the poor rose petals. Either way, initially, it was a little disappointing. Once we added the honey, it tasted nice, but not spectacular and the rose flavour was not very strong. I'd like to try rose petals in a water-based infusion next as they don't seem to be very lipophilic. In neither the oil nor the milk have they given up particularly strong flavours when fresh. Still a tasty dinner though, and as far as failures go, very definitely edible, although not what I had been aiming for.

It was going to be vegetarian, but then I figured that bacon makes everything better, so threw some on

I'm not sure exactly where this one came from. Perhaps from my cookbook Eggs by Michel Roux which features poached egg on creamy mashed potatoes. Except we had sweet potatoes on hand. And Miso paste, and I figured, why not try that out to balance out the sweetness of the sweet potatoes? With crispy garlic and onion for texture, and spring onions for crunch? And maybe some rice, to round it all out? And, well, in case it isn't green enough, how about some roast fennel? Somehow, all these random bits came together into a tasty meal despite coming together piecemeal and not being born of one inspiration. Here it is. Ingredients: About 250g wild rice 3-4 sweet potatoes, chopped 1 1/2 - 2 tsp miso paste 3 tbsp soy sauce 1 1/2 tbsp butter 1/2 head garlic, crushed 8 cm ginger, minced 2 tbsp peanut oil 1/2 head fennel, sliced 1 tbsp peanut oil 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 tsp black sesame seeds Spring onions, sliced Eggs, 1 per person Sesame oil 1) Slice up the fennel, drizzle with oil and soy sauce, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Place in an oven-proof dish and roast at 180°C for about 25-30 minutes until cooked. 2) Cook rice as per instructions. Boil sweet potatoes until soft enough to mash. Drain and stir in miso paste, mashing as you go. 3) In a small frying pan over medium heat, heat the oil and add garlic and ginger. Fry until crispy, stirring regularly. Set aside. 4) Poach eggs to desired doneness. Plate up, layering rice, mash, egg, sprinkled garlic and ginger crumbs, sliced spring onion and a drizzle of sesame oil. Add a couple of wedges of fennel on the side and serve. This came out surprisingly well. I made a silly and added the miso before draining the sweet potatoes, which made them take rather longer than planned as I had to cook off the water so as not to drain the miso (recipe amended accordingly. Learning from mistakes! Woo!). Other than this, it all came together nicely. There are a number of bits to have on the go at once, which was a bit of a challenge with Little Bit under foot, but that is par for the course these days unless it's just cornflakes for dinner. Let me know what you think if you try this!

Growing up, sahlep, ground orchid root used in a Turkish milk-based hot drink, was a special treat, only after my dad had been on a trip to Istambul. I have discovered a shop here in Switzerland where I can find it now though, so while I like it as much as ever, it is less special and no longer a scarce commodity. Since discovering this, I have decided to start playing around with Sahlep as an ingredient in my cooking (Sahlep pancakes for example). As part of this, I decided a while back that I wanted to try Sahlep puddings. I tried a first iteration of these months ago, without baking. I simply chilled sahlep infused custard before serving. It was tasty, but the flavour needed some work, it was too sweet, and it never set. Summer was then crazy busy, and then there was the whole episode with the arrival of the Littler Bit, so I only revisited the idea in the last few weeks. We had been making macarons so I had egg yolks to use, so it seemed the logical thing to do. This time I decided to try baking the custards and tweaked the flavouring and sugar combo to boot. I also included whey, leftover from making ricotta to help balance out the sweetness. Ingredients: 2 tbsp flour 2 tbsp sugar 2 c milk 1 c whey 1 tsp cinnamon 2 tsp sahlep 2 1/2 tbsp maple sugar 2 tbsp butter 6 egg yolks 1 tsp mix spice 1 tbsp maple sugar 1) In a small saucepan, heat 1c of the milk over medium-low heat. stir in the sahlep, cinnamon and maple sugar. Stir until combined and thickened slightly, never allowing the milk to come above a simmer. Set aside. 2) In a saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar and flour. Stir and allow to cook for a couple of minutes, then stir in 1c of the milk and the whey. Bring to a boil and immediately lower to a simmer. Cook until thickened so that a finger dragged across the back of a spoon dipped in the pot leaves a trail. The Parting of the Milk! 3) Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Once the milk mixture has thickened, stir in a spoonful of it into the egg yolks to temper them until about 1 to 1 1/2c of the milk mixture has been incorporated into the eggs. Turn the heat off and stir the egg-milk mix into the pot. 4) Add the sahlep mix from step 1 and stir. Add the butter, allowing to melt and incorporate. Taste test, and add milk or cinnamon as necessary. 5) Spoon the resulting custard into a shallow baking dish or ramequins. Sprinkle over the remaining maple sugar and the mix spice. Bake at 180°C for 45-50 minutes, until set but still slightly jiggly. Serve warm or chilled. We all very much enjoyed this, but even more so on day 2 when it was cold, with lekerli (Swiss German gingerbreads) dipped in the custards. Definitely pleased with this, especially as it is quick and easy to make and can be prepped ahead if entertaining.

I was invited this week to take part in a collaboration on Instagram for International Tea day on the 21st of May and to put together an Afternoon Tea. In planning this, scones seemed almost a prerequisite. Continuing my earlier quest for scones that rise well without self-raising flour, at some altitude and without the taste of baking powder, I decided to try the use of some baking powder and some baking soda. Soda needs an acid to activate it, and without whey on hand this time, I decided to try using honey, which somewhat surprisingly is acidic. I didn't use any sugar and instead used about a tablespoon of honey, and my scones came out quite well. They didn't rise as much as I would have liked, so I will try again, increasing the quantities of soda and honey accordingly, but as a first attempt at this, they came out nicely and had a lovely flavour. Given the absence locally of clotted cream, I used Double Crème de Gruyère instead which worked delightfully. Ingredients: 1 1/2 c flour 1/2 c butter, cubed 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tbsp honey 1/3 c milk 1/3 c raisins 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1) Place dry ingredients in a bowl. Add butter and rub together with the dry ingredients until they form a crumb-like consistency. 2) Add the honey and milk and stir with a fork, forming a thick dough. Mix in raisins and press dough together without kneading. 3) Roll out on a floured surface to about 1 1/2 cm thick and cut out rounds of the desired diameter. Place on a baking sheet and bake at 180°C for about 12 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm with butter or clotted cream and jam or honey for best results. These were very tasty and had a very nice crumb. I would have liked them to rise by about another 1/2 or 1 cm, but I was quite pleased with them doubling in size. They had a taste almost of cinnamon raisin bagels and were particularly nice with homemade Plum and Apple Jam. Book Pairing: I made these while listening to Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. it is one of the few of hers that I had not previously read. My sister started reading it aloud to me a year ago on skype but we didn't get very far, so I decided to listen to it on my own instead and wrap it up. I found it thoroughly delightful, if a little frustrating in parts, and Austen's biting satire is as entertaining as ever. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.