Fig Hazelnut & Chocolate Cake
Pear Ginger & Sage Cocktail
Pear, Ginger & Sage Cocktail. Look no further for this is everything an autumn cocktail should be! The warmth of the ginger and the slight spice of the sage just work so well with the pear Juice. It’s a really easy cocktail to throw together – particularly if you’ve just been making Chocolate Pear Pudding and have some pear juice to hand. If not substitute cloudy apple juice instead. Either way you won’t regret it!
The stem ginger syrup is just syrup from a jar of stem ginger. I actually used the Ginger Cordial from Belvoir as I had it to hand but, should you have neither, a tablespoon of simple syrup with some fresh ginger would work wellô
PEAR GINGER & SAGE COCKTAIL
Ingredients (makes 1)
- 25ml pear or cloudy apple juice
- 6 sage leaves
- 1 tbsp stem ginger syrup or cordial
- 50ml gin or vodka
- Juice of half a lemon
- 6+ cubes of ice
Method
- Put all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker
- Shake hard and get rid of all your stress
- pour into glass and garnish with an extra sage leaf if you want to be fancy
- Try not to knock back in one!
if you want to know more about me and my work as an Aromatherapist, please visit https://www.lilaccottageshop.com/
Granny’s Shortbread
Granny’s Shortbread. People seem to fall into two camps about shortbread. My Granny liked hers on the thicker side, buttery and very crumbly. My Dad liked his thinner and crisper, more like a biscuit.
This is the recipe for Granny’s Shortbread. It’s very easy to make, even by hand. You’ll need a 20cm square cake tin for the amount given here. Double the quantities and it will fit a Swiss roll tin. Completely up to you. I try to restrict myself from devouring it by making this smaller quantity. I must add, just to be completely fair, that this shortbread does keep well in an airtight tin and it makes a great present.
Plum and Walnut Tart
Plum and Walnut Tart. So many people tell me that they can’t make pastry and so wouldn’t try to make a tart. Well this is recipe that allows you to make a tart without making a pastry! It’s a delicious cheat.
Croissant White Chocolate and Whisky Pudding
Croissant, White Chocolate and Whisky Pudding! You really have to try this as it is just a wonderful pudding at any time of the year. In reality it’s a very smart update on a bread and butter pudding although I suspect far more people will love this.
I always make it part of my Burns Night and St Andrews Day (any excuse). So why is the pudding suitable for a Scottish celebration? The croissants are reminiscent of the “Auld Alliance” and are thrifty because you use them when they are one or two days old. The sultanas are soaked in Whisky (though there is the option to use tea instead should you want to), and the custard is rich with cream and eggs and melted white chocolate and what Scot doesn’t love sweet and rich puddings? Then again don’t we all?
Irish Apple Cake
Irish Apple Cake is an ideal recipe to use up windfall apples. Not that you can’t make it with perfect fruit. It makes a wonderfully moist cake, spiced with cinnamon and has a crunchy top It’s a great pudding cake when served slightly warm with cream/custard/icecream; though I confess I like it best as a plain slice with a cup of tea in the afternoon It’s comforting and very “moreish”, and somehow makes me think of something your great-aunt would have served – an apron tied round her middle and bustling around making tea in her Brown Betty teapot (with a tea cosy of course!)
Spiced Parsnip Soup
On a raw February day when the wind is like an absolute knife cutting through you with bitter cold, lunch cries out for soup. Have it in a mug and warm your hands as well or, show it off in a beautiful bowl! The blue bowl here just set off the golden turmeric colour of this parsnip soup perfectly though its delicious taste would be the same whatever you served it in! Parsnips somehow manage to be sweet yet earthy and this soup with its spicing makes them (and me!) sing.
This is a simple soup to make and uses a mild curry powder though you could always blend your own if you wanted to experiment. A good basic blend is to use equal quantities of ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek with as much or as little chill powder as you like. Have fun experimenting by varying the proportions or adding a favourite spice – I promise that the parsnip can take it. Continue reading
Plum, Hazelnut and Sloe Gin Crumble
Autumn is well and truly here and with that comes the time for crumble. This recipe sees deep jewelled magenta plums spiked with sloe gin, bubbling through a golden knobbly, textured crumble that is laced with toasted oats and hazelnuts
I know everyone thinks of crumble as an easy, ordinary dish but I think with the few extra tweaks here it becomes something amazing. Sloe gin and hazelnuts are a marriage made in heaven. The two types of sugar really add to the depth and texture of the crumble and the toasty flavour you get from the oats and demerara sprinkled on top are worth it for the smell alone I add, perhaps surprisingly, a few leaves of fresh thyme to the crumble mix which just work in a way you just can’t place This recipe really is the embodiment of the “mellow fruitfulness” in Keats’ ode To Autumn
Fruited Tea Loaf Cake
There is nothing better on a cold winter afternoon than snuggling down into the sofa with a big mug of tea and a slice of cake. In particular this fruit cake preferably topped with a large slab of butter!! Bliss.
My Scottish grandmother used to make this cake. There is no creaming together of the butter and sugar, you just add them to the dried fruit in a saucepan and heat gently until the fruit plumps up in the buttery, brown sugary mixture and then add flour and eggs. It is ridiculously easy. Continue reading
Chocolate Pear Pudding
I was reading in the newspapers today about something called “coorie”. In many ways this is the Scottish version of hygge. To “coorie in” means to snuggle up and applies to everything from log fires and sheepskins to food, exploring the outdoors – in fact everything that gives a sense of well-being.
Chocolate Pear Pudding is a great coorie dish. I love it as a Sunday lunch pudding. I can imagine it as an old fashioned nursery pudding in a story book like Peter Pan or Mary Poppins. Homely, comforting, easy to make and involves chocolate – what more could you want? I certainly would have no problem in snuggling/coorie in to it with its soft chocolatey sponge and unctuous, juicy pears. If you are a chocoholic serve it with more chocolate in the form of a sauce (homemade or your favourite bought one), although it does make a little sauce of its own where the pears juice mixes with the chocolate sauce at the bottom, or try it with cream or icecream and while you are at it why not both? Can you ever have too much coorie after all?
Aga Overnight Porridge
Spoiler Alert!!! This makes the best, smoothest and creamiest porridge ever even without milk!
The porridge is very simple to make with no need for the long, laborious stirring required to make porridge this silky. Set it up for two minutes the night before, leave overnight, and then two minutes in the morning and it’s ready. Continue reading
Aubergine and Sweet Potato Bake with Walnuts
I had my goddaughter staying and she was really keen to cut down on the amount of meat she was eating so during the 6 weeks she was here we tried lots of vegetarian and vegan food. We weren’t interested in making ingredients look or taste like meat – we wanted to show off vegetables in their own right and it was really surprising to me how much I enjoyed them. So much so in fact that I am still eating far less meat even though she has now gone home.
I have cooked this now for quite a few meat eating friends and they have all asked for the recipe. I normally make it in individual portions using enamel pie tins and it can be made in advance and kept in the fridge or even frozen till you want to do the final oven cook so it is perfect for entertaining. Please don’t be put off by the length of the recipe it is actually very simple If you want to make this vegan there are really good vegan “cheese” alternatives. In this recipe I’ve use the violife brand of mozzarella and parmesan with great results
Continue reading
Blackberry Muffins with Lemon & Ginger Crunch Topping
Blackberry Muffins – heard of them? No? We all seem to go mad for muffins made with blueberry but not the humble blackberry. Why is that? They are simply delicious!
Continue reading
Blackberry Fool
Blackberry Fool used to be one of my favourite treats towards the end of the Summer Holidays. We would have been out with a picnic to go blackberry picking and have returned home with lots of blackberries. Some would be frozen, ready to be used in crumbles later in the year. Some would be held in the fridge ready to make jam the next day. But a few, a precious few, would be magicked into a fool for that night’s supper. Bliss.
Continue reading
Fig and Earl Grey Jam
Everybody seems to have a favourite jam in our household Fig and Earl Grey Jam is our goddaughter’s, Chloé’s absolute favourite. Our fig tree seems to have good and bad years dependant on the weather so it makes it extra special when there are enough to make her some.
It is, of course, glorious on toast, and wonderful next to a blue or goats cheese. But I think if Chloé had her way she’d just eat it straight from the jar! I am with her on this one, although I’d probably alternate mouthfuls of jam with squares of dark chocolate!
Continue reading
Blackberry and Apple Almond Crumble
Blackberry and Apple Almond Crumble is surely one of the best puddings going! Early in the season when the blackberries are at their plumpest is the time to pick, cook, pickle, freeze as many as you can. These are the heady days of foraging and harvesting from the garden when you just want to make the most of everything and prepare for the colder and leaner months ahead. But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a treat and to miss out now – and this comforting, homely crumble is just that, taken to a whole new level with the addition of almonds to the crumble.
Continue reading
Limoncello – the Homemade Stuff!
I love limoncello but I have been so disappointed by a lot of what is on sale here. Quite frankly it can taste so synthetic that it’s horrid!
Not so this recipe with its use of what is fast becoming my go-to trio of lemon flavours – lemon verbena, lemon grass and lemon. You start off by infusing both lemongrass and lemon zest into your vodka/gin for a week before you add a simple syrup and lemon verbena leaves After a week your limoncello is ready! Serve chilled from the fridge Particularly wonderful on a hot summer’s day but good anytime. The perfect addition to an Italian meal (or if you are like me – the perfect addition to most meals!)
Three Lemon Sorbet
This lemon sorbet uses three types of lemon flavours – lemongrass, lemon verbena and lemon zest. Using all three makes for an absolutely stunning sorbet. I can’t begin to tell you how much of a stunner and how well balanced this recipe is. Quite frankly, it’s more refreshing than a swim on a hot summer’s day! If you don’t have any of the lemon ingredients you can just ramp up the quantities of the other two, but honestly, do try this as it’s written if you can.
Lemon Verbena Shortbread Biscuits
Soft and crumbly, these little lemon verbena shortbread biscuits work well with ice creams, fruit or indeed alongside tea or coffee. They make the most of the herbs you have growing in your garden – in this case lemon verbena although you can vary the herb – try rosemary, lemon zest or thyme instead. Or use lavender flowers.
They are super easy to make. I love the convenience of rolling the shortbread dough into “logs” and slicing off rounds to bake as you need to. The lemon verbena shortbread biscuit dough can be kept in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for 3 months. It means that a freshly baked lemon verbena shortbread is always on hand. How good is that?