One of the many things that is hard to find in the UK is pumpkin purée. Unlike in North America, where “pumpkin spice” is in practically everything come autumn (seriously – it’s insane), the UK doesn’t really do pumpkin desserts. Suuure, you can get a pumpkin spice latte now at Starbucks, but pumpkin desserts are a quintessentially North American thing. Which makes sense – no Thanksgiving, no pumpkin pie.

So in the past, when I have come across canned pumpkin purée, I would buy a couple just for the future. You never know when you might need it! Update – my local little Waitrose has it in stock right now… whaaaatt?!

And of course, when I got the inclination to try these cupcakes, I was out of pumpkin and with nowhere to find it. So I thought about it and realized that spiced sweet potatoes (yams in Canada) taste a whole lot like pumpkin pie. So I figured I could simply use some pureed sweet potato instead of pumpkin! And you know what? I couldn’t tell the difference!

The original recipe for these cupcakes called for a graham cracker crust. Again, not something you can find here in the UK. However, my mom had sent me a box a while back, and I had juuuust enough left to crush up. You could substitute it with digestive biscuits, but I don’t think it’s worth it. The graham crust is more flavour than texture, and without the honey graham taste, I don’t think it’s necessary. You could just omit that part.

Of course, then they wouldn’t be very “s’more” but hey, you do what you can! After all, s’mores are a very North American thing, just like pumpkin pie. Which makes finding graham crackers nigh impossible. Why do I suddenly get these inclinations to bake things with hard-to-find ingredients?!

Anyway, if you’re not yet in the mood for Christmas (I am soooo excited for Christmas!!) and want something a bit more fall-appropriate to make – why not try these? They make a great mini cupcake too! Oh, and if you don’t have a kitchen torch (like me) you can use your oven broiler! Just make sure to keep an eye on them so that they don’t get too brown!

Okay, it’s time for a really simple recipe. I’ve meant to post this for ages, but haven’t made them often enough, and keep forgetting to take a photo. These are one of Richard’s favourite things that I make – they’re a softer cookie (unlike the crisp biscuits that people tend to make here in the UK), with lots of peanut flavour.

Now, the most important part of the recipe is the peanut butter that you use. If it’s one of those cheaper brands, with tons of added sugar and palm oil, then you won’t get as strong of a peanut taste. I only ever buy 100 percent peanut, peanut butter. Surprisingly, Morrisons has a really good one, which is waaaay cheaper than all the health-food ones, but still tastes great. Trust me, I love this stuff. It’s great in a banana smoothie too!

These are really simple cookies, where you just have to cream together the butter and sugar, add some eggs, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Nothing fancy or complicated here!

And you can totally leave them plain, or dunk them in some chocolate like I did here, and top them with some chopped peanuts. But then, I actually prefer the taste without the chocolate, as it can kind of mask the peanut butter. It’s completely up to you! Oh, and the more you spread them out before baking, the crispier they will get. If you want a really chewy cookie, leave them as balls, and allow them to spread in the oven. They’ll end up really soft in the middle.

But what this weather does for me is make me crave all kinds of warm hearty things… and above all soup! I almost never want to make soup during the summer, when all I want is a salad. But now, I want to tuck into something that feels just as cosy as the hot water bottle currently residing somewhere near my toes… which are covered in thick socks.

Now, this soup isn’t just warm and cosy, but it’s actually good for you! As I mentioned in a previous post about cooking with these bad boys, Jerusalem artichokes are full of inulin, which is amazing for your gut bacteria… just not for your dignity. They call them fartichokes after all. And that’s not the only part of this soup which is healthy – celeriac is too! I mean, it’s definitely not the prettiest vegetable to look at (seriously, it’s not winning any vegetable beauty contests) but celeriac is full of dietary fibre, minerals, and vitamins! With these two as the main ingredients in a soup, you’ll feel better in more ways than one. And seeing as how they are both currently in season, why not try this recipe this weekend?

Fun fact, we actually grew Jerusalem artichokes this summer, by accident. Turns out we missed some of the plant we dug up last year, and covered it with our new composter. Now we can’t properly dig the rest up, and so we will forever have Jerusalem artichokes growing by our composter. Which is great news for me, but not so for Richard. His gut seems to go particularly crazy when he has Jerusalem artichokes… which isn’t something he likes too much.

Now I really liked the flavour of this soup, as it’s very different from anything else I’ve ever had. Celeriac has a definite celery taste (obviously), and combined with the nutty Jerusalem artichoke, it was quite unique. I seasoned it a bit less than most things I make, as I really wanted those two flavours to shine through. Normally I go crazy with tons of garlic… mmm garlic… **insert drooling here**

One other thing I tried, was making this dairy-free. I’ve always struggled with digesting lots of fats, especially dairy, and have been trying to reduce the amount I consume. I used some single soya instead of cream to thicken the soup, and you couldn’t really tell the difference! So if you happen to be vegan, or trying to introduce vegan recipes into your life, you can easily switch some ingredients here to make it work for you.

And that’s it! It’s a really simple soup to make, and pairs quite well with my customary garlic sourdough bread… mmmmm… gotta love a big warm bowl of soup, and some crunchy garlicky toast! Perfect for this recent cold snap!

One of the first things that came to my mind was rhubarb doughnuts! Someone at my work had actually tried to make rhubarb and custard doughnuts before, but the acidity in the rhubarb jam he made caused the cream to curdle. Ever since then, I’ve always thought that if I were to do it, I would turn the rhubarb into a curd instead, as it would prevent any curdling. After all, you can mix lemon curd with cream and it’s fine – and lemon is even more acidic!

So I went back to my tried and true recipe for crème patissière, which is the same recipe I use for making lemon curd! I simply swap the milk amount for lemon juice and add as much zest as the amount of lemons I juice. I figured I could do the same with rhubarb purée! However, once I had stewed the rhubarb, and blitzed it – it wouldn’t press through a sieve like raspberry or some other kind of puree. Too much fibre. In the end, I didn’t see it and simply reduced the amount of cornstarch in the recipe to account for how thick the puree is to start with. I figured that the rhubarb purée was about halfway between how thin milk is, and how thick I wanted the final curd – so I halved the amount of thickener (cornstarch) to just 10g.

The rhubarb taste is there, but subtler than I was expecting. I’m debating trying to make these without the custard next time. I would double the amount of rhubarb puree, and just flavour the whipping cream with vanilla and fold them together. I think the flavour would be amazing – but then I love rhubarb, and it might be too strong for some. But even without the strong rhubarb flavour – these still taste great!

For the doughnut itself, I used the same recipe from Justin Gellatly’s book Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding, that I used in the paska doughnuts. Except, as these weren’t paska doughnuts, I used his traditional recipe with water instead of citrus juice. If you want a few tips on how to fry them, check out the paska recipe! My key tip is always to prove the doughnuts on parchment paper, rather than trying to lift them off a floured surface. You can even pre-cut the squares before shaping so that you don’t have to try and cut around the doughnuts once proven.

When I was trying to decide how to garnish these (all doughnuts need a garnish, IMHO), I was torn between poached rhubarb and rhubarb curls! In the end, I think the poached stuff works better, as it looks more like rhubarb at first glance. It is a better colour. However, the fact that you can make ribbons out of rhubarb is always fun. I used this recipe to make them.

Which garnish do you think looks better?

Either way, if you happen to have a glut of rhubarb from your garden or just love doughnuts, why not try these? You could even try reducing the amount of creme patisserie in the recipe to see if the stronger flavour is better? Taste is always a personal preference. Or, you can just eat the rhubarb curd straight – ha! Pipe it into tart shells, or make a rhubarb meringue pie! Enjoy!

I mean sure, you can make all sorts of paleo “blah-blah-naturally-sweetened-with-bananas” type things… but those aren’t really muffins. Muffins are fluffy, and slightly sweet, with a delicious crusty top. They’re basically cupcakes without the frosting if we’re being honest with ourselves. They’re cupcakes we can feel better about eating.

However, if there was such a thing as a healthy muffin – this would be it! It does contain sugar but also has pumpkin purée, apple, carrot, and zucchini (courgette) inside. Not to mention pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.

It might not seem like the kind of recipe for the beautiful sunny weather we’ve been having, but I think it works. The flavours may feel like fall (with the pumpkin, cinnamon, and cloves) but the fact that it’s healthy makes it feel like summer to me! I can’t be the only one who craves salad and other healthy foods once the weather heats up? Goodbye, hearty and rich stews – hello BBQ!

In my humble opinion, if carrot cake is acceptable all year round, why not these?

So if you’d like a morning treat, or something to bring to the office, and are looking for healthier options – why not try these? I can guarantee you that you won’t be disappointed.

I could get all sciencey about it, but it’s similar to how yoghurt is made. Except, instead of having bacteria eating the sugars (lactose) and producing lactic acid, you add the acid yourself! The acid lowers the ph of the cream, which changes the structure of the protein strands, allowing them to hold more water. Originally, I was taught that possets require citrus to set (lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit…), but there are other fruits with a similar ph to citrus.

My original recipe idea, was to make an orange posset, flavoured with pomegranate (mostly because I just wanted the pink/peach colour). But as I was making the first batch I was having a hard time. Possets need the citric acid to set, so I couldn’t substitute pomegranate juice for orange juice. I could only add a tablespoon or so for flavour. Now, pomegranate isn’t as strong a taste as the orange, so it wasn’t coming through. Then, as I was tasting things, I wondered to myself if the bitter pomegranate juice might be acidic? Turns out, pomegranate has a lower ph than oranges, and is closer to that of lemons! That made me realize you could use pomegranate juice all on its own!

So I went back to the store for more cream and set about making three different possets – one solely orange, one 50/50 orange and pomegranate, and one solely pomegranate. I was curious about the different colours and flavours, and couldn’t settle on just one. The result? Well, the pomegranate one didn’t really taste pomegranate – it’s too delicate a flavour. I used pomegranate juice though, so maybe freshly squeezed would come through? With the 50/50 one you couldn’t really taste the pomegranate, as again, it’s too delicate. The orange one was the best, as the flavour really cut through the cream.

In my opinion, the best possets use the most sour flavours – like lemon and lime. They really come through the heaviness of the cream, unlike subtler flavours. Perhaps next time, I’ll try one with lime and ginger… doesn’t that sound nice?

So if you want to make a posset, experiment with flavours. Lemon is perfect, but you can also infuse things in the milk before you make the posset. Simply add whatever you want to infuse as you first simmer the cream. Then take it off the heat, cover with a lid (to prevent too much evaporation) and steep for 30 minutes. Bring it back to a simmer and continue with the recipe as before. You could infuse all kinds of spices, herbs, tea… just use your imagination!

Honestly, possets are so easy! My only advice would be to serve these in small dishes, as they are very very creamy… you don’t want to serve people too much. A double-shot of posset is all you really need!

A few years back, I was given a pasta roller as a Christmas present. It was a most unexpected gift, as it was from a Secret Santa exchange, and I didn’t know the person who had my name very well. It was absolutely perfect, as I had been dying to try my hand at making fresh pasta! And once you’ve mastered making plain pasta, striped or coloured pasta isn’t very far off! It’s not any more difficult, but it is time-consuming – oh so time-consuming…

Making fresh ravioli is only really worth it if you’re going to make unusual flavours. It takes so much time, that it’s not worth making regular cheese or spinach pasta. You have to mix together the dough, allow it to rest, make the filling, roll out the dough, fold + roll some more, then fill and cut the ravioli. Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure if I’m a masochist, or just love to cook and bake. It’s up for debate. 

To make your pasta striped, you have to mix together both regular dough, as well as coloured. While you could use food colouring, good-coloured pasta is made with natural ingredients. Cocoa powder makes brown, beetroot powder for red/pink, spirulina powder for green, turmeric or saffron for yellow, and tomato paste for orange. All of those ingredients have intense enough colours, so you only need a little bit.  It means that they won’t alter the flavour of your pasta considerably. (But remember, the colour of the pasta will lighten when you boil them.)

As I was making beetroot-filled pasta, I opted to add beetroot powder to 1/4 of the dough recipe, substituting for 5-10g of the flour. It gave it a lovely bright fuschia colour. You’ll need to experiment to see how many colour ingredients you need to get your desired shade.

Okay, now the instructions for how to make fresh ravioli (using a roller). It’s a bit of a long explanation, but stay with me! If you already know how and just want the recipe for the filling, scroll to the bottom!

The first, step will be making your filling. You want it to be completely cool when you’re ready to fill your pasta, so it’s easiest to do this first, and then chill. You can find all sorts of recipes online, and feel free to experiment! Some of my favourites that I’ve made are butternut squash with sage and mushroom with pine nuts. For the beetroot recipe, I used the base of this recipe but then added some chopped roasted hazelnuts, an egg yolk, and rosemary.

While your filling is chilling in the fridge, make your pasta dough. My original recipe came from the Kitchen Stories app, but it was always too dry and I’d have to keep adding liquid. (The video does show you how to roll etc. which is helpful if reading the instructions is confusing.) I finally just made my own. You’ll feel like it’s crazy dry still, but just squeeze it together, knead a bit, and let it rest. The flour will continue to absorb moisture as the dough relaxes.

If you’re just making plain-coloured pasta, you’ll make one batch of the recipe below. If you want striped pasta, make 1/4 of the recipe with the added colourant, and 3/4 of the recipe plain. As you layer the coloured pasta over the plain, you don’t need a whole lot.

After your dough has rested, and absorbed all the moisture, you can begin rolling! I’ve got the Marcato Atlas 150 pasta roller, which I heartily recommend. It’s solidly built and comes with pasta cutters for making spaghetti or linguine. Or in my case, you can use the linguine cutter to make stripes for ravioli!

Your dough should not feel too dry at this point but is still more crumbly and stiff than any other kind of dough. For the best al dente pasta, you need to activate the gluten in the dough. What this means is lots of rolling it out, folding it, and then feeding it back through the machine. As with making croissants, this is called laminating.

When rolling pasta, you cut off a chunk of dough (re-wrap the rest) and flatten it enough to fit through the machine on the lowest setting. Then you slowly increase the setting until your dough is the thickness you want. But see, if you only do that, you’ll end up with soggy pasta. As this dough was never properly kneaded, we need to work the gluten in the dough to give it a bite when boiled. To do that, you’ll want to work the dough through a couple of the settings, then fold your dough in thirds, and feed it back through the machine on the lowest setting. For the best-textured pasta, you’ll do this about 6-8 times before continuing on to your final thickness. This also helps you get neat edges before cutting! You can see visual examples in this long post about the perfect homemade pasta. I think I’ll try that recipe the next time for comparison!

To add the stripes to your dough, you have to laminate each colour first, then roll each to the same thickness (about halfway to your desired thickness). Cut both pieces to the same length, and then cut the coloured ones into even strips. As I had a linguine cutter on my roller, I used it to cut the red dough into even pieces. If you don’t have one, you can simply use a ruler and pizza wheel/knife.

Then, use water to dampen one side of each stripe with a wet finger (or brush if you’re fancy), and lay over the plain dough sheet. This gets fed back into your pasta roller (at its lowest setting), and the two layers get sandwiched into one! Then you keep rolling it out until it’s the right thickness – it’s really quite easy!

Most people recommend that you roll pasta for ravioli to about the last or second-to-last thickness on your machine. Too thick and it’ll feel like eating more dough than filling, but too thin and your ravioli may explode when boiling. It’s a delicate balance.

Once you have two sheets of dough ready to fill, you can use a ravioli cutter, cookie cutter, or ravioli mould set. The first time I made filled pasta, I made tortellini by hand and it took ages! After that, I saw a ravioli mould at Homesense and jumped at the chance to make 12 ravioli at a time. This mould is very similar to the one I have at home.

If using a mould, first make sure it’s lightly floured. Then lay one piece of dough on top, fill each cavity with about a teaspoon of filling, and use water to lightly wet the area around each filling. Then lay a second piece of dough on top, press out any air bubbles, and use a rolling pin (often included) to cut all the edges. Turn the mould over and tap to turn them all out.

If you don’t have a mould, you lay one piece on a lightly floured table, and add little mounds of filling on top. Space them out as far as needed for whichever cutter you are using. Then wet around each filling (I just use a damp finger), and cover with the second piece. Press together around each filling to remove air bubbles, and cut out with your cutter! Easy!

As you are making the pasta, place the finished ravioli on a well-floured baking tray, uncovered. You can then boil them straight away, or freeze them in a single layer, before moving them to ziplock bags for storage. Ravioli cooks in only a few minutes, even from frozen. This makes them a great weekday meal, once you get past all the time they take to make. 

And that’s it! It takes a long time, but if you enjoy stuff like that, it’s quite fun. Especially to see your handiwork with the stripes!

So if you’re feeling brave, why not try making your own pasta this week? Or perhaps set aside some time on the weekend, as it can take a while…

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Well, it’s officially 2018! And why not start the new year with some good old-fashioned doughnuts? My grandma always called these New Year’s Küken (or “cookies”) but you may also know them as Portzelky. They are a German Mennonite favorite, always made for New Year’s Day.

When I was a kid, these weren’t my favorite things because they contained a dreaded ingredient – raisins. Not sure why, but I have always disliked raisins, especially in baked goods. You know when you pick up a cookie, thinking it’s a chocolate chip, only to eat a raisin?! Worst thing ever… I can remember eating raisins out of those little red boxes as a child and enjoying it. But now, despite my best efforts to get used to those shriveled little pockets of sadness… I just don’t like ’em.

Now that I am making my own New Year’s cookies, I can use whatever fruit I want! (Eat that, raisins!) I have always wanted to experiment with these little doughnuts and decided to try three different flavors this year.

The first uses raisins, but I soaked them with some alcohol for flavor (sloe gin to be exact). The second was candied citrus zest, and the third was apple and stem ginger, with a hint of cinnamon. All three also have some fresh orange zest and vanilla in the dough… because apparently, I cannot leave anything alone. When I told Richard I wanted to make these but add/change things, his response was “Of course”.

(You may wonder why I am bothering to make raisins, but I want Richard to be able to try them, and he likes them.)

Now, my grandma always waited for these to cool a bit, and then dusted with icing sugar, but I decided to mix that up too. For the candied citrus zest ones, I rolled them in a bit of caster (berry) sugar after letting them drain off the oil. You need to do it while they are still warm (like the paska doughnuts I made last year) so that it stick properly.

As for our opinions on which flavor is the best? Well, Richard and I both liked the candied zest and apple ones, but he also liked the raisin ones. He preferred the icing to caster sugar, but I can go both ways. Caster looks prettier than icing sugar, but it’s really a personal choice. As always, they taste best warm, so invite a few people over while you make them! Who would say no to warm, sugary doughnuts on New Year?

So this year, after having a taste of proper eggnog back in Canada, I decided to make my own. The nice thing about homemade eggnog is that you can control the calories and spices. Use full-fat milk, cream, or skim… whatever your heart desires! Add rum, or no rum: star anise, cloves, or just nutmeg. I like mine with lots of spice and a hint of rum; which also happens to be spiced!

Most recipes I found online, said to use three parts whole milk, to one part cream. I wanted to make mine a bit healthier and use only whole milk, but it’s not as thick as normal eggnog. Use single, double, half + half… whatever your heart desires! I also found recipes that said to whip the egg whites separately, and then add in just before serving. I imagine this would give it a bit of a frothier/thicker texture, but it felt like a wasted effort for me.

The flavor will get stronger if you leave it overnight, so long as you keep the spices in. And if you want a festive punch, rather than just classic eggnog, add some 7-Up (or similar) and scoops of vanilla ice cream before serving. Perfection!

Even if you’re in North America, and have access to store-bought stuff, give homemade eggnog a try. It’s really quite delicious!

Here in the UK, I find pickles to be a bit sweet for my North American tastes. I like my pickles mostly tangy garlicky dill rather than sweet, so I thought I should just make my own! My mom used to always buy those “yum-yum” pickles and I used to refer to them as “yuck-yuck”…

I used this recipe from The Kitchn as inspiration. I only made enough for two half-pint jars, as that was the amount of cucamelons that I had. Just adjust the recipe for the amount you need. As mentioned in the original recipe, I trimmed the blossom end of the cucamelons to prevent them from softening.

One thing mentioned in the original recipe is to use dill seeds as opposed to dill leaves. While this is probably a useful tip, I used the leaves (as I couldn’t find the other nearby) and still found the dill taste to be quite strong. Feel free to use whatever you have on hand as seasoning – I just used what I had in the pantry. Dill leaves, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, and garlic were the flavors that I chose.

If you’re planning on storing your pickles for a long time, use the hot water bath mentioned in The Kitchen, otherwise, you can just store them in the fridge. Wait at least a few days before opening the pickles, for a stronger flavor. If you don’t have cucamelons on hand, no worries! Pickle any kind of cucumbers or other vegetables like green beans – the options are endless. Have fun experimenting with yours!