Nigel’s Chocolate Muscovado Banana Cake

It’s rare that a banana is allowed to sit for long in my fruit bowl, let alone languish for long enough to go black. Which is, I suppose, where I went ever so slightly wrong with my version of Nigel Slater’s banana muscovado cake, dubbed ‘the best cake in the world’ by my sister-in-law, Rosie. Being mum to a two-year old, Rosie gets cake thrust at her by virtual strangers in most social situations, so I reckon she’d be a bit of an expert. Besides, any excuse to make banana bread, right?

This cake erred towards the bitter because I didn’t have the patience to wait for the bananas to freckle and darken or permeate the kitchen with their ever-so-slightly-binny note. However, heed the words of St Nigel, people: you have to let the fruit go black so it can sweeten. Perhaps if you have a two-year old or willing accomplice, get them to hide a bunch somewhere around the house for a few days. Oh and next time I’d probably use a dark chocolate less intense than 70%. But otherwise, it is tremendous – and just keeps getting sweeter and squidgier as the days go by. Like them bananas, this cake won’t be around for long.

 

 

Ingredients

 

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

125g softened butter

235g muscovado sugar

400g peeled ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

100g dark chocolate

 

Method

Line a non-stick loaf tin with baking paper (we’d run out so I greased mine and the cake came out fine). Preheat the oven to 180C.

Sift the flour and baking powder together. Using an electric mixer (plastic blade on my Magimix) cream the sugar and butter until fluffy and coffee-coloured.

Mash the bananas in a bowl until lumpy. Stir in the vanilla extract. Beat the eggs and add them to the butter and sugar mixture. If it curdles (mine did), just add a bit of flour.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and fold them with the bananas into the batter. Follow with the flour, gently.

Scrape into the tin and bake for fifty minutes (mine took about an hour). Check to see if its ready with a metal skewer: if its moist but clean then the cake’s ready. If you need to cook it for longer and there is still wet mixture on the skewer, return the cake to the oven and cover with foil for the rest of the cooking.

When its out of the oven, leave the cake in the tin for 15 minutes, then loosen with a palette knife and lift (or turn) it from the tin. Leave to cool a bit longer and then peel off the paper. Serve in thick slices.

 

 

Original recipe from The Kitchen Diaries II by Nigel Slater, published by Fourth Estate, 2012.

Clem and Rich’s Lemon Butter Wedding Cake

The BSG and I are in charge of the cake for my sister’s wedding. Just to clarify: we are making it, filling it, icing it, decorating it and then driving it the two and a half hours to Norfolk where we will assemble it.

Nervous? Not a bit.

Perhaps it has something to do with us having absolutely nil experience in that department. Some might call this a disadvantage, but it has meant that at every turn we have researched, checked and double-checked. Now, for example, I know not to put a freshly baked and cooled cake in the fridge. No sir, the fridge environment is the nemesis of a light and airy sponge, making it dense and claggy. I will now be storing my cake, sealed in a tin or box, in a cool, dry place. Eureka!

This zilch experience also means that we’ve never reached the end of the process before, only to have the finished article collapse/melt/get dropped/consumed by the family pet, which means that we’ve had a pretty impressive unblemished 100% track record thus far… Perhaps that’s why Clem and Rich have trusted us with such a task.

It’s not a traditional fruit cake, but a lemon cake (so we’re hoping people will actually eat it: it has to taste good). Dan Lepard’s Lemon Butter Cake to be precise. We tried a few out – like one on the Nigella forum from a US reader which, while delicious, should have carried a health warning for butter content (the batter looked like buttercream icing). Though we tried a drizzle cake whereby the lemony syrup permeates the cake, with the large volume of sponge we are working with you’d need more of a deluge to inject any flavour whatsoever. This recipe beat the rest of the field hands down for taste. I don’t know much about Dan Lepard, (except that he is Australian-born). Short and Sweet, his book on baking, is clear and written with authority; it dares you (well, me) to try things you mightn’t otherwise, including breads. It was so packed with good new things to bake that I gave it to my sister-in-law Jemima, who probably knows all there is to know on the subject.

Though the cake looked a little dense when we cut into it, it was light and m…. (I won’t say that word on here) and the condensed milk holds in the moisture whilst giving a delicious flavour – a humectant, apparently. We ramped up the zest by 1 lemon, and seeing as we will be scaling up the recipe even further, there might be a bit more tweaking to be done still. We’ve baked a small trial version which we’ve filled with lemon buttercream, covered with ready-rolled (hallelujah!) fondant icing and are keeping as a control for 4 days. Fingers crossed it stays fresh.

If it does, we’ll be scattering it with crystallised rose petals that we’ve thieved from a few pretty gardens. Tonight we try rolling out enormous blobs of fondant as the ready rolled doesn’t come in extra large.

How hard can it be?! We’ll let you know…

 

PS: For the recipe, please visit the Guardian page on the link above which says Lemon Butter Cake. It appears that I got into trouble with the cyber-police for reproducing it here to my enormous readership.
PPS: The cake was cut, eaten and served to the very happy wedding crowd, all of whom are still with us. So that's a relief.

Speedy Apricot Jam: Gluts and Glory

When it comes to summer fruit, I smile when I remember my great childhood friend Patricia. Trish’s dad was a fruit farmer: to a greedy 9-year old, possibly the most exciting kind of farmer there was. Throughout the summer and autumn, the fields and orchards around their house were filled with berries, soft stone fruit and apples of all varieties, testimony to endless hours of back-breaking work on his part and an absolute dream for us. The pick-your-own fruit farm he ran was heaven from June until September – the absolute best place to get lost on purpose. We ran amok between fruit cages, canes and straw-sprinkled rows in the afternoons after school, made camps in the apple crates and ate whenever we stopped, getting it all down our school summer uniforms as we crammed spares into the pockets. I can’t begin to imagine how much of the profits we chomped our way through (no doubt we ruined many suppers too), but picking fruit has given me a frisson of childish excitement ever since.

We are staying with the BSG’s mum at the moment, whilst someone who knows what they’re doing makes a large hole in our house - and most importantly, in our kitchen. Ma BSG’s garden is a veritable cornucopia of edible wonders. I decided to relieve the groaning apricot tree of its heavy burden this week and managed not to eat everything I picked. There must be at least 3 kilos of fruit still to ripen on there. I had chanced upon a very good recipe recently from a friend and thought I’d test it out with my ‘glut’ (well, not really my ‘glut’ but I have been trying to grow something successfully at home for years so I could use that word on here – and now its been interred under a pile of builder’s rubble so I don’t know when I’ll have a genuine ‘glut’ moment).

This jam is a speedy one (rather than the apricots being Bolt-paced gold medallers as the title might infer) and due to its only boiling for 5-7 minutes, it has to be kept in the fridge once opened and consumed within a fortnight. There is no need for saucers in the freezer or jam thermometers and you get the very best of the fresh fruit taste.Try it with yogurt and oat bran for brekker, as a glaze on fairy cakes, with ice cream…or straight off the spoon. I promise you it won’t last a fortnight…

I used:
950g apricots, washed, stoned and roughly chopped
425g jam sugar
a squeeze of lemon juice

Put the fruit and sugar into a large heavy-bottomed preserving pan and roughly mash with a fork or potato masher. Stir it over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves, then turn it up and boil for 5 minutes (7 if you’d like a firmer set), stirring regularly with a wooden spoon to prevent catching.

Take the pan off the heat, squeeze over some lemon juice and stir again. Let it cool slightly and pour the jam through a funnel into sterilised jars. Leave to cool and then seal.

This filled about 4 medium-sized jars.

Stuffed Tomatoes

I can be a creature of habit when it comes to urges of the gastronomic variety. Most of the time, the BSG doesn't even have to ask me what I'd like on my toast of a morning, instead he reaches knowingly for the black stuff, all dressed up as it is at the moment in its special Jubilee jar. So I am in good company there, then.

For instance, I happen to have had smoked mackerel pate and oatcakes pretty much exclusively for the last three lunches - and I don't mind, because just thinking about it now makes me want to make it a fourth. I like to think of these not as imaginative ruts I’m stuck in, but little enclaves of comfort; the marmite and lettuce sandwich with the glass (had to be glass, not plastic, you understand) of milk I always had doing my homework at my gran’s house; the fish fingers Mum would give us, their crunchy orange crumb skin in curling and crisp disarray, for breakfast on cold wintry mornings when she wanted us off to school without any fuss. Once I’d found a hit I saw no reason to divert from it, and I suppose I am still like that to an extent. Goodness knows what I'd be like as a pregnant person, legitimately allowed to indulge such cravings. Or perhaps I would eat normally….

On holidays as children, we all clung doggedly to anything familiar in the eating department. Menus were Greek to us, in every sense, and we gave the Souvlaki and Moussaka a wide berth in favour of stale basket bread, cucumber salad drenched in olive oil and vinegar and wine diluted with water (which was foul but delicious to us as it was so grown up). There was, however, one exception: the stuffed tomato. I can still remember the first one I had, and none since has ever been as good in my mind. They have stuck firmly on the holiday repertoire ever since, though I am a little more adventurous now.

I know they might be a little bit 70’s, but who said that oldies aren’t goodies? Just look at HRH – she just gets better, in my view.

I am yet to find a brilliant recipe for this but summer(!) seems the perfect time to make the most of these amazing fruits, with their greenhouse smell and plump redness. The BSG and I tried this week, and we'll keep on trying. The following recipe is from the book Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook, by Tessa Kiros. We added cinnamon and used orzo pasta instead of rice, bundling it up with a whole load of spare soft green herbs and a dollop of creme fraiche to finish. But the search for that perfect stuffed tomato continues…

 

Pomodori con Riso

6 medium sized ripe, round tomatoes

5 tablespoons olive oil

3 garlic cloves, chopped

250g long-grain rice (e.g. basmati)

250 ml (1 cup) water

1 stalk celery, trimmed and finely chopped

Good pinch ground cinnamon

4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

10 basil leaves , roughly chopped and any other soft green herbs you can lay your hands on

breadcrumbs (optional)

 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the tops off of the tomatoes and set aside. Carefully, scoop out the flesh of the tomatoes with a spoon, taking care not to break the tomato shells. Put the tomato shells into a baking dish, without overlapping and leaving a little space between. Using a little salt, season inside and outside the shells. Puree the tomato flesh with a stick blender or in a blender.

Heat 2 tbsps of the oil in a small saucepan with the garlic. Add the rice and the celery, and stir in the oil for a minute. Add half a cup of water and the tomato puree and cinnamon and season with salt and pepper. Cook for 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove from the heat, add the parmesan and the basil and stir through gently.

Fill the tomato shells with the mixture. The rice will swell a little during cooking so do not overfill the tomatoes. Replace the tomato tops and splash with a little more oil. If desired, sprinkle the tops of the tomatoes with breadcrumbs. Add the remaining half cup of water to the oven dish. Cook in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, until the rice is cooked, most of the liquid has been absorbed, and the outside of the tomatoes are lightly and lightly golden.

Mincemeat and Apple Crumble

It’s ridiculously easy at this time of year to come by a perfectly decent shop-bought mince pie. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to make them at home each year. Is it the warm fuzzy feeling that festive baking bestows upon me, the sensation that I am making something to be shared lovingly with friends and family by the light of the Christmas tree?

Bah, humbug! More like an excuse to eat mincemeat straight from the jar with a spoon…

In an effort to become more transparent in my motives towards this Yuletide ingredient, I have legitimised it in the guise of a crumble, thereby freeing it of its shortcrust shackles. It makes a blinder of a seasonal pudding, with ice-cream, clotted cream or even a brandy-laced custard.

Mincemeat and apple crumble

Serves 4

900g cooking apples

1 x 411g jar mincemeat

55g light brown sugar

110g unsalted butter

170g plain flour

A handful of crushed amaretti biscuits or oats

Preheat the oven to 180^oC. Grease a baking dish.

Peel, core and chop the apples into dice of roughly 3 x 3 cm. Place these in a pan with a tablespoonful of water and the same of caster sugar. Cover and cook on a medium heat until they are yielding but not yet mush. Stir in the mincemeat and heat through, and remove the pan from the heat. Tip the fruit mixture into the greased dish.

Meanwhile, mix the flour, sugar, butter and crushed amaretti/oats with the fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Scatter evenly over the fruit and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes until golden on top gently bubbling at the sides.

Stuffed baked baby pumpkins

I did something a bit spooky last Saturday, at lunch at the Anchor and Hope. It had nothing to do with the smoked cod’s roe or the crumbed pressed pig’s head we chose to start (though these were pretty bold and out of character for me). No. It was the fact that, for the first time ever, I opted for the vegetal main course option. Of course, I have had many vegetable-heavy dishes at restaurants in my time, but these usually star a starch of some kind: a pasta or grain, a potato, or perhaps eggs. But vegetables only? Not usually. I had the baked baby pumpkin, a couple of them in fact, oozy with cheese and chestnuts with peppery leaves and a pickled walnut on the side. And they were delicious.

I am no stranger to a pure-veg plateful at home; a ratatouille or a bowl of steaming peas or cabbage is just the job some lunchtimes. But from a restaurant menu? Usually - and rather unimaginatively – something with a little more…erm, meat to it wins the day. Especially in an old-school *gastropub* like this one (only took us a decade or so to finally get there), which always make me think of chops and burgers. After such a great start, I will certainly be ordering more vegetables in the future.

It is timely that a newly svelte (alright, svelt-er) Hugh Fearnley-Wotsisname has sworn a meat embargo on his latest programme and I am enjoying the recipes very much. So, with this meat-free plateful fresh in my memory I wanted to recreate some pumpkin magic at home last week, whilst the BSG was away. I decided to try and emulate this kind of cosy-October-wonderfulness by trying a stuffed, baked munchkin pumpkin for last night’s supper.

Having had rice in a kedgeree that morning, I was keen for something different to make up the bulk of the stuffing, so opted for couscous, but I do think with hindsight that something with a little more bite and nuttiness would have stood up far better: some wild rice or barley, perhaps.

To stir through the grains I had roasted some onions and red pepper until their extremities were pleasingly caramelised. To these I added some Shwarma spices from our local food haven, Lebanon Gate, which would permeate throughout and fill the house with wafts of warm, festive scents. Again, with the benefit of the experience I would have gone much heavier on these spices, perhaps adding some chilli for kicks, as well as stock for added depth. And cheese - a halloumi or mozzarella perhaps - melted within would have set this particular combo off nicely…

The part of this magic spell that did work first time was the baking; once you’ve nailed this, the possibilities are endless.

After washing and drying it, I carefully sliced the ‘lid’ off the baby munchkin, scooping out the string and seeds (TIP: discard the pith but keep and dry the seeds – they make a great snack when roasted). I then oiled and seasoned the inside of the fruit, replaced the lid and baked it in a shallow dish at 200 degrees for half an hour. During this time, I prepared the filling, mixing the grains, veg and spices together. I removed the pumpkin from the oven, filled it with the stuffing, replaced its lid and baked it for another 20 minutes.

Maybe it’s rather cheeky of me to post a largely imperfect recipe plus a few tweaks and call it worthwhile. However I am acutely aware that these orange orbs will be going very cheap from tomorrow morning, once Halloween has howled itself out, so there’ll be plenty of them around to experiment on. Perhaps I’ll try some kind of stew, or a pumpkin-based daal inside them next time; whichever proves the perfect magic spell, the experience has served as a satisfying display of the versatility of the fruit: a reminder that pumpkins can be a stars of the plate and not just scary Halloween lanterns or impromptu princess transport.

Glorious good pud

I have been accosted this week by several indignant blog-readers, some of whom I was unaware of, reminding me that its been a whole month since my last post. I am truly sorry, but even more delighted that there’s somebody outside of my family who  reads this, so this is for you kids, and I promise not to be so slack in the future.

My buddy Mel, who is a teacher and on her well-earned summer holiday (though can’t seem to lie in – she emailed at silly o’clock this morning) tells me she is off to the races at Goodwood tomorrow and she needs to make a pudding that will stand up to two car journeys and summer heat (here’s hoping).

Ah Goodwood! If I close my eyes, I can almost hear the thunder of horses, the sweeping views down to the Solent and enormous cotton-wool clouds drifting overhead. I hope the sun’s out for them.

Anyway, back to the pudding. Trying to stay largely away from anything soft or involving too much melty stuff, such as cream or chocolate I lighted on this delicate and retro-sounding recipe in How I Cook.

I can’t say that I’ve tried them all, but the thing I like best about Skye Gyngell’s recipes is that they come out (even in my clumsy hands) pretty much as they look in the book – minus the backdrop of vintage crockery, country flowers and sun bleached-tabletops of course. I know I am obsessed with this book, so I will put it down after this post, I promise. Though probably not for long.

This can be baked, transported and sliced with the minimum of fuss and the compote will be delicious and summery. A tub of crème fraiche to dollop on the side is all it needs. Put a quid on for me, my friend. x

Pound cake

Makes 12 slices
450g unsalted butter, softened, plus some melted to grease
450g plain flour, sifted
½ tsp sea salt
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarb of soda
450g golden caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 large free-range eggs
125 ml whole milk
Finely grated zest of an orange
Finely grated zest of a lemon

Heat the oven to 160˚C. Line a loose-bottomed cake tin (23 cm) with foil and baking parchment and brush the parchment with melted butter, dusting afterwards with a little flour. (NB I probably wouldn’t do any of this as I am too lazy and then it would probably stay in the tin, only to be prized out with a spoon…)

Sift the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarb together into a bowl and put to one side.

Using an electric mixer (your Magimix will do fine, Mel), beat the butter, sugar and vanilla extract together on a low speed for 2 minutes, increasing the speed to high and beating until pale and fluffy. Turn the speed down again and beat in the eggs, one at a time, alternately with the milk. (To substitute my lack of ‘speeds’, I would use the pulse button for slow, the continuous button for fast…)

Using a large metal spoon, fold the flour into the mixture in three batches, followed by the orange and lemon zest, until evenly combined.

Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and gently level the surface with the back of a spoon. Stand the cake tin on the middle oven shelf and bake for 1 and ¼ hours, or until the cake has begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Leave in the tin for 5 mins then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. This cake is best eaten slightly warm from the oven (or the sunny boot of your car).

Apricot compote

Serves 10-12

1 kg ripe apricots
175g caster sugar
Pared zest of 1 lemon
1 vanilla pod, spilt lengthways
Tiny pinch of salt

Half apricots and remove stones, keeping 3 or 4 stones and throwing the others away.

Put the halved apricots and all the other ingredients into a pan with the reserved stones. Pour in a little water, just enough to give a 1cm depth in the pan and place over a low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring from time to time, for 10 minutes. The apricots should be soft and brighter in colour, their skins having slipped off. Set aside to cool.

Spoon the cooled compote into a suitable container, cover and refrigerate until well chilled. This will keep until you need it.

Breakfast of champions – Bircher Muesli

This is the perfect weekend jump-start when the clock-change is imminent and there is a sweeter smell of summer in the air (I haven’t asked a science person about this but I am sure there is…Does anyone else sniff the air and get excited - or is that just me?) We shared it with our friend Caz, who is a champion in every way. Oh, and then we moved a shed, built a wall and overhauled the garden. Testimony to its powers.

Porridge in its many manifestations has by now done its job, an inner pilot-light through dark mornings that by now sits a bit heavy on the imagination. Crunchy nut cornflakes, clusters, whatevers are dreamy but for addicts like the BSG and me a daily dose could be a fast-track to overkill and the exit of the crunchy nut asylum – a place I do not plan to leave; they are there only for special occasions and late night snacks. No, what we need now is restraint, plus something virtuous to break the fast before summer brings along its fruit salads.

The best thing about this recipe is that you will feel so incredibly pleased with yourself all round. It is delicious, healthy and you can put pretty much any combination of fruit, nuts, seeds and yoghurt in, so it doesn’t get boring. You can keep the soaked porridge oats in the fridge for a few days and mix things in each morning as the mood takes you. Thank you, Switzerland.

I am not sure it even merits a recipe – really, an idiot could do it, but here’s one from Gordon Ramsay that I’ve tweaked, as for some reason it seems harder to write one the easier the method is. Or perhaps that is just me.

Serves 4

200g rolled oats (about 2 cups)
350ml apple juice or water (about 11/2 cups)
1 crunchy apple, Braeburns work well
125g natural or low-fat yoghurt
Seasonal fresh fruit (such as berries, bananas, peaches and apricots)
Runny honey, to drizzle (or maple syrup)
A sprinkling of nuts or seeds, to serve

Place the oats in a bowl and cover with enough apple juice or water to
moisten them. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill for an hour, or preferably overnight, in the fridge.
Peel the apple if you prefer, then coarsely grate (discarding the pips) and stir into the oats. Stir in enough yoghurt to reach a desired consistency. You could also add more milk, yoghurt or apple juice to loosen the mixture if it is too thick.Serve the muesli in individual bowls topped with seasonal fruit of your choice then drizzle with a little honey. Sprinkle with your favourite nuts or seeds – whatever you have to hand.

Something warm, for a rainy day

Last weekend, in the late golden September sunlight, we kicked off the hot autumn pudding season with a fragrant, fruity crumble, made by my brother Har, and of course, the BSG.

Here's the recipe...

This can be pretty much any fruit you like, (and quantities really depend on what crumble to fruit ratio you prefer.)

Makes enough for 6

8 good-sized plums, purple, red or yellow
4 large cooking apples
2 tablespoons of water
Caster sugar, a couple of good shakes from the bag

For the topping:
200g plain flour, or mix half and half porridge oats
100g cold butter, cubed
125g demerara sugar
Ground cinnamon

Wash the fruit, stone and quarter the plums, peel core and chop the apples. Put them in a heavy based pan sprinkled with the water and sugar to start them off, only for a few minutes (you can even put a star anise or two in with the fruit to spice it up a bit; it works well with plums, and cardamom pods suit rhubarb very well). Put the fruit in a buttered oven-proof dish.
In a food processor blend oats/flour, butter and sugar, until you have something the texture of builder’s sand – but taste it! If you like, sprinkle in some cinnamon and blend again. Then spread evenly over the fruit, don’t pat it down, and put in the oven at 180C for 35 minutes or so, until light brown on the top and bubbling at the edges.

Serve with crème fraiche, ice cream, yoghurt, custard: whatever’s your favourite.

Devon knows…

Last weekend it was off to the edge of Dartmoor with some girlfriends, to a little white house with primrose yellow windows and a red tin roof, tucked between green water meadows at the end of a steep-sided river valley…no, this is not a children’s story. My maternal grandparents bought this as a holiday cottage in the 1970’s, and the minimum has been done since to improve it - much to the benefit of its character (the second loo is outside and looks exclusively onto the river).

You can rent it!

And joy of joys, what treasures awaited us in the garden! There were apple trees laden with rosy fruits which had not yet surrendered to the insects, jewel-fleshed figs growing on the front of the house, even raspberry bushes at the foot of the mossy garden wall, not to mention the blackberries peeping from every hedgerow – perfect porridge toppers. A rise at dawn on Saturday was trout-less (we hooked a lot of trees), but Caz and I kept away the chill with mugs of tea, marvelling at the dew-drenched surroundings glittering in glorious golden sunlight - gone by lunchtime. Was it worth it? You bet, especially if you ask the trout, they are probably still laughing. We’ll be back…

There were some unforgettable Devon capers too. Ok, so maybe they aren’t exactly from Devon, but I bought them in Newton Abbot if that counts… These being a rather decadent item to buy in for a two-day stay (though an essential BSG store-cupboard staple,) I had to make sure these piquant buds were put to good use. Flavour-wise, they pack a punch way above their tiny weight. Any excuse for a salsa verde and I jump, so we had this with barbequed chicken thighs. I chopped the aforementioned capers, handfuls of flat leafed parsley and mint, added lemon juice, an addict’s dollop of Dijon mustard plus some coarse sea salt to make up for the fact that I’d forgotten to buy anchovies. Drenched in a convincing slug of green olive oil, we were ready to go. This goes with pretty much anything, especially as so many combinations of leafy herbs will do. I am so mad about this tangy hit, just give me a spoon and I’m off.

Whilst we’re on the subject – and only half a jar down - our small green friends are also the magic ingredient in a homemade burger. Into minced beef went a generous handful, chopped, with a finely diced red onion, mustard, one beaten egg, cumin, Worcestershire sauce, and a couple of cracks of salt and pepper, shortly followed by two hands, the best mixing tools for burgers. Pure and unadulterated, homemade burgers are a hug of a food in themselves, but a torn-off piece of mozzarella packed into the middle of the patty melts as the burger cooks for an oozy extra. The next question is: ketchup, mustard, mayo, salsa verde..?

With them we crunched on corn on the cob, sweet and starchy, boiled first and then lightly charred over the coals, getting it all over our chins and stuck between our teeth, thank goodness for kitchen roll! Then for the last act, a masterpiece of a crumble, using fruit from the garden and hedgerow (plus a few bugs for interest) and topped with porridge oats and raisins carefully picked from the Dorset cereals packet. Such sustainable enterprise, truly worthy of the likes of Mr. Fearnley Whittingstall, the fruit was even washed in the river! Hot pink, hot hot pud, Becca!

A very good place to start?

The ‘Glorious 12^th’ is not only the day that most of the UK’s grouse start to try and get everywhere that bit faster but also the BSG’s birthday. It has become a self-imposed rule that he doesn’t go to work on his birthday, so we usually celebrate with a day centred on eating - as if every other day isn’t.

This year it was lunch at The Square on Bruton Street. I will not attempt any kind of review, but wow, £35 for three courses felt like daylight robbery and all I would say is go! I am still thinking about their gravity-defying blackberry soufflé with blackberry ripple ice-cream popped in the top and warm compote poured over. Be warned: do not let appearances deceive; despite an apparent lighter-than-air quality, its deep fruity richness silenced even the BSG. If purple had a taste, this would be it. Huge smiles all round.

Gooseberries are a rare treat, proving difficult to procure, so my delight in finding them on Monday (I think I held them proudly aloft, to make sure everybody else knew they were there) was compounded by concocting a fooly-type thing, stewed down first with some sugar, and mixed with whipped cream with plenty of greek yoghurt for pale green happy tartness. I can’t wait to have a spoonful when I get home.

The nubbly, giant Amalfi lemons that surrounded us on our holiday in Italy last week are still on my mind; the locals treat these as the stars of the dish from the outset – these monsters are rarely, if ever, a garnish. From smoked local mozzarellas and provolones baked wrapped in their dark green leaves and thick rind to fragrant yellow seafood risottos, their versatility has inspired me to add a little more zest to my cooking in every sense of the word…

I must be on a sweet-toothed drive this week – usually a ‘starter and main course’ type of girl, I have been seduced by fruit. Nothing like the effect of an airless London street in summer to make one crave refreshment!