Mulberries are fragile fruits and start to wilt and deteriorate as soon as they are picked. I had a tree in our garden in our last home before we moved here and as soon as the fruits ripened I picked them and froze them immediately to ensure that they do not get wasted in any way.

These where given to us by a very generous customer this season, the season is very short and come and go so quickly.

Our bartering system is definitely working and it’s heartwarming to get the whole community involved. We are fast approaching our first year anniversary here in Suffolk, it feels almost like a life time. We have made lots of good solid friends. The question remains “was it worth while?”…the answer is yes!

In early Spring the British Larder team took a day trip to the new Adnams distillery in Southwold. It’s been a great experience and we think the gin is rather delicious too. One can get carried away with plenty of ideas as to what to do with the gin and vodka, apart from drinking it, it also makes a great cooking companion. They use up to 16 botanicals to purify the gin which means it’s packed with fantastic aromatics and perfect for this mulberry bakewell tart.

I teamed up with Twinings Tea to bake these two delicious afternoon tea delights – Royal Wedding Blend of White Earl Grey & Rose Victoria Sponge, and Twinings Royal Wedding Blend of White Earl Grey and Rose, Rhubarb Cupcakes with a White Chocolate Frosting, to celebrate Kate and William’s special day.

These recipes are perfect if you plan to host a traditional British street party. Here at the British Larder Suffolk we will definitely be baking both recipes and will serve them with this delicious Royal Wedding Commemorative Blend. My objective was to create two interesting recipes using the Royal Wedding Tea Blend, combining it with a traditional recipe with a slight British Larder twist.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

All credit for the images and videos goes to Twinings Tea Shop and I would like to thank Twinings for this fantastic opportunity to bake with this wonderful Royal Wedding Commemorative Blend Tea.

I was working on this recipe for a while and it took couple of attempts before I was entirely happy with the result and the way this cake turned out. I was looking for texture and a taste explosion and finally I’m happy with the way it turned out.

I was inspired to redevelop this recipe as I used to make a cake not dissimilar to this one when I worked in a delicatessen many years ago in London. As I moved home several times the original recipe was inevitably misplaced, and I had to start from scratch trying to redevelop this memory of a recipe I had from years ago. I’m pleased with the result as this recipe is a great success; it’s almost a fine replica of those wonderful memories of that long-lost recipe, with the addition of fresh chestnuts.

The second part of the inspiration for this recipe is the fond memory I have of smells on Oxford Street at this time of the year. The only fond memory, I should emphasise! Walking down bustling Oxford street during the winter you can always smell the wonderful sweet aroma of caramelised chestnuts. I remember the smell as if it’s here right now – it used to smell even better when I was really hungry!

Finding chestnuts in the forest is a great fun family activity, it gives you something to do and in our case it’s free food, which we like. The trick is to get there before other people, and most importantly before the deers and squirrels get there too - apart from the fact that they actually live there, so ultimately it’s a matter of whom has the most stamina I guess…!

When the chestnuts were plentiful on a Sunday afternoon when Maria was visiting, we would drive to gate 26 with our basket in hand collecting the chestnuts from the forest floor. Every time we used to go home grumbling about the chestnuts spiking our fingers, as we always forgot to take our gloves. With or without the gloves we managed to fill the basket to the brim, it’s a great afternoon out and not only do you have something to show for it but it’s a great team building activity.

These are a few of my other favourite recipes using chestnuts:

• Pheasant Ravioli with a Chestnut Sauce and Curly Kale Pesto
• Fresh Cranberry and Chestnut Cantucci
• Pheasant, Aegean Prune, Girolle & Chestnut Pie

Elderflower cordial has so many wonderful uses and is not only good for a refreshing elderflower drink on a hot summers day but is also perfect for delicious jellies and works a treat in sorbets and ice-creams. The flowers  could be dipped in a light tempura batter and fried until crisp to serve as a garnish for added texture.

I used the elderflower cordial to flavour this delicious crème fraîche tart and paired it up with a lovely array of strawberry treats. Its great fun, you might not have all the tools to make all the garnishing bits, but if you can give the tart a go as it’s simply wonderful.

The recipe for this tart has been in Mr.P’s little black recipe book since he began cooking in 1996. This recipe did cause us a bit of drama and distress as we had filed it’ in a safe place’. We must have  tipped the house upside down looking for it, you can imagine as I do not quite know what it looks like, all I know it’s written in pen on a small piece of paper belonging to this little black book that had lost its cover. We were searching high and low for about a week, Mr.P hardly spoke to me as I obviously got the blame for it’s disappearance. He was walking around like a bear with a sore head who had just lost his best friend. Finally we found the piece of paper and  we could actually get on with making this dish.

To top it all off, the ingredients that we had purchased to make this dish had gone off by the time we found the recipe, so back to the beginning and we started the journey again from scratch. It was definitely worth the effort as it’s delicious and well worth the time, tears, tantrums and effort. I think the lesson learned was not to store things’ in safe places’ or do not purchase your ingredients until you have located the recipe. We are now giggling over the chaos that we caused ourselves; at the time it was quite a traumatic event. Boy’s and their….not really toy’s…but …..well recipes!

Cherry trees in Britain have been around for quite some time as they were introduced to us during the 1st century by the Romans. They thrived in our countryside and climate and became crucial for the survival of wild life. With the steep decline in the number of cherry trees due to the growth and expansion of our towns and cities it became apparent and important that we should protect our cherry orchards.

Food Lovers Britain established a Cherry Aid Campaign to save the British Cherry. This campaign highlights why we should buy British cherries in preference to imported ones and why it means so much to our heritage and wild life to save the humble cherry tree.

We met Sudi Pigott also known as The Better Foodie a while ago at a dinner party. It was a lovely evening, we enjoyed fantastic food, drink and great company followed by one of Sudi’s enjoyable and very interesting foodie quizzes and a few bars of Original Beans exquisite chocolate.

I must say when I first cast my eyes on a bar of this exquisite Original Beans chocolate I was bowled over! The packaging is absolutely beautiful and the story of conservation grabbed my attention. They had thought of absolutely everything!

Sudi made sure that we received a few bars, especially the 75% piura criollo from Peru, one of the rarest chocolates in the world. This particular Piura Criollo chocolate was subjected to the conching process for 72hrs to ensure an incredibly smooth chocolate that showcases the pure chocolate flavours. This chocolate has a wonderful lasting flavour, loads of black pepper and passion fruit. It’s perfect for the most indulgent dessert.

After a long time deliberating over what I should make with this wonderful treasure that Sudi had sent me, I realised that there is only one dessert that I possibly could make. This chocolate fudge cake with cherries in red wine is a near to death by chocolate dessert. It’s rich and very memorable if you use the right chocolate like the Original Beans you will never forget making nor eating it.

I baked the chocolate fudge cake in small individual cake tins as it’s rich and is served best in small portions. I finished the pure chocolate indulgence off with a small quenelle of Original Beans Chocolate Ganache and a spoon full of British cherries in red wine. Pure indulgence and deliciousness at it’s best!

The culinary world has gone into a macaron frenzy. It’s macarons wherever you turn your head. So it’s time that I jumped on the macaron band wagon and give it a whirl.

My recent visit to Pierre Hermé’s exclusive macaron boutique at Selfridges confirmed what a true master he is with funky flavour combination’s. My favourite must be the wasabi and strawberry.

I am also addicted to all pretty things in life, so my aim is not only to make my macarons as pretty as possible but also give it the professional look.

I achieved this with my macarons by using a garnish of  freeze dried raspberries, black sesame seeds and chopped pistachio nuts. I made one batch of macaron mixture, coloured it with one colour, used different garnishes and flavoured fillings. I made my own version of wasabi and white chocolate butter cream as well as a toasted black sesame seed butter cream and for the third flavour combination I used a strawberry and rose jam as a filling.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You might think that the wasabi flavouring is a weird combination, honestly I though the same but all I can say is WOW! The wasabi has acidic and citrus undertones and combined with a really good quality white chocolate, I chose one with floral notes,to provide an  absolute dream flavour explosion. It surpassed all my expectations. I even think it tasted more fragrant than the wasabi and strawberry one I bought at Selfridges. (Hope no one takes any offence to me saying that.)  You have to add the wasabi to suit your taste, I suggest you start with a little  and mix it very well. I used a butter cream made from unsalted butter as my carrier for the wasabi. I also used wasabi paste and not powder, it’s entirely your choice. If you only have powder then I suggest that you should first make it into a paste and then add, to taste, to the butter cream.

To add a bit of glamour and sparkle to your baked macarons dust with edible glitter. You can get all sorts of funky shades and colours.

What I love  most about macarons is that you can make as many interesting colour and flavour combination’s as you wish. I have listed only a very few in the recipe below. I hope this short video will also give every macaron lover the confidence to give it a go and crack the art of making macarons.

This cheesecake is not a traditional recipe using cream cheese but is a mixture of mascarpone cheese and crème fraîche. I had some ingredients in the fridge and did not want them go to waste so I made a cheesecake. I made the base by mixing hobnob biscuits with a good helping of my home made Seville orange marmalade and melted butter. You might think I’m a cheat for using hobnob biscuits, perhaps I am but time was not quite on my side. I had to get it baked and cooled in daylight so I had the right conditions to take a photograph.The  reason  being is that this cheesecake would not have seen dusk as Mr.P would never be able to keep his hands off and it would have been a divorce situation.

I was right, there was only an hour between baking the cheesecake, completing the decoration, allowing it to cool and taking the photographs and eating our first slice. It was still slightly warm…… mmmmm, delicious! Tummy ache heaven! It was interesting how different yet delicious it was both warm or cold.

Mr.P has a very sweet tooth and has a special affinity for crunchy chocolate bars so when the opportunity arose to play and recreate one of his favourites he was ready and rearing to go.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This method of making honeycomb was a trick they taught us at catering college. When the teachers demonstrated this, we all went ooh, wow and aah as it’s almost like magic. I remember the vigorous bubbling hot caramel reacting with the bicarbonate of soda, it expands and froths like a caramel monster, almost like a scene out of Harry Potter. It is very dangerous though and it’s incredibly important to have all the items you need ready to hand. The most important  are a heat resistant pot rest, a wooden or heat resistant plastic spoon and a lined baking tray in which to decant the hot honeycomb. All of this must be done in close proximity to the cooker as you should not move about too much with hot caramel as it can cause serious and very painful burns. Now you are aware of all the precautions it’s time have fun and make honeycomb.

The honeycomb makes a great garnish for this baked cheesecake, the textures works well together and with the final touch of the melted chocolate it’s a dream for all any cheesecake connoisseurs.

It’s mid season for blood oranges and even though they are imported I still think they are pretty special and are one of my personal seasonal favourties. I love the deep red colour and they have a stronger orange taste and more vitamin C than the normal type but have a pleasant hint of redcurrant.

This cake is not for the fainthearted and you must be seriously committed to complete the baking.For me it’s worth every ounce of effort as it’s superbly delicious. Start by soaking the poppy seeds in warm milk, then mix the cake batter by beating the butter, sugar and zest until light, airy and fluffy. Fold in the sifted dry ingredients and finally fold the soaked swollen poppy seeds into the batter.As it takes 1 hour to bake the cake, prepare the blood orange marmalade sauce that is to be spooned over the cake.

Previously I was not fussed in using poppy seeds in cakes as I found them to be too crunchy and it seemed to have a rather bizarre texture. However by soaking the poppy seeds in milk they swell up, become softer and you get a cake with superb layers of flavour, truly memorable.

Whilst baking this cake it took me back to when I was a child, mum used to bake a lemon poppy seed cake and we used to refer to it as the ‘ant cake’, well I suppose the poppy seeds looks like ants!?

This cake  not only makes the perfect slice with a cup of tea but also a pretty special pudding served slightly warm with blood orange sorbet and a dollop of crème fraîche.

It’s interesting how I have changed the recipe overtime, at one stage I used only egg yolks but then I decided to make it a bit more cost effective by incorporating some whole eggs, as well as egg yolks, which made the curd rich and extra creamy without the use of any cream. I have also played with the method and adapted the conventional method for Thermomix users. Both methods are fool proof and work equally as well without any difference to the end result.

As I write this post I realised that this lemon curd recipe became a classic in my recipe collection and one I shall tresure for many more years to come.

I was doing a bit of research by reading a few lemon curd recipes to identify what makes mine different and indeed better than the rest. The conclusion I came to was that it was the stage when the butter is added and this makes this recipe unique, glossy and even more mouthwatering than the rest. I agree that the curd  would not possibly last for three months in a sterilized jar in the cupboard as most recipes advise, then I cannot imagine it would be that seriously fresh and delicious after three months either. Thinking about it, it would never last three months in my household either. It’s so easy to make, so my theory is to make it when needed, it’s lovely and fresh, so eat and enjoy there and then!…OK  if you have to….it will keep perfectly well refrigerated for up to 3 days.

There are so many things you can do with the lemon curd while it’s still warm, pour it into a freshly blind baked tart case, let it set and garnish with fresh figs and pomegranate seeds, mmm very pretty and delicious. Alternatively these mini puff pastry tarts, heavily dusted with icing sugar, are perfect and will take proud place of honour at any tea party.

I make the puff pastry cups a day in advance, let them cool completely and store them in a air tight container overnight then make the lemon curd the following day and serve the slightly warm curd in the crispy puff pastry cases, it’s delicious!

We had a lot of fun making these outrageously indulgent and seriously delicious whoopie pies. At first the song “Makin’ Whoopee” by Frank Sinatra got us going, singing in the very non musical voices that we have. It bugged us for a while at first as we knew there was a song with these words, well I hope you get the idea and feeling of the amount of fun we had creating this incredibly yummy cake.

I was reading up about whoopie pies and it’s said that they apparently originated in Maine, USA amongst the Amish community. The Amish wives used to bake small cakes from their leftover cake batters, sandwiched them together with butter cream and packed them into the lunch boxes of their children and husbands. The name is claimed to have originated from when the husbands and children opened their lunch boxes and found these delights they would scream “whoopie”. Well even if this is untrue and only a myth I want it to be true. Making whoopie entertained us for a few hours and made me laugh from deep inside, smile and shout yippee. I had smeared chocolate around my face and there was something magical and romantic about these pies . I know that the song and the cake are not linked in any way shape or form but it helped me to create this desirable recipe.

It was a bit of a finger in the air after reading endless versions of American whoopie pie recipes on the net. Discovering that they should be chocolate flavoured but then the only recipes that made any sense were pumpkin flavoured which confused me even more. So I approached the “whoopie project” by ripping up all  the 8 sheets of  nonsensical scribbles  and developed my own recipe. The results were outrageously good and I screamed “whoopie” when they came out this good!

I garnished my whoopie pies with a glossy chocolate glaze and sprinkled them with my Christmas pressie to give them an extra touch of glamour and class. Mr.P gave me a jar of Laura Santtini’s Food Bling for Christmas so when the opportunity arose to use it, this girl was in heaven. The traditional butter cream filling was replaced with a salted peanut cream cheese filling…ooh it’s incredibly good and adds a crunch and salty sweet naughtiness to this heavenly cake.

They say the cupcake is  2009 so watch out for whoopie pie!

I’m going to make a outragious statement: I think whoopie pies are much better than cupcakes! Reason for this statement is that you have cake on both sides of the frosting and there is the addition of a extra space for more garnish and gloss. This prevents the possibility of a dry portion of cake as per cupcakes. As cupcakes only have a frosting on top you get to eat the best bits first and can be left with dry cake in the base of the cupcake paper. Well with the whoopie pie you get to eat it all together and makes the best bits last for longer. Get my point?!?!