We’ve recently become involved with another venture, which on the face of it looks quite different to the Food Geeks, but following our first global event, held in London on April 28 2013, is starting to feel increasingly like a worldwide community of food bloggers, writers and geeks, coalesced around new international food awards, the Chowzter Fast Feasts.

Chowzter!

It’s worth noting that by “Fast Feasts”, we’re not talking about a celebration of junk food, here. The concept is to promote and celebrate small, independent places, where you don’t need to book months in advance to secure access to standout dishes. We’re still working to polish our Edinburgh list, but we’re talking about things like the cardamom buns from Peter’s Yard, the soup from Union of Genius, and the fougasse from Wee Boulangerie.

Held at Shoreditch’s Village Underground, the award ceremony was hosted by Alexander Armstrong, and featured a bloody impressive cast of award presenters. Pierre Koffman, Angela Hartnett, Giles Coren, Martin Morales and Valentine Warner were all there, strutting their stuff. A selection of London’s finest street food vendors provided tasty morsels for us to sample.

But this list of luminaries, and evening the awards themselves, were something of a secondary consideration to the global roll of bloggers who’d put together the nominations, played a key role in the judging, and convened for a weekend of food indulgence in London.

MJ and I were only able to join in a fairly weary state for the Sunday evening, so really didn’t jump in with both feet in quite the way we could and should have, but we still got to spend a little time with writers from Hanoi (voted the Foodiest City in the World), Paris, Mumbai, Istanbul, Bristol and London. We had a chance to get a perspective from California, too, from Chowzter founders, Jeffrey and David.

Also represented were folks from Philadelphia, New York, Barcelona, Ho Chi Minh and Milan, although we didn’t get an opportunity to say anything other than a quick hello.

We were delighted to represent Edinburgh, and while our only longlisted dish, the miso aubergine from Kanpai, didn’t make it in to the final reckoning, it was still good to get a little piece of recognition for Edinburgh’s dining excellence.

The idea is still a bit of a rough diamond, but it has developed from a simple idea about finding the world’s best burger or pizza or taco, to be much more about how this global community of bloggers that they’ve been able to assemble can work together to come up with some inspiring and valuable stories about the food experiences they are sharing.

We look forward to seeing how things progress, and making sure that Edinburgh plays a starring role in future years. Maybe we can prise the award for “Foodiest City in the World” from Hanoi, in 2014!

Not only do I like cheap, I love red meat; a juicy steak, slow roasted leg of lamb, I’ve even eaten minke whale before (not very PC, I know, but you have try these things when you get the chance).

So, how do you do cheap red meat? There are a multitude of cuts and chunks of meat that you may have overlooked without realising it. Offal is an acquired taste but it’s rich minerals and light on the wallet – lamb kidneys fried with onions and a touch of chilli on a thick wedge of buttered toast, amazing, seriously try it; or what about lamb hearts (I managed to get about a kilo for just a few quid) slow cooked in Buckfast, definitely interesting but my culinary skills didn’t do it justice.

Last night though, I treated myself to ox cheek – super cheap,  dead easy, and it tastes delicious.

What’s in it?

1 ox cheek

1 handful of baby plum tomatoes

1 clove of garlic

Parsley (I like a lot)

Beef stock (only because I didn’t have any stout – which I’d used in the previous night’s steak pie)

Butter (very much a staple of this household)

Salt and pepper for when you think the dish deserves it

How?

Sear the cheek on all sides in a frying pan, once it’s sealed take it out of the pan. In the same pan throw in the tomatoes, garlic, stock and parsley and cook at a reasonably high heat until the tomatoes start to burst the garlic begins to soften, put the cheek back into the pan for a minute or two and coat with the liquid.

Transfer the whole lot to an oven proof dish, cover tightly with foil and bake at 160 degrees for 2.5 hours. Once it’s out of the oven pour the juice into a sauce pan and reduce with a chunk of butter before plating.

Then you’ll end up with something that looks like this:

What you’ll have is an incredibly tender and juicy piece of meat with a good rich flavour. It would have gone perfectly with boiled potatoes but it was a huge chunk of ox so I didn’t bother – yes, I ate it all myself and I’m mighty proud of it.

A couple of years ago however I would have put making your own granola in the same camp as puff pastry… not really worth the additional effort when someone else can do it for you and probably make it better. Well that’s what I thought until I actually made some myself. Now that I have I can tell you not to make the same assumption. It IS worth the extra effort and it DOES taste better when its homemade, I promise Im not exaggerating.

My favourite thing about making granola myself is the first bowl when its still warm from the oven. The spices stand out more while the oats are still hot so it smells heavenly and the contrast of warm oats against the cool yoghurt is exaggerated. In fact if I make it in the evening I will often treat it as pudding, adding some extra cinnamon, sugar and poached fruit, like a deconstructed crumble.

The main reason to make your own granola though is the DIY element. You can add any mixture of nuts, dried fruit, chocolate and spices that you like to the basic mix and then you can top it with, well, almost anything you fancy. You don’t get this much creativity with a bag off the supermarket shelf.

I’ve discovered that orange juice instead of milk makes a refreshing change and adding grated apple and a splodge of vanilla yoghurt gives the perfect balance of rough and smooth, soft and crunchy!!

So here’s the basic recipe for DIY granola and some suggestions for adding your own twist…

DIY Granola Recipe

275g jumbo oats
100g nuts or seeds (I normally use 50/50 flaked almonds and sunflower seeds or just whatever is hanging about the back of the cupboard)
1/2 to 1 tsp spice (ground ginger or cinnamony are good)
5 tbsp honey
50g unsalted butter
100g dried fruit or chocolate drops
Optional – 1/2 tsp extra flavouring (e.g. vanilla essence or grated orange zest)

Heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Mix together the oats, nuts and spices in a large bowl.

Melt the butter, honey and any extra flavourings and mix into the oats until well combined.

Tip the oats onto a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes, stirring the oats every 5 minutes until golden brown.

Cool a few minutes and then pour the toasted mixture into your storage container and add the fruit.

If you are adding chocolate then wait until the granola is cold.

Some flavour suggestions:

- Orange and cranberry (ground ginger, orange zest and dried cranberries) – serve with orange juice and yoghurt

- Apple pie (ground cinnamon, vanilla essence and dried apple pieces) – serve with milk or yoghurt and and grated apple

- Middle eastern (pistachios, orange flower essence and dried apricots)

In L’Escargot Blanc we were lucky enough to find a harmony of all three.

Owner Fred Berkmiller compiled a special menu for the food geeks, bringing together elements of modern and retro French cuisine, utilising the best quality ingredients and showcasing the sensibilities that have secured L’Escargot Blanc and sister restaurant L’Escargot Bleu as firm local favourites on the Edinburgh restaurant scene.

Our Menu

Amuse bouche

Lavort d’Auvergne fumé

Jésus de Lyons

 Crudités variées

Macédoine de légumes mayonnaise

Choux rouge au vinaigre de xérès

Carottes râpées au citron

Œuf mayonnaise

Poireaux tièdes vinaigrette

Concombres à la crème fraîche

Betteraves à l.huile de noix

Main

Blanquette de veau rosė from Sunnyside Farm

Pommes de terre ratte

Sélection de fromages

Camembert, Selle sur cher, Crottin de Chavignole, Reblochon, Bleu de Trmignon.

Déserts

Griottines au Cointreau et saucisson de chocolat aux amandes et miel.

Our Initial Impressions

My initial (and lasting) impression based on the décor, classical menu and service was: “I am (was) in France!” The restaurant manager Olivier was a typical French charmeur that provided excellent service and did not get tired of all our questions. This experience only was topped by the “patron” who joined us at the end of the meal for an extensive and hugely inspirational chat. All in all, the evening was a delightful and memorable journey back into France’s 70s.

Marie-Joelle Schmidt

Starter

Starters oozed vitamins and home-made mayonnaise simultaneously, and were retro in the best possible way. Cucumber with crème fraîche, diced mixed vegetables in mayonnaise, and warm leeks vinaigrette had us reminiscing about how our parents cooked in the 1970s and 80s – from Larousse Gastronomique, bien sûr! Grated carrot with lemon, red cabbage with sherry vinegar, and beetroot with walnut oil recalled California-style health food of a more recent era. Each dish was a deceptively simple combination of fresh veggies, herbs and dressing (tangy or soothing to suit) – neither the French descriptions nor their English translations capture the brilliant colours, crisp textures and punchy yet subtle flavours.

 Christine

Main 

Having polished off our starter course, we eagerly watched as a large red casserole was brought out from the kitchen and dished up next to our table.

I peeked over the edge of my plate and was immediately thankful that the course before had been salad, because sitting there was a beautiful piece of rose veal nestled in a gloriously rich Blanquette sauce, accompanied by Ratte potatoes bathed in butter and herbs. In case you haven’t had the pleasure of trying this dish yourself, Blanquette de veau is a French white stew in which the veal is cooked very gently in a white stock thickened with a roux and doused in cream for good measure. However, despite the rich ingredients and what I imagine was probably a frightening amount of butter by non-French standards, the dish was in fact delicately creamy rather than cloying and heavy. In my view a perfect celebration of meltingly tender rose veal.

And not just any veal… as if this couldn’t get any better we had the pleasure of meeting the little guy that provided us with our dinner, not face to face of course (it was a little late for that Im afraid), but via photograph shown to us by our host. We were pleased to learn his name was Bertie and judging by the green field in the picture he had led a very happy life on Sunnyside farm. You might think meeting your dinner is a bit strange but wouldn’t you rather know exactly where it came from (what species it is…neigh horse jokes) and that it was well looked after? I certainly would. Bertie, it was an honour.

 Rose Marie

Cheese

After the lovely main, a plate with five small wedges of fromage was set in front of me. It took just a few moments for the odour to reach my nostrils, and slowly intensify. Around the plate we had Camembert, Selle sur cher, Crottin de Chavignole, Reblochon, Bleu de Termignon.

The Camembert was lovely and a touch gooey and the blue cheese, which is made at altitude in the south-east of France near to the Italian border, was surprisingly delicate. The winners though were the goat cheeses, Selle sur cher and Crottin de Chavignole, which were an all-out pungent assault on the senses. The Selle sur Cher was a curious one in that it was subtle on the nose but once in the mouth, oh boy, it was a nutty, peppery mouthful with a great acidity that almost catches your breath. I’ve always liked Reblechon from the Savoie region, soft and subtle, and I can’t recommend more highly than my first experience of it as tartiflette – baked in a dish with potatoes, onions, and bacon – trust me, your mouth will love you for the rest of your life.

 Alaster

Dessert

After the delicious, but, lets say, “dairy rich” earlier courses, the dessert was a most welcome change of direction.
A modest glassful of cherries that visually promised no more than “light and refreshing”, but, like everything before, managed to exceed expectations on the palate.

Grottines are sour cherries, steeped in Eau de Vie for 12 months then, in this case, treated to a wake up call of Cointreau to produce soft, tartly delicious berries with a mild orangy after-taste in a fearsomely boozy liquor.  Light and refreshing for sure, with the bonus of mild alchoholic concussion.  The dish was completed by slices of chocolate boudin with embedded almonds and a hint of honey. No doubt planned, and indeed successful, as a sweet counterpoint to the sour, but they would work well as petit fours on their own too.

I noticed that, for all the protestations of fullness around the table, there wasn’t a cherry, chocolate or drop of juice left behind.

Simple, but excellent.  Actually, that would describe the whole meal; L’Escagot Blanc gets a big tick in my book.

David 

L’Escargot Blanc and The Budding Chefs Project

You may have seen that from 11 to 17 March 2013 the Institut Français d’Ecosse welcomed 12 chefs-to-be from France as part of the Budding Chefs Exchange Programme initiated in 2011 with Fred Berkmiller from L’Escargot Bleu & Blanc restaurants.

The project is now in its third year and the budding chefs had the chance to experience the Scottish larder and work in many kitchens in Edinburgh before rolling up their sleeves and taking over The Hub last Friday 15 March for a Pop-Up Restaurant gathering 250 diners. By all accounts the evening was a great success and if you want to take a look at some of what the chefs and diners experienced you can follow @BuddingChefs on twitter, check out some of the photos shared with #buddingchefs and visit the website for more information.

www.buddingchefs.net

Stay in touch with L’Escargot Blanc and L’Escargot Bleu

@Lescargot_B
https://www.facebook.com/LescargotBleu
http://www.lescargotbleu.co.uk/

L’Escargot Blanc
17 Queensferry Street
EH2 4QW Edinburgh
Restaurant: 0131 226 1890
Email: contact@lescargotblanc.co.uk

L’Escarot Bleu
56 Broughton Street
EH1 3SA Edinburgh
Phone: 0131 557 1600
Email: contact@lescargotbleu.co.uk

Much to my delight I finally made it to a master class at Edinburgh restaurant, Cafe St Honore. The food geeks are no strangers to the restaurant and chef director Neil Forbes has written a guest post for the TFGE site before so my expectations were pretty high.

Well my expectations were far exceeded but I have to say I wasnt sure what the theme of 18th century cooking would bring so I was pleasantly surprised and inspired by everything I learned at the same time. The master class was led by Fiona Houston, the intrepid researcher and writer from the Scottish borders who “lived, cooked and ate 1790s” for an entire year, in order to prove that our ancestors ate better than we do.

I think she might just be right! Fiona educated and entertained us in equal amounts with stories about her experience and traditional Scottish staples such as bannocks (see Neil’s previous guest post for a recipe) and oatcakes. Neil provided culinary assistance and further entertainment throughout the class as well as feeding us a delicious lunch afterwards. By the time I wandered away up the cobbled street in a happy food induced fuzz, I was feeling enlightened and inspired to make and share the forgotten recipes I had discovered.

In the spirit of sharing, here’s the recipe for the Venison Sokey that we had for our lunch. This is a very different take on the traditional venison stew with red wine as it uses white wine or cider instead, and the herb crust and hint of mace lift it even further. I have copied the recipe exactly as it was written by Fiona on the master class leaflet but I highly recommend you add some barley and kale to the stew with the meat as Neil did for us and make some bannocks to mop up the sauce .

Venison Sokey

Lacking an oven, I could not finish this dish from my antique cookery book off very well in the cottage, but it is well worth including here.

For the stew

• Small haunch of roe deer, cut into thick steaks, or stewing venison
• 2 onions, roughly chopped
• ½ bottle white wine or cider
• 2 strips lemon zest
• Mace
• Flour or barley meal for thickening later

Brown the meat and the onions in a heavy pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and slow cook, either on the top (lower than a simmer) or in a slow oven for three or four hours. When the meat is just tender, remove it to a wide dish, one layer deep. Sprinkle with the following mixture and place in a moderately hot oven for 20 minutes, or until the crumbs brown

For the crust

• 4 oz breadcrumbs
• Grated lemon zest
• Dried herbs
• A little white wine/cider to moisten the mixture

Use the gravy to make a sauce, adding the desired thickening agent and adjusting the seasoning, perhaps with the addition of half a teaspoon of sugar. Serve the meat on its baking platter, garnished with parsley, and pass the sauce in a jug or sauceboat.

You can find more traditional Scottish recipes in Fiona’s book, The Cottage Garden Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century, and you can join the next master class at Cafe St Honore by checking the website and contacting the restaurant.

It is a cake made out of puff pastry and traditionally filled with an almond (frangipane) cream flavoured with rum. Nowadays, French pastry chefs are very creative when it comes to their fillings but most popular fillings are: frangipane, apple compote, chocolate and pear, almonds and raspberry, chestnut cream, salty caramel… A figurine called “fève” (=bean) in French, is hidden inside the cake. The person that obtains the piece containing the figurine will be the king or queen for the day.

This year, I have opted to make four small galettes with two different fillings (frangipane and frangipane+chocolate+pear). My frangipane is flavoured with cognac and orange blossom water, but the choice of filling and flavour is of course entirely yours.

Recipe for four small or one large galettes:

- Good quality all-butter puff pastry

- 100 g grounds almonds

- 60 g unsalted butter

- 60 g caster sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1tsp cornflour

- 1 tbsp double cream

- 50 g dark chocolate

- 1/2 pear, peeled and sliced

- 1 tsp rum or any other alcohol/liqueur you like

- a few drops of orange blossom water (optional)

- Figurine or a whole almond

Frangipane filling:

Cream butter and sugar together, add 1 egg and half of the almonds and mix well. Add the remaining almonds, cornflour and most of the 2nd egg (keep a little for the eggy wash at the end). Mix in the double cream to obtain a smooth paste. Divide the frangipane in two. Add the melted chocolate to one half and the cognac and orange blossom water to the other half.

Assembly:

Roll out the pastry to a few mm sickness and cut eight circles of 14cm in diameter for small galettes or two large discs for one large galette. Spread the filling on half the circles leaving an edge of 2cm. Lay the pear slices on top of the chocolate cream and don’t forget the figurine! Brush the edges with a little milk and cover with another circle of pastry. Seal the galette well by pressing the edges with a fork. Decorate the galette using a sharp knife and brush the pastry with the remaining beaten egg. Bake the small galettes at 180°C for 30-35 min (45min for a large galette) until golden brown and leave to cool.

The traditional “game” played on 6th January requires the youngest member of the party to sit under the table while the galette is cut in pieces and to shout a person’s name for each distributed piece. In this way, the person under the table will not be able to see the figurine in case it pokes out of a piece of cake. The lucky king or queen who obtained the figuring will have to wear the crown and choose a queen or king, respectively.

Bon appétit and have fun!

If you don’t want to make a galette yourself, I can highly recommend buying one at the lovely French patisserie “La Barantine” on Bruntsfield Road.

They make excellent galettes des rois, which are traditionally filled with frangipane or apple compote. You can either buy a whole galette (including the crown) or just a piece. I was assured that the galettes will be available every January for you to enjoy.

La Barantine is also well worth a visit for breakfast with their delicious croissants and pains au chocolat, for a light lunch with various homemade quiches and sandwiches or just for their stunning pastry and good strong coffee, all served by very friendly French staff. I love this place! Each time I go there, it feels like I am on a short trip to France!

About Marie-Joëlle

I love to cook and I love to eat. My blog is the diary of a foody adventure in Scotland with its most amazing larder that I treat with great respect. Influenced and inspired by my French/German upbringing and British surrounding, I aspire to combine the best of all cultures to create tasty, innovative and healthy dishes, whilst using classical and traditional techniques. I am seriously passionate and hope to start an exciting journey here involving fresh food cooked from scratch that I can share with you through my blog and on Twitter!

Honestly, this comes as no surprise to me in Scotland.  Everyone feels so strongly about the way their family have always done things; it is hardly shocking that nobody can agree!

One source suggested that New Year was never a public holiday, so everyone was still at work and had no time to spend cooking a celebratory meal in the way they do at Christmas.  They would therefore buy a large steak pie from their butcher. This evokes another point of contention; should you be buying from your local butcher, or making the pie yourself…?

I believe everyone should bake their own.  Your butcher can still sell you the meat, so he is happy either way.  This way you can make it just the way you want it, and trust me, everyone is in a different camp when it comes to what should (or more poignantly, what shouldn’t be in a steak pie). Sausage or no sausage? Bacon? Beer? Wine? Mushroom? Herbs? I feel that most of these are probably a modern addition to the traditional steak pie.  In its simplest form it is; Beef, beef stock, flour, onion and carrot.   I would tend towards a few of the modern additions, but not over the top.

Next dilemma: When do we eat this pie?

The two main schools of thought seem to suggest either after the bells on Hogmanay, or in the afternoon of New Year’s Day.  In either case, most people would agree the ability to soak up large amounts of alcohol is a large part of the tradition!  I would tend towards New Year’s day.  Cooking a steak pie (probably drunk) at 1am seems like a recipe for disaster to me….

So as a country we can’t agree on what, why, where from or when……  But why should we?  Most of us take pride in the tradition, and that’s what matters.  The fact that we are all too stubborn to agree just makes us Scottish.

Don’t worry that it’s not New Year, definitely try this next time you fancy a hearty Sunday lunch.

I have used ready-made puff pastry – Nigella might pretend to find making puff pastry on a hangover “soothing” but I do not.

The Perfect Steak Pie Recipe

You will need…

1kg Beef for braising (skirt, shin, cheek, chuck etc.)

1 can of dark beer (Boddingtons & Sweetheart Stout, and various bottles of Belhaven have all worked well)

2 onions, sliced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 medium carrots, cut into rough 1cm cubes

250g small button mushroom

700ml of beef stock (cubes or “stockpots” will give much the same end result)

2 bay leaves

2 tbsps. flour

Puff pastry

What to do…

- On a very high heat, fry the beef in some vegetable oil in 3 or 4 batches to give a really good dark colour all over 

- Remove all of the beef from the pan, add some fresh oil if needed, lower the heat, and add the bacon.  Fry for 5-10 minutes to crisp up and render the fat.

- Add the sliced onions and bay.  Gently sweat for 15 minutes to soften and sweeten them, stirring occasionally.

- Add the garlic, mushrooms and carrots and sweat for another 3-4 minutes.

- Add the flour, and stir through.  It will turn into a pan of onions glued together by flour, but once you add the beer, it will be fine.

- Add the beer and return the beef to the pan.

- Add the beef stock.  Bring the pan to the boil, and skim off the foam and scum that comes to the surface.

- Cover tightly with tinfoil, and place in an oven at 150’C for 2 and a half hours.  After this time, carefully check how the beef is cooked.  Depending on the size of the beef, and how hot your oven runs, the beef might be ready.  It should be soft and tender, but still hold together.  If not, return to the oven, checking every 30 minutes.

- Once your beef is ready, pour everything into a suitable oven-proof pie/baking dish, and allow to cool slightly.  Ideally the mixture should fill about ¾ of the dish.  You can make this filling and keep in the fridge for a few days.

- Roll the pastry to about the thickness of a pound coin.  Beat an egg, and use to brush the edges of the dish.  Gently lay the pastry over, and press down over the edges to seal.  You can leave any pastry hanging over the edge, or you can trim or even crimp it.

- Egg wash the pastry, and pierce a couple of holes to allow some steam to escape.

- Bake at about 185’c for 40-60 minutes, until the pastry is golden, and the filling is piping hot.

Delicious!

About Russell Up

My name is Russell and I am a private chef living in Edinburgh, Scotland. I run Russell Up, which caters for any event, big or small, where the focus is on quality, value, and professionalism. For more information about my food or an example of my dinner menus please click here.

Photo Credit: Russell Up

Retail pack on the right, special sample pack on the left (photo by Hannah Ewan)

From my new offices out near Edinburgh airport, the only lunch options for those failing to prepare in advance are a roving sandwich van, or dicing with death to reach the M&S garage concession across the A8. I’ve never yet come across a garage food hall worth dicing with death for, so an offer from LovSushi to try their relatively recently developed sushi bento boxes was gratefully leapt upon.

In the area to persuade the fine retailers of Edinburgh to stock their sushi (and it was a productive trip – look out for their stuff in Real Foods and Rose Street’s SocialBite in coming months), they kindly dropped off two boxes for me, from their jazzy branded van.

The verdict? Much better than the stuff you get in supermarkets, and definitely from garage concessions, whether M&S or no. They say they use seasonal veg, so the beetroot and carrot in the maki were perhaps a nod to that. Either way, the beetroot-stained rice made a pretty splash, and the two combined made for a fresh, light bite, even by sushi standards. The avocado was super-ripe – perhaps a turn too far, but better over-ripe than under – and sat alongside fat prawns. There were some interesting flavour combos too; their website talks of using local Perthshire produce in the hand rolled sushi, an ethos that leads to beef maki (surprisingly successful – close to raw, perhaps totally so, it didn’t take much chewing) and a nice smoked salmon version.

The maki are generously sized (they’re not the tightest roll – more cheerfully pretty than sushi-master precise), with a box of noodles and maki retailing at around £6.50. The noodles were the least successful part, if I’m honest – fresh flavoured with onion and coriander, but needing a boost of something. They were grateful for the soy sauce and pickled ginger included in the pack, alongside Scottish-grown freshly grated wasabi from Scot Herbs.

I do wonder what Japanese sushi chefs, putting their time in with rice for a decade before even thinking of cutting any fish up, think about this new craze for sushi snack packs. Personally, I’m all in favour of it, particularly if it works with locally sourced, seasonal fillings. Give me beef maki over a soggy BLT for lunch any day.

Igu Bar & Restaurant is a cute, cosy nook hidden away on Jamaica Street on the sweep towards Stockbridge. Like many of us, I’d visited before for a drink & a quick board game but had never given their food offering, or their ethos, much thought. Until now…

An upstairs treat…

I paid a visit to Iglu to sit down with Matthew Waters (Head Chef and Twitter extraordinaire) and to experience a selection of dishes from their regularly changing seasonal menu. My first shock occurred on being beckoned up the stairs upon arrival, having no idea that there was a charming restaurant upstairs (seating up to 30 at a squeeze) – it seemed I had a lot to learn about this little place. Once settled and introduced to Matthew, seven courses of elegantly presented autumnal food were placed before me; each encompassing to a tee what I soon discovered was Matthew’s style – simple, pure, considered food that’s just a little bit clever.

From what to do with your festive leftovers to traditional Burns night recipes we want to know what your foodie traditions are.

What has passed down generations of family? Which item would you never be without in the kitchen? Where do you go time and time again as a beloved old favourite?

Traditional Grannie’s Fairy Cake Recipe

To start off the ‘Tradition‘ theme, I’m introducing you to a family secret, something that has delighted our tables and our tummies for as long as I can remember: my grannie’s fairy cake recipe.

Quick

Easy

Traditional

Delicious

This amount would make 12 muffin sized fairy cakes.

Ingredients:

8 oz self raising flour

8 oz caster sugar

8 oz stork margarine (she insists on this!)

4 large eggs

Capful of Vanilla essence.

What to do…

1. Put caster sugar in a bowl and add the margarine (my grannie warms it slightly in the microwave to make it easier to beat together)

2. Sift the self raising flour through a sieve

3. Beat the eggs lightly and add the vanilla essence

4. Add half of the flour and half the eggs to the sugar/margarine mixture and beat.

5. Add the other half of flour and eggs and beat thoroughly to a nice thick batter.

Grannie’s tip: If the mixture curdles a bit (separates) the first time, then add more of the flour and beat before adding the last of the eggs.

Divide equally into 12 muffin cases in muffin tins. Cook the cakes for about 20 mins on 180-190.

Are they ready yet?

If they are a nice golden brown and the sponge cakes spring back when you touch the top with your finger, then yes!

Happy New Year everyone, and whether you’re trying something new, or celebrating a path well-trodden, we hope you have a very enjoyable January.

TFGE x

Recipe originally posted on bakenation.com