Bite Me!

I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of the new Aga collections last night, held at the Beauchamp Place AGA shop, which is pure kitchen porn.  I lost my heart to the duck-egg blue Rayburn, whilst the general consensus on the new AGA pearl colour ("it's not grey," emphasised AGA Chief Exec William McGrath) was that it was very chic indeed. 

Guardian recipe impresario and "King of the Crumb" Dan Lepard was busy cooking up a storm, and guests couldn't get enough of the English rarebit on walnut bread and home-made lemon curd profiteroles topped with barley sugar.  Seizing the opportunity to speak to a master baker, I asked him on the best way to prevent wholemeal bread from being too heavy.  The answer?  Add half a crushed vitamin C tablet.  I'll let you know how I get on with that tip...

I was also excited to discover the new range of Joules textiles - OK, so rose-printed aprons and matching headscarves might be a bit twee, but at least I can finally buy some oven gloves to go with all my clothes from Joules.  Now all I need is the country kitchen (and AGA, of course), to go with it!

I found the recipe for these here and had to give them a try for Christmas morning, since they sounded so easy.  They are as easy as they sound, and I thought they were delicious, in part because they're slightly savoury - if you're expecting ultra-sweet American style soft muffins, you'll be disappointed.  But they are spicy and comforting and I love the crunchy sugar topping!  They'd be great with some chunks of white chocolate added, if you want that extra sugar kick.

Yet more baking at the weekend - this time a raisin and walnut loaf from The Cranks Bible.  It's delicious toasted or with cheese, and best of all, there's no kneading!  I've had to put half of it in the freezer already to stop myself going mad and eating the whole lot at once...

I was on a bit of a baking kick this weekend, getting up at seven o’clock on Saturday morning to attempt to make some bread. I tried some sourdough a couple of weeks ago which was a complete failure, so this time I was less ambitious and made a simple white loaf using Nigella Lawson’s recipe from How to Eat. As you can see, it turned out rather well, but I think I will make a larger loaf next time as this one had vanished by the end of the day...