Although I am an almost vegetarian, every so often, I really fancy a fish cake..  My go to recipe is a recipe in Dale Pinnock’s  “Anxiety and Depression” cookbook for Tuna Sweet Potato Fish Cakes.  This is a very simple, but very tasty recipe.  The following recipe, is a slight variation on Dale Pinnock’s recipe. Tuna Sweet Potato Fish Cakes (serves 2) Ingredients  2 medium  baked sweet potatoes 150g canned tuna 2  tsp chopped coriander or parsley leaves 1 small red onion, finely chopped (I blanch my onion first to produce a milder taste) 1/2 tsp Englis ..read more

Many moons ago, I picked up a book from Lakeland, entitled “Preserves”, with every intention of exploring the world of jam making.  I even bought a number of small jam jars for this purpose.  I had a vision of becoming a jam making domestic goddess, who would present lovely jars of homemade jam to family and friends for Christmas and other key holidays.  Like with so many things, I didn’t make the time  to make the jam as intended.  My book sat on the shelf, collecting dust while my jam jars remained forgotten in a box somewhere. While lockdown has been difficult for a ..read more

I don’t often reminisce about my childhood in Cape Town, South Africa.  It has been many years since I left – I have just realised that next month it will be 30 years.   I was just about to say that I can’t remember why I started thinking about the bakes of my childhood, but then I remembered that I have recently joined The Lekker Old Days Facebook page, which harks back to the good old days in South Africa.  They often post pictures of sweets and biscuits and enquire whether we can remember anything that far back.  It’s a bit of harmless nostalgia, but it does give ri ..read more

I love a savoury tart.  I love a sweet one too,but this post is about savoury tarts.  Just as soups are a good way to use up vegetables, so too are tarts (or quiches).  I have made three tarts/quiches during lockdown: Leek Leek and mushroom Parsnip and leek Have you spotted the common denominator?  Yes, the good old leek.  I know there are many things you can do with a leek, but sauteeing them off in some butter or oil and then placing them in a tart creates a great tasting tart. I am not a huge fan of tarts/quiches containing cream at the best of times so with lockd ..read more

It’s quite interesting looking back at my Instagram posts as there is a real absence of any salad posts.  You might ask, “why would a pastry chef post photos of salad?”.  You would be right in questioning this, but at the same time, if you have looked at my Instagram posts during lockdown, you will notice that the nature of the posts have changed somewhat.  This is not to say that there aren’t a fair number of baking posts, but there are also a number of non-baking posts as well. The main reason I have not posted salad posts, despite the warm weather in April,  is that my L ..read more

My foray into cooking during lockdown started with soup making.  On the weekend of the 14th March 2020, when there were signs that things were getting more serious on the Covid-19 front, my husband and I cancelled a family get together which we had already purchased all the ingredients for.  We took the decision to cancel the event as 4 of the guests were over the age of 70 and 2 had COPD.   It was not that our elderly relatives asked for the event to be cancelled, but we felt that given the circumstances it would be the most sensible option. Anyway, the first soup I made ..read more

When I was growing up, my maternal grandmother, Constance, had a large dresser in the corridor near her kitchen, where she stored tin upon tin of food.  I am not sure how long there had been in there or how often she replenished them, but the cupboard was always full. I never asked my grandmother about the cupboard, but my mother told me that my grandmother always kept a well stocked cupboard as she had lived through the second world war with three young daughters, as well as post war rationing, and never wanted to be in a situation again where she didn’t have enough food to feed her fami ..read more

They say that time flies when you are having fun, so I must have been having fun as it is a long time since I last wrote and I didn’t realise how long it had been until I checked. To be honest, having fun is not exactly the truth, as I have had a few challenges over the last few months since I last wrote.  My main challenge has been my health.  The last few months have seen me have visits to a consultant on a number of occasions, a CTI, a MRI and the threat of another operation, which was averted at the 11th hour as the blockage in my colon sorted itself out prior to the need for fur ..read more

Last time I posted, I promised to write about my recent baking activities.  Some time has passed since I made my promise – almost four months.  As you would have gathered, I have had a busy four months. We have almost completed the renovation of our new home.  We have a lot of bits and piece to complete, but we are around 90% there. We moved into our new house in August, a little prematurely as on our holiday up to the Lake District in August to celebrate my Birthday with my family and to compete in a couple of races (cancelled because of the weather and other unforeseen circumstances), we acq ..read more

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, but I have been so busy with my new job and baking for various customers and events that I have not had an opportunity to do so.  Speaking about my new job, this is the main reason that I am writing this post. A while back, in March to be exact, it became quite clear that despite some intimations that the place that I was working would stock my bakes in their cafe, that this was no longer part of their plan.  I had taken the job for two main reasons: (1) to gain experience in a cafe, especially using a coffee machine and (2) to bake for the c ..read more