Sticky Toffee Pudding

We had great success with our sticky toffee pudding as a Christmas Day dessert. It’s a hybrid of a recipe by Jamie Oliver, one that we found in a gluten free cookbook, and one for a make-ahead pudding by the hairy bikers. Ingredients Pudding 200-250g chopped dates 200ml boiling water (or tea) 100g softened unsalted butter 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda 170g sugar (85g golden caster, 50g light soft brown, 35g dark soft brown) 170g self-raising flour 1/2 teaspoon mixed spice 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 eggs (room temperature) Sauce 110g unsalted butter 110g sugar (half light soft brown sugar, half dark soft brown sugar) 140ml double cream Method Pudding Soak the chopped dates in the boiling water with the bicarbonate of soda for 30 minutes.

In Praise of Putting Pen to Paper

Around this time last year, I wrote in praise of writing a diary. I also rather misanthropically referred to it as a “negativity casket” because I found that I was pouring a lot of negative feelings into the notebook. It’s not really a diary as such because I don’t write everyday and I also make other non-diaristic notes, but it does appear to have been something of a process that has helped me to work through my negative feelings.

Nineteen Out Of Nineteen?

I’m having trouble finding something to write about today. Partly the problem of having a productive weekend of doing things rather than ruminating on blog topics. So unfortunately, we get another space-filling post. I’ve got lots of books on the go at the moment, including “Orbital” which won the Booker prize this year and “Otherlands” which is a really cool book about natural history going back in time through the eras of the Earth.