US enthusiasts who follow the tradition of sharing dough are now receiving about 1,000 requests a week, up from 30 to 60
“There’s an old pioneer tradition” dating from the earliest days of the colonisation of the US west, says Mary Buckingham, “that you shared your bread starter with anyone who asked.”
Which was all very well until TikTok came along.
Continue reading...Essex-based Bridie West’s edible creation based on setting in Cameron Diaz romcom got more than 1.2m views
An Essex cake baker has gone viral after making a cake version of a cottage that had a starring role in the Christmas movie The Holiday.
The clip of Bridie West meticulously piping butter cream over a cottage-shaped cake has garnered more than 1.2m views on TikTok and almost 50,000 on Instagram.
Continue reading...Home of the patisserie falls for US doughnuts with hundreds of people lining up for opening of first branch
France, the country that gave the world the word “patisserie”, a nation famous for its macarons, meringues and millefeuilles, whose restaurants strive for gastronomic perfection and whose baguette is on the UN heritage list, has fallen for another foreign interloper: the American doughnut, or more precisely the Krispy Kreme.
On a freezing morning last week, 400 people, some having camped out all night, formed an uncharacteristically orderly queue for the opening of the US chain’s first outlet in a central Paris shopping centre.
Continue reading...A festive collection from our archive of favourite starters, main courses and puddings
A decadent starter – and a godsend for cooks who like to get ahead.
Continue reading...Cheese and chocolate are your friends, but keep them bite-sized. Top chefs share their favourite nibbles …
• Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
What makes the best party snacks?
Rachel, Hove
“Anything that can be eaten cleanly in a mouthful is ideal,” says Guardian food columnist Ravinder Bhogal. “Anything too big, messy or that requires lots of chewing should be avoided – there’s nothing worse than those awkward, mouth-full moments when someone suddenly strikes up a conversation.”
Continue reading...From our archive: from festive pickles and homemade sweets to luxury biscuits and exotic oils, a a gift you’ve made yourself can make someone’s Christmas
A trio of presents that you’ll want for Christmas dinner: a ginger nut brittle to serve as is or to blitz into a toast-topping paste, crumbly cheese biscuits and an enticingly easy fig jam
Continue reading...The Great British Bake Off is back! Sales of baking utensils skyrocket when the amateur baking show is on. It appears we’re all cake mad. But I’ve always been mad as a box of doughnuts for cake, long before the GBBO started. In fact, it’s one of my loves – not one of my vices.
Cake and I are friends; we go back a long way. At school, we’d bake in home economics class and sell our creations in the tuck shop – 10p a fairy cake. The whole process felt like alchemy to me: the creaming of butter and sugar, then the eggs, all beaten into a frenzy of delight. That feeling of magic at my fingertips has not left – it is why I love to bake. It’s a good lesson in life: humble beginnings can have majestic ends. Like an ode to a lover, I feel emotional when writing about it. I can smell its perfume and the tantalising sensation of it touching my lips.
Continue reading...Slow-cooked courgettes with a toasty breadcrumb topping, a summery tomato and feta salad with lemon dressing and, to finish, a classic pick-me-up of soft amaretti with coffee sauce
Italian summer, anyone? I know! Me, too! This might not be a summer when we get to drink espresso with a little amaretti biscuit on the side in situ, but I fully intend to pretend for a good few meals. Amaretti biscuits, Italian extra-virgin olive oil, hard ricotta from Puglia, the sweetest tomatoes and most basil-y of basil leaves you can get your hands on: invest in the power of food to transport. Cin-cin!
Continue reading...Steering clear of wheat, rye and barley doesn’t mean avoiding delicious dishes. Here are some of the tastiest offerings, including soda bread, peanut butter cookies and banana oat pancakes
My favourite gluten-free recipe is poodla (small pancakes), which I make using gram (chickpea) flour, water, cumin seeds, garam masala, turmeric and salt, with added chillies (chopped), grated onion and grated courgettes (it also works with mashed peas, spinach, grated cauliflower etc). Simply make a batter to any consistency, add your vegetables, then shallow fry on both sides. It’s delicious with a raita and a salad; we eat them for breakfast, lunch and sometimes as a main meal. Rekha Shah, retired, Bournemouth
Continue reading...There are so many variations on South America’s favourite patties, who’s to say which is the best? But that won’t stop our resident perfectionist from giving it her best shot ...
Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz claimed that one could write a small book on empanadas, empanaditas, pasteles, pastelitos, empadinhas and pastèzinhos … namely, “those delicious turnovers, patties and pies, stuffed with meat, poultry, fish, shellfish and other mixtures, and baked or fried, which are so popular throughout Latin America”. Such is the variety on offer, in fact, I’d suggest it would probably be quite a large book. As writer Naomi Tomky notes, perhaps a little wistfully, on Serious Eats, “it would take a lifetime of non-stop empanada-eating to try all of the infinite combinations of doughs, fillings and cooking methods that are so closely tied to the specific culture, flora and fauna in each region of Latin America”.
That’s a challenge I’d happily take on, but the Guardian has refused to extend my deadline, so I’ve chosen to concentrate on the simple, cheese-stuffed sort found almost everywhere. Even then, the range is such from country to country that (as ever) the below should be seen more as an introductory guide than a definitive recipe. Portable, cheap and infinitely versatile, easy to make vegan, gluten-free and even (relatively) healthy, empanadas are surely the ultimate democratic party food. Well … after crisps, anyway.
Continue reading...Food has felt more important than ever this past year – particularly meals that offer solace. From rösti to Coco Pops, here are the dishes that got us through
For me, lockdown has meant an absolutely manic schedule, working from home with back-to-back Zoom calls and long hours. Crumpets have been my saviour. Yes, factory made, perfectly consistent and versatile: top with yoghurt and frozen berries at 8am, blue cheese and leeks at 1pm, followed by eggs and spinach at 7pm, and you have a full day’s menu. For a bit more lockdown spirit, I tried the sourdough version (delicious if squishy) and making my own (I promise you, it’s not worth it). Sophie, data analyst, St Albans
Continue reading...Who wants to turn their excess Easter eggs into chocolate fondant, chocolate cereal clusters and chocolate and hazelnut spread? Bring it on!
Can you bake with Easter egg chocolate? Sure you can. After getting my hands on a variety of Easter eggs this year (dark chocolate, caramelised white chocolate, orange-flavoured, nougat-filled mini eggs, the ones with pretzels stuck all over them … ), I found a place for them all: melted and turned into something else. For these recipes, I encourage you to use up whatever chocolate you have. Easter eggs are typically sweetened (even the dark varieties), so taste them beforehand (as I’m sure you have already) and judge if you need to add any salt, for example.
Continue reading...Soft yet chewy, sweet yet bitter, this delicious Germanic bread is best enjoyed straight out of the oven
Pretzel, bretzel, brezel or brezn: this Germanic bread has almost as many names as its homeland has sausages, but who cares what it’s called when it’s this delicious. Soft, yet satisfyingly chewy, with a sweet, burnished crust and a faint but delicious, bitter edge, frankly it’s a mystery why pretzels aren’t easier to find in this country. No matter – they’re best warm from the oven, anyway.
Prep 10 min
Knead 15 min+
Rest 2 hr 30 min-24 hr
Shape 20 min
Cook 12-15 min
Makes 10
Let’s travel again (at least in our kitchens): to south America, for arepas stuffed with feta, chilli and avocado, and then to west Africa for deep-fried plantain fritters
One of the many joys of street food is that you can move on from one country to another as soon as your tummy allows. Last week, we were in Mauritius and Brazil, snacking on jackfruit kati rolls and prawn pasties, and, having had seven days to digest those, I hope you’re all up for round two today. This time, we’re off to Ghana and Venezuela. As with so much street food, these dishes are best eaten by hand, standing up outside next to people you’ve just met. I may not be able to conjure up new friends, especially in these times, but I can supply recipes that will transport you to far-flung places.
Continue reading...Five years ago, Swedish designer and stylist Linda Ring experienced total burnout. After a few months doing nothing, she tried to adopt a slower lifestyle. “I started baking sourdough, but as it’s my nature to try to make everything beautiful, I began experimenting.”
Ring’s loaves became canvases for portraits and landscapes, scored into the raw dough. “You never know how the bread or the pattern will turn out, it’s enormously satisfying when I take it out of the oven and see.”
Continue reading...Do you have to be so precise when measuring ingredients? After all, what difference does 5g of flour actually make?
• Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
A recent Feast recipe uses three types of flour: two requiring 55g and one 50g. Surely 5g won’t make a difference? US cups are less accurate than British pounds and ounces, and American cooks get by on those. Why not use teaspoons for smaller quantities and round figures otherwise?
Judy, Leamington Spa
“I get Judy’s frustration,” says Feast perfectionist Felicity Cloake. “It often doesn’t make that much difference at all.” In fact, Nigella Lawson writes about this very predicament in her latest book, Cook, Eat, Repeat: “I struggle, as many food writers do, with just how precise to be, and my books reflect how I feel at any given time about what is helpful and what is confining.” Lawson might specify “a large onion”, give an approximate weight or simply call for “an onion”. “The truth is, the weight of an onion, or the size of it, is not always critical.” However, as Cloake points out, “Yotam Ottolenghi says that if one of his recipes stipulates an eighth of a teaspoon of ginger, that’s because it has been tested with that – and with more and less, too – and that’s what works.”
Continue reading...Boxing Day BLT, veg samosas with cranberry sauce, and Christmas pudding eccles cakes with marzipan – stylish ways to use up excess food
The thing about Christmas day, as no one’s stomach needs reminding, is that there is always so much food. It is, however, a truth universally acknowledged that the whole point of cooking a great big bird – not to mention enough vegetables to feed twice as many people as are actually eating them – is to be able to enjoy the leftovers the day after. For all the ceremony, and the focus on the food served at the right time in the right place at the right temperature on Christmas Day, does anything, truly, beat the likes of a soft-bun sandwich filled with all the good bits? Gravy sauce for dipping into (and a sofa for sinking into) optional.
Continue reading...From the perfect traditional version, to brownie hybrids, deep-fried delights and a throwback from 1591, homemade never looked so good
Nothing should make the heart sink quite as much as the phrase “homemade mince pies”. The chance of failure is simply far too high. Pick a bad recipe and you run the risk of serving up a tray of inedible pastry bin lids gummed together with a miserly Marmite smear of mincemeat.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. An endless array of mince-pie variations are now available to the home cook, ranging from the traditional to the exotic. Depending on your skill level and personal preference, you should find some level of success with the recipes below.
Continue reading...Sweet, comforting and endlessly flexible, flapjack is the perfect lockdown bake. Whether you’re a vegan, a hipster or a millionaire, we’ve got you covered
Perhaps I am over-generalising, but I feel that the flapjack rarely migrates from the home economics class into everyday adult life. Yet at this moment, it hits all the notes: it is wholesome, very simple, you can bake it with children and you can throw any old nonsense in to no obvious ill effect. Plus, it needs no flour, which is great if you can’t get hold of any, and oats are incredibly good value. There is no kitchen alchemy involving things that have a habit of going wrong – no raising agent, no uncertainty from adding an egg.
I tried every which way, with the “help” of an outrageously careless 10-year-old, to get one wrong, just for the suspense. There were rumours that tin size was important, that the wrong dimensions messed with the texture. It is true that a thinner flapjack will have a more biscuity, less squidgy mouthfeel, but biscuity is still fine, otherwise why would people eat biscuits? It is also true that the finer the oats, the more they hold together in the finished product, but even jumbo oats didn’t fall apart as I had been led to believe. But if this really worries you, you can make them finer by whizzing them first in a food processor, anyway.
Continue reading...Cooking and clearing up has been relentless – and that’s without adding a special birthday cake to my range of signature dishes
I’m sitting down to write this having just cleaned fox poo out of the tiny grooves in the soles of my four-year-old’s sandals. She also, somehow, smeared it all over her legs, her dress, my legs, my shorts. The only plus I can take from it is that, for once in our crowded corner of south London, social distancing was not an issue.
Of course, even in non-coronavirus times, 98% of anecdotes about young children end in someone being covered in something or other. But for many parents – at which point I insert an enormous caveat to make it clear that I’m talking about those who haven’t been infected, or made redundant, and aren’t frontline workers, and are extremely lucky enough to still be operating in a strange bubble of “normal” – I’d suspect that the greatest challenges of the past few weeks, and moments of profoundest despair, have come in the kitchen.
Continue reading...