Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: about a dozen, plus lots of tasty trimmings

Ingredients

• butter – softened – 113g
• light brown sugar – 146g
• 1 egg – beaten
• plain flour – 128g
• baking powder – ½tsp
• vanilla extract – 1tsp
• chocolate chips (or chopped up chocolate) – 90g

Preheat your oven to 190°C/Gas Mark 5.

Grease 2 baking sheets.

In a bowl beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Beat in the egg.

Mix the flour and baking powder together and then stir into the butter mixture.

Add the vanilla extract and stir.

Finally stir in the chocolate chips of your choice.

Spoon dollops of the mixture onto the baking sheets – leave plenty of room between them as they will spread considerably.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

If you want a neater cookie, trim with a cookie cutter (and eat all the trimmings).

Verdict: Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle, chocolate throughout. Very good indeed.

Drink: Makes a good dunker.

Entertainment: Sitting on the sofa with a poorly Yumblog Junior watching ‘Timmy Time‘.

Supermarket snobbery aside, I’ve never used fresh yeast before so I did an AW-T, slipped a packet up my chef whites and made a run for it.

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus at least an hour rising time
Cooking time: 30-35 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: 2 loaves (if you’re going to the effort of making your own bread, there’s little point in making just one loaf. Freeze the bonus loaf if need be)

Ingredients

• seed & grain white flour (Allinson’s) – 1kg
• fresh yeast – 42g
• sugar – 2tsp
• salt – 3tsp
• vegetable oil – 30ml
• warm water (1 part boiling to 2 parts cold) – 600ml

Fresh yeast is not as potent and dried yeast, so you’ll need three times the amount. Therefore if a recipe requires 2tsp of dried yeast (1tsp = 5g), you’ll be needing 30g of fresh yeast.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, salt and sugar.

Crumble the fresh yeast into the warm water and stir to dissolve.

Pour onto the flour and mix together to form a rough dough.

Add the oil and knead into the dough.

Turn out onto a floured surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.

Divide into two and shape into round loaves and place on oiled baking sheets.

Cover with oiled clingfilm, and set aside until it has doubled in size. (This should take about an hour, although if your house is as cold as Yumblog Cottage it could take considerably longer. We often leave ours overnight.)

Preheat your oven to 230°C/Gas Mark 8

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 200°C/Gas Mark 6 and bake for a further 15-20 minutes until golden brown and hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Verdict: A good all rounder which is great either each end of a sandwich or toasted and heavily buttered. The was no noticeable difference between this loaf and one made with dried yeast … it did seem to rise a little faster though.

Drink: T or K4e

Entertainment: Watching with equal parts alarm and ammusement as Yumblog Junior gets ever more independent and bossy.

Incidentally welcome to 2012 – the year which in the future we will look back on as marking the beginning of the end. Quietus anyone?

Preparation time: 5 – 10 minutes
Cooking time: about an hour
Skill level: easy
Serves: 4 – 6

Ingredients

• waxy potatoes – thinly sliced – 1kg
• 1 large onion – thinly sliced
• 1 clove of garlic – crushed
• fresh thyme – 10g
• double cream – 250ml
• semi-skimmed milk – 320ml
• mature Brie – 250g
• olive oil
• s & p

*OK so this uses the wrong cheese and doesn’t contain any lardons so purists and pedants will probably insist this is not a true tartiflette.

Preheat your oven to 180c/gas mark 4.

Gently fry the onion in some olive until soft and beginning to colour. Set aside.

Strip the leaves from the thyme sprigs and finely chop.

Put the cream, milk, garlic and thyme in a large saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Add the sliced potato, cover with a lid and cook for 5 minutes.

Stir in the cooked onions and season with salt and black pepper.

Butter a suitably sized ovenproof dish.

Chop the Brie into slices.

Place half the potato mixture into the prepared dish and sprinkle over half the cheese.

Repeat, finishing with a layer of cheese.

(At this stage the dish can be set aside and cooked at a later time.)

Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes until bubbling with a golden crusty top and tender when stabbed with a knife.

Serve as a side or main with a healthy salad.

Verdict: Potato and melted cheese works, this is a fact and this is another excellent example of the genre. Creamy smooth rich filling comfort food.

Drink: Red – we are still bravely drinking our way through our substantial Christmas stash of booze.

Entertainment: The third and final episode of ‘Black Mirror’ followed by Old Jews Telling Jokes.

Happy New Year – You decide when.

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 1½ hours rising
Cooking time: 35-40 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients

• ripe bananas – 300g (about 2)
• lemon juice – 2 tsp
• strong white flour – 500g
• milk powder – 2 tbsp
• butter – 2 tbsp
• fast-action dried yeast – 1½ tsp
• cocoa powder – 50 – 75g
• warm water – 200 ml
• caster sugar – 2 tbsp
• salt – ½ tsp
• plus icing sugar to dust

Peel your bananas and mush them on a plate with a fork.

Pour over the lemon juice and work in with the fork.

Put the flour, milk powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Add the butter and rub in with your finger tips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

Stir in the dried yeast and mashed bananas. Gradually add enough of the warm water to form a soft dough.

Knead for 5 minutes on a floured surface – the dough should be smooth and elastic.

Return to the bowl, cover with oiled clingfilm, and set aside somewhere warm (not so easy here at chilly Yumblog Cottage) for an hour or so until it has doubled in size.

Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and knead well.

Sprinkle over the cocoa powder and knead until it is incorporated into the dough – you should get a rough marble effect.

Put the dough into a suitably sized and greased bread tin (1.8 litre).

Cover with oiled clingfilm and set aside somewhere warm for 30 minutes or until the dough has risen to the top of the tin.

Preheat your oven to 200c (gas mark 6).

Remove the clingfilm (obviously) and bake for 35-40 minutes until golden brown (and hollow sounding when tapped). Check after 20 minutes and cover with foil if it looks like it might be getting too dark.

Tip out onto a cooling rack and dust with icing sugar and a little more cocoa.

Verdict: Delicious as is, even better toasted.

Drink: The perfect companion to a brew.

Entertainment: Watching the stream at the end of the garden turn from a tranquil trickle to an angry torrent

* Full list available on request. Please send self-addressed stamped envelope to: Flossy Flossington’s Vocab, Yumblog Cottage, Yorkshire, Up North. YUM 123

Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 50-55 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: 1 medium loaf

Ingredients

• butter – 100g (plus a little extra to grease the tin)
• self-raising flour – 300g
• goat’s cheese (you could use feta also) – diced – 175g
• cherry tomatoes – halved – 175g
• fresh basil – 15g
• milk – 100ml
• 3 eggs
• salt – ½ tsp
• black pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 180C (gas mark 4)

Butter and line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment.

Tip the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and twist in a generous amount of black pepper.

Rub in the butter.

Add 100g each of the cheese and tomatoes, plus all the basil leaves (roughly torn)

Beat the milk and eggs together and quickly add to the flour mixture.

Pour into the lined tin, smooth down the top and sprinkle over the remaining cheese and tomatoes.

Bake for 50-55 minutes until golden brown. Check that it is cooked by inserting and removing a skewer – if the skewer comes out clean then the bread is ready – be careful to ensure that you haven’t hit a pocket of melted cheese rather than undercooked mixture.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Slice and serve as is or toasted.

Store in the fridge for up to two days.

Verdict: Oh my gosh Roberta, this is pretty darn good. A rich soft ‘cakey’ texture containing little explosions of goaty saltiness and tomato sweetness. We served ours up in a variety of ways – a topping of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon proved to be a taste sensation. Like the rest of us, probably at its best when lightly toasted.

Drink: Tea by the bucketful. Aka a Tonyload of tea.

Entertainment: Trying to dissuade Yumblog Junior from sticking her fist into the Marmite jar.

* Assuming the egg is 3 metres in diameter and at an altitude of 27,000 feet.

Self indulgent photo of Yumblog Junior #27

Having recently made this magnificently delicious crab tart by Rick Stein, for comparison and out of the need for more double cream in our diet we turned to Simon Hopkinson.

Preparation time: 10 minutes – 4 hours (depending on your crab butchery skills)
Cooking time: 1 hour – 1 hour 15 minutes
Skill level: medium
Serves: 4

Ingredients

For the pastry case

• plain flour – 110g
• butter – cut into cubes – 50g
• 1 egg yolk
• pinch o’ salt

For the filling

• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes – 225g
• 2 garlic cloves – finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig of thyme
• double cream – 300ml
• saffron threads – a good pinch
• 4 egg yolks
• white meat, plus a little of the brown, from a 900g cooked crab
• s and p

Make the pastry by rubbing the butter into the flour, then adding the egg yolk, salt and enough water to form a dough.

Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C (gas mark 4).

Roll out the pastry as thin as possible and line a 20cm (8inch) tart or flan tin.

Trim the edges, prick the base with a fork and blind bake for 15-20 minutes or until a pale golden brown and cooked through.

For the filling put the tomatoes, garlic and herbs into a saucepan and reduce over a medium heat until it is a thickish sauce.

Remove the herbs, allow to cool and then spread over the bottom of the pastry case.

Warm through 3 tbsp of the cream, add the saffron and allow to steep for a few minutes.

Beat together the egg yolks with the saffron cream and remaining cream. Season.

Loosely fold the crab meat into this custard mix and pour into the pastry case.

Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes by which time it should be set and a pale golden brown.

Serve warm rather than straight from the oven.

Verdict: Lighter and ‘quichier’ than the Rick Stein tart. Tasty though. Very tasty.

Drink: The regular Saturday evening cocktail of beer and wine.

Entertainment: ‘Stewart Lee – 90s Comedian’ – a recent purchase on DVD from ‘Go Faster Stripe‘. Without a doubt his most ‘shocking’ set and therefore one of the funniest. A comedy genius. I suppose at some point we’ll have to censor what we watch in front of Yumblog Junior. Or get her to bed a bit earlier.

Stew’s hand

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 20 minutes chilling
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Skill level: easy
Serves: 4-6 (or one Frenchman)

Ingredients

For the topping

• plain flour – 80g
• light muscovado sugar – 80g
• caster sugar – 80g
• ground ginger – 1 tsp
• A good pinch of salt
• butter – chilled and cut into 1cm pieces – 80g
• blanched almonds – coarsely chopped – 80g

For the filling

• sweet or sour cherries – pitted – 450g
• apricots – pitted and quartered – 450g
• finely grated zest and juice of ½ lemon
• caster sugar – 70g (or about 20g more if you use sour cherries or the apricots are a bit tarty)
• 1 vanilla pod – split

Put the flour, sugars, ginger and salt in a bowl and stir to combine.

Add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Add the nuts and cut them into the mixture with a knife.

Chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile heat the oven to 190C/gas mark 5.

Put the cherries, apricots, lemon juice, zest and sugar in a bowl.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and add to the bowl.

(or in our case, open the vanilla pod tube bought from Saisbury’s earlier that morning and discover it to be empty, find receipt, grab Yumblog Junior, head back to Sainsbury’s, join queue at Customer ‘Services’, wait patiently in line and watch various idiots failing to communicate with one another, get handed replacement with a grunt, return home, etc.)

Stir everything together until well combined and tip into an ovenproof baking dish.

Take the topping out of the fridge and scatter over the fruit, squeezing together some of it into small chunks as you go (this will make the finished result more crunchy.)

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the top crisp and golden brown.

Serve warm with cream, crème fraîche, vanilla ice-cream or for added luxury Bird’s Dream Topping.

Verdict: As I said, The Frenchman ate three helpings. No other endorsement necessary.

Drink: Definitely not the half bottle of ‘Costcutters Creek’ bought and left by a friend on Friday night. You know who you are.

Entertainment: Calculating whether to have another helping or save space for the cheese board.

Preparation time: 30 minutes to an hour depending on your skill at dissecting a crab.

Cooking time: about an hour

Skill level: medium

Serves: we ate the lot between the 2 of us, although it should serve 4 normal people as a light lunch

Ingredients

For the rich shortcrust pastry

• plain white flour – 100g
• unsalted butter – chilled – 65g
• cold water – 1-1½ tbsp
• pinch’o'salt

For the filling

• 1 large cooked brown crab
• 8 cloves of garlic – 4 finely chopped and 4 bruised
• can of chopped tomatoes – 200g
• white wine – 60ml
• brandy – 60ml
• 3 bay leaves
• FLP – small bunch
• shallot – finely chopped – 100g
• dried chilli flakes – crushed – ¼tsp
• tomatoes – skinned and deseeded – 225g
• fresh white breadcrumbs – 25g
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Start by making your pastry. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and add the chilled butter, cut up in small pieces.

Rub in the butter until you have the usual fine breadcrumb texture.

Stir in the water with a rounded knife until it comes together to form a ball (it’s a temperature thing so don’t be tempted to use your fingers).

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth.

Wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate until needed (it’s best left at least half an hour before using).

Preheat your oven to 200c/gas mark 6.

Lightly grease a shallow 30cm tart dish.

Roll out your pastry very thinly to a circle large enough to line the dish. Trim off any excess pastry, line with a circle of tin foil and blind bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and set aside.

Next catch, kill and boil your brown crab … or alternatively buy from your fishmonger/Waitrose.

Remove all the white meat (you should end up with about 200g) and set aside.

Place all that remains of the crab (APART from the back shell) in a pan and crush slightly with a rolling pin. Add 2 tbsp of oil and the bruised garlic and fry over a high heat for 5 minutes.

Add the canned tomatoes, wine, brandy, bay leaves, stalks from the bunch of parsley and 200ml of water. Bring to the boil and simmer over a low heat for 30 minutes.

Pass through a sieve into a clean bowl and set aside.

Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a medium-sized pan and add the remaining garlic, shallot and chilli and gently cook for 10 minutes or until the onion is soft and lightly coloured.

Add the fresh tomatoes, crab stock, some seasoning and simmer until the mixture has reduced to a thick sauce. Finely chop the parsley leaves and add all but 1 tbsp to the sauce along with the white crab meat.

Taste and season if necessary.

Increase the oven temperature to 220c/gas mark 7 and spoon the mixture into the pastry case.

Mix together the breadcrumbs and remaining chopped parsley with 1 tbsp of olive oil and sprinkle over the top.

Bake for 5-6 minutes until the topping is crisp and golden.

Serve warm.

Verdict: As mentioned at the top of the page, this is a stunning creation which is like eating a day out at the seaside. A sweet tomato and crabby filling surrounded by a crumbly butter-rich pastry. I take my hat off to Rick Stein (or the Spanish) for this is a work of beauty.

Drink: Moderate (for a Saturday night).

Entertainment: The start of the 5th season of ‘Homocide – Life on the Streets’.

*Oh, and we also omitted the lard from the pastry (substituting with extra butter), because one of us is a strict vegetarian who wouldn’t dream of such a thing in their crab tart.

**1875

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Skill level: very easy
Serves: many

Ingredients

• full-fat cream cheese (at room temperature) – 1kg
• 7 large free-range eggs
• caster sugar – 400g
• double cream – 500ml
• plain flour – 30g

Pre-heat the oven to 220c (gas 7)

Line a 24cm round loose-bottomed cake tin with a double thickness of non-stick baking paper.

Break the eggs into a jug and beat well.

Spoon the cream cheese into a bowl and beat with a hand-held electric mixer.

Ghostly face in the cream cheese

Gradually add the beaten eggs.

Then mix in the sugar, followeed by the cream and then the flour … until smooth.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes. The cheese cake should be nicely browned on top with a slight wobble in the middle.

Turn off the oven, slightly open the door and leave to cool. This will allow the cheesecake to ‘firm up’ and create a nice smooth texture.

When cool, carefully remove from the tin by inverting onto a plate and gently peeling away the baking paper. Invert again onto a serving plate so it is now right side up.

If the sides sag out a little bit (ours did), relax and just trim.

Verdict: Oh how they loved it at Brockwell Park that overcast Sunday afternoon in July. Dense and sweet and creamy and more please.

Drink: A bit of pink fizz, a bit of white fizz and a few cans of beer.

Entertainment: FFF breaking her weekend ‘I’ll only eat fruit’ silence with chocolate cake and cheese cake.

Wot no cake

And on the subject of food telly, on last night’s Masterchef, Gregg Wallace stormed into the kitchen and announced to the contestants ‘I might have to pull one of you off in a minute.’

Pnarf, pnarf.

Preparation time: 15 minutes plus 1½ – 2 hours rising
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Skill level: easy
Makes: 1 large loaf

Ingredients

• strong white flour – 400 g
• strong wholemeal flour – 75 g
• butter – 2 tbsp
• honey – 2 tsp
• fast action dried yeast – 1¼ tsp
• warm water – 275 ml
• sea salt – 1 tsp

Put the flours into a large bowl add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture has the usual ‘breadcrumb’ texture.

Stir in the salt and yeast.

Pour over the honey and slowly add enough of the warm water to make a soft dough.

Knead on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes, by which time the dough should be glossy, smooth and elastic.

Return to the bowl and cover with lightly oiled clingfilm.

Leave in a warm place for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size.

Tip out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly to knock back.

Place in a well oiled (1kg) bread tin, loosely cover with oiled clingfilm and place somewhere warm for 30 minutes or until the dough has mushroomed above the top of the tin.

(alternatively forget the tin and fashion into a suitably artisan shape)

Remove the clingfilm, dust with flour and place in a preheated oven (200C/gas mark 6) for approx 30 minutes.

For a crustier crust, place a tray of ice cubes in the bottom of the oven.

Remove from the oven, twist out of the tins and check that the loaf is cooked by tapping on the bottom and listening for a hollow sound.

Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Verdict: A light loaf with a hint of greco sweetness … and a fine toaster too.

Drink: Best with a nice cup of Rosie Lee.

Entertainment: Putting a muslin over my head and repeatedly playing ‘Boo’ with Yumblog Junior.