French apple turnovers

25-10-2017 Local Black Bookapple, cooking, dessert, food, puff pastry, recipe, snack, vegetarianLeave a comment

As a child, my favourite day of the year was the much-anticipated family trip to one of the gigantic superstores for our annual back-to-school shopping trip.

Beautiful new notebooks. Pens in every colour of the rainbow and the fountain pen I had been dreaming of for month. And -best of all- the promise of warm-from-the-oven classic apple turnovers for le goûter.

It truly was the most wonderful time of the year!

My schoolyears are now far behind me but my love for the puffed up little pockets of autumn joy of my childhood remain.

Light, crisp, buttery, filled with warm cinnamon sprinkled apple and just so goddamn apple-ing!

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The ultimate fall snack and the perfect accompaniment to a nice cuppa!

More fall recipes

My favourite squash soup (VE)

Butternut squash pasta bake (V)

Apple & black pudding sausage rolls

Halloween monster brookies (V)

The Best Carrot Cake Recipe

02-09-2017 Local Black Bookcake, carrot cake, dessert, recipe, snack1 Comment

Carrot cake is one of my absolute favourites.

I mean, when else can you eat cake and say it’s one of your 5 a day?

But I almost never have it because it always comes with a veeeeery generous serving of frosting.

And I don’t like frosting.

Obviously, I couldn’t allow that no-cake non-sense to continue.

I tried skipping the frosting altogether – but it simply doesn’t work.

Without it, traditonal carrot cake is quite dry and all in all a bit… meh.

Unless, that is, you add my secret ingredient to your carrot cake.

The secret to the best, moist-est carrot cake?

Cream cheese!

So obvious I wonder how I didn’t think of it before.

So if you’re not big on frosting, try this carrot cake recipe – it’ll whisk you off you feet!

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More amazing pud’ recipes

Crumble in a jar (V)

Vegan chocolate mousse (Vegan, GF, DF)

Cranberry oatmeal cake (V)

Poppy Seed & Parmesan Cheese Biscuits

03-06-2017 Local Black Bookbaking, biscuits, cheddar, cheese, cookies, parmesan, poppy seed, recipe, snack, vegetarian1 Comment

Cravings are an evil, evil thing.

Picture this. You’re sitting on the coach, minding your own business (read: trying your hardest not to watch the entire season of House of Cards in one go) when, coming from nowhere, the idea of crunchy, crumbly cheese biscuits pops up into your mind.

You try to push it away, but there’s nothing to be done. Before you know it, you find yourself rummaging through your kitchen cupboards, hoping you have all the ingredients to make your craving dreams come true.

If you’re lucky, you’ll avoid the late-night visit to your closest Tesco Express to pick up the missing bits. Otherwise… well, you’ll just have to go, won’t you?

Then it’s time to get measuring, mixing, and baking, peering through the oven door and wishing the time to pass quicker so you can -finally- get your hands on those long anticipated cheese biscuits.

That’s the thing about cravings: they make you do crazy things. Like a supermarket run / baking session in the middle of the night.

But after that first crumbly cheese biscuit bite, you can’t help but think that it was all worth it.

You know what they say… Sweet dreams are made of cheese!

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More snack recipes:

Coconut curry roasted cashews

Chocolate madeleines

Cinnamon & Ginger Thumbprint Cookies

02-12-2016 Local Black Book12 biscuits of Christmas, biscuit, biscuits, Christmas, cinnamon, cookie, cookies, ginger, recipe, snack, treat1 Comment

J-23 guys! 23 more days til the most wonderful time of the year and I cannot wait! And really, what better way to get in the festive mood than a plate of spicy, cinnamon-ey cookies?

Nothing. My point exactly.

For me, that first bite of something sweet, crumbly and unmistakably cinnamon-ey is what marks the official start of the festive season.

Most years, mince pies are the way this happens (and I absolutely love it that way!).

But this year was different. This year, that ‘first bite’ was one of these gorgeous, homemade Cinnamon & Ginger Curd Thumbprint Cookies.

Flavoured with the warm aromas of cinnamon and ginger, they are the super Christmas-sy version of the already quite Christmas-sy jam thumbprint cookies.

They’re super easy to make (absolutely no need to be a smart cookie!) and with all these spices, they definitely make for the perfect seasons’ greetings!

Cinnamon & Ginger Thumbprint Cookies (makes 30)

For the cookie dough:

200g flour + some for dusting
100g granulated sugar
125g soft unsalted butter
4 egg yolks
a small pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

To garnish:

100 ml (about 1/3 jar) Granny Cool Ginger Curd (this thing is the absolute BOMB!)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1. In a big bowl, whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar and salt until it becomes fluffy and doubles in volume.

2. Add in the flour and cinnamon and mix. You should get a crumbly texture, not dissimilar to that of crumble, only much finer.

3. Incorporate the butter and knead lightly until the dough comes together, adding more flour as you go if necessary.

4. Wrap the dough in greaseproof paper and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 min.

5. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Take the dough out of the fridge and shape into balls the size of a large cherry.

6. Place the balls about 5cm apart on prepared baking sheets. Press a thumbprint into the center of each ball, about 1 cm deep.

7. Bake for 15 min.

8. Let the cookies cool entirely. Fill each indentation with about 3/4 tsp ginger curd, then dust the cookies with ground cinnamon.

Coconut Curry Roasted Cashews

22-11-2016 Local Black Bookcashew, cashews, coconut, curry, dairy-free, edible gift, healthy, healthy eating, healthy living, nuts, recipe, roasted nuts, snack, vegan, vegetarian1 Comment

‘Tis -almost- the season.

Sorry for all the Scrooge out there, but it’s true!

And though tradition plays an important role in end-of-the-year celebrations, this year, I’ve decided to go slightly off track, break with convention and try something new.

Not too new though. As I recently explained, the whole idea is to take traditional ingredients and combine them in a creative way to achieve a fresh take on the traditional holiday dinner.

A sort of Thanksgiving/Christmas Dinner 2.0 if you will.

One of my favourite things to make this time of the year are roasted nut.

With salt & rosemary, with soy sauce or with cinnamon, roasted nuts never fail me, and these Coconut Curry Roasted Cashews are no exception.

Vegan, dairy free AND not boring, sweet, salty, spicy and incredibly more-ish, they are both satisfying and healthy, hence make for an excellent snack and an even better edible gift.

They’re so easy & quick to put together and keep really well, so you can make a big batch & hand out small bags of them to neighbours and visitors…

Or make a big jar for yourself to snack on while writing Christmas cards/wrapping all the presents/convincing your introvert side that it’s excited for all the socializing to come…

I won’t tell if you don’t!

Coconut Curry Roasted Cashews (makes one 400ml jar)

Ingredients:

130g raw cashew nuts
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
2 tbsp coconut sugar
2 tbsp yellow curry powder
a good pinch of sea salt
zest from 1/2 lime, finely grated

1. Pre-heat your oven to 200°C.

2. In a bowl, mix together the cashews and coconut oil until they’re all well coated. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until well the nuts are well coated.

3. Spread the nuts onto a baking sheet & sprinkle with a bit more salt.

4. Bake for 15 min or until golden. Leave to cool completely before transfering to an airtight container.

2 ingredient soy-roasted nuts

29-09-2015 Local Black Bookalmonds, cashew, easy, healthy, healthy eating, healthy habits, healthy living, nuts, snack, soy, soy sauce1 Comment

I love cooking. That’s what I spend most of my free time doing and I find it extremely relaxing and rewarding.

But there are days when it hardly feels it’s worth the troubles and all I want is something tasty to munch on while watching re-runs of my favourite series.

These super-easy, 2 ingredient soy-roasted nuts are dream snack material; salty and crunchy just like the very best of supermarket-bought nuts, but with a more complex, deep savoury flavour.

And they barely take any time (or effort) to make. Merely a bit of patience. Which you can exercise while lying on a sofa and watching Gossip Girl (yes, AGAIN!), so it’s all well and good.

Ingredients: 140g of cashew nuts (or blanched almonds), 30 mL soy sauce

1. Put the nuts and soy sauce together in a box.

2. Close the lid and give it a good shake. Leave it to rest for 1-2 days, shaking it again whenever you think of it.

3. Once all the liquid has been absorbed by the nuts, bake them for about 20 minutes at 150°C.

What’s your favourite snack? Hope you’ll be as nuts about those as I am! ??

Cake and Whisky

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