Savouring the savouries

Before I commence with this post - which is concerned with my new-found passion for savoury bakes - I must add a brief addendum to my last blog entry; I seem to remember discussing with great confidence my macaroon adventure at Leith's Cookery School. I even posted a photo of several healthy-looking pastel-hued meringue discs laid neatly upon a tray to illustrate it. I might have been ever so slightly smug about it.

Well, to the right here you will see what happened when I attempted to make them at home. A catastrophe. So much went wrong that it is barely worth raking over the details. And thankfully, enough time has elapsed now for me to no longer reach for the Prozac at the memory of it. Suffice to say though: Never try and judge the temperature of a sugar syrup for use in an Italian meringue by staring at it and waving your hand over the pan to see how hot it feels - you need the necessary equipment; don't mix the almond and egg-white for around half the allotted time that you were CATEGORICALLY told it would take to get it right. And don't try and squeeze the macaroon mixture out onto the tray through a piping bag with a nozzle that an emaciated ant would struggle to crawl through.

There is a lesson in here somewhere, though. Learned the hard way, but learned nonetheless: Stick to what you're good at. Know your style, and be true to yourself. If not in life, at the very least when you're making cakes.

Which brings me back - with a huge sigh of relief - to muffins and tarts.

The words Savoury and Cake, when fused together, produce something of an oxymoron in my mind. I've experimented with the concept quite often with varying results; Ottolenghi's Gruyere and Rosemary loaf cake was delicious, though I'd almost put it in the bread category, as it worked best with a dollop of butter. I tried a few savoury muffins from my go-to muffin recipe book for the Christmas Oakstock market in Harlesden that I sell at once a month. They sounded great on paper - Brie, red onion and fig, and pear, date and Stilton, but were less successful than expected, and a bit stodgy. In theory, muffin batter is a great enabler for most fillings and toppings, but getting the balance right is still a challenge. I can state here and now that I will never be labouring over a smoked mackerel, courgette, tomato, olive and basil muffin as recommended in one recipe book. Uh-uh. No way.

And as for savoury cakes. One of my favourite people in the world, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall devoted a whole Guardian column a few months back, to the joy of them, but I remain unconvinced. There is something not quite right about a 20cm round cake with bits of pepper and tomato in it. For me, you see something shaped like a cake and you expect to eat something that tastes like a cake as well . I'm all for a bit of experimentation, and regularly use butternut squash, beetroot and various other root veg in my baking, but that is much more a textural thing, plus the obvious advantage of reducing the calorie count. I just don't like any kind of food that talks in riddles. (The whole concept of molecular cooking is revolting to me. I would rather eat an apple, than a green shiny orb that has been conjured up in some kind of kitchen laboratory to taste like an apple. What in God's name is the point of that?)

Last month I was selling at a private view for an art show in Willesden (www.harlesdengallery.co.uk). Gabriel, who runs the gallery, suggested that as most of the attendees would be arriving straight from work, it might be worth having something more supper-like on offer to satiate their early evening hunger. So with this in mind, I pulled out a few ideas that I thought would fit the bill - carrot, spinach and cumin muffins, a Gruyere and onion tart with a caraway seed crust (pictured above) and some courgette and Mozzarella frittata-style muffins (all in addition to the usual chocolate cakes, brownies etc. I'm not that fickle)

They were great fun to make, though the endless peeling, chopping and sauteing of various vegetables was more like preparing dinner for the kids and was quite knackering. But the smells emanating from the oven were glorious, and the results were absolutely yummy. The response was great too - lots to think about when I finally get around to getting my regular pitch organised. I would add to this burgeoning repertoire the spicy blackened corn and polenta muffins that I make quite often - an Ottolenghi recipe again, and really special.

It's a weird one, this. I'm not a confident cook, and have always made a rather mercenary point of ensuring that I share my home with someone who would feed me well - be it boyfriends, roomies or lodgers (one of them probably over-stayed his welcome by about a year, due to his astonishingly good spaghetti vongole). So when I venture out of my comfort zone, I pay slavish attention to whichever recipe I'm using having little confidence in my own ability to judge the balance of flavours by instinct. But somehow incorporating main-course ingredients into my baking doesn't make it seem nearly so scary, and frankly I'm feeling rather inspired. I'm perving over as many interesting meat and veg combo's these days, as I am nuts and chocolate.

So easy too. Here's those carrot, spinach and cumin muffins:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/05/savoury-muffin-recipes-fearnley-whittingstall

It's probably just a phase though, because licking the bowl is nowhere near the rewarding experience that it is when there's butter, sugar and vanilla involved...

Get A Macaroon

A few weeks ago I went on another cookery course, this time at Leiths and once again a present from my lovely friends.

I eschewed the classes that might have been more obvious for me; opportunities to practice some great classic cake recipes or further hone my pastry skills (though I'm still feeling slightly smug about my mince pie marathon over Christmas), and went instead for a masterclass in the fine - and frankly terrifying - art of Macaroons and Meringues. I had a pretty good idea that the steady hand, faultless judgement and overall finesse required to produce the dainty little circles would be extremely challenging for me, and force me, kicking and screaming, out of my comfort zone.

Now I should point out that I don't especially like those French macaroons - I admit that they're aesthetically pleasing, but they're somewhere up there with cupcakes in my pantheon of baked goods that represent something sinister and disingenuous. For me, a proper macaroon is one of those lovely, almondy cracked biscuits with a flimsy sliver of rice paper glued to their underside, and a single glazed almond pushed into their centre. My grandmother used to get them for us when we were kids, and they had the dubious distinction of being one of the few biscuits, other than Jaffa Cakes, that my sister would give a passing thought too (although she always ditched the nut).

But piled high in the window of Laduree on London's Burlington Arcade, in their candy shades of pink, green and yellow, I concede is an awesome sight.

I was concerned that this course might attract the kind of home baker who I have little in common with: Stepford-style mummies, who have been speed-balling on cupcake frosting for the last couple of years and are ready to move onto the hard stuff. Those competitive types, the scourge of the school cake-sale, who theme their kids' parties and probably spend hour upon hour piping Happy Birthday on to scraps of parchment (teeth clenched with the stress of it all) in various rainbow hues, to perfect their craft. In other words, women who make me feel hopelessly inadequate, especially in the icing department.

But I was pleasantly surprised that this wasn't the case, and to find myself partnered with a French guy called Herve, who turned out to be a very good person to work with, mainly because he was totally unflustered, very tidy and extremely magnanimous in sharing the glory of his perfect macaroons with me!

The day started with a demonstration from our tutor for the day - a reassuringly rotund patisserie chef, whose name I can't quite remember though it sounded like Wasabi. Now I love a good demo, and this one was great - I spent the whole time excitedly scribbling notes to myself like HUGE METAL SPOON! SMALLER BEATERS? DON'T OVERMIX!! Etc. Of course, reading it back later in the comparative calm of my own kitchen, it sounded more like the lyrics to a Joni Mitchell song, but I managed to remember most of the salient points.

For the macaroons, we were taught to use the Italian meringue method, which involves adding a boiling sugar syrup to the egg whites - this apparently helps the meringue to hold its shape, and keep longer before baking. This sturdy mixture is then folded into the almond paste and is ready for any personal touches that you might fancy; colouring (ours were yellow and raspberry pink), and a dab of flavour, such as rose water or framboise, or much more up my street - some coffee, chocolate or pistachio.

This is the point at which one is required to neatly pipe small circles of the mixture onto a prepared baking sheet - preferably marked in pencil to ensure perfect unity. Whilst Herve deftly filled his icing bag, I found myself having a full-scale battle with bag, spatula, scissors and icing nib. I issued so many very bad expletives during this exercise, that I thought I might be sent out of the room. And when I had finally regained some control and composure, I managed to pipe them all too closely therefore creating great long necklaces of pink meringue goo. The second tray was more successful and the finished result was actually pretty good for an early attempt.

We sandwiched our macaroons together with either raspberry buttercream or a really yummy passion-fruit curd, and I was delighted to bring mine home and show them off to family and friends. I even admitted humbly that Herve's were the more perfect yellow ones. Mine were - um - a little more rustic in appearance.

When I have another go at them - and I'm planning on it, soon - I'm going to try the ones in the Ottolenghi book, as the flavours sound so great, and they're not as poncey as some of their counterparts. But the recipe below is Lorraine Pascale's, as it was apparently a slightly altered version of this one that we did on the course. Good luck. You'll need it.

www.bbc.co,uk/food/recipes/macaroons_04669

A sight for sore mince pies.

For the last few weeks, I've been providing cakes to a little cafe which resides in a lovely shop called Nomad Books in Fulham. This came about because my friend Jan - a great ambassador for Urban Cakes - was in there one day enjoying a very good cup of coffee, but with a pretty manky slice of carrot cake. She told them about me, so to cut a long story short (no bookshop pun intended), I've been shooting up there once a week laden with muffins, banana breads and flapjacks, and so far it seems to be going quite well.

The other day, they asked me if I could supply them with mince pies to give out at a book signing that they were hosting. Without hesitation I said I would, despite the fact that I've never actually made one in my life. Mince pies occupy the same space in my baking arsenal as cheesecakes; I make a decent cheesecake, but concede happily that there are plenty who do them better, not least the Jewish delis who are unsurpassed as far as I'm concerned. And if I'm really honest, a stodgy Mr Kipling mince pie - washed down with a little snifter of Baileys - is something of a guilty pleasure on Christmas Eve.

But I'm always up for a challenge, and wasn't about to let 50 of the buggers get the better of me. So after giving it some thought, I did what any self-respecting west Londoner would do faced with a similar dilemma: I called Eugene Manzi.

Eugene is the Godfather of the mince pie. He starts assembling the ingredients for the filling around July, and prepares the mince so early that it's positively humming by the time its unveiled in December. But the recipe is a closely guarded Manzi family secret and, despite years of cunning attempts to extract it , I have never succeeded in breaking him. Believe me, this mincemeat is sensational and worth the effort. Last Christmas, Eugene gave me a big jar of it, assuming that I'd put it to good use in various seasonal offerings, and of course I intended to do this. But in truth - and I'm not proud of this - I stood at the kitchen counter late one night (probably having blubbed through It's a Wonderful Life or some such) and shoved most of it in my gob using a very lady-like teaspoon, which somehow made it seem slightly less gluttonous. It's what generally happens when there's Ben & Jerry's in the house as well; I'll meander by the open freezer door, and delicately spoon little shards of the cold ice-cream into my mouth until there is none left. Which is why it is banned from my life forever. But enough of my sordid confessions.

Generously, and after after some very undignified begging on my part, Eugene agreed to give me a couple of jars as he felt that he just had time to prepare some more before the festivities commence. So with a new-found confidence, realising at the very least that the filling would be really good, I set about finding a recipe that would lend itself to the volume that I had to prepare.

I ended up resorting to my all-purpose pastry recipe - which only uses a tablespoon of icing sugar - as I feel that the filling is rich and sweet enough, and I made little stars of the lids. As you'll see from the snap, they really do look rather pretty. And it was actually a very useful exercise in pastry- making as I had to do several rounds, and found that the dough was better, more rollable and consistent with every batch (regular readers will know that pastry is my nemesis.)

As it turned out, there was way more mincemeat than was necessary, so I'm going to do a whole lot more of the little beauties for Eli's birthday party this weekend. I've sort of got the hang of it now, and am really looking forward to cranking up the mince pie conveyor belt again.

But no recipe to share this time, I'm afraid. Because if I gave it to you, I would have to kill you.

Mmmmm.....moist.

One Christmas, when I was about 11, my fabulously eccentric German grandmother gave me a present which I'll never forget. For all the wrong reasons. It was Bill Maynard's autobiography, Yus my Dear (his catchphrase apparently.) To this day, I'm perplexed as to why she thought that I'd appreciate it, but I kept it of course, and every now and then would spot it on the bookshelf and experience once again, that same sense of wonder. Of all the books in all the world, why had she bought me the memoir of a third-rate comedian, whose minor TV shows I had never actually seen?

I experience a similar feeling these days, when I taste a chocolate cake with a dry sponge. I just don't understand it. I fail to see how a recipe wasn't tweaked, the balance of ingredients altered, the batter experimented with, until moistness was achieved. There really is no excuse for it.

In the last few weeks, I've made tons of chocolate cakes. One to sell at the Portobello Film Festival, another for the Oakstock Market, one for my neighbour for painting a wall, a birthday cake for the gorgeous and hugely appreciative 4-year- old Arthur, and several more besides. This was my light chocolate cake, the one that never fails to rise, the one that I can knock out in an hour or two and which always garners the highest praise. The one that is unfailingly MOIST. So by the time my nephew Stefan's big day came around, I was a little bored of it, and fancied a change. I've lost enthusiasm for the square cake that I talked about in my last post. Even though, with its liberal girth, it's fantastically practical for decorating purposes, flavour-wise it doesn't knock my socks off. So once again, it was Dan Lepard who provided the divine inspiration with his sour cream chocolate cake. For starters, those two words Sour and Cream will always make me a little misty-eyed. I love the stuff - I've used it copiously in cheesecakes and icing, and soaked poppy seeds in it overnight to use as the basis for a coffee cake. I love that it tastes delicate, slightly off-kilter and yet its as indulgent as the double variety. When I saw the recipe in the Guardian a few weeks ago, there was no possibility of not giving it a go.

It was a joy to bake as well, everything mixing together just so. And the glossy ganache-like icing was - well, the icing on the cake I guess. It's pictured at the top of this page, and in all its moist glory on the right here. Despite the fact that many of the posher recipe books recommend 70%- and- over cocoa solids in the chocolate used, I dispute this. I prefer Sainsbury's own- brand fairtrade variety, which is around 52% and does the job just as well, if not better - I nearly always use it in my brownies and chocolate frosting, and may only concede that a higher cocoa volume be necessary if I'm making a torte, where the sheer amount of chocolate required makes the finished result more susceptible to the scrutiny of one's taste-buds.

My cousin Xanthe made a sensational cake last weekend for her son's birthday. Apart from the fact that it was shaped like a number 9, and she had somehow managed to weld it on to the surface of one of his footie shirts (genius), it tasted great, and was wonderfully moist. She had used an American cupcake recipe and was extolling the considerable virtue of buttermilk as an ingredient in chocolate cake. I absolutely concur with her here - it appears in both my favourite recipes, and makes a massive difference to the texture, as well as diluting any surfeit of sweetness.

I'm not a great one for short cuts; I usually prefer to take the more labour intensive route with virtually everything I do, if only to moan about it afterwards (yes, it's my Jewish genes rearing up once again). And nothing horrifies me more than when a TV 'chef' rolls out some shop-bought puff pastry with the cheeky assertion that it 'tastes just as good as if you do it yourself'. Pah to that! But I do admit that melting chocolate and butter in the pan really is a perfectly acceptable alternative to putting them in a bowl over barely boiling water. Unless it's white chocolate, in which case don't even go there: the bowl and steam routine has to occur for that (something to do with the added sugar, I'm guessing, but I'll leave the science bit to someone else who knows or cares.)

So if you can feel a chocolate cake coming on, I'd absolutely give this one a whirl. Delicious. And delightfully moist. Or tell me it's your birthday, and I'll rustle one up for you myself.
www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/.../sour-cream-chocolate-cake-recip...

Let the bread rule your head

I've had a very busy baking month, in which I have (amongst other things): sold cakes and cookies at a community event in Harlesden; made a commissioned birthday cake on which I had to replicate a Picasso-esque illustration of a man with two heads, using a sheet of marzipan and some writing icing; baked the most perfect carrot cake I've ever tasted, let alone had a hand in myself; upgraded my kitchen to include a new shiny stainless steel work surface, and a whole array of spice jar- sized shelves (thanks to Wyn); found a new, very evil chocolate cake recipe which I've been fine-tuning, and attended my second course, this time on bread making.

Once again, the tutor for the morning was Ghalid Assyb, my baking mentor. I admit that I sauntered into the demo kitchen rather over-confidently and had to stop myself from high-fiving Ghalid, or worse - air kissing him on both cheeks. But I wanted the other students to be under no doubt that I was his star-pupil - an artisan pastry-maker - and someone who had remained in contact with him on a regular basis by email and text. Yes, that's right. The poor man has been politely answering my endless questions, responding appropriately to random photographs of brownie batter that I've sent him and in a slightly desperate tone - acknowledging a picture of a semolina tart - exclaimed, 'Yes, that looks great, but I'm in Morocco!' Rock stars get knickers thrown at them. Ghalid gets fuzzy cake pictures.

So back to the course. It was wonderful, again. Light bulbs were flickering above my head every few minutes, as yet another revelatory tip was imparted; using dried yeast and not the quick sachet variety, keeping the mixture wet and sticky until the later stages of kneading, and my favourite - putting the dough in a barely warm oven - around 40C - to rise. Brilliantly effective. We were given the choice of making a classic granary loaf, cinnamon buns, foccacia or a chollah. I of course went for the last option, deciding that not to play the ethnic card would be churlish. And anyway, I LOVE chollah. The loaf that was made in class was perfection - big glossy knots of chewy, slightly sweet white bread.

We were given our barely risen dough to take home to finish, and it was here that I managed to bugger it up. Losing focus and rushing the process are no-no's, and I did both. I blame University Challenge. You try plaiting strips of wet dough, while attempting to identify portraits of late 18th century philosophers (just say Kant repeatedly, and eventually you'll be right.) As a Facebook pal pointed out, it looked more like a loofah than a chollah (it's pictured above - bless). I also managed to ruin the cinnamon buns that I tried out a few days later - multi-tasking doesn't really work with yeast-based products. I got up at the crack of dawn, measured out the ingredients with eyes barely open, shoved the wet ingredients into the dry ones far too quickly, kneaded the sloppy mixture which covered my hands in a gloopy grey mush, and slapped a load more flour into it in an attempt to dry it out a little. I of course realised it wouldn't work but covered it and put it in the oven to rise anyway, then left the house for a morning run, hoping that when I returned the power of positive thought would have helped to transform it into something quite presentable. It hadn't. I doggedly continued though, fashioning the little buns and finishing with a slick of cream cheese and caster sugar brushed on whilst hot, as suggested by Ghalid. I actually thought they tasted quite nice, though there wasn't anything terribly bun-like about them. They were more like little tea cakes, as you will see in the snap. Oddly enough, considering how I usually chastise myself for baking failures, I didn't really mind too much on either of these occasions. The reason for my lack of success was obvious and will be easily remedied: more time, less hurry. It's when I can't quite figure out the problem that I become vexed.

My other significant baking event this month was adding a new chocolate cake to my repertoire. In order to pull off the Picasso moment, I needed something with a nice wide flat surface, and an icing that wasn't too fancy. So I scoured the internet and came up with this one. It is almost embarrassingly simple.

Very naughty square chocolate cake
For the cake - 250g self-raising flour, 250g soft brown sugar, 50g cocoa, 250g plain chocolate, 250g butter, 4 medium eggs.
For the icing: 400g plain chocolate, 284ml single cream, 25g butter, 150g Icing sugar.

1. Line the base and sides of a 20cm x 20cm square baking tin with parchment. Heat oven to 160c.
2. Mix the flour, sugar and cocoa in a bowl (I added another half teaspoon of baking powder)
3. Melt the chocolate and butter with 200ml of water in a pan, cool slightly before chucking it into the dry ingredients.
4. Add the eggs one at a time and beat it all up till there are no lumps.
5. Pour it into the tin and bake for about an hour, but check at regular intervals after about 50 mins to make sure it doesn't overcook. A skewer should come out pretty much clean though. Leave in the tin to cool.
   
6. To make the icing, melt the chocolate, cream and butter until smooth then cool to a spreadable consistency. Beat in the icing sugar to stiffen.
7. Cut the cake in half and spread the icing generously over the bottom half before sandwiching together and dolloping over the top and sides. Cool in the fridge until the icing's as firm as you want it. Dredge with cocoa powder before serving, or top with fresh summer fruit and a strainer-full of icing sugar as I did for my friend Simper's birthday (as seen here).

Oh yeah...you might be wondering why there's a photo of a brownie at the top of this post. Well, just look at it. I rest my case.

Back to school

I've just attended a pastry course at the Cookery School in the West End. I have, on other posts, alluded to my fear of pastry. Despite several attempts - and some have been quite successful (those heavenly little lemon and poppy seed tartlets for example) - there is something worrying about a process that relies so heavily on the elements surrounding it; the heat of the palms of one's hands, the temperature of the water, the quantity of flour to put down on the surface to stop the dough from sticking (too much and it will impair the flavour.) I could go on and on. And yet, my appreciation of a perfectly turned-out pastry case has propelled me to try it again and again.

So when my friend Rachelle bought me a voucher for a couple of courses as an incredibly thoughtful gift, my choices were immediate: pastry and bread - my two nemeses. When I arrived and clocked our teacher for the evening, I started feeling a wee bit giddy. I noticed that his name - displayed on a badge on his chefs' whites - was Ghalid, and I immediately thought of Ottolenghi and his renowned pastry chef...Ghalid Assyb. A man who actually has a chocolate and chestnut bar named after him. For me, this was like signing up for guitar lessons and discovering that your tutor is Jimi Hendrix. Yes, it's THAT BIG.

At first Ghalid seemed genuinely chuffed at having such an admiring student on his course that evening. However, when I started excitedly reciting his recipe's back to him verbatim I could have sworn that I saw him backing away ever so slightly, and what could conceivably be described as a look of fear passed across his features. Still, I was enjoying being the nerdiest girl in the class - shooting my hand up at every available opportunity and relishing the moment when he instructed the other students to observe my rolling technique. Frankly, with my academic record this was an entirely new experience. In my youth, I was more often to be found behind the toilets puffing on a No.6, while trying unsuccessfully to pluck the eyebrows of my best friend Abigail with my spare hand, than sitting in class trying to impress the teachers.

And the course didn't disappoint either. We all got a fantastic amount of one-to-one supervision (OK, there were only three of us) and a front-row view of Ghalid and his quite astonishing pastry skills. Hell, he just made it look so easy: choux paste was effortlessly beaten, puff was rolled into perfect buttery rectangles, shortcrust was draped delicately over pie dishes and pinched daintily atop the most heavenly looking Cornish pasties. And we all had a go, and were amazed by the positive results.

I left with a box containing some of the wares I helped produce, including an apple pie which me and the kids ate the following evening with lashings of whipped cream.

We also each had a sizeable square of our own unused puff to take home. So a few days later, I had a go at my own cheese straws - made with Gruyere and caraway seeds - and lovely, delicate palmiers. I also wanted to make something else with sweet pastry, so chose another one of Ghalid's masterpieces from the Ottolenghi book - a raspberry and semolina tart. All of these are pictured.

While working, I realised - slightly depressingly - how the shortcomings in my kitchen affect the outcome of my pastry attempts. The slippery stainless steel surfaces at the Cookery School aided the process and made it so much more effortless. It was positively enjoyable to roll out the dough, unlike the laborious task that befalls me at home, where toasters, kettles, bread bins and a whole array of other kitchen detritus impair the activity unless they're removed - which is hardly practical. And wooden worktops - though high on rustic charm - are pretty rubbish for anything other than chopping vegetables. I may well have to do something about this.

So I've got the bread course next week and once again, I believe that it's with my baking mentor. Be afraid, Ghalid. Be very afraid....

It's NOT a gas.

I've just come back from Thorpeness. Regular readers of this blog may recall that this is an annual and eagerly anticipated family holiday, and a great excuse to bake copiously for the fourteen people who attend each year. As usual I spent more time planning my baking schedule than packing, and upon arriving at the new house (where we haven't stayed before) headed for the kitchen to check out the facilities.

I was buoyed by the presence of a massive double oven, and imagined getting two or maybe three things on the go at once. How was I to know of the wiping of sweat and wringing of hands that would ensue?....

Saturday: Poppyseed coffee cake.

This was a recipe from the Guardian magazine a few weeks ago. I apologise for my naked bias towards that publications food columnists, but there is no doubt that I am singing from the same culinary hymn sheet as messrs Hugh, Yotam and Dan.

So the prep began with soaking the whole bag of poppy seeds in sour cream overnight, which for some intangible reason, thrilled me to my core. The recipe also required a hefty shot of double- espresso, which I proceeded to imbibe at regular intervals throughout the rest of the day causing a minor caffeine psychosis. Perhaps then, it was the eye-bulging, nail-biting, teeth-grinding effect of the coffee which contributed to my first diva-esque tantrum of the week; the cake didn't rise properly. It tasted nice enough, though oddly not as strongly of coffee as I'd have liked or expected. But the dense poppy seed mix gave the cake a lovely texture, and the assembled masses gave it a thumbs up. I wasn't happy though. Something wasn't right. 6/10

Sunday: Rye hazelnut brownies.
I've banged on enough about these brownies in previous posts, and feel no need to mention again how great they are, how utterly foolproof and, because they are prepared entirely in the pan, how they keep the washing up to a minimum too. The plan was to have them for pudding with some vanilla icecream and summer fruit salad. I've made them a million times, and was therefore horrified when I checked on them after the usual 20-odd minutes to find them overdone. No gooey centre (essential for a decent brownie), but a crumbly cakey texture.

It was when my friend Louise checked on the roast chickens a little later to find that the one on the left side of the oven was basting nicely, but the bird on the right looked like it had only just left the abattoir, that things starting shifting into place...we had a gas problem. Lunch was subsequently 3 and a half hours late, by which time no one really gave a toss whether the brownies had a perfect finish or not. And they did go brilliantly with the icecream and berries. But I wasn't happy. 5/10

Tuesday: Sour cherry and beetroot cake.
I've made this once before - for my friend Rachelle's birthday. It's a madly eccentric cake - topped with crumble and held together with a thick layer of cream whipped up with cherry jam. It shouldn't really work but it truly does. Or did. Having boiled the beetroot (I will always do things the hard way), grated it, prepared the crumble and put the two halves of vividly pink batter in their tins in the oven, I was dismayed to then discover that the one on the right had not risen. Not even a teeny bit. But it had cooked, so I was stuck with a bottom layer that resembled some sort of carmine tortilla. Or a raspberry naan bread. I did my best to repair the damage by adding a little cosmetic improvement, but as soon as it was sliced, the whole thing more or less fell apart.

The critics, however, were undeterred and raved about its flavour. One of them even went so far as to declare it one of their favourites ever. But by now my confidence was plummeting - this was not the perfect result that I'm accustomed to, and I was about to get extremely stroppy. 4/10.

Wednesday: Honey treacle loaf cake.
This was a recipe that appeared in Dan Lepard's column quite recently, and not making it was simply not an option. Rye flour, lemon icing and packed with a whole raft of spices? Bring it on. I have to say this was a joy to prepare - everything just smelt so damn good - and again, a lot of it involved merely melting the ingredients in a saucepan. So this time, I put the cake on the hotter left side of the oven, and hoped for the best.

And at last, something went right. It was a truly yummy cake, with a real kick. But it was overdone - the edges were distinctly crusty, but I was relieved that it at least resembled a loaf, and the middle bit was a spicy, treacly delight. 7/10.

Thursday: Apple berry almond tart.
So this was my swan song for the week. And in the spirit of facing my demons all at once, I decided to attempt some shortcrust pastry. Rolling dough, dicky oven...what could possibly go wrong? But actually, five days in and I think I had at at last got the hang of the oven's strange idiosyncrasies. The tart - which is pretty much a bakewell, only nicer - came out really well. You can see it at the top of the page. I added some fresh blueberries to the base to give it an extra fruity dimension, and you can spot them straining for freedom through the frangipane. 8/10.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/07/apple-berry-almond-tart-dan-lepard

Contrary to appearances, I did - from time to time - escape the kitchen in order to wander down to the beach, stand at the very edge of the sea, which on that particular bit of coastline remains cold and grey even when the sun is shining, and daydream about my childhood, with my parents, and Paul and Joanna and our friends. And consider how lucky I am, despite everything.