Denise

I am a writer and a poet. I love to travel, and have lived in Belgium, Spain, Brazil, Chile and England. I love experiencing different cultures and their cuisine. I especially love Brazil, its culture and samba. And of course I love to bake!

The 107th Bake: Rye & Spelt Rolls

golden and delcious

It’s funny when you go to the shops for one thing and come away with an eclectic array of items you didn’t go in for. Happened to me at the hardware store the other day, I came away with a washing basket, yoga mat and a pink hibiscus, after going in for a paint brush! Keeps life interesting I guess, as does homemade bread making, so much fun. And this one was made by hand. I felt like the concrete man, my hands were so covered in cement like mixture but it was worth it aside from the fact I’d had a particularly had gym work out the day before so sore muscles didn’t mix well with kneading for 15 minutes.

  • gluggy mess
  • warmest room in the house for rising

These Rye & Spelt rolls gave off a decadent maple syrup/honey aroma when cooked and have that special flavour as well. It’s due to the four tablespoons of runny honey in the mixture! To make the bread I

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By Denise, ago

Plum Sauce

Something for the fridge or pantry that you can whip up in a spare hour. It doesn’t take long, just chop, boil and done!

I love homemade plum sauce and I love making it. Plums are so cheap at the moment, so I bought a bag while I was at the supermarket and voila, had my ingredients all set to go. To make the plum sauce, you simply cut up the plums, take out the pips, then place them in a saucepan with all the ingredients listed below…

Use those beautiful plums…
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By Denise, ago

The 106th Bake: Chocolate Fudge Tart

This chocolate fudge tart took a while but was extremely worth it. It’s already half gone and I’ve barely had a slice. Daughter was going to have dessert with friends so took a full quarter, then son came in and wammo another quarter was gone. I’m thinking about putting the last half away for a rainy day in the freezer. It is made with walnut pastry, and has a decadent fudge centre full of walnuts ( I added Brazil nuts too, my favourite nut as I didn’t have enough walnuts.) It’s so good, I’m giving you the recipe right here so you can try it. Here’s the link to the book btw, FYIhttps://shop.bbc.com/the-great-british-bake-off-big-book-of-baking-20861.html

Believe it or not, there is no actual chocolate in this tart, just cocoa, but it comes out super chocolaty. To make the pastry I added walnut pieces to the flour, salt and caster sugar and whizzed. Then added butter to make a fine breadcrumb. After adding cold water the fine crumb turned into

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By Denise, ago

The 105th Bake: Roast Vegetable & Goat’s Cheese Torte

Simple ingredients made amazing, that’s how I would describe this recipe. It looks extremely complicated but it’s actually not and I would make it again. Everybody knows how to make pancakes right. Well these were made with wholemeal flour, so quite wholesome. This torte is simply pancakes layered with roasted veges, red and yellow peppers, aubergine, zucchini (and I threw in some beetroot and pumpkin)and feta cheese. Simple ingredients made delicious. The first thing I did was

slice up the veges into short lengths and put them in a roasting dish with olive oil and a few sprigs of fresh thyme.

I made the crepe batter using wholemeal flour, an egg plus one egg yolk and milk. I whisked these ingredients together to make a smooth, fairly thin batter. Then I covered the bowl and left this at room temperature for 30 minutes.

  • Make a well
  • Chopped veges mixed with olive oil and thyme
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By Denise, ago

The 104th Bake: Miniature Chocolate & Cherry Cakes

One miniature and one large chocolate cherry cake!

My miniature chocolate & cherry cakes were not so miniature. I decided to make a birthday cake for my son, born on Valentines Day, – cherries and chocolate, perfect!!

Given that I didn’t have the 16 miniature ramekins, it seemed like too good an opportunity to waste, so big birthday cake it was. I have to say, if you’ve ever thought about pimping up a cake, this has got to fall into that category. What didn’t it have in it? It had from melted chocolate, to cocoa, to liqueur to cherry syrup, cherries and buttermilk, this was a rich wholesome cake. It made me realize there’s no holding back when baking. You can pimp your cake anytime!!!! Add cherries, melted chocolate, whatever you like. Such a great idea, even inject liqueur if it’s a special occasion, Why not I say?

  • muscovado sugar gave it an extra depth of flavour
  • chopped cherries
  • melt that chocolate

So to make the cake I melted dark chocolate over a bain marie, and set this aside to cool. I beat together butter, caster sugar, and muscovado sugar till light and creamy, and gradually beat in the eggs. Then

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By Denise, ago

The 102nd Bake: Dundee Whisky Cake

Have you ever made a mistake and thought, I can’t believe that just happened. We go through life on a wish and a prayer, not anticipating mistakes and mishaps but always shocked and annoyed when they do happen. (Speaking of which I just accidentally posted the 103rd bake before this one, which I baked a week ago and is now ready to eat!!!) I went to the beach with my daughter the other day, quick trip as she had to be somewhere later. I backed up next to the curb and as we got out, she said, “you’ve punctured the tyre on the curb.” “What surely not” I thought, but lo and behold, there it was hissing air, going flat before our eyes. Turned into a quick, very annoying and expensive trip to the beach!!!

So I went to make this cake, Dundee Whisky Cake and as you can see it has Whisky in it. I knew my husband had some whisky stored in the back of the liquor cabinet so reached in and pulled out what I thought was a cheap bottle that had been sitting there forever. I was supposed to soak the fruit overnight, but thought 5 tablespoons of whisky with an extra splash for good luck soaking for a few hours would do the trick instead. He popped in while I was making the cake and said in shock “What is the gold label doing out?” I told him and he nearly fell over in explaining to me that it was a very expensive 18 year old bottle of whisky I had broken the seal on, to make a cake!!! Woops. Now that’s going to be a very expensive delicious cake!!! Another unforeseen mishap! Never mind, I’m sure he will forgive me when he gets to eat the cake. Haha. So to make this cake I first put the whisky into the fruit and mixed peel to soak!!! (yum)

  • Oops, I used rather a lot !
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By Denise, ago

The 103rd Bake: Little Crab Soufflé

I have never made a soufflé, couldn’t have told you what was in it or how to make it. Neither had I tried one!!! All I could imagine was light as air, and cheesy texture. And I was right. It was so rich this recipe, full of a lot of cream and eggs (of course) and it certainly lived up to my expectations of a soufflé, light, rich and delicious. To make the soufflé I chopped up the crab into small pieces and prepared the ramekins with butter, bread crumbs and grated Parmesan. I had to use surimi as that’s all I could find at the supermarket but it was yum anyway. It gave the soufflé a lovely sweet flavour.

I melted butter in a pan and added

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By Denise, ago

Mary Berry’s Pavlova

The other day I had people over for dinner and at the last minute I didn’t feel I had enough pudding!!!! Ahhhhhhh. I had watched Mary Berry making a pavlova on TV and had jotted down the recipe on the fridge. SO I whipped it up. This was my first official Pavlova (lets just say my first official “successful” Pav) The recipe seemed pretty fail safe, and it worked a treat.

To translate my scribble that’s:

  • 6 egg whites
  • 365 g caster sugar
  • 1 tsp white wine vinegar
  • 1 tsp corn starch (which she said makes it soft and chewy in the middle)

I beat the egg whites together until they form soft peaks, then beat in

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By Denise, ago

The 101st Bake: Flourless Walnut Torte


You would think making sponges is hard. Well I did. There was always a fear and anticipation of impending failure at the thought of making a sponge, but I have come to realize that it is the sequence of the process, not the ingredients that leads to its success.

The ingredients are simple; eggs, sugar and flour usually. But it’s what you do with them that matters. And this sponge didn’t even use flour. It used ground walnuts, interesting. I browned the nuts in the oven, then pulsed them in a food processor to make a fine crumb.

  • browning the nuts
  • Whizzing the walnuts to
  • a fine crumb

I then separated the eggs, and after adding a pinch of salt, beat the whites to stiff peaks. I added the sugar to the yolks and whisked until the

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By Denise, ago