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what i like so much about this one which i notice is published by quadrille and is adding to my conviction that they ve totally nailed it this year is the discussion about what chocolate is how it s made how to taste it buy it store it and more along with the range of recipes it s a beautiful and ultimately really inspiring book it s also made cocoa nibs a stable store cupboard ingredient i ve put them in some of the mincemeat i ve made this year and am really excited to see how that s worked out the recipes aren t all sweet by a long way there s a lot of savoury stuff here that uses nibs which have the most incredible smell to add an extra something the sweet dukkah recipe alone is worth buying the book for it s amazingly versatile and totally addictive there s also a handful of fabulous hot chocolate recipes the medici inspired jasmine tea infused hot chocolate has become a particular favourite leafing through the book now i m also tempted to make a cocoa infused tipple vodka tequila bourbon whisky and rum are all suggested as possible base spirits i d be most inclined to use rum or vodka you want 500mls of spirit 50g of cocoa nibs 2 tbsp of lightly crushed coffee beans and a vanilla pod pour the booze into a stoppered bottle add everything else and leave to infuse for a couple of weeks shaking often then strain through a coffee filter or similar before returning it to the bottle keep in the fridge and use within 3 months over the years i ve tried a few posh hot chocolate brands but so far cupsmith has been my favourite it s not cheap but it makes an excellent hot chocolate i ve been buying either the plain or the salted caramel versions from waitrose and before today had never looked at their website turns out there are other exciting flavours available i want to try all of them i like this so much because it s the one that seems to mix best and most quickly with milk at 5 a pack it s a luxury and definitely in welcome present territory but on cold wet grey days like today a little luxury is welcome posted by desperate reader at 3 26 pm 2 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday december 5 2019 sour with shrubs and switchels i ve been putting up my christmas tree this afternoon and if it seems early to you to do that i m working on the principles that if i m spending money on it i want to get the maximum enjoyment out of it and that i ll spend the next week at least rearranging decorations to get them in the right place i m also away over new year so it s going to have to come down early this years tree currently smells of what i think might be fox pee and superglue some decorations needed first aid i m also realising again that the red through to burgundy decorations i like so much in shops look quite oppressively dark together on a tree that s backlit by a large window which means i can never get a decent photo of it either silver and gold would look better but mark diacono s sour brings just the right balancing acidity to where i m at with decorating it s been an interesting year for cookbooks not so many big name releases though obviously there are a few of those around but quite a few focused on specific flavours or ingredients which have been particularly good sour is excellent i ve always found diacono an interesting writer and in this book more than ever a charming one too as well as being a book to cook from it s a delight to read if you saw it in a bookshop i m fairly sure the cover design would catch your eye quadrille s design team are producing the most beautiful books at the moment but unfortunately i ve not seen it in my local bookshops small waterstones and a w h smiths which is a shame because this is a book that deserves a lot of love i wrote a bit more about it here shrub is an old fashioned sort of drink which comes in two sorts one is spirit based and liqueur like or there s a sweetened vinegar version both are acidic in character the shrub recipes in sour are of the second type which harks back to early american style cocktails shrub can take a bit of planning ahead to make ingredients might need time to ferment and the whole thing will want to mature a bit but they re also a really useful thing to have around to either add a bit of personality to a cocktail or to have as an adult tasting soft drink the switchel recipes don t take as long to make and are probably less useful as mixers although worth playing with but again an excellent complex non alcoholic drink the combination of honey apple cider vinegar ginger and lemon juice has a virtuous healthy kind of ring to it as well which is just what the season requires i would give a recipe but seriously buy the book you ll be glad you did and there are a few other cracking good drink recipes in it too the zobo sounds amazing and the cranberry sour recipe is a winner posted by desperate reader at 3 33 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest wednesday december 4 2019 sir gawain and the green knight with ale i really don t know very much about beer far less than i should considering that some level of knowledge has been part of my job description for the last 2 decades mostly i ve either bluffed my way through a conversation or straight out admitted to relative ignorance a lot of people simply want to be reassured they ve made a good choice of product in which case a confidant yes is a reasonable bluff anything more detailed than that calls for honesty the reason for this is that i don t really drink beer in any of its forms and if i m buying it it s almost certainly to be cooked with where either the recipe will tell me what i want or i have a good idea of the flavour profile or abv i want last week i stayed with a friend who s serious about his beer making though and he had made a christmas ale which was amazing rich dark malty spiced and with a touch of chilli and ginger to warm it up drinking it was both a revelation and a reminder the revelation was how much i liked it the reminder was that smaller bottles are now a thing and that it s perfectly possible to split a bottle and drink it from goblet type glasses rather than by the pint my issue with beer has always been about quantity a pint being almost always more than i want the range of beers available on the high street has changed a lot whilst i ve been working with them too there s been a lot of innovation with a whole range of flavour profiles which would have sounded outlandish when i was starting out i m thinking of things like black sheep s pineapple milkshake ipa at the moment which does taste of pineapple and is also excellent but means there s a whole lot of new routes to finding the right beer for you i bought the simon armitage translation of sir gawain and the green knight last year thinking it would be great winter reading but never got round to it i ve pulled it off the shelf again with more good intentions and can t help but think reading it by a warm fire or at least some flickering candles with a glass of warmly spiced christmas ale or a mulled ale would really add to the winter s tale atmosphere i also think a bit of poetry is a brilliant christmas present it s too seldom the sort of thing we buy ourselves a bit of a push is no bad thing here i ve got a handful of plays and poetry books i d never have looked at if they hadn t been presents which would have been very much my loss posted by desperate reader at 7 59 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest tuesday december 3 2019 sip 100 gin cocktails with an aviation or a hot gin twist i wrote about just how much i like this book back in september when it came out nothing has changed and i think it will make an excellent present for any of the gin lovers in your life some of the gin lovers in my life might well find they re getting copies this year the reason i like it so much is the 3 ingredient rule it s not that all the ingredients mentioned are likely to be on a supermarket shelf some might need a bit of effort to track down but the way it makes you think about a drink and how to build it there s also a lot of things that only require the most basic ingredients and everything in between on the long list of things i do not understand sits the fashionability of parma violet flavoured gin in my opinion it s altogether too much violet being the kind of flavour you need to go easy on much better to buy a bottle of violet liqueur that can be used with discretion the aviation is a cocktail for an occasion it seems to have first emerged around 1911 and since then a few different recipes have sprung up the sipsmith take on it is as good as any of them and i particularly like the suggestion of serving it with a roll of parma violet sweets on the side it s a nice touch for an extra festive feel it s 50mls of a good juniper led gin 10mls of lemon juice and 10mls of crème de violette shaken over ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass a maraschino cherry adds a finishing touch the hot gin twist doesn t call for any special ingredients and is just the thing to have after a cold walk i don t think we pay enough attention to hot alcoholic drinks this one is apparently inspired by the hot gin sold during the london frost fairs it s simply 40mls of gin 25mls of fresh lemon juice and 25mls of simple sugar syrup or a heaped tablespoon of white sugar topped up with 100 150mls of boiling water and garnished with a twist of lemon peel to further get into the eighteenth century spirit i might serve this with some gingerbread the light pollution in leicester makes star gazing more or less impossible even if i did have a garden which i don t but next time i m in the country on a clear night i m wrapping up warm making this and heading outside posted by desperate reader at 9 14 pm 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest monday december 2 2019 this golden fleece and edinburgh gin apple and spice liqueur i ve been reading esther rutter s this golden fleece for months now putting it down to deal with other commitments including some knitting projects and other books it s travelled all over the place with me and now it looks like it it s a journey through britain s knitted history which mean two of my favourite places shetland and the bit of the scottish borders i m best acquainted with get chapters rutter is an engaging writer who explores all sorts of avenues in her journey around the country as well as sharing a good bit about herself her enthusiasm for the project she s undertaken jumps off every page and for anyone who follows her on social media it s clear the adventure continues it will be interesting to see what she writes next but meanwhile this is a great book for anyone interested in making or british history i bought the apple spice gin liqueur as a christmas present but am tempted to get another bottle for myself common sense argues that i have a lot of booze in the house already and no job flavoured gins are not really my thing and as a category they re a little bit troubling but edinburgh gin is an exception to that the problem for me is that a lot of what s currently being labelled as flavoured gin is basically flavoured vodka there s nothing wrong with flavoured vodka but it s not as fashionable as gin hence the rebranding and it doesn t feel entirely honest gin should taste predominantly of juniper but there s not actually much active regulation over labelling so the boundaries between gin and liqueurs is blurring in a way that isn t terribly helpful edinburgh gin to be clear are not part of the problem their flavoured products are clearly marketed as gin based liqueurs and the serving suggestions they come with reflect that i m looking at the apple spice as something that would be fun to add to a martini instead of vermouth for a seasonal twist or to drink over ice edinburgh gin do a whole range of these they re beautifully packaged a sensible 50cl size nobody needs liqueurs hanging around for to long and at around 18 a bottle not stupidly expensive if you re looking for something fun to add to the christmas bar or to personalise a classic cocktail they re a great place to start posted by desperate reader at 10 25 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday december 1 2019 wassail bowl with ambrose heath s good drinks i was in two minds about doing anything drink related here this december but then i went to church this morning it seemed like a good way to mark the beginning of advent and a bishop was visiting my parish church he officially blessed the new toilets they ve had installed which was more than i had expected when he had done with the toilets he gave a sermon which included a 19th century recipe for a wassail or loving cup the bishop s recipe was something like a mulled wine with added egg i d very much like to know his 19th century source because none of my books have anything like it under either wassail or loving cup but my collection is by no means extensive and i m always interested to learn more wassailing falls into two different winter traditions one which seems to be having a bit of a comeback is to bless apple trees in the hope of a good cider harvest the following year and takes place around twelfth night the other is a house visiting wassail where people go door to door singing and offering a drink from the wassail bowl in return for presents regardless of which tradition appeals most i m a big fan of warm drinks at this time of year and don t think we make nearly enough of them i m also a big fan of alternatives to mulled wine and an even bigger fan of ambrose heath persephone books have reprinted a couple of his titles and so have faber faber all make for delightful reading and not for the first time i m going to laud them as potential presents anybody who s followed this blog for a while will know how much i love good drinks though and how often i refer to it for recipes the faber faber edition is a handsome hardback the recipes mostly at the practical end of vintage there s something for more or less every occasion in it and it includes a wassail this one is ale based and asks for 2 pints it asks for a quart conversion tables tell me that s 2 pints i m taking it on trust of hot ale to which you add a quarter of an ounce each of grated nutmeg powdered ginger and cinnamon then add half a bottle of sherry i d use an oloroso or amontillado two slices of toast the juice and peel of a lemon and two baked apples then sweeten the whole lot to taste i haven t actually tried this though i did once make lamb s wool which is also ale based but with a lot more apple and no toast or sherry it was excellent this year it will be the wassail as soon as i m back near an aga perfect for casually baking a couple of apples and not worrying about having an almost empty oven posted by desperate reader at...