When you are king, dilly dilly

This all started with rose cream. One of my bezzie pals mailed to say that she'd celebrated her birthday with petit choux à la rose and I was instantly enchanted: what more romantic and feminine way to indulge your special day, a fete for the most fabulous femme?!
So anyway, that wee gem of a thought wormed its way into the recesses of my brain, and then a few days later I found myself in the midst of  a flower festival at my local botanical gardens...

Mincemeat Muffins

I love muffins. They're dead easy to make and you can add pretty much anything you like to them - blueberries, cranberries, chocolate chips in all shapes and sizes, nuts, etc. etc. I tend to put in whatever I have to hand and it being Christmas, right now that means mincemeat. 

Today's bread

I've been so busy cooking with yesterday's bread there's none leftover for today, and not being one to relish an empty bread bin I decided to rustle up a loaf, though I'm not entirely sure that this strictly qualifies as bread - what else you'd call it beats me, mind you. 'Cake' comes with a whole load of other connotations that really don't do much to tantalize the taste buds in this instance. It has the texture of steamed bread (think Chinese steamed buns) - it's moister (the mix is surprisingly wet), denser, more chewy (starchier?) than regular bread and doesn't brown at all, despite the fact that it had 25 minutes in the oven, but it is good so think somewhere between a banana bread and Cake Salé - the savory French 'cakes of salt' and you'll get some idea of where this is at. Whatever, it works a treat with a big bowl of onion soup and it's dead easy to make - no yeast, no kneading, no proving, so it's done and in the oven in 15 minutes or so. 

All Things Ginger

Not a spice to slip in unobtrusively, ginger has a tangy freshness, light spiciness, warmth, and mellow sweetness that complements a range of dishes, from sweet to savory. It can be a dominant flavoring, or it can work in conjunction with other flavors. Fresh ginger works with pretty much everything: fruit, vegetables, poultry, fish and all kinds of meat, though it does particularly amazing things to the flavors of pork. 
It plays a significant role in Japanese cuisine though in England, fresh ginger is generally associated with Asian cooking, in the broadest sense of that term (forgive me if I'm a tad out of touch with culinary practices in English kitchens...), while the powdered root finds its way into a whole range of sweet treats - gingerbread men and ginger cake (the sticky Lyle's Jamaican variety) bring back especially happy memories of childhood. And then there's crystallized ginger dipped in chocolate; now that's a truly indulgent after dinner treat. Oh and there's ginger ale, of course, which, with whiskey and a wedge of lime, is undoubtedly the best way to drink bourbon if you're not into single malt. 

Soda Farls

Every now and again my mum sends seasonal recipe booklets that she picks up at her local supermarket, though as with so many things these days, they're no longer free. More often than not these serve merely to allow me to indulge in food nostalgia (they're tied to the supermarket so a lot of the ingredients simply aren't available here in Japan), but every now and again there'll be something I can attempt to replicate in my Tokyo kitchen. These soda farls are one such recipe.