Put the oatmeal on to a baking tray and either toast in the oven (200C/400F/Gas Mark 6) or under the grill until it is a golden brown colour.
Whip the double cream until it forms soft peaks then add the honey and whisky. Reserve a small amount of the oatmeal for scattering on the top later, fold the rest into the cream mixture and then fold in the liquidised raspberries.
Put the mixture into a bowl or individual serving dishes then spoon the remaining raspberries and reserved oatmeal on to the top.
For a slightly less rich version you could use half cream and half yoghurt in which case whip the cream first and then stir in the yoghurt. You can also vary it using any soft fruit but raspberries give it a traditional Scottish feel.
450g ripe pears, peeled, cored and thickly sliced
1tbsp muscovado sugar
2 mangoes, peeled, stoned and cut into chunks
1 piece of stem ginger, finely chopped
For the topping:
175g plain flour
85g butter
85g muscovado sugar
85g pecans put into a plastic bag and bashed with a rolling pin in order to chop them up.
Heat the oven to 180C/160F/gas mark 4. Then put the pears in a pan with the sugar and 4tbsp water. Cook over a gentle heat for 5 minutes until the pears are just tender. Remove from the heat and stir in the mango chunks and the chopped ginger. Spoon the mixture into a shallow 1.75 litre baking dish and leave whilst you make the topping. To do this rub the butter into the flour until it is like breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar and the chopped pecans. Sprinkle this mixture over the fruit, then bake in the oven for 30 minutes until browned.
Delicious, especially with cream or vanilla ice cream.
‘The Great British Bakeoff’ may have finished for this year but we have many customers coming into our shops asking what the silver coloured bakeware is that they use on this programme.
It’s from Silverwood, is made in England and the silver comes from an anodising process that although not non stick provides a really smooth and easy to clean finish.
The metal itself is an excellent conductor of heat for really even cooking. You don’t need to do any seasoning before you use it, just give it a quick wash in warm, soapy water and you’re ready to bake. If you’re making a sponge cake you will need to grease the pan before putting the mixture in – unsalted butter is usually best. Pastry won’t need any greasing as the fat in the pastry does the job.
In our shops we are often asked why a salt mill has stopped working. So many times the culprit is damp. Salt extracts damp or steam from the kitchen and as a result the grinder becomes clogged and nothing will come out. To sort the problem you can put a few grains of rice into the mill or make a home for it away from steam and in a warmer drier place such as near a radiator.
Do bear in mind though that some salt such as Malden salt is too flaky to go through the grinders of most mills apart from the crush grind style ceramic grinders.
Pepper Mills
The main thing with pepper corns is that they should be small rather than large as this will ensure that they go through the mill system properly. Also coloured pepper corns, e.g. pink, can cause problems as they can be too soft and clog the mechanism. Finally it is always better to avoid buying peppercorns in bulk as they may not have been sorted properly and can include bits of twig or even stone.
I was asked the other day why a stainless steel pan, for which the customer paid a lot of money, acquired a blue hue after cooking pasta.
Well I am afraid it’s the usual suspect – heat. Quite often a pan will get a blue tinge from heat. Some say overheating but I have found it happening on a gas hob which is not the hottest and occasionally even in the dishwasher. Sometimes a gold colour will also appear up the sides of the pan.
The discolouration comes and goes and in no way compromises the integrity of the pan so you can either live with it or use a stainless cleaner such as the Fissler Proline Cleaner. This will also deal with the dreaded salt marking (white spots) caused by putting salt into the pan which then gets trapped by the food against the pan’s bottom. To avoid this only add salt to the boiling water after the food has been put in the pan
Incidentally “salts” can also come from the water itself so even if you don’t use salt in cooking you can still get salt spotting.
‘The Great British Bakeoff’ may have finished for this year but we have many customers coming into our shops asking what the silver coloured bakeware is that they use on this programme.
Salt Mills