I wasn’t supposed to have made this cake. At midnight, I lay on my bed furious with myself that yet another attempt to make genoise sponges had transformed into three dense pancakes that were both rock hard and doughy at the same time. I was baking for a charity bake sale, the first since we…
On Sunday afternoon, the sun streaming through the drapes and the flat eerily quiet, I started to bake. The new oven, quick to heat and quiet itself, was turned on and a bag of flour folded over with sellotape was prised open. I had elbow room to bake, nobody needing past to reach the kettle…
When I was a child, pancake day was all about the sprinkles. My mam would usually make them for pudding, a plate of gently steaming pancakes, a tub of vanilla ice cream, Treat! strawberry syrup and whatever sprinkles the baking cupboard yielded set in the middle of the table. My sister would usually choose Nutella to…
Routine is an unexpected comfort in life. The way the downstairs neighbour’s dog barks as soon as the postman rounds the corner. How the kettle rumbles in a low baritone just seconds before the boil and that two teaspoons of sugar go in one cup and two teaspoons of coffee go in both to transform bleary…