Rosemary and Sea Salt Crackers

So, this is my very first savory recipe on Sugar Thumb… contraversiiiiiall!

How did this MADNESS begin I hear you cry? Well, my mum bought me some delicious spelt crackers over from England which I was nibbling at my desk at work every once in a while. They were full of delicious flavours from fennel seeds and sea salt, pepper and other wondrously tasty yet wholesome things.

Then my colleague Holly was inspired to buy crackers too. She bought these AMAZING rosemary ones and I suddenly thought.. how hard can it be to make a cracker. Turns out, not that hard, or time consuming. And so began… the wonderful journey of cracker making.

French Country Baking with Eric Lanlard

For my mum’s birthday, my dad got her two places at one of Eric Lanlard’s (of Channel 4’s Baking Mad) baking classes. So, on Thursday we both went to his cafe in Wandsworth “Cake Boy” for the French Country Baking course.

Eric is originally from Britanny in France, so the following three cakes are exquisitely and classically French. The first one, is his pear tarte tatin, the second the britanny speciality – gateau breton, which is sort of like shortbread but with apple in the middle. Popular the world over at weddings, christenings etc.

HealthIER Version of a Sundae…

So, bare in mind that I NEVER said these were actually healthy…. but for all those icecream lovers (NOT ME… I am quote as having said ” I don’t get the point of ice-cream”) who love a good sundae… this is an alternative.

There really is no recipe to be honest… which is another reason why I did this post. I needed something quick to practice my photography skills with. I have been taking this great course by Allversity which details ISO, aperture, shutter speed and a lot of really useful other techniques to help improve your photos – if you would like to have a go here is the link for this free photography course.

Almond pastry Apple & Strawberry flats

Last night I made chicken stew with dumplings… the english kind stuffed with thyme and mustard. Not the kind with potatoes in… I think my body would have died of carb overload if I had eaten potato too.  As always, the stew began as a healthy affair. Lots of onions and garlic, broccoli, spring onions, stock and very little oil. But then came the dumplings… and the CREAM. I find when I have put too much vinegar or salt into a dish, a bit of cream and water helps a lot. But it doesn’t help one in being healthy… which was my failed goal last night. But oh well.. I will have a salad for lunch and get the hell over it. It was delicious.. and I think dumplings should be made more. I like to think of them as England’s answer to soul food.

Anyway, moving swiftly on to the topic at hand – these are my latest recipe – I didn’t really know if they were pies or not.. so I would like to call them flats. Or pie flats if we must. I made some shortcrust pastry and added ground almond, then stewed some apples and strawberry with a dash of sugar. And taddda! I like the rustic look as you all know by now – making things look perfect doesn’t make them appetizing for me. I like a bit of a rough finish!

Cake sale in Berlin

 

 

The main reason I am posting this cake today… is NOT to give you a delicious recipe. I wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know that I am going to be selling many of the cakes I have shown on the blog… and many more. Tarts, pies, donuts and cookies too… down at the Maybachufer Market (by Ankerklause) on Kottbusser Damm this saturday. My darling friends Cleo and Minette are going to come and help me… and the prices are extremely reasonable – 1,50 for most things.

If you live in Berlin and you would like to try my cakes, come down and say hi! I’m going to be showcasing my new recipe – caramel and pear tart!

Hazelnut & Chocolate Mudsliiiide CAKE

One thing I have learnt about baking, is that things don’t always go the way you wish. And while I sometimes feel like throwing the whole thing in the bin (like a cry baby), most of the time… you can turn your baking ruin into something cool and unexpected.

The fashion with baking at the moment, seems to be neat, smooth, perfect looking things. But when I showed my flatmate the final Hazelnut and chocolate cake, he said it looked delicious. So , sometimes as a baking enthusiast you have to try and be more diverse and less uniform and think what do people like to eat, rather than.. what looks like all the other photographs on pinterest. Therefore… I have to admit, despite being horribly disappointed by the result at first.. because I wanted it to be perfect with no drips or smudges, I quite like the blatently home-made hodge podge look of this cake. It is drippy and slidy.. and not particularly stable at times… so I felt it only fair to add the word “mudslide” to its name.