ALMOND & PISTACHIO BISCUITS

All that hasn’t happened in four years has suddenly decided to elbow its way to me and happen in the space of a month; and there’s a long long list of people and shoes and medications, boxes, bubble wrap, Texas dreams and Spanish Squads, trains and planes and places and faces; plans and plants and plantains; but never mind breathing, there’s got to be room for baking; and even though I myself will have to stick to whisky and Star Wars breakfast cereal (separately) to avoid death from stomach ache, I know how to make good use of the packs of almonds and pistachios lying in the still-stupidly-full kitchen cupboard (and that goes without mentioning the dinosaur cookie cutters, because you can always make good use of dinosaur cookie cutters): almond and pistachio biscuits; deep breath; go.

SPECULOOS & ALMOND TABBOULEH

If I said I was expecting to get back to Bad City after my first session of extraordinary adventures with a master plan of some kind, I would be lying; and just as unsurprisingly my head is now sailing its way through a pretty lake of a million very volatile non-master plans, and the heel angle of this boat it is on doesn’t look safe one bit, and I wouldn’t stop shivering with terror if I tried; and in this sort of trans-boundary waters of being, here goes me splashing around a little (what else can you do), and fishing out this memory of colourful bowls of bulgur and spices, for me and my daddy under the fair African sky, then mixing it with picnics on top of a sunny hill in a land of shiny rivers or streams or creeks or heaven knows, then folding in some sweetness, with sticky dates from Middle Eastern stores right in the heart of South London, and Mexican vanilla, via Canada, and delicious Belgian biscuits and a sprinkle of toasted almonds from, now I know, a Beautiful Country. And as with most crazy things, the boat heels and heels and it will either tip over or get you to the shore safe and sound before dark; and with this one, I think I’ve passed my nautical test a hundred percent: ahoy sweet biscuity tabbouleh.

LEMON & CHAMOMILE CAKE

So this is the new year and in new years people have resolutions; and if people with resolutions had a baking blog they would write about them there, in something that I believe would be titled - '2016 - An Introduction', and it would be something very pragmatic and possibly involving detox diets or buying a house or life rebuilding, or something.
I will blame my lack of vitamin B(1)2 that, Wikipedia informs me, caters for paleness and neurological issues, and having watched one Rob Zombie film too many over the holidays, and chocolate overdoses, and being not invisible for once, or twice, and hamster cheeks; but I'm afraid I have no resolution. What I do have, is a recipe for a lemon & chamomile cake that is as oh so pretty & oh so nice as a hairdresser named Manuel from a posh town in Northern Italy; bless his heart; as well as this worrying feeling at the back of my head that this year is going to be an absolute duckin' mess just like its younger brother, and in fact all its siblings; but did I mention I have a recipe for cake; and that means that I may or may not be willing to spend a stupid amount of euros on a toothbrush or mindlessly start humming a song that goes, if a body catch a body comin' through the Rye If a body kiss a body, need a body cry on my way back to the Orphanage and book flights to actual Iceland this time and even glimpse several different futures ahead, in the distance, or find myself looking up and hoping for the best; because did I mention, lemon chamomile cake. I think I did, therefore, hi 2016, and Happy New Year everyone; everything will be fine.

ROCKY ROAD SALAMI

When it doesn’t really matter whether changing the past was ever a real thing, you’ve got to focus on this more or less expected time of year, which turns out to be all about juggling Pexmas parties and slow-cooked death and retarded cookies and tarots, present shopping and present giving and present receiving, cake receiving and coffee receiving, and sharing, photo boothing, hair cutting and more or less extensive hair dying (yet, no flamboyaging), mulled whining and vintage weighing and recipe improvising, for cake giving; and if you stopped for half a second and looked in the mirror between each ing (or, if you were to spend four hours at the hairdresser’s sat in front of one of said mirrors), you would be astounded to find you could well be a red-haired modern-day version of Anna Karerinina because you’re smiley like that (and only worryingly less photogenic); but then again, why would you stop for even half a second, when the cross that you bear is half as heavy as you run around pushed by the cold wind, and amazing ventures and adventures await, and there’s the new best Engl-alian cake setting in the fridge, ready to be shared like your own special version of gold or frankincense or myrrh, except it’s made of Italian chocolate and English tea biscuits and a bucketload of Canadian marshmallows because you’ve got to make the most of what you’ve got, to wake that winter sun at last.

GLUTEN-FREE BANANA CREAM BISCUITS

I am known for being the biggest flour geek (hah) and I really couldn't hide one bit of my excitement when I first took a bite of one of these biscuits (yeh ok fine. I chucked like twenty of them in my mouth like I'd never seen a biscuit before). It's because shortbread is the first thing I've baked from scratch in my life and these are like shortbread but taken to the next level. There's no gluten in sight, just this boatload of protein that is lupin flour which I got from a health food store in Italy, and almonds and this delicious subtle hint of banana. Shall we then mention the creamiest ever creamy banana & almond butter filling. Hello, my name is Iz and I am the bearer of joy a.k.a. crumbly creamy vegan gluten-free banana biscuits.

SBRISOLONA - ITALIAN CRUMBLY ALMOND TART

To make up for the Englishness of my last bakes I go back to Northern Italy with this one and it might be an Italian common feature but I’m also going back to hilarious names, see Panpapato.

Sbrisolona is dialect for ‘big crumbly thing’ and this thing is in fact quite big and very crumbly. It is also very delicious and it’s not the kind of tart that you slice and eat in a civilised way so unless you’re one of those people that eat an almond with a knife and fork you can break it into pieces as big as you like (or just jump to the next level and don’t even break it into pieces and eat the whole thing like an enormous biscuit. Don’t tell anyone I said that).

It's also perfect for nice weather. As in, if you eat three quarters of it over the sink you can go for a walk (crawl?) to Stoke Newington and you may even get tanned (if you're not me).

See? Happy days all around.

PANPAPATO - ITALIAN CHRISTMAS CAKE

After a ski trip from which I will never recover and one Christmas party too many, I am very much looking forward to going home and stuffing my face with Christmas cakes of every origin and kind.

This one I’m sharing with you today (metaphorically sharing. Soz) is from Ferrara in the North of Italy. It’s called Panpapato (it’s the funniest name and it always takes me a good five minutes to spell it properly without adding extra pa’s in it. HA) and it’s full of nuts and yummy things and so rich and the most delicious. In fact, my dad posted a homemade one to me about a month ago because I couldn’t wait until Christmas. Miss impatient. Now I’m not saying this is better than my dad’s because my dad is the cake master but what you can do is make this one and then ask your dad to make another one and post it to you and you eat them both and happy days.

BOOZY MARZIPAN LOAF CAKE

If last week was coffee week, it really does look like the theme of this week that’s just passed is booze. Or maybe the four glasses of complimentary mulled wine I got given at the hairdresser’s today are making me talk nonsense. Either way, this is a very delicious moist almond-y marzipan-y loaf cake that is soaked in lovely spiced rum from a pretty bottle. Why not, “It’s Christmas” after all (?).

BAKEWELL SANDWICH CAKE

I didn't mention last Sunday that I was having a bit of a hard time (read: sheer panic. Utter despair. Tears. Hopelessness. Ha) with my oven last week. My beloved old oven broke in a mysterious way and I got it replaced but this shiny new one is such a twat :D. Shall I mention carob brownie charcoal soup and six (SIX) batches of soggy muffins that found their home in the bin. Maybe not.

But you don't mess with birthday cakes. So magically, when the moment came to bake my colleague Matt's birthday cake, the monster behaved. And a Sunday-baking-session later, baby Bakewell cake was born, properly cooked and everything. Thank you, monster oven, for dismantling my self esteem no more.
And here it is. It's a Bakewell cake because it's kind of like a Bakewell tart except it's not a tart, it's a cake. Ehe. It's sweet and moist and nice and fluffy and you should totally make it for a very English birthday. Or a Japanese or a Peruvian one, the cake doesn't mind.
Aaaaand many moooreeee. 

VANILLA ALMOND BISCOTTI

I cried inside a little bit titling this post "vanilla almond biscotti", as my very Italian self knows that the word biscotti means everything and nothing. Biscotti is Italian for biscuit, but biscuit of any kind. Therefore, if you find yourself in an Italian bakery, and all hopeful tell the baker you would like some biscotti, they quite likely will sneer at you and say "That's fortunate, as we have a million kinds". The secret word, everyone, is cantuccini.
But language-police rant aside, and back to serious stuff, these biscotti aka cantuccini are the bomb. Half the stuff didn't even make it to the second bake as I was eating it straight from the cooling rack. I know, such an outlaw. But they are that good! And all vanilla-y and almond-y (and also just as hot as magma when you take them out of the oven. Who knew). You can serve these to your friends and show off with anecdotes about their real name and pretend you're secretly Italian and everything. Or don't, just keep them all to yourself and scoff the whole batch going "Mamma mia" between each bite.

RAW SACHERTORTE

You may have noticed that I’ve been completely ignoring Muffin Sunday for two entire weeks. I know I’m being very ungrateful towards muffins, but the truth is, I have two very embraceable reasons for this lack of muffin-making. The first is, I got myself a blender! Haha. Sorry. But I did. So I had to make something using it this week. Period. The second is, this is Sachertorte! The most delicious cake on the face of the earth, in my very valuable opinion. We used to get this from the bakery every year for my dad’s birthday and I think it’s been at least two or three years since the last time I was home for one (sadness creeping in). How can you not miss this chocolaty and jammy moist deliciousness. Anyway, I thought, it’s (British) Father’s Day today so it makes a bit of sense to make Sachertorte. It’s like I’m at home for my dad’s birthday, except I’m not at home and it’s not my dad’s birthday. Ha. Anyway, let me get to the blender part. As I bought myself a blender (I need to stop this, I know), I can now grind almonds and cashews and all sorts of stuff, which makes it so much easier to make raw desserts. So I thought I’d make my own version of Sacher: vegan, gluten-free and 100% raw. And also kind of 100% blended. I don’t want to give too much away but I had a quarter of this cake in one go whilst taking pictures of it, it’s that good (camera covered in chocolate). I’m considering to start selling it under the label “I can’t believe it’s not Sacher”. I’ll let you know how it goes.

ALMOND TRUFFLES

There’s a special recipe for you today. Today is the Italian National Day, Festa della Repubblica, or Republic Day. Sixty-eight years ago, Italy officially became a republic. Although it’s public holiday in Italy, it’s obviously not in the UK, so I went to work as usual. But tonight I’ll have a mini personal celebration for the occasion. And shovel some very Italian sweets into my face, as one does.
I was saying yesterday that I’ve been reading through really old Italian cookbooks. Well, whilst exploring among dozens recipes calling for obscure ingredients like “odour of vanilla” and Crataegus azarolus, whatever fruit that is, I also came across this really cool book written in 1891 by Pellegrino Artusi, who, Wikipedia informs me, was “an Italian businessman and writer, best known as the author of the cookbook La scienza in cucina e l'arte di mangiare bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine dining)”. So, three hours spent on Google Books later, I got crazy excited about this whole vintage Italian recipe thing. The cookbook is brilliant in all ways – amazing recipes even to modern standards and the best writing ever (I mean, Jam Roly-poly renamed “English sausage”. Ha). Interestingly enough, 90% of cake and pudding recipes use ground almonds, which make them either gluten-free or easily gluten-free-able (!). And even though most of them call for shocking amounts of eggs, the recipe I’ve chosen is not only gluten-free, but also surprisingly (and definitely accidentally) vegan. The original uses a cherry liqueur called Maraschino, but I’m not sure that’s very popular outside Italy. So, I swapped that for the cherry syrup from a tin of cherries (you could also use cherry juice instead). And for extra prettiness, I coated the almond balls in cocoa powder and more ground almonds, in addition to the grated chocolate from the original recipe. Everything else is 100% vintage and so delicious!