MACAFAME - ITALIAN BREAD PUDDING

Gusts of the coldest winter wind this week exhumed, much unsurprisingly, a pile of nothingness, rainy days, insomnia and Star Wars bottled water and swept it and pushed it and dragged it right onto the doorstep, and even though it should be declared illegal in such cases to even think of leaving the bed unattended and opening the front door, you find yourself ungracefully climbing over them and making your way through the most unpleasant drizzle of rain and icy wet fog and nostalgia and don’t even bother with a brolly.

Truth to be known, the cold and darkness are here to stay at least for a while, and the memories they blew about, of one excited little kid that glimpses a foil-covered oven dish in their daddy’s hands in the warmth of their kitchen when he gets home, and there’s loads of your auntie’s famously delicious bread pudding in it - it would be nice if they did, but they won’t make the rain go away, nor the gloomy winter end any sooner, nor your eyes less inappropriately teary on your bus home in the evening; however, what may help is baking your own macafame, translated and tweaked and localised from your nonna’s original recipe (est. ca. 1946) (nonna > Mary Berry): between one mouthful and the other, you can try and get your head around the fact that this light and soft cake packed full of sultanas and pine nuts and so moist and delicious kind of brings you right back to when you’d stand in the rain just for a laugh and you wouldn’t hide away from the wind and you’d let it lift you up and drag you around and you’d think it’s the most amusing thing in the world.

MINCE MUFFINS

If I were to decide to become a part-time psychic when I grow up, I know one day I would look into a snow globe and see this time of the season, and a very pretty house in a part of town that, I’m sure, was well pretty fifty years ago; and there would be a white fluffy carpet and wooden things and bottles as candle holders (there’s got to be candles), and the inhabitants wouldn’t worry too much about leaving the heating on for a while, nor about anything that happens in the outside world for that matter; and they would be sipping hot drinks from big mugs and eating muffins, or mince pies, or both (it’s Christmas).

I don’t know all that much about warm cosy living rooms in Victorian houses or carpets or nice décor, but if I were them, I really wouldn’t complain about such a great selection of Christmas treats; and until I take the leap and become Head of Extrasensory Perception or that season comes and so the snow, I’ll stick to mince muffins and I know I’ll be gold.

APPLE BUCKWHEAT CAKE

Getting ill on weekends seems to be my favourite thing to do in the world, and when you don’t have any sort of contact with human beings of any sort for three and a half days, and you stay all curled up in bed like an amoeba for three and a half days, then it’s quite understandable that you kind of wish you were home where caring human beings feed you ice cream and you don’t have to go out to buy carrots with a fever and toilet paper and that sort of things. So now that I am apparently succeeding in defeating disease, I gathered all the strength I had left (just enough to grate an apple to be precise) and baked something kind of home-related. Buckwheat flour is very common where I’m from in Northern Italy so here’s a buckwheat flour cake. It’s very light and moist because of the apple and apple puree and it’s usually served with a redcurrant or blueberry or raspberry jam filling. Now I am known for being a fan of sweet chocolateyness so to the redcurrant jam I added some chocolate filling. Sorry Italian food police. This is so good and sticky and chocolatey.

APPLE & BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE

When weeks are dangerously dull you need reminders of nice things that happen around you, namely

- cheap kids’ clothes

- bones from the 15^th century dug up at the back of your office

- gathering around said bones and staring at them in excitement for long periods of time

- sugar thermometers

- crumble.

As much as I’d like to share the first four items of the list with everyone, you probably have normal-size physiques and you don’t therefore fit into tops for fourteen-year-olds; the bones have sadly been moved for someone else’s eyes and excitement; and my new sugar thermometer has now become my most treasured possession joint winners with my blender, so back off.

I am however nice enough to contribute to the niceness of your week with the below recipe for the nicest crumble. There’s fresh summery fruit in it and a crunchy crumbly topping with oats and things plus a date caramel layer that makes everything so delicious and sweet and sweet things are the best and they improve the quality of your week (life?) a billion percent.

We can’t really complain after all.

TOFFEE APPLE HAND PIES

These yummy little things here have caused a bit of a conundrum, in that I didn’t know what they were. Well, I knew what they were, but I basically had to set up a plebiscite to decide what they were called.

It all goes back to last weekend when I went to this organic grocery store just around the corner from my house and got this toffee apple cake from their café. Well it was dry like a desert but the flavours were reeeeally good and cinnamony and very autumny. So I thought I’d bake something equally as autumny because it’s quite in fashion at the moment (heh), minus the I’m-eating-clay feel. And I went down the pastry route for some nice buttery flakiness. The buttery pastry nature of them would make me call them pasties, but as several interviewees pointed out, pasties are savoury and savoury only. Also they are kind of just like apple turnovers, however turnovers are triangular and these look much cuter right? So my very good friend Google came to help and it turns out these are a thing in America. These are called pies even though the pies I know look more like a wheel-shaped block of pig. But they are called pies the other side of the pond and they’re so little and cute and you eat them with your hands so there you go, hand pies. A Bonfire-night-meets-Halloween treat, I’m that international. For all my international fans (?) to enjoy.