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.

FRITTELLE - ITALIAN FRIED DOUGH BALLS

I firmly believe that one of the frequently asked questions at interviews for skilled and highly valued jobs like say, sommeliers should be: if you were a cake-like thing, what would you be. It is probably for the best however that that’s not the case, as I myself would stare at the interviewer in sheer panic and spend the following about five days going through a mental list of all cakes and sweets and treats known to man, then opt for eternal unemployment and spend my days making videos of cats and die shortly after from asthma, or scratched to death. But if I really had to answer the question in utmost seriousness, my immediate reaction would have been to identify myself with some seriously sugary out-of-the-strong-came-forth-sweetness-style sticky Bundt cake, or a spotty-face-inducing chocolatey fridge treat preferably to be consumed over the sink, or some inexplicably underrated pumpkin cake all drenched in sweet syrup, or again something containing worrying amounts of sugar and apparently chocolatey but not, because I can be peculiar like that. But then it so happened that introspective times at the hairdresser’s via the strip catered for thoughts of Venetian masquerade balls that never came into being, and brought back memories of Italian Carnival and warm kitchens and mid-week late afternoons and greasy paper bags filled with fresh frittelle and sugar all over your mouth and your nose and your hair and your Latin homework; and this may or may not be me saying that’s my final answer, but if you think it’s a coincidence that each of these little bites of deep-fried sugar-coated deliciousness rhymes with my name, and don’t give in to sweetness too, and as per my very own Carnival tradition, glory in one frittella too many: you’re crazy.

PANETTONE - ITALIAN CHRISTMAS BREAD

It’s only normal that after the oddest-ever-odd succession of Journeys to the edge of nobody’s empire, with a soundtrack of techno music and songs from your childhood, Feverishness and advice and the most sudden fear of owls, Madness, sponsored by emotional charity gone wrong under the ever so watchful eye of the Shard, and followed by Absolutely fucking nothing (topped with golden syrup, and stomach ache), Missions to the future and back, Jam on toast, toilet floors, fallen soldiers, Jamborees, the fairest sun, orphanages, Amazing adventures (or an anachronistic version of them), Sinking ships and planes to outer space, Obliteration, and Nervous breakdowns that cater for symphonies, breakfast, books, bites and warmth; it’s only normal that you find yourself in a state of sleepy, puzzled accomplishment, and you half-wonder whether all this that you managed to more or less gracefully survive was one of those Dreams that make you talk in your sleep; and whether or not you see what happens next, be it because you may be a dormant little witch with a temperance problem, or because you’ve just been given the gift of the self-proclaimed wisdom of the ages (that and snus, plus recipe books, and camera gear), you feel like you really deserve that slice of vegan panettone that is the very last, proper delicious bake of an oddest-ever-odd year; and you hope that the wisdom of the cake will work its magic just as well; for yourself, for all the cake eaters that have been sitting with you at tea time, J through to D, and, most of all, for those who still feel a little bit peckish and won’t mind sticking around for another year.

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.

HOT CROSS BUNS

In just under a week’s time I’ll be in sunny Italy shovelling into my face monster portions of gnocchi and pizza and proper Easter eggs (sorry British Easter eggs) and chocolate of all sorts, and the 60 pence brick-sized flapjack from the corner shop by the Shard and the packs of Fruit Shortcake bought out of desperation from quality-checking too many videos in Khmer will only be a distant memory. However, lately during my semi-sleepless nights that I euphemistically like to call ‘recipe development sessions’ I’ve found myself pondering over British Easter cakes and treats. It may or may not be that I’ve spent the last four days in bed with a broken stomach, and survived on boiled rice and corn cakes only. Or that in this timeframe I’ve watched all of Mary Berry’s programs five million times, alternating them with Masterchef for sanity (?). 

But it did take me back to Easter time in good olde Shropshire, where Easter lunch is like, cucumber on toast but then you have four different cakes for pudding. And then you have tea with four more half an hour later. Well Simnel cake deserves an honorable mention because it looks so pretty and there’s like a half a kilo of delicious marzipan in it. But we all know marzipan is terribly misunderstood, so when I decided to pick one Easter treat to veganise, I went for my mates fluffy sticky hot cross buns. They’re really easy to make (even with a hot water bottle carefully positioned onto your stomach) and they’re filled with all nice sorts of things ranging from cinnamon and spices to dried fruit and peel and covered in apricot glaze. Best enjoyed between a bite of cucumber on toast and two of Simnel cake. Or you can use them as the bun for a chocolate egg sandwich. Who am I to judge. Hah.

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.

SULTANA LOAF

The fact that my breakfast every morning before nursery school used to be a (whole) baguette should have probably made me realise that bread is my one true love. I probably also should have listened to my mum saying that one day I would open a bakery and make (and eat?) bread like there's no tomorrow. But no big deal. Shall I make up for it now? (everyone: Yeeees) Cool. Here's the fluffiest most flavoursome sultana loaf. Or should I say here was? In any case, this was made in my flat, and not bakery I'm afraid. And nevermind selling it. I'll just do it for the glory.
Hail, bread.