OREO CRUMB FUDGE

It's not for me to know when winter and its green wool jumper will grant us earthlings a half-time break; or when I'll find the words again, and sing the songs I should have sung; or when the scene will light up and I'll notice forgiveness at the side of the stage; but, strange to say, I'll be here waiting, with my comrades by my side; and I've made some comforting Oreo crumb fudge for us to nibble on, and put hazelnuts in it especially.

СМЕТАННИК - RUSSIAN SOUR CREAM CAKE

Season 8, Episode 11 of “Vegan cakes and things” takes us all the way to Russia via a stream of black, deep sleep, mustard shoes, bus travellers, gifts of corner shops, no-need-to-fight’s, Soviet nursery rhymes that come to you in your dreams and blenders melting down upon attempting to combine utter madness and the cure for the illness of living. One may argue there must have obviously been some miscommunication between my head and reality; but this sweet and light and fluffy multi-layer sour cream cake is real enough to me.

PEANUT BUTTER MILLET CHEESECAKE

Sometimes you find yourself facing one of those cheesecake situations; and sometimes bucketfuls of cashews, or Londonfuls of them, give you a stomach ache that makes you question your chances of survival, and you consider tofu instead, and remote islands, or give it a Japanese twist and go for seaweed powder and loss in translation, or perhaps yoghurt or coconut oil or frozen bananas or cauliflower or the Land of Oz; and the options are so many and the fear of the unset so unbearable and you’re almost tempted to sack it off altogether and sit on the kitchen counter and eat sprinkles on toast until further notice; and in the end you find yourself whipping up cheesecakes out of millet and dates and peanut butter just for practice, and when you head to the fridge and casually grab a slice and eat it, your surprise could almost equal that of a little kid whose flying house accidentally squashes a wicked witch to death, as, geographical metaphors aside, you come to the realisation you’ve just made the best cheesecake you’ve ever had, and it's fair to say you've had a few.

IRN-BRU BAKED DOUGHNUTS

In case of pitch darkness and lack of colour: plantain parties, Isabjhdffdgghfjkdottir, frog rescuing, Kings of the Rye, Deadpool, fizzy pop doughnuts.

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.

GOLDEN BERRY & COCOA NIB OAT COOKIES

I did think for half a moment, I will admit, that the after-effects of Disgrace wouldn't involve much more than binge holiday-booking and a mildly emotional farewell to avocado on toast and snuslessness and the occasional life-wrecker text message gone m.i.a.; however, running out of book every half a week and forgetting, as one does, to leave the house for just under fifty-eight hours in a row and a surplus of coffee in my Lavazza tin and of exotic tea in my cupboard did eventually set off this little alarm bell in my head, as well as this tiny voice going, what’s it going to be then, eh; and as it turns out, what it's going to be for right now is a fair amount of waiting; for trips to happen, for books and parcels and books inside parcels, for cat-ction shots to get developed, and for the inspiration to face-the-outside-world-every-now-and-then-if-strictly-necessary to come find me; so if you see any adventures around, please do send them my way: I’ve got cookies.