I’ve been trying to get mint into a coffee cake, and it hasn’t worked. I’d had a sudden image present itself of a coffee frangipane tart topped with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, which came as a kind of magnificent escape route. Escape route, as in, I’ve been working a lot in the last few weeks, including a pop-up at Ancestrel Wines and an event with The Fill - my thoughts began drifting out the back door.

There were one too many rounds of mint-infused brown butter, and liquorice, toothpaste-tasting cake. In a last attempt, I missed out the mint completely, and fumbled this cake together after work in about 20 minutes. Its texture was perfect - think fudged. And tasted nothing of the frustration it came from.

You could call it a cappuccino blondie (I took it to work, and one of the comments was, ‘it’s more ‘cappuccino’ than ‘coffee’’, which was a way of saying ‘it needs more coffee’. Do with that what you will, but this recipe needs a rest from me, for now). It’s like the inside of a thick, chewy cookie that’s trash sweet but reined in by some sophistication - God knows where from. Having said that, this is something you might find on an American diner menu, served with a scoop of ice cream, called something like ‘coffee walnut whip pie’… sophistication comes in many forms.

I recreated my image with mint chocolate chip ice cream that I had to go to three supermarkets to find. I was incredibly pleased - actually, I gasped at the sight. It was all worth it for that.

BROWN THE BUTTER

Set the oven to 160 fan. Line a 9-inch cake tin with greaseproof paper. Put 200g cubed unsalted butter into a saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Stir the butter occasionally, until it froths up and smells nutty. Pour into a mixing bowl.

TOAST THE WALNUTS

While the butter cooks, roughly chop 100g walnuts. Toast them in a dry pan over medium heat until they smell a bit sweet.

MAKE A STRONG COFFEE

Dissolve 4 teaspoons of instant coffee granules in 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Add the coffee to the mixing bowl of butter.

MIX AND BAKE

To the bowl, add 250g dark brown sugar, 1 very large pinch of sea salt and 2 medium eggs. Whisk well, then mix in 150g self-raising flour. Pour into the tin. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the crust is dark golden and set.

Eat as a dessert with ice cream, clotted cream or pouring cream. Also, try a few bites at around 4pm - your taste buds will thank you.

Love Caitlin x

Every summer, the same jam pie comes lodged in my consciousness. It’s the crostata of holidays in Italy; the ones with lattice tops, baked in big, rectagle trays, lining bakery counters like jam picnic blankets. It’s also the Mr Kipling tarts that Grandad keeps in his cupboard. His favourite is the blackcurrant one.

This week’s recipe might be instructions on how to eat the contense of your freezer in mid-summer.

If you have a freezer full of fruit, like mine - you’re in luck. A mix of blackberries, red currants, black currants, raspberries and cherries are the backbone of the jam. If you have any rogue plums, apricots, gooseberries, or rhubarb, add them in; you’re making a fruit party jam that’s very soft set and on the sour end of sweet.

I’ve also made this with a bag of frozen berries from the supermarket. There were no complaints.

Don’t make this in a rush; the pastry won’t have it and neither will the jam.

Read more

I challenge any cake to taste as much as lemon. This one practically smells of lemon meringue pie. Hence the pie-esque decoration I gave it here, which I only realised I’d done until after having done it. Also – the peach jam is sharp; add more sugar if you want.

I bother myself by not being more organised. To compensate, now and then I pack a bag or suitcase so well that I arrive at my destination with everything, literally everything, wrapped in individual plastic bags?

You could say this cake was planned a year in advance, because I first wrote the recipe in July last year – I’ll remind myself of that next time I feel the urge to wrap the contents of my suitcase, item by item, in sandwich bags.

THE CAKE

3 medium lemons

100g plain flour

125g ground almonds

1 tsp turmeric

½ tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 medium eggs

QUICK PEACH JAM

1 large peach, weighing about 150g. Use any kind you like, but if you want that Barbie Pink colour that’s in my picture, use flat peaches.

2 tsp caster sugar

1 medium lemon

1 tsp cornflour or corn starch

FILLING

170g mascarpone

50g double cream

30g icing sugar

For the cake, start by boiling the lemons in a saucepan of water, with the lid clamped on. After about 20 minutes, they’ll be soft, and a knife will easily slip through them. Reserve a cup of the boiling liquid, then drain the lemons, and let them cool completely.

Cut the lemons in half and use a knife to poke out all the pips. Weigh out 200g of de-pipped lemon and add it to a blender along with 60g of the reserved boiling liquid. Discard any remaining lemon. Blitz the lemon until it forms a smooth-ish paste – you’ll have to scrape the sides of the blender now and then to help it along.

Grease and line 2 x 8-inch cake tins. Preheat the oven to 180 / 160 fan. Mix the flour, almonds, spices and baking powder in a small bowl. Now, in a large bowl, beat together the sugar, vanilla and eggs, until it reaches a sabayon ribbon stage (thick and light and will hold a pattern you trace on the surface for a few seconds). Tip in the dry ingredients and the lemon paste. Gently fold everything together. The mixture will be yellow/orange and frothy. Divide it between the two tins and bake for 20 – 25 minuets.

The quick peach jam is indeed very quick. Here is how you do it: chop up the peach, and get them to a gentle simmer with the sugar and juice from the lemon. Mix the corn flour with a little water. When the fruit is soft - after about 4 minutes - mash it with a fork, and tip in the corn flour water. Simmer for another minute. Pour it into a clean (and preferably cold) bowl.

Whip the mascarpone, double cream and icing sugar together until firm but still yielding. Spread a little over half of the cream on the first cake. Top with the cool peach jam. Lay over the second cake. And decorate however you see fit with what cream remains.

Love Caitlin x

A glossy fruit cake is a foil to summer, not a duplicate of it. It fills your kitchen and nose with the smell of something sultry; a revved-up engine ready to go-go, riding high on strongly brewed Earl Grey.

I’ve been thinking about wings; this has nothing to do with the cake, but let’s see if I can get it to all match up nicely. (I do not)

Monday came into the room, purring, looking like she’d seen a ghost she wanted very much to meet. I was reading a book because I’d been watching too much Love Island. It was some kind of bug flying around the room that she was chasing. My book was suddenly not interesting AT ALL.

I filled in a long funding application this week so I can keep doing this. W wrote me a letter of support to send off with it, which was so beaming that I couldn’t read the whole thing. I skimmed – I should read it fully. I will. A told me that I should print it out, frame it, and put it on my wall. We were talking about the fact that birds evolved from dinosaurs. I’d thought it was the other way round, which makes absolutely no sense. She said that when the Chicxulub asteroid hit the Earth, it blocked the sun and killed all the species; the dinosaurs died, but these small things with wings survived. ‘Is that because they could fly to see the sun?’ Maybe it was actually the lizards that survived.

This cake keeps well for a long time and holds its crumbly-ness alongside its moisture. Try it in a bowl with double cream. You’ll be sent up beyond the summer sky.

Read more

Dear Joe

I cut into a perfect avocado that I bought at the supermarket for 17p, reduced from 75p. I was pleased about this. I felt deserving of the win, having almost burned the pot of tomatoes and aubergines for dinner. I mashed the avocado with lemon, salt, and too much spring onion, then tasted it and counted my lucky stars that I wouldn’t be kissing anyone that evening. I just know I’ll read that back and feel hot behind the eyes and grey with self-loathing. But it is true. I’m learning that selecting what not to say to you every fortnight is more of where the work is than the bit which ends up on the page. Will I write to you about the postman I’ve entered into a cake exchange with (‘the next one will be…I think blueberry and lemon’, he said on Sunday), or will I write to you about the tarot card reading?

I tried to sleep last night but couldn’t for a few hours because I felt full. I thought about Cillian in my arms, in your new house with the big kitchen. We waited for you and L to come back with the removal men and the furniture. He cried so much I thought he might swallow us both along with the house. I got him to sleep in my arms, rocking his little body and telling him about his day. ‘First you went to nursery, where you had a satsuma!’. I slid my back down the side of the fridge to get to the ground without waking him. He looked like the sweetest little prawn curled up so peaceful against my chest. I could watch him and watch him. Little sleep weighted prawn.

The tarot card reading was on YouTube. I chose to hear my fate lying on the floor. It told me that the connections I currently have around me are good for me; that I’m finding my ‘soul tribe’. I thought this was exciting. The reader used the word ‘fantastic’, and it sounded so out of place that it clanged like a bell and made me laugh. She then told me I was experiencing ‘burn-out’. Yes, I thought, yes, aren’t we all. This is why I went to the Peak District with S last week. I love being with S. And I love being with E who we saw for dinner one of the nights. Aha! My soul tribe. I rolled over on the floor to hear the last bit, my ‘near future’, which was, apparently, that I have something important to say. What a promise.

The important thing must be the fruity rosemary bake I made last week and again today. Rosemary is my herb of choice for summer solstice – something about it being shorthand for remembrance, and its smoked citrusness. It gets along well with any summer fruits you put to it. This is so easy and so pretty on the plate, like a luxurious sunset of apricots, peaches and berries. And easy to eat half of in one sitting all on your own. I know this, because I did it. Twice.

4 medium sprigs of rosemary, 500 – 600g soft summer fruit (cherries, berries, soft stone fruits), 80g soft unsalted butter, 60g + 1 tbs caster sugar, pinch of salt (don’t skip it), 60g plain yoghurt, 80g self-raising flour.

If you’re fruit isn’t very sweet, and you like you’re desserts sweet, add a tablespoon or two of sugar onto the fruit.

Grease an oven-proof dish of about 1 – 1.5 litre capacity. Set the oven to 180 / 160 fan. Finely chop the leaves of the rosemary. Discard the stalks. Prepare the fruit – leave berries whole, cut big strawberries in half, remove the pips from cherries, and leave peaches, nectarines and apricots in halves once their pips are removed. Tumble the fruit into the prepared dish. Beat the butter, 60g of the sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Mix in 2 tsp of the chopped rosemary. Stir through the yoghurt and flour until you have a thick batter. Spoon over the fruit, and spread it out a little. Some of the fruit will stay poking through. Scatter the tablespoon of sugar evenly over the top. Then bake for 45 minutes. Serve warm (or cold) with cream. This reheats well in the oven.

Love Caitlin x

Writing to you with the recipe for Cillian’s birthday cake (Cillian is my brother’s son/my nephew). And writing this also as a note to myself to think again when tackling a chocolate layer cake in 30-degree heat. Is chocolate the answer? I’m sure what you were thinking as I told you to pour chocolate ganache over the cake, and then counter, and then kitchen floor. These are the risks of heat-induced miscalculation – just how liquid is liquid chocolate?

I’ll try to be brief because this recipe will be long. Partway through baking the cake yesterday - a second time, to make sure all my numbers were right - a one-bowl, 30-minute elderflower pudding cake began to sound like a great idea. My fickleness aside, this is the most deeply damp chocolate cake. Sure, it’s elaborate, but it doesn’t taste it. And I mean that as a compliment. Salty, milky chocolate, coffee and butterscotch, meld into chocolate cake bliss with astonishing ease.

A quick detour about some good nuts - I was cooking/learning at Cafe Cecilia last week, where the senior sous gave me some crystallised nuts to try. She told me how to make them, and I did pretty much exactly as she said when I got home; egg white and a dash of water whisked to just frothy, mixed with sugar, salt, vanilla and nuts, then baked in a low oven, turning like you would granola, until tacky to the touch and dark brown. Apparently, crystallising nuts like this is already all over the internet, so I feel I’m on safe ground to share the good news. They are delicious and so easy; a sure-fire way for galvanising taste buds.

Onto chocolate cake. This makes one rectangular cake, for ease of slicing, and can comfortably serve around 15 people. Do the prep on one day, and build the cake the next. It’ll keep in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Read more

These are the notes I wrote for myself yesterday afternoon for the purpose of writing this to you:

Melon is a good idea. In the church, he said he forgot what songs he knew. C H said it can be lonely. Ask about the melon. Proust’s Madeleine. It’s nice to be outside myself. Melon, again. The question of Myth. Can’t live inside a myth. Katie said that if I burnt everything, would it really be the worst thing in the world? It wouldn’t be great, no. But I take the point.

I’m finding these notes unhelpful; they only seem to reflect how much I’ve been thinking about melon. You’re all coming this Friday for Cillian’s 1^st birthday party. The paddling pool arrived this morning. It’s blue – mum chose it. She thinks she’s going to have to order an air pump to fill it up, because the bike pump won’t do it. I realise that I need to get Cillian a birthday present. A melon seems like a good idea; it was the first piece of food I handed to him. The second, on a different date, was goat’s curd. But I might have got that wrong.

I’m not French, so taking on a madeleine recipe might seem like a misfire. But I now have a madeleine tin (plus a mandoline, as of 2 am this morning; the result of a rumination on crisps, madeleines and sprinkles that unfolded at the inexorable pace of any rampant whip through a thought palace at 2 am. The back door of that thought palace, at least the one I found and walked through, at last, was Amazon’s checkout page. I’m quite excited, actually; I bought the mandoline to make my own crisps). I have the kit, so I’m striding forward.

Generally speaking, madeleine recipes follow the principle of equal weights in eggs, sugar, melted butter, and flour, plus raising agent. The versions of these I tried were fine – like bite-sized Victoria sponges. But they weren’t as definitively madeleine-esque as I’d hoped for. I saw more heft on the horizon; more of the signature madeleine bump (which I think makes these cakes look like peaceful, little boats), and definitely more assertive butteriness. If mini cakes are what I give you, then ones which have heft that melts in a trick of the tongue are what they must be.

Read more

I made this cake at the beginning of the week with caraway seeds, after reading in a book that they pair well with citrus. It didn’t taste bad, but it was too smoky and too fennel-like for the cake to carry the weight of it.

Yesterday, I was on a visit to an asparagus farm with a group of other people who work in food. It was an incredible day—a PR trip, which I felt like I’d snuck into through the back door (which I think I actually had). But I was having too much fun to consider the likelihood fully. I can forget, after a stretch of time working on my own, essentially hibernating, that solitude isn’t a necessity all the time.

I spent a good part of the day in the back seat of a car with one of the other guests, Melissa Thompson, who cooks mostly with fire. I asked her why she cooks with fire. She told me it was because you have to put fear aside. We were driving to lunch at The Pig in the South Downs.

The chef came out to talk us through the ice cream. He told us that he’d tried out about eight different asparagus-themed desserts for the lunch, then landed on his simplest. There was something very precious about his admission of trial and error—I’m not sure exactly why, but I lit up because of it. Probably because it was honest. Maybe because I recognized it.

Thinking about cooking with fire, I suppose you also have to put your own free will aside. The fire will do what it wants.

I’d been craving a cake I could drink, and one with delicious grit. It sounds wrong, but eats right. And sure enough, it doesn’t need the caraway, but a lake of orange juice tipped into it. The juiciness of it is thanks to the lack of flour, but if you need to, because you’re rifling through cupboards to make it, you can substitute a small portion of the fine polenta or ground almonds for plain flour.

Orange Polenta Cake

125g ground almonds

80g fine polenta, or cornmeal

Scant ¼ teaspoon table salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

3 medium eggs

2 large oranges

1 small lemon

30g granulated or caster sugar

Set the oven to 180/160 fan. Grease and line a 9-inch cake tin. Mix the ground almonds, polenta, salt and baking powder in a small bowl. Set the dry mix aside. Cream the butter and sugar until just fluffed up. Beat in the eggs one by one - adding about a 1/3 of the dry mix along with the last egg. Don’t worry if the mixture looks a bit curdled. Add the rest of the dry ingredients, the zest from both oranges and the zest from half the lemon. Mix to form a batter, smooth into the tin and bake for 20 minuets.

While the cake is in the oven, juice the oranges and lemon. You want about 220g of citrus juice.

When the cake is baked, turn it out of the tin and put on a plate with a lip. Mix the 30g sugar with the citrus juice; there’s no need to dissolve the sugar. Tip the lot over the cake. Slice and serve. I find this cake as good cold in the days that follow as it is warm, fresh from the oven.

Caitlin x

I didn’t imagine I’d ever want to spend time back at Primary School considering I spent most of my school career hiding under tables, asleep, or in the head teacher’s office. But at 8.50 am on the last Friday of January, I was in a Primary School canteen on the east coast of Scotland, being shown by three boys how they butter bagels.

I was invited into the school by the charity, Magic Breakfast. They support ‘over 350,000 children and young people every day by offering breakfasts and expert advice, to ensure children are nourished, feel empowered, and are ready to learn’.

When I first arrived in the canteen, a boy I’ll call Ben came running in with a poster he’d made for his Magic Breakfast breakfast club. He wanted to show it to his Head Teacher.

Later, I was told that he was one of the boys they’d wanted me to meet. Ben and his two brothers had below 55 percent attendance before Magic Breakfast came to the school, before the Head Teacher got Ben to help him carry a toaster from his car boot to the school canteen, before he asked Ben if he’d like to be a Magic Breakfast monitor, before Ben started buttering bagels. Since that moment, 4 months ago, Ben and his brothers haven’t missed a day.

Ben wanted to tell me about where Arsenal was in the league and that he baked doughnuts once, with pink icing and sprinkles. He wanted to tell Jenifer (who runs the breakfast club) about the goal he scored on the weekend, and ask his friend, buttering bagels next to him, if he wanted to play video games after school.

Donate to Magic Breakfast!

When the last tray of bagels was ready, the three boys said they’d show me where to go next. I followed close behind, through the school, past all the small chairs. P3 was the final bagel stop before the fruit bowls got taken around. But P3 already had their bagels.

We were attracting some attention from the classroom next to us, so Ben went to talk to the P3 teacher - ‘trust me, trust me’, he said to her. There was lots of quick nodding. The teacher looked at me - ‘he does know what he’s doing’. I had no doubt. Ben ran ahead, followed by the other two. I followed with the bagels round a corner where they all, in unison, turned around like they had a clear shot of the goal and I had the ball - ‘here!’, all of them pointing. ‘Here!’

One of my clearest childhood memories is of my last day at primary school; the moment that my P2 teacher got out of her car to stop me at the school gate - ‘Caitlin -’ she looked a bit stuck suddenly, like she hadn’t quite thought this through, ‘I – I just wanted to say that you are a very special girl’. I remember the way she said this to me, earnestly, like it was a message of importance. The significance of that memory isn’t just down to its flattery, though I’m sure that’s part of it - it’s that she in some way rewrote something for me. In relation to her, I saw myself as the girl in her class who couldn’t read, write or spell, the girl who was always behind. Had my school had a breakfast club, had I been shown that I could do things as important as reading and spelling, and had I been trusted with a job, I think I would have taken to it like Ben.

Before it was time to leave, there was a moment to take a picture with two children, each eating one of the bagels that Ben, Tom and Nick had just prepared. I asked Ben if he knew a good place for the picture. He did, and led us all, his Head Teacher and Kirsty from Magic Breakfast in tow, to the place he had in mind. I nodded to him, ‘that’s perfect’, and sat down for the photo.

While you can’t see them in the picture, Ben, Tom and Nick came to stand right behind the camera. Their view is your view -

We all went back to the canteen, and the boys gave themselves a round of applause. I gave them a round of applause. As quickly as they arrived, the bell had gone, and so had the boys. Ben ran back in; he’d forgotten something. I stopped him before he ran out again, ‘Ben – thanks for showing me around today. Can I shake your hand?’ And we shook hands.

I don’t write lightly that we cannot possibly know the impact of a single bagel. We cannot comprehend the impact of a single magic breakfast.

Caitlin x

If you want to support the work Magic Breakfast does, donate to them: for just £7, you could provide a child with breakfast for a month.

Give me food and give me sleep. I need food, and I need sleep.

One more time for the boys at the back – I NEED FOOD AND I NEED SLEEP.

I’m thinking of the time I went to see you get given a poetry prize by the Society of Authors. I’d changed into a backless black satin jumpsuit in a Pret toilet, while mum waited for me with an egg sandwich. We met you at the venue (Southwark Cathedral) and spent the time before speeches skimming off canape trays, darting around all the stone columns, picking up as many cheese straws as we could eat en route. I’m not sure where Mum went.

At the speeches, everyone was clapping carefully. So when they called out your name, I shouted as loud as I possibly could, ‘Oi Oiiiiii’. My sound hit the nave, throwing a pocket of laughter to the ceiling.

I’ve been reading The Quiet Ear by Raymond Antrobus. There are a few lines in the book about a kind of translation Antrobus has to do when he speaks to people – relying on lip reading and his hearing aids, as well as a practised listening face; getting good at getting people to talk so he can catch up and fill in the blanks of what he might not have heard.

I read this bit in the bath. Sweat dripped like my head was melting. The image of Antrobus’ listening face; I remembered it from when I was speaking to him at your baby shower – credit to him, it was good. I thought about the other ways we could have had a conversation, ones where he didn’t do those translations. That’s stayed with me all week.

E came to visit this weekend just gone. I’d also been visited by the idea of a big mini roll (the small Cadbury cakes), so made it for the two of us, without a recipe, thinking it wouldn’t last longer than the weekend. But then it did last, in spirit rather than physical form (it was eaten by Monday morning).

Its lasting power is likely due to the fact that the cake’s essence responds to the call, ‘I need food, and I need sleep’.

Working on the recipe has involved me coming to the understanding that the Big Mini Roll I have created is, in fact, also called a Swiss Roll, a roll cake, cream roll, roulade, Swiss log, Swiss cake, or sponge roll. Take your pick.

Read more

On Easter Sunday, I was cooking with Luke at Cardinal, a restaurant in Edinburgh that had been put to me as a potential place for a pop-up, loosely via Alannah, as most good things are, back in August last year. Just like any pop-up, It was a furiously optimistic coming together.

Right now, Cillian is crying very loudly upstairs. Libby is with him. You’re downstairs working. No one has had much sleep.

I’d set up the lunch at Cardial in part to see how I would swim, feeling out of my depth – out of my depth, as in, Tomás’s food (head chef and owner of Cardinal) is fine dining food, and everyone in the kitchen, bar me, was a full-time chef.

I swam, no doubt thanks to Luke.

Yesterday, my therapist told me to rest. I’ll do that after I write this.

I was just sat on the bench at the back of the garden (resting) - Monday jumped from the wall to the tree, to the ground, and to me. I told her she was a clever cat. I thought about what it would be like to believe that about myself – I have my moments, but I wouldn’t say it was a core belief. I imagine that for some it might be. But then they’d likely not be aware of it, at least consciously. I was in the middle of working on a recipe for a brand, actually, I was in the middle of thinking about the collapse of the recipe that I’m working on for a brand, when I was on the bench.

The dessert we served at Cardinal is this – rhubarb rooibos cake. We plated it warm, with poached rhubarb, whipped goat’s curd and mascarpone, and lots of the rhubarb poaching liquid.

Rooibos gives wholemeal, honey and malt, that I wouldn’t be surprised if some might find a note of milk chocolate in – though if that makes your head spin, ignore it. Think – milk that’s left at the bottom of a bowl of Cheerios, and you’re not far off. All of that is what gives the rhubarb its delicious nest to sit in. Then the base, which is essentially a large macaroon. Me and Luke had done a test without it, and were happy. Then the coconut came to mind fully formed one night I couldn’t sleep and was thinking about the cake – it sets the whole thing off, functioning as a companion to the cake batter. Both parts are brought to life in dialogue with one another; as a result, they remain independent and yet whole at once.

I’m using frozen rhubarb for this cake, which you need to squeeze out some of its liquid weight. So start by freezing 750g forced rhubarb (field rhubarb - the green kind - you can use too)

Coconut Base -

35g / 1 egg white

60g icing sugar

140g desiccated coconut

Heaped ¼ teaspoon Maldon salt

Cake -

750g rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces, frozen, and then defrosted

10g rooibos, the tea from about 4 teabags

140g unsalted butter, softened

160g caster

2 medium eggs

80g self-raising flour

60g ground almonds

¾ teaspoon baking powder

Topper -

30g lemon juice, from about 1 lemon

30g butter

30g caster sugar

Grease and line a 9-inch round tin. Mix the ingredients for the coconut base and press it level into the tin. Preheat the oven to 180 / 160 fan. Take your defrosted rhubarb and squeeze it, hard, over a sieve to get as much liquid out as possible. You want to be left with 300g of fruit. Keep squeezing and weighing until you have the right amount. Blitz the rooibos to a fine powder in a spice grinder, coffee grinder or regular blender (I used a NutriBullet). Set the blitzed tea and rhubarb aside.

Cream the butter and sugar until just fluffed up. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Combine the flour, ground almonds and baking powder with the tea, then tip into creamed butter mixture. Add the rhubarb, and fold everything together with a firm hand until a batter is formed. Spread it over the coconut base. Bake for 20 minutes.

Just before the 20 minutes is up, weigh out the lemon juice for the topper, and set aside. Add the butter and sugar to a small saucepan. Heat over medium-high until the butter starts to bubble and the sugar crystallises. Let it bubble like that for 1 minute, then take off the heat and stir through the lemon juice.

Take the cake out the oven (it won’t be baked through yet, that’s ok), tip the hot melted butter mix over the whole cake, then put it back in the oven to bake for a further 25 minutes.

I think this one is best warm, and the day after it’s been baked. A slice is heated perfectly in a 160 fan oven for 9 minutes.

Caitlin xx

I walked past a houseboat today, along the canal, that had ‘Stay Feral’ painted across its side. It felt like an appropriate lead into April.

If baking is what you want, the recipes I’ve published in the last two weeks are banana granola, brown butter coconut cookies and banana maple flapjacks.

But here, I’m presenting you with a melting, red/yellow vegetable stew. I’ve made it about four times in the last two weeks. The first time, it was a vegetable drawer clear out, the times after: a sweet, juicy stew that’s fleshy but light as a feather. For defrosting out of winter.

I’ve been thinking about time, and the mechanics of it. Probably something about Spring’s renewal, and the increase in exclamation mark use that punctuates this time of year - what if I don’t want to be so surprised !! A meditation on time is what this stew gives; lots of chopping, a bit of stirring, some waiting for it to cook, and there, it’s ready.

This pot makes enough for 4-6 portions. Keep it in the fridge on a week you’re pushed for time. And reheat it in the portions you want to eat – otherwise by day four, you’ve reheated and stirred your way to a pot of non-descript vegetable soup.

I made a pot of this to take to a neighbour with a newborn this week. They also got a loaf of soda bread. It’s one of my favourite things to eat and make, so I doubled the recipe to have a loaf for myself, and ate it warm from the oven, with a bowl of the stew. Obviously, it was delicious. Here’s the recipe for the stew and soda bread. And here is to being feral in spring!

Melted Vegetable Stew for Spring

2 ribs of celery

1 large white or red onion

Read more

I’ve been getting an uncanny sense of vertigo, like I’m suddenly higher up than I want to be. It’s close to stage fright, only there’s no stage. Similar to the moment where you see a stranger sneeze, when you’re suddenly aware of their own intimate existence, that’s totally separate from you, but which you guess could be similar to your own. Ergo, I could be someone’s stranger.

That vertigo might have something to do with this:

I’m here writing to you in lieu of thinking about the fact that 5 months ago, our dad died. In the last two weeks, especially, I can’t count the times I’ve been struck and astonished by that. I can’t count the times I abruptly come out with tears, hit by one sensate childhood memory or another, or am suddenly caught in a moment of inexplicable indecision. In the kitchen this morning, unpacking bags of vegetables, I picked up a bunch of parsley and realised I already had half a bunch in the jug I usually would put parsley in. I looked for a while at the jug and thought about trimming the parsley. I picked up some scissors, I put them down, I picked up a different jug, I put the parsley down, I went to fill the jug up with water, I put the jug down, I picked up the scissors again, I put the scissors down. It went on like that for 20 minutes. There was the vortex of indecision, of not being able to compute the facts I’d been dealt. 5 months ago, our dad died.

There is the vertigo. Tell me, brother, what to do with this. Tell me there is any other way than becoming deranged. And I will accept that the sky is not blue.

Yesterday at the supermarket, I passed the shop where the police say he purchased a phone charger on the day he died. I wonder how he’d lost his other phone charger, assuming that’s why he needed to get a new one.

Shocking things happen to everyone. I’m not the only one (not that that tends to a satisfactory explanation for my vertigo, or for anything). But there’s a kind of irrational thrill in how separate grief makes you, how transparent, how easy it is to become cut loose by a bunch of parsley. That was a bad morning - it’s not always like that. But I know you know it really is that hard.

I’ve been making lots of hot cross buns; there are some just out the oven as I write. I’ve never liked hot cross buns with too much fruit - I want to taste the spiced bread relatively uninterrupted. They’re based on my doughnut dough recipe, but this is a slightly less wet dough, so you can make them by hand, with the help of a bench scraper, as I’ve been doing, almost as easily as with a stand mixer and a dough hook. ‘Almost’, as in, by hand, it requires effort and poses the possibility of mess. That way is fun, though. The main thing you need to know before baking these is that they really need to be given the grace of time – 2 lots of about 2 hours proving is needed. You can do it in one day (in which case, skip the overnight fridge part), but the easiest way is how I’ve written below.

120g milk

1 medium egg

30g caster sugar

30g unsalted butter, softened

¼ teaspoon / 3g table salt

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, mace, and ginger

80g sultanas or raisins, whichever you prefer

250g strong white bread flour

7g fast active dried yeast

(My personal preference is without, but if you want, you can add 30g mixed peel along with the dried fruit)

Mix together all the dough ingredients, putting each into the bowl in the order written down (liquids first, salt and yeast far away from each other). When the dough is a shaggy mass, tip it out onto a lightly floured worktop. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. 10-15 minutes of vigorous kneading. The dough will be very sticky and spread over the worktop, but don’t add anymore flour; keep moving it about, occasionally scraping it back into a ball with a bench scraper.

Lightly oil the bowl you mixed the dough ingredients in. Put the kneaded dough into the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to prove in a warm place until increased in size by at least a half. This will take about 2 hours.

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Put the proved dough onto the worktop and divide it evenly into 6 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball; flatten the piece, fold the outer edges into the centre, flip the piece, then cup it with your dominant hand, resting on the worktop, and vigorously swirl the dough ball, akin to swirling a wine glass, but sped up. Place the balls on the lined tray a few centimetres apart. Cover the tray well with clingfilm and put in the fridge overnight.

The next day, put the tray of buns somewhere warm, and loosen the cling film so they have room to grow. Leave them for 2 hours, until about doubled in size and the dough springs back when gently pressed with a fingertip.

Preheat the oven to 190 / 170 fan. Mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 4 tablespoons of water to form a loose paste. Put the paste in a piping bag and pipe a cross over each bun. You can also use a teaspoon to spoon the cross over the bun tops.

Bake the buns for 18 – 20 minutes, until puffed and dark golden brown. Don’t be tempted to add steam to the oven when baking; it gives them too much of a crust.

Mix 25g caster sugar with 1 tablespoon of boiling water from the kettle, until the sugar has dissolved. Brush or spoon the syrup over the hot buns. Leave them to set for 10 or 15 minutes, then eat.

You can freeze these - baked, then cooled and sliced in half. Toast the frozen halves in the toaster when wanted; voila, spring.

Love, Caitlin x

I’ve just about come back from the worst flu that winter had to offer, and I baked this cake to celebrate my return.

I went back and forth about sharing the recipe – it’s based on a fruit tart in Oma’s handwritten cookbook-notebook, and while the dough recipe is exactly hers, what I’ve made with it is a total departure from her original. It feels like a minor betrayal. But then the betrayal already took place when I thought of the cake and baked it anyway. So, I’m making room for it here.

This sits as a cross between a cake and a pie. The dough has enough vanilla sugariness for the rhubarb to lean against, it’s stable enough to hold a good slice, but soft enough that you could class this as a dessert. There’s a bit of ‘thoughtful’ chopping (some rhubarb diced, some sliced) to get an American pie-esque filling that’s jammy, but with substance. Other than that, no bells and whistles; it’s just really delicious.

Because the rhubarb holds as a single layer in the cake, you get the novelty of its extraordinary colour, and the hit of its extraordinary flavour with some clarity, which is part of the point of baking with forced rhubarb anyway. Every February, it’s the predictable moment where everyone starts to bake with it, and take photos of it – me, too. That predictability isn’t even enough to dampen the beauty of it, going by my camera roll at least.

225g plain flour

Scant teaspoon baking powder

110g caster sugar

150g unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, a bean paste is best here if you can get it

1 medium egg

The dough needs 30 minutes to chill in the fridge before baking, so make this first. Rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture mostly resembles fine breadcrumbs with a few bigger lumps. Add the egg and vanilla. Use a butter knife and then your hands to mix the dough together. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in the fridge (you can do this step the day before, if you like).

Preheat the oven to 180 fan. You need 350g of forced rhubarb total. Finely slice about half of it and dice the rest. Add the rhubarb to a bowl. Mix with 2 heaping tablespoons caster sugar, the juice from half a lemon and 3 heaping teaspoons corn flour. Allow the bowl to sit at room temperature while you grease and line an 8-inch fixed-based cake tin. Make sure the greaseproof paper comes up the side of the tin.

On a floured worktop, roll out 2/3 of the dough to roughly the size and shape of the cake tin base, then lay it in the tin. Stir the rhubarb, then drain it. Discard the liquid and layer the fruit into the tin, leaving a narrow border of dough around the edge. Flour the worktop again. Roll out the rest of the dough into a circle that can cover the rhubarb. Lay the dough over the fruit, covering as best you can. You can press the dough about a bit, do not worry at all about beauty here, it comes out of the oven all the same.

Sprinkle the top generously with caster sugar. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes - the top will be golden, and the fruit bubbling underneath.

It’s delicate, so let it sit for 15 minutes before turning it out of the tin. Then up to you – warm, cold, cream, ice cream...

Love, Caitlin xx

I was leaving the house to go to the market. I’d attached the pannier to my bike, I’d clipped back my jeans, I got my coat on. I was ready to get my veg. But just as I was leaving, I had a sudden urge to spray myself with perfume – I ran upstairs, I sprayed, I smelt, I left, with the fragrance of lemon, coffee, and cardamom wafting through the air trailing behind me. I know this sounds made up. It’s not.

Journeys are good places to let ideas settle, and I’d been wanting to make a cake based on this perfume, so I found my moment, and I took it. Ha! I think a rare moment of inspiration in the last week. This cake, just like a perfume, has a way of stilling the mind and focusing it. Its flavour is what some people might call subtle, and what I call complex. (No flavour shouting in this cake). The coffee’s bitter caramel notes are what carry the citrusy lemon on top. Cardamom gives the lemon some backing and amps up that slight astringent sweetness. It gives you icing sugar-coated fingertips and a jaw-clenching urge akin to the effect of looking at a very cute cat, all in the form of soft beige sponge. I love the bit where the amber jelly of the marmalade pokes out amongst the cool mascarpone. You can bake this in a loaf tin and skip all the extras. But I’m too attached to the total experience of the cake, so I’ll give it to you in full.

The perfume I based this cake on is the Ffern Winter 2026 scent and was kindly gifted to me by Ffern. They release 4 fragrances a year, one on each of the solstices and equinoxes. Each fragrance is made in small batches with natural ingredients. They partner with an artist for each new release who makes a piece of work inspired by the scent – they are quite special. Getting one of their boxes is like opening a little treasure chest. They work on a subscription basis, so if you’d like to find out more about them or sign up to the waiting list, you can do so here.

For the cakes, grease and line 2 7-inch round cake tins. Set the oven to 160 fan. In a small saucepan, melt 100g butter into 100g milk and 2 tsp instant coffee granules.

Read more

I went to church this Sunday with H - to claim a moment of introspection, less so to claim a faith I’m hopeful but ambivalent towards. The fact is that someone could exhale in my direction, send me a text that reveals they want something from me, give me X when I’d hoped for Y, and I might be bent double, locked in a fizzing panic, as nonplussed as a chocolate teapot.

I cried at some point after the priest gave his sermon. It’ll annoy me now that I can’t remember the exact moment; I just looked through the order of service to try and find it. I thought it would reveal itself to me in a Godly way. It hasn’t.

Last week I made a trifle, with blood orange juice jelly and an almond custard. The almonds gave a whisper of chocolate, coffee and brown sugar; silky, in a surprising way. A spoonful set me in blissful sureness that everyone should be eating trifle all the time.

Had I known this sureness while I was making it, I’d have spared myself a run-in with the dark back alleys of my very own annihilation voice. I think the moment I cried in the church, with all the nice people and the light flooding in through the windows, was the moment I’d realised how loud that voice had become, how punishing. How close that voice has been since Dad died. I softened, and I cried; I felt sad for myself. It’s as if I haven’t been able to place the subterranean sludge let loose by his death; it’s being filed in the wrong place, contextualised in the wrong way, where past is my present, and present is my future. I still shock myself with the fact of his death, I still flinch sometimes at the knowledge. And in this confusion, this strange time warp, the sludge generated by his death directs itself onto me: the annihilating voice. I hope this makes sense. It’s a kind of madness that requires me to make things, like trifle.

I saw L for coffee, and she read me a line from a Barbara Hepworth Autobiography where Brabara was writing a letter to her husband about the death of their son, ‘I went into the church today into the little chapel – it was all so quiet and peaceful. To be happy and peaceful (with) oneself one seems to have to blend the past and future. Is this blending possible?’

I hadn’t mentioned crying in the church to L, or anything about being annihilated by a trifle. She just knew. After, I was thinking about how Joan Didion defined self-respect as a state of doing things with conviction. I wanted mine back. My belief goes like this; if I’m able to perform a sense of sureness, as if with conviction, there might be a moment when this becomes not performed but felt, truly, that the only way out and through is by doing, by returning, until the trifle, in all its wonder, is on the kitchen counter. That’s why I made it. Because no one, not even the annihilating voice, can annihilate the trifle.

You’ll need a bowl or small dish with roughly 500ml capacity to build your trifle in, which will give 4 good-sized servings.

For the Jelly layer, squeeze 4 medium blood oranges (any mixture of Navel orange, Seville orange, or blood orange will do). Measure out 220g. Drink the remaining juice. If you think it needs it, add a tablespoon of caster sugar, then heat the juice in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Dissolve 6g of powdered gelatine in 30g / 2 tbs of hot water. If you’re using gelatine sheets, follow the packet’s instructions - for reference, 6g gelatine powder is the equivalent of two sheets. Mix the dissolved gelatine into the orange juice. Pour the juice into the trifle dish and leave to set in the fridge (about 2 hours).

Roughly chop 60g almonds and toast in a dry, hot pan until fragrant. Add the nuts to a saucepan with 170g milk, place over a medium-high heat, with the lid on, until the milk comes to a simmer. Take the pan off the heat, and allow the nuts to steep for 20 minutes. In a large bowl, add the yolk of one large egg, 33g caster sugar, a dash of vanilla extract, 10g corn flour, 10g plain flour, and a pinch of salt. Whisk until a loose yellow paste is formed.

Strain the milk, discard the nuts (or eat with muesli). Weigh the liquid, then top up with fresh milk to get 166g. Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium until it begins to simmer, then slowly pour it into the egg yolk mixture, whisking all the while. Tip everything back into the saucepan and return to the heat, whisking vigorously over medium until the custard thickens. When the custard is thick, continue cooking and whisking for another minute. Remove from the heat and stir in 15g / 1 tbsp unsalted butter until combined. Spoon the custard into a bowl, cover its surface with clingfilm, then chill in the fridge (about an hour, though I often do this in the evening, and use it the next day).

When the custard is cooled, stir to loosen. Whip 150g (or thereabouts) double cream to soft peaks. Fold 50g of the cream into the custard. Spread the custard over the jelly. Top the trifle with the remaining whipped cream. Serve immediately, or better, allow to set in the fridge for a couple of hours first. This keeps well, covered in the fridge for up to three days.

Caitlin x

We begin the new year with a cheese sauce! Oma taught me how to make this. It was the first time I saw panic on her face. Up until that Oma had always been a consistent pillar of calm love. But then she put me in control of whisking the milk. Maybe it wasn’t so much panic as surprise. Alarm? I was whisking, she was watching, the sauce thickened, I stared at the pan, she took the whisk and kept it all going… vigorously. I have no recollection of eating it, only that she suddenly revealed a different side of herself to me. And I liked this side, I was curious about it. Because I was taught by Oma to make cheese sauce, I have always done it her way. Instead of making a roux, then slowly adding milk, I chuck it all in the pan: flour, butter, milk. Turn the heat up high. And whisk until thick. Apparently, this is actually the Delia way. It’s got me this far, and I have a fondness for the ‘put everything in the pan’ way, but if you have your own way, you must do that.

The sauce makes the base for a macaroni cheese, but greenified. The idea of which came from my friend, Rosie, who puts finely chopped leek and spinach into her macaroni cheese. Savoy cabbage is in season, and a mellow, creamy sauce offers its pepperiness something to bed into. Though this is my favourite way, you can just as well substitute any fibrous green veg you have in the fridge - broccoli, spinach, leek or rainbow chard.

Cheese and Greens Pasta

Serves 3 comfortably, or 4 modestly.

Preheat the oven to 180 fan. Boil 200g pasta (any sauce-catching shape) in salted water for 3 minutes. Drain. Then set aside. Very finely chop 5 leaves from a Savoy cabbage and half a small leek. Grate 100g cheddar cheese. Crumb three large slices of bread to make bread crumbs – bread on the stale side, and wholemeal is best, if you have it. Set the veg and cheese aside. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan or skillet, add 500ml milk, 30g plain flour and 30g butter. Put the pan over medium-high heat, and begin whisking slowly. After 2 minutes, the milk should be hot, at which point, whisk vigorously until the sauce is thickened. That will take about 5 minutes of whisking. Take the pan off the heat, and stir in the cheese and a heaping ½ tsp English mustard. If the cheese doesn’t fully melt into the sauce, put the pan back on the heat to help it. Stir the greens and pasta through the sauce. Ideally, you are baking this in the pan you made the sauce in (the easiest way, for washing up sake), but make sure it has shallow sides and is an oven-safe pan. Otherwise, tip the pasta into an oven dish. Scatter breadcrumbs over the top. Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden and bubbling at the sides. Serve with plenty of black pepper.

Carrot Salad

This salad goes very well alongside; a mouthful of the two is like that bit in the orchestral concert where the cymbal player finally gets their moment.

Peel and grate a few carrots. Grate a small handful of radishes. Mix a dressing of - olive oil, white wine vinegar (or lemon juice), a scant pinch of salt, a scant ½ tsp mustard (any kind), and a tsp honey (if it’s very thick, loosen it in a cup with a drop of boiling water from the kettle, before adding to the dressing), failing the honey, use sugar. You want the dressing to be heavier on the vinegar than you’d think pleasant. Mix through the grated carrots. Serve.

Blueberry Muffins

Now, I don’t know what’s come over me, and why I seem to have so many recipes to share, but – Blueberry Muffins. This is my recipe for them. It’s held its own over many years and versions (mostly what dairy I put in it - depending on what combination of yoghurt, sour cream, milk or crème fraiche I have in the fridge). I made another batch this week after coming back from a wet run, after an even wetter day, and I was reminded of their glory. There is something about making blueberry muffins that gives a boost – at least I’ve noticed that seems to be when I want a blueberry muffin. I could tell you my theory why. Instead, I think best for you to have the recipe, see for yourself. These are best eaten on the day, but you can give them a blast in the oven or microwave to revive them on the days that follow.

Read more

Dear Joe,

I’m sure I wouldn’t be as fond of this cake if it didn’t smell almost exactly like a jar of Nutella. This is Oma’s cake recipe that is both family heirloom and culinary phenomenon. In build this cake is really just a hazelnut marzipan, leavened with whipped egg whites. And it tastes just as you’d imagine; if something could be perfumed hazelnut in the same way that marzipan has a flavour so total that it is smelled as well as tasted - this cake is that.

This was the cake I made last weekend for Hamblin Bread’s Yule Salon (bakers! Christmas music! so much cake!). I’ve stripped the recipe back here, to make it slightly more low lights, hot water bottles and blankets, as opposed to executive spreadsheet baking… hence all the dripping puddles of praline ganache. Mum only ever makes this cake without icing, Oma sometimes put icing sugar on top, occasionally melted dark chocolate - basically, it’s perfect without any adornment. I am just too attached to the praline ganache recipe I made for the cakes at Hamblin last weekend, that I felt only right to share it. Happy baking. And, Happy Christmas.

Praline ganache. Start by making a praline paste. Roast 65g blanched hazelnuts in an oven at 160 for about 10 minutes. Remove the hazelnuts from the oven when they just begin to colour golden and start smelling toasted. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper, tip the hazelnuts onto the tray and set aside. Heat 65g sugar with 25g water in a heavy based pan, swirling occasionally (no mixing with a spoon or anything), until a golden caramel is formed. It may start to crystallise around the outside, that’s ok - if you have a pastry brush, dip it in water and brush around the edges of the caramel where any sugar crystals have formed. When the caramel is a light golden colour, pour it over the hazelnuts. Allow the praline to set.

When the praline is cold, snap it up and blitz the lot in a food processor (I use a nutribullet) until a delicious smelling paste is formed. This will keep, in an airtight container, in the fridge, for up to a week. You will have more praline paste than you need for the ganache - but I’m sure you can find a home for it.

Read more

Two recipes today: the current contents of my biscuit tin. The supermarkets have started playing their Christmas soundtracks. December, the month of biscuits, is here. The first recipe, whole clementine oat cookies, was born from the breakfast I made the morning after Dad’s funeral: sautéd clementine on porridge. The resulting cookie is rich with clementine flavour, backed by cardamom, giving the citrus something sweetly floral to sit in. They are cake-like in texture on day one, but come into their own the day or two after baking, when the oats have been given a chance to settle into chewiness.

Since Dad died, my ability to cook seems to have gone. In the initial shock of bereavement, it’s well known that cooking, or anything that requires dexterity, is impossible. My muscle memory, the mechanism in me that knew how to prepare food before he died, has been lost. He taught me how to cook, and so the track I assume raging loud in my unconscious - I’ve lost him, I’ve lost food. As for my appetite, you would think the undeniable need for nourishment in the simplest and most concrete sense, the recognition of hunger, in the face of all the restless time spent thinking about the shocking otherworldly event of death, and its resulting offence on living, would come as comfort. Hunger is not coming as comfort. Quorn cocktail sausages are about as much as I want.

A friend came and visited me from London a week or two after it happened. Just before she left, I voiced a craving for sausages. She directed us to Sainsbury’s, sat me on a step and ran into the shop. A few minutes later, she handed me a pack of Quorn cocktail sausages, sat with me as we ate them, and then said goodbye. She didn’t ask me if I’d like her to get them; she made every decision for me and acted on it without drawing any attention to the fact. It was the kindest act.

If the importance of Quorn sausages and the actions of my friend are reflective of the food I’m trying to get to, then I want simplicity. So, I’ll add digestive biscuits to my list of ‘bereavement cravings’. I’ve been getting through a lot of them. And out of need for digestive biscuits in a menu I’m working on currently, and fear of my sudden lack of cooking ability being exposed by using shop-bought biscuits, I reasoned it would be good for me to make some myself. The second recipe, then, Rye Digestive Biscuits, is so simple to make, equally straightforward (and very easy - addictive, actually) to eat. There’s also the added novelty of baking these biscuits into any shape you like. The world is your biscuit cutter…

For the Clementine Oat Cookies (yields roughly 15 cookies)

Preheat the oven to 160 fan. Slice a whole clementine into wafer-thin golden circles. Add them to a saucepan with about 10g butter. Lightly crush 5 large cardamom pods, leaving them bruised but intact, and add to the pan. Sauté for about 10 minutes, until the oranges become soft and slightly charred. Remove from the heat. Discard the cardamom pods.

Rub 125g cubed, unsalted butter into 150g plain flour, 150g porridge oats, 100g caster sugar, 1tsp baking powder, and a large pinch of sea salt. When the mixture resembles wet clumping sand, add 1 medium egg, 15g golden syrup (or honey) and the zest of one clementine. Use a wooden spoon and a firm hand to bring the dough together. Mix the clementines into the dough. Shape into 60 – 65g balls and place spaced apart on greaseproof-lined baking trays. Flatten each cookie only slightly. Bake for 15 – 18 minutes, until golden brown and slightly soft in the centre.

For the Rye Digestive Biscuits (yields roughly 30 biscuits)

Preheat the oven to 160 fan. Rub 100g cubed unsalted butter into 200g light rye flour, ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda, 40g caster sugar and a pinch of sea salt. When the fat is fully rubbed in and the mixture is sandy, add a dash of vanilla extract and 40g milk. Knead the mix together until a cohesive dough is formed. Roll the dough out on a work surface (you shouldn’t need any flour) to about 4mm thick. Cut out into shapes (stars, circles, hearts…Christmas trees) and place spaced apart on greaseproof-lined baking trays. They keep their shape as they bake, so you can pack a lot on a tray. Roll, cut out, then re-roll, etc, until there is no more dough. Bake for 12 minutes. The centre of the biscuits will be slightly soft to touch when out the oven, then harden as they cool.

Love, Caitlin

Dear Joe

Sending you love from the icy tundra that is northern Sweden in mid-November. I write to you from the warmth of a cafe that I ducked into out of the snow and wind. I ordered a double cappuccino and proceeded to wrap my hands around the white china mug until l could feel my fingers again. My walk here this morning was against a gentle but cold wind that drew tears from my eyes; the compacted snow crunched beneath the ice grips on my boots; the sky for now is calm and the most delicate shade of baby blue–it is taking a fleeting break from coating the landscape in another layer of fluffy snow.

I come to this cafe often; their coffee tastes burnt to me, but I don’t mind. It is the only cafe in town that is open somewhat regular hours, and it has a wonderful view of Åreskutan–the mountain that teeters over our town, now snowy peaked–which I’m looking at as I write. The interior is clad in wood of a rich mahogany brown, with mismatched tables filling up the space. It is cosy here, and the staff are always lovely despite the fact I bashfully order in a part-English-part-Swedish jumble. I’ve been in here so many times over the past year that they must know that I live in Sweden; I wonder if they think less of me for not being fluent by now? I come here to write; I’ve found that taking myself out of the house has been helpful, because for whatever reason my mind has felt numb when I sit down to my laptop at home as of late. The till sits sandwiched between glass cases filled with cakes and other treats–whole Prinsesstårtas, choux au craquelin the size of my hand, tarts of apple and chocolate by the slice, and an assortment of the more classic Swedish biscuits and treats. Here too sits giant cake stands filled with fresh, golden pastries. I had one relatively disappointing pain au chocolate from here a good few months ago now, which I thought had forever tainted their pastries for me, but today my body was craving something sugary, buttery and satiating; something to satisfy the hunger that the cold weather awakens in me. I chose a krämbullar. I was swithering over a few, but the server sung praises for the bun which sits as a perfect little unassuming golden dome, coated in a sparkling layer of sugar.

I took my bun and a butterknife back to my table.

The bun is so soft that it requires little effort to cut through, even with a blade as dull as this; the dough indents for a moment before gently and silently bouncing back to resume its normal form. My mouth opens slightly when I see how generously filled it is; a beautifully silky, creamy kind of crème légère, delicately spiced with vanilla and nothing more. It tastes like the Tesco Finest custard I used to request we get to go alongside puddings, hoping that nobody would notice how I’d fill my dessert bowl to the top with the custard and nothing else. It is perfect.

I eat half, and ask for a bag for the other half–the memory of the first half, and the knowing that I have the rest to look forward to when I get home will keep me walking against the cold.

Apple and hazelnut krämbullar (makes 10)

Read more