Paneer Coconut Curry

You guys, I’ve cracked it.

I’ve made the best curry I’ve ever tasted.

This is the pinnacle of creation. It was so delicious. It made my whole house smell amazing. It starts with this curry base that takes a decent amount of onion (there will be tears), what feels like too much oil (it’s ok, you need it and you can skim it off near the end), and a delicate hand with spices.

I’m never eating anything else.

You need a little time to make this but it is worth it. The base can be prepared in advance, it makes about 3x what you need and keeps in the fridge for a week, and can be frozen.

How's that for a slice of liquid gold?

Lemon and Poppy Seed Valentine's Shortbread

I love shortbread. I don't really care for Valentine's day.

This year, I'm defaulting to my normal level of effort - making something that I already know and love, but cutting it into the shape of a heart. And as shortbread is the the first thing I go for when I fancy making a sweet treat, heart shaped shortbread is my perfect treat for Feb 14th!

I love that it's super easy and versatile - my favourites are topping plain shortbread with cinnamon sugar, and chocolate chip shortbread. Also, having fun with biscuit cutters always pleases me.

I 💓 penguins - therefore they are Valentine themed (to me)!

I decided to combine some more of my favourite flavours  with my favourite biscuit - lemon and poppy seed! And the natural sugary buttery-ness of the shortbread goes perfectly with the zesty lemon.

It's basically the same recipe as my tried and tested shortbread with a few flavour swaps. Enjoy!

Makes about 20 medium sized biscuits

Ingredients for the biscuits

• 185g butter
• 85g caster sugar
• 200g plain flour
• 50g cornflour
• 2 tbsp poppy seeds
• Pinch salt
• Zest of one lemon

To finish

• A few tbsp granulated sugar

Baked Sea Bass, with Bok Choy and Bean Sprout Salad

So we just got back from an idyllic holiday in Barbados, where I felt like all I ate was yummy fresh fish. It was magical. Getting home, to the freezing north of England, I am trying to keep the holiday vibe going! It’s still cold here, but at least we can eat delicious food.

This recipe looks a bit fiddly, what with all of the different sauces for each step. However, a lot of the ingredients are common to all 3 sauces so it just takes a bit of preparing and mixing. Hand on heart – sesame seed oil is one of my favourite ingredients and I’d urge you all to buy a bottle. Mirin is easily sourced from any Asian grocery store, but you could sub in a little vinegar if you don’t have it.

Cinnamon Star Bread

Starting the year off correctly with one of my favourite things I’ve ever made! This cinnamon star bread is delicious and super impressive and once you’ve cracked the dough-making, it’s a fairly easy process!

This is the same recipe as my individual kanelbullar but with a different assembly at the end which just turns it into a show stopper. This would make a great centrepiece dessert, sliced up and served with a dollop of ice-cream or custard. 

Serves 8, realistically. But you will find no judgement here if you keep it all to yourself.

Some tips:

• It is really easy to overheat the milk and butter mixture at the start, so I reserve about 60ml of cold milk and add it after heating to quickly bring the temperature down.
• Making a miniature yeast “slurry” with some of the milk mixture and a little sugar boosts the rising. Too much sugar kills yeast, but a little will help feed it.
• A round baking tray makes this a lot easier – for example a pizza tray. Bonus – these are cheap and easy to find
• It’s fine if you don’t roll out perfect circles (I never do), everything kind of comes together ok in the oven.
• Cutting into strips is easiest if you cut into quarters and then cut each quarter again twice to get four strips per quarter, so 16 strips total.

Chocolate Peppermint Layer Fudge

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! It’s the season to be jolly, and part of that means there’ll be a ton of leftover chocolate hanging around. Perfect for making this easy peasy fudge recipe! This makes a very smooth, chewy fudge that is a rich treat! And bonus -it’s easy to make and absolutely delicious! Went down a treat in my household.

Side note, I’m notoriously terrible at fudge, and using marshmallows to bind it all together is a genius step. If you have left  it to the last minute to plan your Christmas dessert - I can suggest this as a quick, easy and quite impressive sweet treat!

If you don’t like minty chocolate (you’re a monster) you can always leave the extract out. Or substitute 150g of the dark chocolate for a terry’s chocolate orange and make orange flavour. The possibilities are endless with this amazing base recipe.

Lussekatter

So, I’m a little late to the party on these buns. These are traditional Swedish buns flavoured with saffron, and they are served on St Lucia’s day – December 13^th.

The name translates as Lucia’s cats – which doesn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. I read somewhere that they are meant to represent a cat’s face with the two raisins as eyes, but another source said that they represent curled cat’s tails.

Who knows. Anyway, they’re tasty and sweet and a little out of the ordinary Christmas fare for the UK, so I think they’d make a welcome addition to any table.

Marzipan In Blankets

Let's start a Christmas bake countdown!

If you have any Europeans in your life (especially of the German or Scandi persuasion) they will be all over this. It’s basically gingerbread wrapped around a big old chunk of marzipan.

As all good German Christmas cookie recipes go, this makes about a million little morsels and you won’t be disappointed. The spice mix is the one I return to again and again, you will recognise it from my spiced cupcake recipe. It's versatile, warming and deeply flavoured and one of my favourite ingredients in my pantry!