Poached Pear Finacieres

This is a recipe I got from Paris and I hadn't tried it yet until this weekend. We had millions of pears in the garden a few weeks ago and my Mum manically poached them all so she was dying for me to use some up.

I decided to make them small in the style of petit fours to be tres French.

Makes about 24

100g Butter
100g Sugar

100g Ground Almonds

2 egg

20g Flour

Drizzle of booze, cognac, rum etc

Preheat the oven to 170˚C

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric whisk, when light and creamy whisk in the almonds and eggs then fold in the flour until all mixed well.

Grease a small cupcake tin depending on what size you want to make.

Spoon in the mixture ⅔ rds full and add any poached fruit like pear and apple. Or you could use any berries and just put them on top of the mix and they will soften in the oven.

Cook at 160-170 for about 15 mins until golden.

River cafe polenta, almond and lemon cake

This week has been a bit up and down with the weather, lots of rain and then an absolute scorcher yesterday in the 30˚s. Yesterday was an especially good day because not only did I get a little bit less pasty but I also stood up on my surfboard about 10 times!! I did almost die about twice getting absolutely smashed by waves and ended up with my hair looking a bit like a loo brush but very happy!! Since the weather has been crappy I made a huge cake, and I think this could be my newest most favourite cake I have ever made. I have been trawling through my River cafe books and there is so much amazing stuff so since I have all kinds of great ingredients on my door step I am going to go nuts and try loads this month. Serves 12 450g unsalted butter, softened 450g caster sugar 450g ground almonds 2 teaspoons good vanilla essence 6 free range eggs zest of 4 lemons juice of 1 lemon 225g polenta flour or fine semolina 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt Preheat the oven to ...

I remember my first ever falafel, I was eighteen. I imagine not many people would remember something like that, but given that I was fresh from the Dorset countryside and there weren't many opportunities to try new food, I remember it! Maybe it was actually more memorable because of the epic shock I had when my head was blown off by the spiciest sauce ever! After a bit of swearing, sweating and a running nose I recovered and went back to my normal routine of ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. Unfortunately I worked minutes away from Mustafas falafel van on Portobello and my workmate and now fellow hippy food friend Philly loved them, she dragged me back and under strict instructions Mustafa was banned from the bottle of spicy sauce. Anyway end of my story is that it turned out falafels are pretty damn good once you can taste them, and if your ever hungry on Portobello go and give them a try! This recipe is from Green Kitchen Stories which is one of my new favourite blogs, it...

Apricot and almond cake

I have had a slight obsession with cooking almond cakes at the moment, and in France there were loads of delicious apricots so I ended up making lots of different styles of cakes. They are really gooey and zesty and very tasty and everyone loved them. This one was my favourite because I put apricots in the middle and on the top. 200g unsalted butter 200g caster sugar 200g ground almonds 40g plain flour 4 eggs zest of 1 orange zest of 1 lemon 1 tbsp apricot liqueur or cointreau 8 apricots sliced almonds for sprinkling Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Using an electric whisk cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy then mix in the eggs, zest and juice and booze and fold in the flour. Slice the apricots in half and then slice each half into thirds and chuck into a bowl and sprinkle with some caster sugar and leave for 10 mins. Pour half the cake mixture into a lined cake tin and layer on half the apricots, then pour the rest of the mixture on top and prettily arrange the rest of th...

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