Recipes & Food Notes

Ting Restaurant, which means ‘living room’ in Chinese, is the main restaurant at the Shangri-La Hotel London, and is located on level 35 of the Shard. The ground floor entrance has a Chinese art painting, which reminded me of Lost Horizon. I booked a table for dinner for my 40th birthday weekend. Luca and I… read more

I’ve read that around 40% of Brits name lemon drizzle cake as one of their most-loved treats. A quick lemon drizzle cake often comes to mind as the first choice for Saturday baking, as I almost always have lemons and limes in the fridge. I regularly buy citrus fruit for juice, cooking and cocktail making. From… read more

Homemade cinnamon rolls are truly the best. Today I’ve baked American-style cinnamon rolls with chestnut filling. They’re very moist, fluffy and flavourful and have creamy frosting on top. I adapted a recipe, The Best American-Style Cinnamon Rolls, by adding chestnut purée (about 100g) and a little bit of cocoa powder to the cinnamon filling. For… read more

Initially, I intended to make Swedish cinnamon buns. I found a nice recipe and got some crucial ingredients: ground cardamom, cinnamon and pearl sugar. But eventually, I replaced the cinnamon filling with chocolate, as Luca does not like cinnamon, and he asked me to use Nutella instead. The recipe I chose was Swedish Cinnamon Buns… read more

The last four months have been busy, settling down into the new apartment, teaching, travelling, and writing chapter drafts. I wasn’t in a baking mood, although I baked frequently until I moved out of the old flat. On Friday, I baked. The recipe I chose for my first baking session in four months was Donal… read more

Luca and I had lunch at the popular local restaurant, Benedicts, on one Friday in July. Starting with some Prosecco and beautifully decorated petit fours, I had a two-course meal: Norfolk Dumplings and Ex Fen Farm Dairy Cow Aged Sirloin. They were beautiful and delicious. This might seem a bit of an exaggeration, but Luca… read more

One Saturday in March, Luca and I had lunch at the popular local restaurant, Benedicts. Benedicts is a nice, cosy restaurant serving modern British cuisine. Based in Norwich, England, the restaurant opened back in 2015, and, according to some reviews, the chef has been winning multiple food-related awards since then. His culinary excellence has enhanced… read more

Yesterday, I baked Donal Skehan’s Peach and Blueberry Pound Cake! I am moving to a new apartment, and this will be the last cake I bake at this flat, so I wanted to bake something special. The reason why I chose this cake was that by chance I found some ripe peaches at a supermarket.… read more