Shere Hollywood in Surrey

Shere Surrey

I love living in Surrey. Historic villages interspersed with pockets of verdant countryside. Houses huddled around village greens. Busy cobbled high streets with hills rolling in the background. The best of town and country. Over and over.

One of the brightest jewels in Surrey’s crown is Shere, near Guildford. Every corner is beautiful.

Shere Village Surrey

Continue reading Shere Hollywood in Surrey

Dreamy Chocolate Sponge and Sauce

Chocolate sponge

Your new favourite Autumnal dessert is here.

It’s a delicious double whammy of chocolate: the most perfect chocolate sponge covered in a silky creamy chocolate sauce. You make the sponge like a tray bake and watch it rise (cake rising in the oven is my favourite show) as it becomes a super springy chocolate cake with an air-whipped, spongey centre. So it’s incredibly light, yet naughtily rich. Super simple and divinely decadent.

If you bake this for friends, pour the chocolate sauce into a jug so everyone can serve their own. A nostalgic nod to childhood days of sponge pudding and custard served at indoor teddy-bear picnics.

Just get ready to divulge the recipe afterwards! (To teddy bears or friends…)

Continue reading Dreamy Chocolate Sponge and Sauce

Very Special Pasta Bake

Pasta Bake recipe

MmmmlettheCLATTERINGofplatesprovidethemusic.

This pasta bake needs little introduction. It’s best described as the most delicious and nutritious macaroni cheese you’ll ever eat. A sort of macaroni cheese-verde. I use elicoidali pasta shapes, which are like a giant version of macaroni, making every mouthful extremely satisfying and substantial, covered in a thick homemade cheese sauce with finely chopped bacon, leeks and spinach. It’s very straightforward and wonderfully indulgent, perfect for an Autumn dinner.

Continue reading Very Special Pasta Bake

Chewy Cookies Recipe

Chewy cookies recipe

Call off the search – the hunt is over. Here is the recipe for big, chewy cookies. You know, like the ones you buy in the bakery? Except better, because you will have made them, with generous chunks of chocolate instead of little chips. And better still, they’re SO easy to make. I’ve tried baking with both white chocolate and milk chocolate because I wanted an excuse to eat loads of cookies thought it was really important to do proper research for this blog post and I’ve come to the conclusion that both kinds of chocolate work extremely well with this recipe. I also found out that these cookies are washed down perfectly by a homemade vanilla milkshake. Never let it be said that I don’t work for this blog.

Continue reading Chewy Cookies Recipe

The Adventure of English

Melvyn Bragg UCL

My favourite word of the moment is ‘Mountweazel’. My curious fingertips stumbled across this short article in the New Yorker from 2005 which explains Mountweazels more succinctly than I ever could. Did you know that dictionaries often add in fictitious words as a copyright trap? The article states that the 2005 edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary contains a made-up word beginning with ‘E’ and a shortlist of six possible Mountweazels surfaced and the list was sent to various lexicography experts and they (correctly) agreed that the word ‘esquivalience’ was the imposter (I admit, of the list, that’s not the one I would have chosen!). I summoned my Dictionary programme that lies in the dock area of my Mac and typed in ‘esquivalience’ and there lies a definition consistent with the false entry from the NOAD:

Esquivalience

Continue reading The Adventure of English

Culture and Lifestyle Blog