Notes about Recipes in this book

• Farmhouse chocolate and banana bread

  • London_Mummy on January 25, 2026

    This was a quick & easy banana bread recipe, in an attempt to please a family member who had requested a break from unusual or exotic flavours. It has come out looking rather rustic so now I understand the "farmhouse" descriptor.

• Lorraine Pascale's chocolate banoffee tart

  • London_Mummy on February 28, 2026

    I made a lazy version inspired by this recipe. Instead of making chocolate pastry, I made a chocolate biscuit crumb base, & instead of cooking the bananas in rum, I used up some overripe bananas & put some Amaretto into the whipped cream. Maybe I will follow the recipe properly for a dinner party some time.

• Chocolate pudding pie

  • London_Mummy on November 22, 2025

    As so often happens, this all started because I wanted to use something up to avoid food waste: in this case, half a packet of digestive biscuits. I had all the ingredients except double cream & could not be bothered to walk to the shop in the cold & rain. So, I substituted milk & Stork baking butter in a 3:1 ratio, experimentally. The pudding cake has come out creditably. For guests, I'd decorate it with icing sugar & fresh berries, like the book's illustration. Another time, I'd put the biscuit base higher up the sides to ensure the very runny batter did not leak out of the loose-bottomed cake tin. Anyway, I enjoyed nibbling those crispy overflow bits from the baking tray while the actual cake was cooling.

• Bûche de Noël

  • London_Mummy on December 07, 2025

    Well, I made this Bûche de Noël in an eccentric way, as a Colin-the-Caterpillar-style Tuxedo Cat to fulfil a pledge to a teenager for a birthday party! It was a tasty cake & the biscuits also came out well. Another time, I would use icing not melted chocolate for the white parts - I had trouble with the white chocolate seizing whilst hungry children were waiting for the cake. Within a few moments of the singing & cutting, all the cake had vanished: a happy birthday for the children & for this Mummy :)

• Tiramisu

  • London_Mummy on October 09, 2025

    This recipe is for two individual portions. I doubled the recipe and made one dish of tiramisu; I also added some old bananas which needed using up. it is a nice, simple recipe. Be careful not to overwhip the mascarpone or double cream.

• Chocolate seed bombs

  • London_Mummy on October 19, 2025

    Something is not quite right in this recipe. The mixture was too dry to form into balls, so I had to add 100 g extra of milk chocolate & an extra tablespoon of syrup, & had to squeeze hard. I still had to use wet hands to make the last few balls. 100 g of dark chocolate was correct to coat half of each ball.