Tag: books

LAST-MINUTE FOODY BOOKS TO ADD TO YOUR SANTA LIST…

It’s not too late to add a couple of great books to your Santa list especially with Amazon Prime. My two last-minute picks are…

Finch Bakery: Sweet Homemade Treats and Showstopper Celebration Cakes by Lauren and Rachel Finch. A Sunday Times Best Seller on Amazon for £11

There are no healthy alternatives in this book – the fantastic showstopping cakes and cookies are pure indulgence. The successful sisters who started a bakery from their parent’s kitchen deliver some confectionary wonders.

Lauren and Rachel Finch, founders of Finch Bakery, share their best-kept secrets to decorating all-out celebration cakes and let you in on their top baking techniques to create indulgent brownies and cupcakes, decadent macarons, stuffed cookies of every kind and your very own versions of their indulgent signature cake jars.

Packed with crowd-pleasing classics and desserts to impress, this bestselling baking book has the treat to satisfy every sweet tooth, every time:

– Over 80 Instagram-ready baking recipes from occasion cakes, tray bakes, cookies, no-bake cakes and so much more!
– 15 step-by-step baking technique tutorials for beginners
– Mix-and-match your favourite flavour combinations for sponges, fillings, buttercream and toppings to build your own creations

Discover the hidden secrets to show-stopping bakes from tempering chocolate and levelling cakes, to crumb coating, piping and scraping techniques. You’ll learn the basics to cake decorating and baking before exploring indulgent flavour combinations.

Recipes are designed to be standalone, but some also work in a build-a-block way so you can make your own creation by swapping the sponge, filling, sauce or topping to satisfy your sweet tooth. With inventive creations and essential techniques, this is a whole new world of cake.

Gastro Obscure – A Food Adventurer’s Guide by Wong (Author), Cecily (Author), Thuras (Author), Dylan (Author), Atlas Obscura (Author) available from Amazon for £18.19

From those ever-curious, ever-quirky minds behind the #1 New York Times bestselling Atlas Obscura,, comes an unputdownable guide that marries our endless appetite for travel with our insatiable interest in food. Continent by continent, country by country, Gastro Obscura takes up the mantle of Atlas Obscura to radically expand our sense of wonder about the world–in this case, what humans eat and drink, which turns out to be far more marvellous than we could ever imagine.


Created by the founders of AtlasObscura.com, GastroObscura.com delivers fresh food stories daily to the millions of Atlas Obscura readers and Facebook fans, along with its own burgeoning dedicated email newsletter. And it is now serving up the best of it in a lavishly illustrated food-lover’s gift of nearly 500 dishes, ingredients, traditions, and experiences.


Discover English bog butter. “Threads of God” pasta (only three women know how to make it). The best black bean fritter restaurant in Brazil. The world’s largest floating restaurant. A croissant museum in Poland. Focusing as much on food’s place in our lives as well as our bellies, the book covers history–the network of ancient Roman fish sauce factories. Culture–picture four million women gathering to make rice pudding. Travel–scale China’s Mount Hua to reach a sacred tea house. Festivals–chase a wheel of double Gloucester at Britain’s annual Cooper’s Hill cheese rolling competition. And such truly surprising delicacies as sturgeon spinal cord, blood tofu, stinkbug tacos, and more.

Advertisement

4 FOODIE BOOKS TO BUY THIS CHRISTMAS…

The clock is clicking and Black Friday is just around the corner so check out these books in case you can make a saving buying them that bit earlier.

  1. One: Pot, Pan, Planet by Anna Jones – A greener way to cook for you, your family and the planet by Anna Jones. Award-winning cook Anna Jones blazes the trail again for how we all want to cook now: quick, sustainably and stylishly. ( Sunday Times best seller).

In this exciting new collection of over 200 simple recipes, Anna Jones limits the pans and simplifies the ingredients for all-in-one dinners that keep things fast and easy. These super varied every night recipes celebrate vegetables and deliver knock-out flavour but without taking time and energy.

There are one-tray dinners, like baked dahl with tamarind-glazed sweet potato, quick dishes like tahini broccoli on toast, one-pot soups and stews like Persian noodle as well as one-pan fritters and pancakes such as golden rosti with ancho chilli chutney.
 
One brings together a way of eating that is mindful of the planet. Anna gives you practical advice and shows how every small change in planning, shopping and reducing waste will make a difference. There are also 100 recipes for using up any amount of your most-eaten veg and ideas to help you use the foods that most often end up being thrown away.

This book is good for you, your pocket and the planet and would make a great gift for someone who wants to eat thoughtfully and imaginatively. Full of delicious vegetarian and vegan recipes that are easy to make. Available from Amazon and other good book stores for £18.55

2. No cookery book list could not include the brilliant Mary Berry who’s latest book Love to Cook: 120 joyful recipes from my new BBC series has just been published.

“Each beautifully photographed dish celebrates the delicious ingredients and flavours I love, and which make cooking at home such a joy.” Mary Berry

In this brand-new tie-in book to the BBC series, Love to Cook, Mary Berry will help you see your meals in an entirely new light. Every recipe is infused with her love of simple home cooking and fresh ingredients that feed the body and mind.

Whether you’re trying your hand at Mary’s fragrant Kashmiri chicken curry or baking her mouth-watering Lemon limoncello pavlova, it’s hard to beat the unique pleasure of making a dish from scratch and enjoying food with family and friends.

Available from Amazon and other good book shops for £12.00

3. For The Love of the Land by Jenny Jefferies – A Cook Book to Celebrate British Farmers and their Food by Jenny Jefferies & Katie Fisher. This is a cookbook to celebrate British farming in all its hardship and glory. For many families, working the land and raising livestock is a true labour of love, and what they produce is the backbone of the country’s food and drink.

The dishes in this book make the most of local and seasonal ingredients, creating delicious meals, puddings and bakes that anyone can cook up at home. Alongside that, members of these farming families have told the stories of their livelihoods: from losing sheep in snowstorms to stoking enthusiasm in the next generation, their honesty and passion is an inspiration and an education. Recipes include Blackbrook Beef Bolognese from a traditional lowland farm in Leicestershire, Reestit Mutton Soup by two sisters who run their family farm on Shetland and pheasant and asparagus bake from a family-run game shoot in Cambridgeshire, as well as Kentish Lavender Shortbread from Castle Farm and a cocktail featuring fresh edible flowers from Greens of Devon.

As the landscape of British farming changes, we need to support high-quality food production and understand how farmers can work in harmony with nature to make our eating habits more sustainable. Whether you’re country born and bred or have never donned a pair of wellies, discover the food and stories in this book to help to put British farming back on the map and at the centre of your table. Available from Amazon and other good book shops for £17.41

4. The Quick Roasting Tin: 30 Minute One Dish Dinners by Rukmini Iyer – I had to pop this book in for people who do not have the time to spend cooking in their kitchen.

10 MINUTES PREP. 30 MINUTES IN THE OVEN. The Quick Roasting Tin contains 75 new all-in-one tin recipes from quick weeknight dinners to at-home lunchboxes and family favourites. All meals take just 10 minutes to prep, and no longer than 30 minutes in the oven.

Just chop a few ingredients, pop them into a roasting tin, and kick back while the oven does the work. This book is perfect for anyone who wants fresh, delicious, hassle-free food and minimal washing up! Brilliant for bringing some excitement to your cooking. Easy and quick recipes for us all. Available from Amazon and other good book stores for £13.25