Posts tagged 'vanilla'
24 July 2017
What's Going On With Vanilla?
Having built a decent line in Fairtrade organic vanilla, we recently have had to stop selling it to trade because of supply issues. At the same time, we’ve been asked by many new customers for vanilla or Fairtrade vanilla. Everyone’s scrabbling aro...
Read more12 February 2012
Homemade Marshmallows
It is not very often that I rip out pages from cookery magazines for use at a later date, so it was a surprise when the other day I found some pages I had ripped from a copy of the magazine, Delicious, from some years back. In it, I had obviously fa...
Read more08 October 2010
Recipe For Rich Apple Cake
The idea for this cake comes from the wonderful cook book "European Peasant Cookery" by Elisabeth Luard; it is her recipe for Apple Cake or Æblekage, which comes from Denmark. "European Peasant Cookery" is one of those great cookbooks that is packed...
Read more22 September 2010
Recipe For Pears In Rooibos With Vanilla And Saffron
One of the classics of British cuisine is to poach pears in red wine or syrup. As a variation on this, I sometimes create a sweet spicy syrup to poach the pears in, then reduce these to a thick, sweet sauce. Recently, however, I have been...
Read more15 September 2010
Vanilla - A Beautiful And Sensual Spice
Vanilla comes from the vanilla orchid, called Vanilla planifolia, which is native to Mexico, but is now indigenous in many tropical parts of the world, for example Madagascar and surrounding islands. There is a second vanilla orchid called Vanilla t...
Read more02 May 2010
New Organic Vanilla From Tahiti
We've had a delivery of some gorgeous fecund organic vanilla from Tahiti. It's brilliant kit and it's totally different from normal organic vanilla from Madagascar - firstly, it's a different species of vanilla orchid, called Vanilla tahitensis as a...
Read more07 April 2010
Recipe - Sweet Tart Dough or Sweet Pastry
I am not very good at making pastry. Some people say that you need cold hands to make pastry and dough, but I have warm hands as I seem always to be burning away all that food - perhaps I just never sit still or my metabolism runs too fast.
Read more15 March 2010
Child Labour and Vanilla
There was a pretty damning article in The Times yesterday about child labour and low prices paid for vanilla from Madagascar - see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7060962.ece, however rest assured our vanilla beans are not c...
Read more25 February 2010
Recipe for Vanilla Fudge and Coconut Ice
I know this is really quite pathetic but I have only just cracked how to make fudge in the last year. It always seemed to burn every time I tried to make it - the problem is that most recipes don't give the mixture long enough for the sugar to be tr...
Read more04 February 2010
Recipe for Traditional Pudding: Queen of Puddings
I was listening to Radio 4 the other day and they were talking about steam puddings and how it is a truly English traditional that is not found anywhere else. One of the puds they were talking about was Queen of Puddings which was being made at Riv...
Read more29 January 2010
Development thoughts about vanilla from the Congo
I like the vanilla beans from the Congo because of their story. I like the idea that the vanilla beans are grown in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the Virunga National Park. I, also, like the fact that this is a fair trade story, where local p...
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