Award-winning blog of Irish food writer and broadcaster Caroline Hennessy.
Sweet treats for the one you love: Chocolate Caramel ShortbreadNever mind flowers and forget about going out for dinner, with Valentine’s Day tomorrow, get baking for your sweetheart with this Chocolate Caramel Shortbread. This recipe makes plenty to devour and share but it’s so good that your biggest problem will be not eating the entire thing today.
Christmas is the time for long, leisurely brunches with family and friends. Make it easy with dishes that you can prepare in advance and whip into the oven just before your guests arrive. Caroline Hennessy, writing for EveryMonday.ie, gives you a few easy ideas that won’t have you losing your Christmas cheer. Click here for recipes for the Christmas Muffins (pictured on the right), Potato, Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Frittata and Buttermilk Pancakes with Cranberry Orange Sauce.
Cookery demonstrations + cakes + ovens + me = narrow escapes! On Wednesday night I was demonstrating some recipes in the community centre at Knockcarron, a really lovely renovated primary school in Co Limerick, when oven issues arose once again.
Bake / Cookery Books / Read
by Caroline · Published November 21, 2009 · Last modified February 12, 2020
When the weather gets tough, it’s time to get baking. Just made Carmel Somers’ Banana and Chocolate Cake from her Eat Good Things Every Day cookbook and it’s a winner.
The suspense was growing. There is an element of hope in cooking an upsidedown cake at the best of time but cooking one for a demonstration in front of 35 members of the Glenroe Ladies’ Club was, perhaps, asking for trouble. Throw in anirregularly used gas oven – I live in a world of electricity, rarely cooking on gas – and a demonstrator who, while distracted, managed to turn the oven off instead of up (ahem) and you’re adding a whole new layer of problems to the mix!
When I was small we grew rhubarb in the back garden. Whatever variety it was – we had sourced the crown from some friend or relative so there were no labels – it grew gigantic stems, as thick as a baby’s wrist, topped by enormous leaves that we thought looked like child-sized umbrellas. I was never a fan: it was so stringy that it had to be peeled before cooking and I was always extremely dubious about any fruit or vegetable that did such a good job of shining the inside of the saucepan in which it was cooked.
There are days when nothing but a loaf cake will do. When I’m calling round to a friend or heading to stay with a cousin, I like to bring something with me and these days I’m going through a phase of loaf cake making. I normally make a pair so there’s one to take and one to eat at home – otherwise the Husband might just starve to death!
As a child, autumn was one of my favourite times of year. Going back to school was much eased by the fact that there were blackberries available for eating on nearby hedges, crab apples down the fields to be gathered and plenty of field mushrooms to be picked. This year, Little Missy in her sling for our daily walks, trying to grab any bramble that comes near her, we’ve been keeping an eye out for plump sloes and watching as the elderberries ripen, while eating lots of blackberries.
