Waste(less)

I'm always looking for great new ways to use up my sourdough discard, click here to find any recipe I've shared on the matter, and after buying the Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin on Baking with Sourdough by Sara Pitzer all my prayers have been answered. 

This recipe has a fudge-like quality due to the use of sourdough, and it's all done in one bowl, what more can you ask for?

You'll need

• 1/2 cup sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I've used olive oil and it works wonderfully too)
• 3/4 cup cold coffee
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (I always skip this step as I don't think vanilla really adds to this cake)

Method

Put the starter in a large bowl, cover it loosely, and let it become active, how long this step takes depends largely on the temperature in your house, but it should take at least one hour. Once the starter is active and bubbling, add the rest of the ingredients, in the order given above, mixing well after each addition. 

Grease and flour two 22cm (9 inches) round cake pans, pour in the batter, which will be thin, and bake in a preheated oven at 175ºC (350ªF) for about 30 minutes, or until the cake tests done when poked with a toothpick. Once cooked, the cake should have pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing from the pans, then finish cooling the layers on wire racks. The cake suggests a mild chocolate butter cream frosting to frost this cake, but I always go with a simple dusting of powder sugar for an everyday take.

Over the past few years, I wrote a few blog posts about my favourite Christmas drinks and I loved it, for chilled out days I made my Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, for cold evenings my favourite Mulled Cider and even Hot Chocolate 5 Ways. This year I knew I wanted to do something different, my own Christmas cocktail.

If there's something I associate with Christmas time is oranges. I remember piercing oranges with cloves to decorate my aunt's house before Christmas and sitting in front of our fireplace peeling oranges and eating them as soon as the months got colder, throwing the peels in the fire and making the whole living room smell delicious. So when I thought about making a Christmas cocktail I knew it had to have orange in it somehow.

• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 shot (45 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
• 1 shot gin (I make it double for my mum)
• Tonic water

Lastly, for a more Christmas-y take on this Cocktail, you will need exactly the same ingredients as in the base cocktail, but this time switch the tonic water for ginger ale, which I think really makes it a step better. The ginger ale along with the honey and orange juice really scream Christmas to me, and if you want to go even further you can also add a few spices like a cinnamon stick and cloves, you do you. Also, if like me you don't like gin and feel as though the limoncello takes away from the ginger ale's subtle taste, maybe use something cleaner, like vodka, which can be a really great substitute for gin in any kind of cocktail.

And there we go, one cocktail three ways, all delicious in their own way. Which one would you try for Christmas? Let me know in the comments below.

If you know me, you know one of my favourite things to do is to bake, I honestly could bake every day as soon as the weather starts to get gloomy, and I don't really know why I chose a literary path instead of training to be a baker, but I digress. I remember baking these cookies when I was still in high school, I decided to bake them and give them to my best friends for Christmas and honestly, I think we devoured them before the school day was over. If chocolate cookies aren't really your thing, you can take a look at my Spice Scented Holiday Cake, which is to die for, and my Gingerbread Cookies, coming soon, a real Christmas classic.

You'll need:

• 250 grams of soft unsalted butter (or your favourite substitute)
• 150 grams of sugar 
• 40 grams of cocoa powder
• 300 grams of plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

Nigella likes to use gloves to shape the cookies, but I find it doesn't stick too much to my hands so I rather skip the gloves and then have a reason to lick my fingers, but you do you. Roll small pieces of batter between your hands, I'm not very fussed about the correct size, I usually just go according to what looks right to me, but Nigella claims they must be around the size of a large walnut. Place them in the previously lined tray and flatten them a bit so they can rise somewhat evenly. They don't tend to spread too much but do space them well, you should be able to fit 12, but I always do 9 just to be safe.

Bake each batch for 15 minutes, once they're out of the oven let them cool slightly before removing from the tray and placing them in a cooling rack, they'll still look and feel a bit soft, but they do continue to cook as they cool so don't worry. I actually underbaked my last batch, obviously for research and not because I set my timer for 10 minutes instead of 15, and they still turned out great, they feel softer but thoroughly baked, almost like a soft brownie, so if you rather have them like that, feel free to underbake them as well. If you do this and feel they're too soft for you, you can just pop them back in the oven for a minute or two, and if someone comments on this, just call the cookies biscotti, we all know how much Nigella loves an Italian reference.

This is where my cookies differ from Nigella's again. You're now supposed to make a topping, whisking 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 175 grams of icing sugar, 60 ml of boiling water, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in a saucepan over a low heat and then let it cool a bit and drizzle on top of the cooled cookies and then top with Christmas sprinkles, you could maybe even crumble some candy canes and use them as sprinkles. I instead prefer to simply dust them with a bit of icing sugar or let them be on their own, the first time I baked them I did feel they were a bit heavy because of the icing on top, but you do you, icing or no icing, these are the best chocolate cookies out there and I'm prepared to fight you on this. They fall somewhere between a crispy and crumbly shortbread and a soft biscuit, the best of both worlds. And as my mum doesn't like chocolate cookies, I'm bound to eat all 24 of them by myself, what a task...

For this cake you will need:

For the crumb topping you will need:

• 1 3/4 cup of flour 
• 1/2 cup of granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of melted butter

For the cake:

Method

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup oil
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup milk (I use oat milk)
• 1 cup grated courgette
• 2 cups white flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

Photo by Georgiana Sparks on Unsplash

Every Saturday night, I get my sourdough starter out of the fridge, feed it, and leave it to grow overnight. Once I wake up, I take the amount I need for both my breads for the week and I'm still left with plenty. After a few weeks of doing this, I realized I was starting to have way too much starter for the amount I used regularly, and my freezer was getting too full of discard so, the quest for recipes to use it up began. I tried a few muffin recipes but they fell short, I made some pizza dough but, as much as I'd want to, I can't really have pizza every week (no matter how healthy I can make it), and so, I finally decided to give sourdough pancakes a try. Pancakes have always been my breakfast of choice, and once I found myself living alone, my Saturday mornings were filled with sky-high stacks of pancakes and I ate nothing more for the rest of the day, those were the days. After moving back in with my mum, that tradition kinda died down but alas, my sourdough has saved me and now, Sundays are officially pancake day at our place. 

• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar (optional, but I do miss it when I don't add it)
• 2 tbsp olive oil (you can use your fat of choice, simply keep in mind some fats are oilier than others)
• 3/4 cup oat milk (or whatever milk you prefer)
• 1 cup sourdough starter

'Tis the season for hot chocolate!

• 250 ml milk (whatever milk you usually drink, I now use oat milk)
• 50 grams dark chocolate, chopped
• salted caramel sauce (you can use this recipe)
• whipped cream to top
• extra dark chocolate, grated
• roasted marshmallows for some extra goodness

Last year I showed you my Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate, which I love, but you do have to make salted caramel and that's something I'm not always in the mood to do so, this year, I'm showing you a hot chocolate base that you can have on its own, and four delicious variations you can make with it, first we have a rich and fresh Peppermint Hot Chocolate, followed by a warm Gingerbread Hot Chocolate, then a spicy and tingly Chai Hot Chocolate and, lastly, a classic, Orange Hot Chocolate, what more do you need? And do you know what? If you still have some Christmas gifts to figure out, why not add all the dry ingredients to a cute jar, write the recipe on a little tag and wrap it around the jar? A tasty gift that keeps on giving and an affordable one at that...

• 30 grams of sugar
• 10 grams of cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• 200 ml milk (I use homemade oat milk because it's my favourite, but you use whatever you like)
• 30 ml cream (this makes it a bit richer, but you can skip it if you like)

In a saucepan whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder and cornstarch. The cornstarch is supposed to make it a bit thicker, but it won't make it solid like a pudding so don't worry. Once it's all combined pour in the milk of your choice and whisk until it's all well blended. Bring the mixture to a light boil over medium heat and stir gently but frequently, once it starts lightly boiling reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for around 20 seconds, stirring constantly so it won't burn. Remove from the heat and, if you're using cream, stir it in.