500 biscuits to make for The School of life Sunday sermon on Good Design held by Alice Rawsthorn, Design critic for the International Herald Tribune . They weren’t just any old biscuits which had everyone at the Conway Hall, London on the 28th June 2009 munching.

Specially designed “digestives” or better “designtives” were mixed, kneaded, rolled out and baked by hand. Yes, all 500 of them.

Digestive biscuits were invented in 1892 by McVities and in the UK we now consume 52 chocolate digestives per second. They originally claimed to “aide” digestion but this has been proven untrue. In the States it’s still illegal to sell the biscuits under the name. Rachel Khoo has improved on the design of the digestive but giving it added “digestion” properties.

Read more here on how they were ‘designed’ and the recipe.

If you are on a picture and you want it to be removed, please send me an email.

Photos from event taken by Bronia Stewart.

Tags: Alice Rawsthorn, sunday sermon, the school of life

Well I hope your Honey doesn’t . I whisked these up for a little teatime snack. They go great with a hot cup of a tea or a cold glass of milk. With the cold weather at the moment I have the tendency of snuggling under my duvet with a big cup of tea, something to nibble and a good book or dvd. For me it’s preferably an old classic with Cary Grant…sigh. They just don’t make men like that anymore.

Honey Bites

175g butter
60g brown sugar
60g runny honey
2 eggs
100g ground almonds
80g wholemeal flower
20g plain flour
3 tbsp of milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 handful of chopped almonds for garnish

Makes 24 bites (mini cupcakes) – alternatively you can bake in one large tray and a cut into small squares. Allow for extra baking time though.

Preheat the oven to 180°c.
Beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, honey and milk while beating the mixture. If the mixture curdles, don’t worry. It will come together once you add the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl sift the flours, baking powder and almonds together. Add the dry ingredients to the batter. Spoon into mini moulds and sprinkle with chopped almonds (if you have an extra sweet tooth you could drizzle some honey on top too). Bake for 15-20mins or until bites bounce back when you touch them.

Tags: almonds, bees, honey

These little spoons make fancy canapés with not much work effort and a small budget (total ingredients 7.23€). If you want to see some of the stuff which has been keeping me away from blogging. Take a look here and here.

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Tags: canapé, credit crunch recipe, mousse

Right now I’m busy prepping for my first cookery class @ La Cocotte this Thursday. I’ve been busy researching, testing, tasting, doing all things muffiny…so much so I think I’m actually becoming a muffin. I found out the word muffin comes from the old french term “moufflet” (=soft). And that the American muffins did originate from the English ones but quickly developed their own style.

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Tags: muffins

“When the going gets tough, the tough gets going!” Everyone has some phrase or another for times which are trying. I’ve been hearing a lot of them recently. And I think the saying above is great way of handling things. So I went on a bit of a mission this weekend. Sleeping was definetly not on the menu. Discovering new things, places and lots of dancing (I love dancing = instant happiness for me). On Saturday I came across a new blog which described an exhibition in Paris I just had to go to. I instantly rang to make a reservation, crossing my fingers they would have some spaces free.

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Tags: café ephermere, DMBLGIT award, E is for excellent award, gallery