9th January 2018
Cakes have not always looked the way they do today; they were originally more like bread, and were sweetened with honey. Nuts and dried fruits were added, depending on whether the baker had them (they were rather precious ingredients and were not always easily available). Although the word cake is derived from the old Norse word ‘kaka’, the first culture…
8th October 2017
Pavlova is a meringue-based dessert that is usually topped with fresh fruit and lashings of whipped cream. It is a delightful dessert but its history is mired in a bit of controversy. You see, Anna Pavlova, the ballerina for whom the dessert was invented – and named – visited both Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s. The two neighbouring…
8th October 2017
Rice pudding, whilst rejected by some for being too plain and stodgy, still remains one of my favourite comfort foods. It’s actually been around for centuries, believe it or not, and was thought to have originated in China, which has an ancient rice culture. This has been disputed by some food historians; they argue that rice pudding likely originated in…
8th October 2017
Bread pudding is one of my favourite comfort foods, and is also called bread and butter pudding, or whitepot. Variations of bread pudding exist in culinary cultures around the world, from Argentina to India, from the United Kingdom to Colombia. It is also called hasty pudding (although this term encompasses both bread pudding and rice pudding) because – as the…