When my eyes first fell upon the SCAA’s flavour wheel I remember scanning the different flavours and at first nodding in agreement – citrus (yep), berry (yep), chocolate (yep) – and then my eyes fell on ‘alliaceous’ (garlic and onion) and I was a bit flummoxed. I had certainly never tried a coffee and thought – ‘hmm, not bad, I just wish it did not taste so strongly of onion or garlic’ (nor in fact have I ever reminisced fondly about a coffee that reminded me of our favourite alliums!). So I had to do some research to understand where that onion or garlic flavour in coffee can come from. It turns out, there are two reasons why the flavour of coffee can remind you of onion and garlic. Both can be a side effect of ‘wet processing’ (also referred to as washed processing) of coffee beans, a process which involves coffee beans (after being removed from the coffee cherries but
cream cheese
Double Rye Treacle Tarts
Alessandro and I have been travelling around Northern Laos and Northern Thailand for just over a week now. We have been getting up early to watch the hustle and bustle of the morning markets, wandered through the grounds of stunning temples, walked along the banks of the Mekong river, travelled on local buses so full people were sitting on rice bags in the middle of the aisles and swam in the turquoise water of one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen. While every trip comes with its own challenges, whether it be jet-lag, getting sick, over-hyped destinations, missed flights or buses – and this trip has certainly had its fair share of that as well – I am so glad we decided to go on this trip. Time seemed to have stopped while we are taking in our new (and temporary) surroundings with all their new-to-us sights, smells and flavours. Above all, it is so nice to spend
Could this be the best carrot cake?
Like many other food bloggers, homebakers and homecooks, I shy away from calling a recipe the “best” ever recipe for whatever it is I have concocted – tastes, preferences and favourite ingredients are liable to change over time. Besides, what do people even mean when they say that something is the “best” ever cake/muffin/cookie recipe? Surely such judgment is highly subjective. Take brownies for example, some people have to have nuts in them, ideally walnuts, others abhor any kind of nuts in their brownie, most people want their brownies to be perfectly fudgy, while others find fudgy brownies cloying. What constitutes the perfect brownie for one person can be miles away from the perfect brownie for someone else. With that said, below is what I would call “my” best carrot cake recipe – “my” in the very loose sense of the word since the recipe is not my recipe at all – I think it was my sister Helena who originally discovered the recipe
REAL SIMPLE FOOD 