A couple of months ago, Apple launched a new service as part of their news subscription called News+ Food. The additional app functionality appears in the News+ app, bringing together recipes from around the different outlets that appear in the News app, and allows you to save any recipes you might find. As with other recipe apps, it then allows you to make sure you’ve got all the ingredients available, …

I previously sheepishly confessed to purchasing a Le Creuset casserole pan and I’m sure you can imagine it gets far less use than it should do. However, I was so impressed with it at the time that I also purchased a deep frying pan by the same maker and it was also excellent... that one definitely gets used on an almost daily basis. Until now. The pans are supposed to …

I don't know if it's just me but August has felt really long. In some ways that's good, we've enjoyed some good weather (we've also endured some heatwaves) but also plenty of daylight, sunshine, and generally good vibes to offset the never-ending stream of bad news in the country and the world. My challenge this month was to try and eat a salad every day for lunch, 30 Days of …

I had seen a couple of people talking about air fryers on TikTok, but not really paid it too much attention. It sounded like just another cooking fad that would pass me by, like slow cookers (I did actually try a slow cooker with disastrous results) and pressure cooking. But then a couple of friends were discussing their own joys of frying in only air and my ears perked up. …

We've reached August and it's time to start the eighth 30 day challenge of my year. Off the back of timing the Waterllama hydration challenge so perfectly for the hottest days in the UK ever, the summer vibe continues and this month I'm focused on lunchtimes. We're going for 30 Days of Salads. I've been eating more salads recently anyway, but it feels like it's time to give the meal …

One of the first things I had to address when I started thinking about reducing waste was my meal delivery box. I’ve learnt so much over the years getting a weekly delivery with great recipes and the ingredients all laid out for you - gained a lot of confidence and started to understand how to throw together a meal with the basics in your store cupboards. But I couldn’t ignore …

I had some leftover bananas that were quickly ripening and sure, I could have just eaten them, but where's the fun in that? No, instead, I dug out a Mary Berry recipe for banoffee pie - something I have never made before and to be honest, haven't eaten that often either. But biscuits, bananas, caramel, cream and chocolate can't really go wrong, can it? Hooray, it didn't go wrong! I …

Since The Grand Tour became more of An Occasional Jaunt, the three presenters have been trying their hand at other things, usually turning their hobbies into business ventures. James May learned to cook and bought a pub, Jeremy Clarkson got into farming in a big (tractor) way, and Richard Hammond ploughed all his time and money into a classic car restoration business. All of them have made TV shows along …

I'm not particularly creative in the kitchen - I don't mind trying things but I need the guidance of a recipe. I don't really have the knowledge or gut feeling to get experimental. This book is probably more for those who want some underlying knowledge to then be able to work some magic in the kitchen, so it wasn't completely useful to me.

Last week, a Le Creseut casserole dish was delivered to my house. You know the ones, top of the range pots and pans that come with the associated price tag. I could tell you the excuses and reasons behind this - spending more time in the kitchen, should have the best tools you can, not spending on a lot else at the moment - but actually there are only two …

I wish I could say that the many lockdowns of 2020 turned me into a domestic goddess with a sparkling clean house and freshly baked goods spilling out of the oven every day. It did not. I, like many people, spent a lot of time in my pyjamas, working too many hours, and watching too much TV. But, I have managed to get in the kitchen for the last couple …

This is a great little collection of war effort leaflets relating to food, rationing, exercise and generally trying to be healthy. It was eye-opening, because you sort of think of the war and rationing as a time of being hungry and unhealthy, but actually, whilst there may have been a shortness of certain foods, everything else looked super healthy. It made me quite sad to see how we have completely lost the basic building blocks of nutrition. This needs to be hammered into kids from an early age, by parents, schools, shops, governments, whoever. Make it easy and second nature.

I've seen a lot of debate recently about the usefulness of new year's resolutions - are we putting too much pressure on ourselves? Are we pushing for hard to achieve activities when we should be revelling more in what we have and who we are? I think there can be an element of this and I can respect those who don't care for a resolution one way or the other. …

So, I've never cooked Christmas dinner before. To be honest, my experience of cooking roast meat of any kind is limited. A chicken or two, maybe a ham at some point, and that's the limit. I've really tried to up my cooking game this year, though, as we start to focus on our health a bit more than we have previously. With that in mind, when HelloFresh started advertising their …

I mentioned before how the household is looking to make healthier choices, and that involves me spending a bit more time in the kitchen than I have been doing over the last few years. I’m not the best cook, but I do quite enjoy the process and whilst my presentation skills are essentially non-existent, I can occasionally whip something together that tastes nice. At the moment, my mealtime focus has …

The BBC Good Food Show has been on my to do list for a while, and this year I finally managed to find time to attend the show for a few hours. It's bad timing really, because I haven't been cooking or baking as much as I used to, but even so, I'm still keen on seeing what the best of the kitchen world has to offer. In all honesty, …

I wouldn't cook well with a camera up close like that. The pressure!

I enjoy cooking a lot, but it’s something I’ve never really managed to get fully into. I had that brief interlude with baking and impressed myself with a couple of dishes, but even that ended up petering out before it really got going. The trouble I have is that I don’t really have the fundamental basic knowledge to start experimenting and learning and making great things. Without boring details about …

When the last series of the Great British Bake Off aired, I was inspired to start baking. I’ve made the occasional cake here and there, but I wouldn’t have called myself an enthusiast beforehand. However, with each episode of the series, I baked something out of my comfort zone to varying degrees of success. This year, I’m less inclined to get the oven on. Part of that is because I …

During some recent summer community fun over on Sidepodcast, the challenge arose to bake something F1 related. Given the wealth of choice of recipes available to me, and a limited amount of time, I went for something I’ve already made in the hopes I could do it better. A long while back, I baked an F1Minute cake, to celebrate a podcasting anniversary. It went down very well, although it was …

I have recently been looking at magazines on the Newsstand, and investigated the digital version of the BBC's GoodFood magazine. Considering most of my recipes tend to come from the BBC or their GoodFood equivalent, this seemed like a natural extension. In my first issue, I stumbled across this recipe for a lighter Bakewell tart. It being "lighter" didn't bother me all that much, but I suddenly had a craving …

My bread-making skills are still very basic, and although I keep meaning to practice more, it is such a stop-start and lengthy process that I never get round to it. Nevertheless, when I bought a loaf tin for my cherry cake, I decided I should probably try and make a loaf of bread - it would be rude not to do so! I delved into my copy of Paul Hollywood's …

I am quite behind on talking of my recent bakes, but equally, you haven't missed that much. I have discovered the Basil iPad app for keeping track of the recipes I like, and spent some time importing all the recipes I've tried, noticing that a lot of them come from the BBC. I've also been looking at the GoodFood (BBC) magazine available on the Newsstand. Perhaps I need to spread …

I tried baking a cherry cake before, and it was a more traditional sort - the result was not quite what I was looking for. Instead, I searched for a loaf cake recipe, and uncovered this gem, which is apparently adapted from a Good Housekeeping recipe. It was so delicious, and disappeared very quickly. I couldn't quite work out whether the cherries had stayed in situ or not - there …

A few week's ago, I bought the Great British Bake Off booklet, produced for Comic Relief. There weren't really any new recipes in there that I hadn't already seen, but it was for charity - plus, I ordered it through a supermarket delivery, so it came right to my door without me having to lift a finger. Inside was a recipe for scones, and whilst I wasn't keen on that …

My dad sent me a link to this video, showing some bakers having great fun as they make heaps of loaves of all different shapes and sizes. I find it oddly fascinating, the sheer amounts of flour flying around, and the perfection and regulation of the dough! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUuKstAWof4

So far this year, my baking mojo has been worryingly absent. Perhaps it is the lack of any Great British Baking to inspire me (although the Comic Relief specials were bloomin' marvellous!) but mostly, it's a lack of time related to spending weekends buried in a keyboard. Thankfully, it's starting to come back to me now so that I spent a bit of time perusing various recipes and opting for …

When I last properly baked, I made chocolate butterfly cupcakes, that were very delicious. Pondering what to do with the multitude of cake cases I was left with, I received a suggestion from Lou that I subsequently promised to attempt. The conversation went along these lines, paraphrased, naturally: Lou - Make panda cupcakes! Me - WHA? Lou - They're easy, chocolate buttons, dash of icing, no probs. Me - Hmm, …

My obsession with weekly baking has faded slightly, but I'm still keen on getting things in the oven and seeing what happens. I'm too much of a coward to dive straight into making croissants by hand, but they're a popular foodstuff in this house, so I was intrigued when I saw an odd little can from Jus-Rol, the incredible ready-made pastry people. Turns out, it was a roll of dough …

This week, I passed the Baking recipe app to Mr C and asked him to pick something he might like. The app is full of photographs, so it makes choosing what you want both a) easier because they are some fantastic photos and b) harder because you want to try a little bit of everything. He opted for the Chocolate Butterfly Cupcakes, which I thought looked complicated but weren't once …

When I finally started a bit more human after a festive holiday full of cold, I decided to bake something nice and comforting. What better than apple pie? I used a recipe from the Photo Cookbook - Baking edition, and had great fun chopping up all the apples and mixing in sugar and cinnamon. I didn't have a round dish, so I improvised. They are meant to be leaves on …

I've always been a bit put off by the whole puff pastry situation. Everyone says that you may as well just buy ready made pastry - even Mary Berry says so - and that it's nothing to be ashamed of. Making puff pastry from scratch is tricky and time-consuming, so it makes perfect sense just to roll out the ready made stuff. It's not that I'm snobbish about it, but …

These are so good. So delicious. I really need to work on my dusting technique though. It's not very even, and far too much in some places.

It turns out that Mr C is a bit of a fan of cherry cake, so I added it to my baking list and this week that was the recipe that popped up. It's a good ol' Delia Smith recipe, but I must admit to being a little concerned at the idea of putting a cake in an oven for an hour and a half. It's a reasonably low heat, …

Naturally, as we are heading rapidly towards the festive season, where mince pies and yule logs and turkeys are the order of the day, I decided to bake some Hot Cross Buns. It had been in the back of my mind a while ago, and then when I made the chocolate chip cookies, I remembered I had dried mixed fruit that needed using up. So, I waited until the end …

I wasn't actually planning on baking this week - lots to do and not too much time to spend in the kitchen. However, as I am officially addicted, I looked for a quick and simple recipe that I could do without too much thought. There was also a request from other members of the household for some brownies. Lo and behold. I love chocolate, I really do, but I wasn't …

Before I started my weekly baking habit, I did try my hand at a few odds and ends, with a medium degree of success. A traditional Victoria Sponge was one of those that I attempted, and it didn't turn out too badly. I had some odd crinkly edges to contend with but it was okay. I thought, as I am now clearly a baker extraordinaire, that I would try again …

Somehow, baking something no matter how big or small seems to have become a weekly habit and there's no escaping it. I keep thinking I'll take a weekend away from the kitchen, and then my ingredients cupboard calls out to me and there I am with the mixing bowls, creating something else! This week, I went back to the treacle tart that I made during the Bake Off fun and …

This week's bake was chocolate chip cookies that I have been dreaming of making for a long while, since the middle of the actual Bake Off marathon. I sourced a recipe and, once again, was happy that my ingredients cupboard featured everything I needed except chocolate chips. I decided to buy both chocolate chips and chocolate chunks and mix things up a bit. Oh my god, they were so good! …

The Great British Bake Off came to its conclusion a week or so ago (not that you'd know it as their are masterclasses and "revisited" episodes galore!) and I was sure that I was going to take a break from baking too. Except, then Mr C requested jam tarts and I had a look at a recipe and compared to some of the things I've been doing, it seemed the …

For each and every episode of this year's Great British Bake Off competition, I attempted to bake my own version of something seen in the show - either a direct recipe from the show, or a recipe that was inspired by what I'd just watched. My previous baking experience includes a loaf of bread here and there, the occasional Victoria sponge, mince pies and simple bits, plus one iced cake …

The final of the Bake Off was so good! The balance of baking power kept swinging between the contestants, so that it really was a complete unknown when the winner was announced. Well done John! Brilliant job. Meanwhile, I was left with a decision to make. I decided, as this is the last "Inspired by..." post, I'd go for it and try my hand at the technical challenge. Signature dish …

The Bake Off is getting pretty difficult now, with the semi-final last week and the final coming up. I was pretty confident that I wouldn't be able to make anything they did in the show itself, but I was keen to be inspired. They baked the following: Signature dish - Petit-Fours Technical challenge - Fraisier cake Showstopper - Choux pastry gateaux I figured that chocolate eclairs would be a good …

I was looking forward to this biscuit episode of the Bake Off, but actually when we got to it, it wasn't all that biscuity after all. The options this week were as follows: Signature dish - Crackers Technical challenge - Chocolate teacakes Showstopper - Gingerbread construction I'm not really a massive fan of gingerbread - I don't mind the occasional biscuit or nibble but an entire house was a bit …

I've tried to stick to recipes from the actual Bake Off for the last couple of weeks, but this time I moved slightly away from it. There were a few variations on the Chelsea bun, and I very quickly realised that I wanted to do the bun, but in it's rather more normal form. It's worth noting what the other challenges were for this week: Signature dish - Regional buns …

An admission before we begin - this week I was forced to pick the recipe before I'd actually seen the Bake Off show. My viewing was delayed until Thursday, and I had to order my online shopping before that, so I viewed the episode recipe options on the BBC's site and decided on the one that looked the best. The options this time: Signature dish - Sponge puddings Technical challenge …

After last week, wherein I wasn't sure I liked anything I'd seen on screen, I knew this would be a much easier week. Mr C is a fan of pastry, and there was bound to be something we liked. The options this time: Signature dish - Wellington Technical challenge - Hand-raised pie Showstopper - American sweet pie I was convinced it was going to be a Wellington on my to-do …

As I tweeted earlier in the week, something I had not considered when I dreamt up this idea of trying my hand at things that the Bake Off featured, was the concept of not liking anything within a given week. Each episode is on a theme, but there are three options within each and a multitude of recipes in each option. How is it possible not to like any of …

Mr C and I had something of a discussion/disagreement after the last baking adventure. The flatbreads were nice enough, but he was disappointed they didn't match anything that he'd seen on his TV screen. I hadn't realised it up until this point but the BBC do actually put selected recipes from the Great British Bake Off on the site, so for this week's challenge, I promised to do something that …

I was ever so slightly disappointed that this week's topic was breads, as I had such fun with the cake last week, I was hoping for more sweet treats this time round. Nevertheless, the theme was bread based, and the options were as follows: Signature dish - Flatbreads Technical challenge - Plaited loaf Showstopper - Sweet and savoury bagels I was very, very tempted by the bagels because as we …