Month: October 2012

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L’Enclume photo blog

I love Simon Rogan’s food. Our first experience of it was at L’Enclume in 2012.  We have since visited The French a couple of times and Fera and always come away excited and amazed at the creative way he uses ingredients and especially those foraged and lesser known. Here is an outline of that meal on 28th October 2012. I still remember key elements of the meal like it were yesterday. A memorable meal!

Oyster pebbles


Cockles and cucumber


Smoked eel with ham fat (no photograph but I can still remember the taste! Amazing!)

Squid and chicken


Crispy potato and coddled eggs 


Cod ‘yolk’ , sage cream, radish, salt and vinegar (Cod made into a mousse and set like a yolk. Salt and vinegar through the puffed rice)

Westcombe dumplings, beetroots and watercress
Valley venison, charcoal oil, mustard and fennel 


Jerusalem artichoke, lovage, English truffles, ragstone 


Sea scallop with sweet corn, buckwheat and meadowsweet 


Heritage tomatoes in rosehip, smoked narrow and borage 

Turbot with sea asters, mussels and onions 

Cumbrian Galloway beef and grilled carrots with brassicas and Cowmire cider 


Chestnut cream, apple, woodruff 


Cumbrian slate, quince, lemon verbena, and hazelnut (‘slate’ made from sloes)


Blackberry with plum, malt and stout 


Pear, sweet cheese and apple marigold cones (cones made from elderberry)


Petit fours of Kendal mint cake aerated ice cream and chocolate 

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Raspberry and pear cake

More gifts from the garden today led to an afternoon baking a cake.


I used this recipe from Rachel Allen’s ‘Bake’. It’s a variation of her Dutch apple cake

2 eggs
175g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
85g butter
75ml milk
125g plain flour
Zest of an orange
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
100g raspberries
2 pears thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 200c
Whisk the eggs, caster sugar and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture is thick and looks like mousse ( this takes a few minutes)


Melt the butter and milk in a pan and then pour onto the eggs whilst whisking.
Fold the dry ingredients and orange zest into the egg mix and then pour into a square cake tin.


Arrange the pear and raspberries over the cake mix ( some will sink)
Bake for 10 minutes then reduce the oven to 180 and bake for a further 25 minutes.


– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Autumn fruit and marzipan muffins

Our garden has certainly been fruitful this autumn. Plenty of pears, plums and raspberries to enjoy. The danger with baking is it is all too easy to make the same cakes over and over again as you know they work. So, I decided to spend an afternoon searching my many recipe books for new ideas that I could adapt. Here is one I adapted from my Ottolenghi recipe book.

480g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
200g caster sugar
2 eggs
110g melted unsalted butter
280ml milk
Zest of 2 oranges
100g marzipan

Autumn fruit compote
500g plums stoned and cut into chunks
250g raspberries
60g caster sugar
1 stick of cinnamon

To make the compote, put the fruit, sugar and cinnamon mixed together in an oven dish and bake for 15 mins at 170c. When it has softened and its lovely and juicy and sticky, take it out of the oven and set outside to cool.


Put the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon in a bowl. In a separate bowl whisk the sugar and eggs together then add the milk and butter and combine it. Grate the marzipan into the mix and add the orange zest. Add 100g of the compote and mix.


Fold in the dry ingredients and spoon the mix into muffin cases.
Bake at 170c for 25-30 mins
Serve with the remaining compote


– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad