Category Archives: Bread

Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Loaf

Do what you love and love what you do.

Ten years ago, I started this blog. I pressed publish on my first post sitting at the same table I’m at now, so some things remain, but also . . . change. So much. What a difference ten years make.

Ten years ago I wasn’t yet married, hadn’t published a cookbook, didn’t own the house we’re in now, hadn’t yet met or really even conceived of the three children who currently consume so much of my every waking breath.  

I started this blog because I love food. I love to cook and bake, a passion which progressed into recipe development, and I love the connection and community that sharing something to eat can bring. Food is my love language and I’m immersed in it – for both work and pleasure – every single day. But language is also my love. 

Somewhere in the chaos of nearly seven years of babies – trying to conceive, miscarriage, pregnancy, breastfeeding – I forgot how much I love to write. Sitting down, sifting through memories, putting pen to paper or text on a screen allows my brain to settle. My husband rarely prepares for things and can ad lib with ease, but I find myself generally so much more articulate on paper than in person, when I’ve had the space to collect and process my thoughts. 

For years this blog was a journal of sorts – for myself first and always, but also for friends and connections I made through the blogging world and in turn thousands of people I’d never met. With babies it began to slide and – a weird coincidence – the last proper recipe post I wrote was when Joy was almost exactly the age Cleo is now. Perhaps eight months is how long it takes my brain to surface from the fog of new motherhood? In fact I fear it may never fully, but I’m back in a place where I want to write again, and I hope some of it can be here. 

Today we’re talking pumpkin bread. Or cake. It’s baked in a loaf tin but let’s be clear, these chocolate studded slices are cake. I’d hoped to be baking with Joy at her nursery last week (parent volunteers are invited in to read and bake with the children) but Cleo’s only trusted babysitter (my mum) fell through (an urgent tooth appointment) and I was left with the several    pumpkins I had stockpiled with a batch of 60 veg-packed scones in mind.

Some scones were made, but there are only so many one family can eat. With lots of roasted flesh to spare, I decided to make this sweet spiced loaf. Banana bread – cake – is my go to loaf bake, but I’m so pleased the stars aligned to bring me excess pumpkin because this recipe is so good. Pumpkin, brown sugar, warming winter spices and great chunks of dark chocolate all bound in a moist but delicate crumb. Twenty four hours after emerging from the oven, the entire cake was gone.

Worth waiting the year and a half since my last proper recipe post? You decide. It is pretty damn delicious. 


Wholemeal Spelt Soda Bread

Wholemeal spelt spda bread - 2

With just four ingredients, no kneading and twenty minutes cooking time, this wholesome little loaf could not be easier to make. Unless, of course, your two year old pulls the glass bowl you’ve been mixing ingredients in off the side and smashes it onto the floor. After two years of next to no television, Nino has recently discovered the delights of Peppa Pig and, more specifically, Mr Bull. A large, loveable rogue, Mr Bull’s primary tasks in life seem to be making noise, digging up roads and breaking things (usually by accident). The perfect role model for a toddler. Needless to say, Nino’s suggestions that ‘Mummy mend it with superglue’ as we stood surrounded – barefoot – by shattered glass were met with a weary raised eyebrow. Continue reading →

Miracle No Knead Bread

No Knead Bread - 2

Flour. Yeast. Water. Salt. These are the ingredients that real bread is made from. A drizzle of olive oil if you’re making pizza, perhaps, a handful of oats or wheatgerm for flavour, nuts and seeds or dried fruit for texture. Real bread goes from oven to table in minutes. It starts life on the kitchen counter, serves several meals then is either eaten or repurposed to thicken soup, as crumbs to coat fish, or crusts saved in the freezer. Real bread doesn’t sit on a shelf for a week, stuffed with synthetic fats, stabilisers and mould inhibitors to allow it to do so. It doesn’t live as long again in your kitchen, sliced and stodgy and sweating slightly in its plastic wrapper . Continue reading →

Blueberry Scone Fingers (Toddler Approved)

Blueberry Scones (Toddler Friendly) - 9

When we first started our weaning journey over a year ago, I chose the baby led route because I wanted meal times to be easy. The idea of handing over a pear or slice of bread, moving on to chicken drumsticks and eventually plates of the exact same food we were eating as adults appealed as a simple option and seemed like the best way to avoid fussy eating or multiple meal making. To a large extent I’d say it’s been a success – Nino’s a hearty little eater, loves his veg and asks to try almost anything in sight – but I’d be lying if I said it was plain sailing over here. There are days when foods are rejected, forced on whichever unfortunate soft toy he’s lined up as a mealtime companion or thrown on the floor. Like any normal mother, I often cook the things I know Nino will like, especially if it’s someone other than me feeding him. And although he’s pretty handy with plastic cutlery nowadays, he’ll still insist that I spoon food into his mouth or ask me to cut something that could easily be bitten in two on a pretty regular basis. Continue reading →

A Little Loaf

little loaf
I’m keeping it short and sweet today but first of all, thank you. For your lovely comments on this post, but also for your emails, texts, Facebook messages and more. I’m overwhelmed by how many wonderful individuals there are out there and truly touched and humbled by your words of encouragement, stories and love.

Today we’re sticking with a carbohydrate theme and a loaf a little bigger than the one currently in my tummy (although he’s doing his very best to catch up with more kicks and wriggles every day). This recipe is originally from Homemade Memories and has been reproduced online by the lovely people at Design Sponge. It’s a gorgeous space and I’m honoured to have been featured. Continue reading →

Leek & Potato Pizzette + News!

Leek Potato Pizzette
The morning after the launch party for my cookbook, back in June, I woke up early with a racing heart, a slight sicky feeling and butterflies in my stomach. Given the gallons of prosecco that were consumed the night before, this shouldn’t have been surprising. Except that I hadn’t been drinking. Twenty one weeks later and it’s about time I shared some important news with you. I think you might guess where I’m going with this . . .  Continue reading →

Quick Courgette + Rosemary Bread

Courgette rosemary loaf

‘The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight…

[Breadmaking is] one of those almost hypnotic businesses, like a dance from some ancient ceremony. It leaves you filled with one of the world’s sweetest smells… there is no chiropractic treatment, no Yoga exercise, no hour of meditation in a music-throbbing chapel. that will leave you emptier of bad thoughts than this homely ceremony of making bread.’

M.F.K. Fisher, The Art of Eating Continue reading →

Happy Easter from the little loaf

Bircher muesli
Life has been hectic lately, to say the least. Beyond the book – which is the best kind of busy – we’ve been up and down the M1 for family reasons and I’m afraid I don’t have a new recipe for you today. What I do have, however, is a selection of my favourite Easter recipes – just click on each picture to take you to the post. A hot cross bun isn’t just for Easter, so although I should probably have posted this a week ago, I hope you’ll try them out anyway.

The last couple of weeks have really hammered home to me the importance of family, and Easter feels as good a time to give that some recognition. Wherever you are, I hope your weekend is filled with friends and family, love and laughter. Plus an endless supply of speckled chocolate eggs, of course. Continue reading →