All About Me

I figured my bio needed updating now that I've had this blog for a year and a half. But, I asked myself, what's the point in changing it if you don't notice I've updated it? My clever solution, if I say so myself? Post it here for all you lovely people to read! I hope you enjoy an insight into me.

My name is Lily and I enjoy cooking for family and friends, especially if it involves baking (even better if it's about midnight and not a sensible time to be cooking). This is sounding like an AA introduction. I'd better start again.

Hi, Lily here, I'm 20 21 22 years old and I read French at the University of Manchester (currently on my ERASMUS year in Poitiers, France). My gap year was spent in Singapore where I finally got over my fear of spice and embraced Asian cuisine, helped by cookery classes in exotic locales such as Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. When I'm not talking about food, I'm not really sure what I talk about. Asia? Books? Food? Oh wait, that's the subject I'm not meant to get started on. I began this blog to connect with other foodophiles and have somewhere to direct friends and family to when they ask for a recipe. Thai green curry and gooey chocolate chip cookies seem to be the most popular with my friends.

I have lots of gadgets in my kitchen but the one I love most is a bright orange KitchenAid mixer that gets pointed out if people don't admire it soon enough. My kitchen is also stocked with all sorts of weird and wonderful ingredients that I'm still working out how to cook with. Dried barberries, anyone? My inspiration for recipes, sadly, isn't delivered to me by David Bowie flying in on a tiger made of lightening, but comes from food magazines, recipe books and my mum (who cooks sensible yet tasty food like this lentil bake. No barberries for her).

Tastebuds are funny things and everyone's are different so if you want to tweak a recipe to your tastes then I won't hold it against you, and I'd love it if you would comment your changes so that I can give them a go, so long as they don't involve mushrooms. I hate mushrooms. Email me (lily.helen.carden@gmail.com) with requests for recipes and stalk me on Instagram (@gorgeousgateaux), I won't bite.

Join me on my crazy journey to make the best food I can; laughing  when it goes wrong and celebrating when it goes right.

Birthday Dessert

I turned 22 on the 26th of December and was sick of cakes after a spate of birthdays recently. Initially I decided to have a birthday starter instead (of cheese soufflé) but one of my friends posting a photo of some caramel that she was making swayed me in favour of homemade vanilla ice cream drizzled with salted caramel (my current, and long-lasting, weakness - last year's cake was a set of salted caramel fondants). Previously I've always bought in my salted caramel sauce from the excellent Artisan du Chocolat in London as I don't want to see just how bad for me it is, but they sadly don't have an outpost in Poitiers nor Talmont (they should really look into that) so I had to bite the bullet and make it myself.

First off, I'm sorry but it is as bad for you as you think it is, however, it's even more scrumptious than you think it will be so just enjoy it! My pan of caramel is currently cooling and every time I pass it I take a spoonful, thankfully there's a lot of it!

Time To Cosy Up

It's the new year and the weather is definitely getting colder (finally) and so I thought I'd make the ultimate in comfort classics, tartiflette. Traditionally eaten after a long day on the ski slopes and appropriately filling, it's perfect for a winter night to be eaten by a roaring fire after a long walk in the countryside. Apparently, it's not such a rustic dish as one might think and was actually invented in the 1980s by the Reblochon (cheese) makers to boost sales!

Last Minute Gifts and Stocking Fillers

It's only a week until Christmas and while I'm sure most of you have already bought the majority of your gifts (if not check out my guides here and here) you might still be looking for a few little pieces, maybe to go in stockings? If so, then this is the list for you. All of these present ideas can be bought from chain shops (I love independents but by their very definition there's normally only one of them and that's just not practical for last minute things) and most cost under £10. With the other posts I have chosen a make and then suggested some of my favourites within their collection, while here I shall switch between item (e.g. biscuit cutters) and shops, depending on what you can get where - Paperchase have so many gorgeous things that it seemed silly to have a long list of ideas with only one item in each and all from the same shop!

Paperchase

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I think these christmas pudding bin bags (£10/12) are so cute and would make a great gift for the cook, and makes taking out the bins a bit more fun (as far as taking the bins out can be fun). Continuing the christmas pud theme is a set of juggling balls (£6) perfect for big and little kids alike. For me, recipe books are one of my ultimate weaknesses but I often find it hard to find my favourite recipes in a hurry (at university alone I have 30 or 40 cookbooks) so I write up my favourite recipes into a (now tattered and stained) Paperchase recipe book that a friend gave me for Christmas 2014. Paperchase sell fun patterned ones (£10 each) and a slick Molesine recipe journal (£18) that I aspire to, or finally you could go for loose cards and a box to store them in (paperchase £10), which are easier to transport. The other thing I rely on at uni is a meal planner to stop me from impulse buying my food (an expensive mistake). Normally, paperchase have a great selection in multiple sizes and also straight shopping list pads, but online they only seem to show this one (paperchase £8) which is a bit too cartoony for my tastes. Finally, for the cocktail enthusiast, there's a sweet gold toned cocktail shaker (£18) that says "Cheers!".

Gifts for Foodies

For those of you who would like to buy a present for a food-lover but don't want it to be, you know,  food, then here's a gift list for you. I've put together a few things that I have given or received in the past and loved, as well as a few things that I'm coveting. If you do want to give someone a food extravaganza for christmas then here's a link to my christmas hamper guide.

PANDORA

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Pandora have a few food related charms, my all time favourite being the cupcake (coincidentally the reason I bought a pandora bracelet in the first place). They also have some seriously cool looking cakes, including a three tiered one (that I can no longer find on their website). In fact, there are some many that I like it was hard to choose just three to show you. The cupcake (Pandora £40) was obviously on the shortlist but then, should there be an ice cream cone (Pandora £35)? A pineapple (Pandora £45)? or a teacup (Pandora £25)? In the end I decided to add to the list a pretty espresso maker (Pandora £35) for coffee lovers and a cool chef's hat (Pandora £35), appropriately named "I love cooking", for all those recipients who would just rather be cooking! If you need to get the bracelet (Pandora) to go with the charm then they start at £35 for a multi-strand strap and go up to £1,200 for a gold gold one! Don't worry though - the silver ones are £55 and hold at least 15 charms, or you can buy a leather one (£40-£50) although they recommend a maximum of 7 charms as the leather can stretch.

Christmas Time

Christmas is not very far away (where did the time go?) and the weather is not at all frightful (really Poitiers? Why is it 21 degrees celsius in mid-November?!) and an email from the lovely people at Cailler (read my review of their chocolate here) reminded me that I have a post mostly written about last year's food related presents that I want to adapt into a gift guide. First up, last year I made a hamper for my parents, which they loved and my bank balance hated. One word of advice? Set a budget and stick to it. I kept adding extra things and forgetting to total it up, so that I have no clue as to the total value of the hamper. It was worth it though - to be able to pull together all these amazing things that linked and expanded upon daddy's request for cheese and wine and that my parents loved.

Hampers take the most time to pull together, so I'll write and post my ideas for your hampers this week and over the next few weeks I will post other ideas for gifts, both edible and not, for foodies and gather them all together under the christmas tab on my navigation bar.

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Cailler Chocolate*

It was reading week last week and I took a trip home, via Paris where I participated in a macaron making class (more about that in another post), to see my mum and relax for a bit. Well, it was supposed to be relaxing. I actually zoomed around for the whole holiday and found myself in London 4 times!! The most unexpected visit also turned out to be one of my favourite days and a completely new experience. One of mum's friends passed along an invitation to a chocolate launch on the South Bank (Sea Containers's restaurant is very swish by the way).

The chocolate in question? Nestlé's prestigious swiss brand Cailler, now launching in the UK exclusively at Amazon. It's made at Maison Cailler near Broc and uses (unlike most chocolate companies) fresh milk in their  chocolates, not powdered. They even showed us a video about one of their cows, Gwendoline! All the milk is sourced from within a 20 mile radius of maison Cailler, which is a nice touch and helps to keep the brand close to home - apparently there are some locals who say you can taste the difference between the chocolates made in the summer and winter, when the cows eat different things. I think they must have insanely good tastebuds!