Lavender and lovage

Another Tea Loaf! As far as I am concerned you can never have enough recipes for tea loaves. Today's recipe if for a Cherry Bakewell Tea Loaf. It's a fabulous cake style loaf, which is very moist, with flecks and chunks of glace cherries in it, as well as flaked almonds on the top. I baked this in a large 2lb loaf tin, which yields 12 generous slices of cake. You can serve this Cherry Bakewell Tea Loaf buttered for a light supper dish. Tea loaves work for me on many levels - it's not to say…

This is a REAL blast from the past, Jam & Coconut Sponge with Pink Custard was one of my favourite school dinner "afters" as we used to call pudding. And, my recipe shares a secret, for the pink custard, and how a friend who was a school cook used to make it. Suffice to say it's not just normal custard with pink colouring, which won't give you that school dinners pink custard flavour. The recipe that she shared for REAL school dinner's pink custard was made with a packet of strawberry…

1960's Evaporated Milk Chocolate Cake is a much-loved family recipe from an old Be-Ro cookbook. It first appeared in edition 24 which was published in 1961. I have shared the original version of this cake before on Lavender & Lovage here: OLD-FASHIONED MILK CHOCOLATE CAKE. However, the recipe I'm sharing today has been tweaked to make a larger cake, which serves 12 instead of 8, but still using the essential ingredient of evaporated milk. This 1960's Evaporated Milk Chocolate Cake is more…

On The Home Front: Original Wartime Recipes from The Great War1914 to 1918, with main course recipes, snacks and tea time treats.

I am a freelance food and travel writer and recipe developer with a passion for art, travel, books, photography, seasonal food and especially cheese!

Delectable spiced and fruited Yorkshire Teacakes that are simple to make, and are perfect for any high tea table when toasted and served with butter, jam or even honey. Make a double batch and freeze them.

My latest recipe for Winter Fruit Cake with Port, is a rich all-in-one fruit cake that is perfect for winter nibbling, especially when served with Wensleydale cheese. We are a family of fruit cake lovers, and I often wonder why we don't make rich fruit cakes throughout the year, and not just at Christmas, or Easter. My late father was especially fond of fruit cake, and my mother used ro make one every week, usually the boiled fruit cake from her old Be-Ro book, which I have now. Today's…

I shared today's recipe for Cheese & Onion Scone Loaf on Instagram a few days ago, and I have to say that the recipe was hugely popular! I'm not surprised to be honest, as it's a fabulous marriage of a cheesy scone, but in a loaf shape, which slices like a dream, and is amazing when buttered. I have shared a similar recipe before on Lavender & Lovage in 2013, but today's version of an updated version of that original recipe. This recipe for Cheese & Onion Scone Loaf is extremely easy to…

This recipe for Winston Churchill's Fruit Loaf is an adapted recipe that I discovered on The National Trust website, for Chartwell in Kent, Churchill's old home. I am sharing this just in time for the D Day 80 commemorations, which are coming up on the 6th June, 2024. In our lovely little village on the Lincolnshire Wolds in England, we are having a street party, and I plan to make this tea loaf again, to take as part of our picnic. Lincolnshire is often referred to as the Bomber County, as…

A regional recipe from the Isle of Whalsay, which is one of the Shetland islands, is the Shetland Huffsie (Fruited Tea Loaf), and the perfect bake for any Sunday Tea Tray or afternoon tea. I discovered this wonderful recipe for Shetland Huffsie (Fruited Tea Loaf) when I was in Shetland recently, as part of a Viking Into the Midnight Sun cruise up to Northern Norway. Today's recipe is by a famous Shetland cook and baker, Marian Armitage, and was published in a little booklet I bought called…