Anne's Kitchen What's cooking?!

Right folks, it’s time to pop open a bottle of bubbly! Anne’s Kitchen has been given the seal of approval by my favourite food magazine: Delicious Magazine.

Each month, this fantastic UK food magazine picks out one food blog it loves, and gives it the “Blog We Love” label. And, amazingly, Anneskitchen.co.uk is their pick for the April 2012 edition! You can’t believe how surprised I was!

The funny part is that I hadn’t actually seen it myself. When my copy of Delicious arrived in the post a few days ago, I put it aside to read over the weekend (so as to not distract myself from actual work during the week, and so that I’d have a food magazine to look forward to reading over the weekend). But, somehow I didn’t actually get around to reading it this weekend… Instead, I ended up finding out the news via a friend, who texted me to congratulate me on my mention in Delicious Magazine. I was like “what is she on about?”, so I immediately grabbed my copy of the mag and flicked through it, and *wham*, indeed, there it was! Anne’s Kitchen on page 117!!! Woop Woop.

So, it’s a day of celebration in Anne’s Kitchen today! Come join me for a glass of bubbly!

Horray, it’s pancake day in the UK! For one day, the whole of Britain is digging into pancakes – from fluffy American style pancakes to thin, crispy French crêpes and hearty, buckweat galettes – it doesn’t matter what shape or form they have, as long as they’re pancakes!

If you wonder what the idea behind this crazy tradition is, well, it’s actually quite simple: it’s just another designation for Shrove Tuesday – the Christian tradition during which people use up their eggs, butter and milk before the fasting time begins.

You won’t find me fasting anytime soon, but that doesn’t keep me from making pancakes! Any excuse for making pancakes will do! Normally it’s a Sunday morning tradition at mine to make blueberry pancakes, topped with smoked bacon rashers and drizzled with a generous helping of maple syrup… No better weekend indugence than that!

If you have any doubts about the pancake/bacon combination – don’t! It’s the best combination in the world, mixing the world’s best sweet and salty flavours, as well as adding a crispy texture to this fabulous breakfast. I have converted many a sceptic with this fabulous recipe, so go on, I dare you!

For these pancakes you can use fresh or frozen blueberries. If you decide to use the frozen variety (which is quite handy during the winter), take the blueberries out before you make the batter, so that they have the time to thaw a bit before you cook them. They’ll quickly heat up in the pan though, so don’t worry if you forgot to take them out of the freezer in time. Also, don’t add them into the batter unless you don’t mind purple swirls tainting your dough. It’s easiest to dot the blueberries on the pancake batter in the pan.

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I absolutely love doughnuts.  I guess it’s hard to beat deep-fried batter covered in sugar and filled with all kinds of yummy stuffings…

However, there’s one deep-fried treat I love even more: churros. For those who know me well, it’s pretty obvious why I can’t get my hands off these: they’re covered in cinnamon sugar! As a cinnamon addict, that’s pretty much as good as it gets.

Traditionally churros are eaten for breakfast in Spain and Latin America. I first ate churros on one of our many holidays to Mallorca. They weren’t that good to be honest, just deep-fried rings tasting of nothing but grease. Little did I know that these finger-shaped doughnuts can in fact be absolutely amazing.

I only rediscovered churros in Luxembourg – of all places – at the annual Schueberfouer, a huge fun fair which takes place every year in September in the heart of Luxembourg city. It’s pretty much a coglomeration of fun rides (think rollercoasters, ghost rides and a massive ferris wheel) and food stalls. One of the many food huts is the – in Luxembourg infamous – “Jean la Gaufre“.  This Belgian waffle stall started selling churros about a decade ago. And that was the beginning of my love affair with churros: crunchy deep-fried dough, covered in a generous dusting of cinnamon sugar, and served with a Nutella-style chocolate dip. Every year I return to my hometown for the Schueberfouer, and every year I can’t wait to get my hands on a portion of sweet, crispy churros.

So, for this post I decided to give it a go, and make my own churros. After all, what can be so hard about deep-frying some batter? Well, nothing really (apart from making the whole flat smell of frying batter, but that’s well worth it). It’s as easy as pie! So, give it a go and see for yourself why churros are the best treat in the world!

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