Crumbs to Crunch

Nothing gets me more in the festive mood than A Christmas Carol. For all the Scrooges out there, they must visit Chester at Christmas . Gone is the bah humbug mentality when you enter the magnificent Chester Cathedral . The cloisters are lined with trees with twinkling lights, all decorated by different businesses and members of the community.  This year, the cathedral is displaying a series of tableaux depicting  A Christmas Carol . The models are seriously impressive, particularly the gigantic Ghost of Christmas Present.  The festivities continue in the gorgeous café, located in a 13th century monks' dining hall. I feasted on the Liverpool cake which was inspired by the exotic ingredients newly available in the 19th centuiry from Liverpool's trade links, such as demarara sugar from Guyana, spices from the Middle East and sultanas from Turkey. This cake tasted a lot like carrot cake as it was moist and had lots of lovely spices. Perfect for Christmas! Whi

One of the sadder moments of living abroad is when you realise that Guy Fawkes Night is pretty much an exclusively British event. I'd been complaining about the lack of fireworks when I heard of the Taimatsu Akashi, or the Sukagawa Fire Festival, which takes place a mere week after Bonfire Night. In 1589, the castle of Sukagawa was burnt to the ground by Date Masamune. Now every year the people of Sukagawa commemorate the loss of life by building 7 feet tall pillars and setting them on fire. It's an amazing sight- the fires look incredible and frightening, but the locals seem fairly relaxed about the huge fire they start every year in the town centre. This year, the weather was not kind. It was completely bucketing it down. Although we got completely soaked to the bone (as part of our grim determination to not put up an umbrella and block the view of the people behind us), the Samegawans cheerfully informed us that the rain was a good thing as it causes the fires t

We are firmly in autumn territory now, and so it's time for some autumn baking! Here at Crumbs to Crunch, we've already been bowled over by autumn in England and Scotland , but there's nothing quite like autumn in Japan. It's one of the most beautiful times of year to see the country, and people come in their hordes to see the stunning autumn trees. I was lucky to explore the colours in Nihonmatsu, a city in Fukushima prefecture. In Nihonmatsu they have a yearly chrysanthemum doll festival, during which local gardeners grow the beautiful flowers onto the bodies of historical figures. After looking round the fantastic displays, we climbed to the top of the hill where the remains of Nihonmatsu castle are. It was a spectacular walk, with some of the finest trees that I have ever seen. After a slightly blustery day, nothing is better than going home and chowing down on some cookies. I decided to give my cookies an autumnal twist. Persimmons are the autum

Whether you eat to live or live to eat (probably the latter if you're reading this blog), we are all guilty of finding a mouldy packet in the fridge and tossing it into the bin. Now I don't want to give you a big lecture but as I was watching Hugh's War on Waste  yesterday, I was horrified that: a third of food in Britain is not eaten even though 13 million Brits are struggling with food bills. Surely most of you will agree that this is pretty shocking. The reason for this bad state of affairs is the fact that supermarkets have strict cosmetic guidelines on the produce they sell. That's why farmers end up with mountains of decent veg which not only threaten their livelihoods but also highlight how ridiculous the situation is.  However, it would be unfair to point the finger solely at supermarkets. These guidelines exists because the consumers (that means us) either want to buy 'pretty' vegetables or have not informed supermarkets that w

Autumn is upon us once again. Last year Crumbs to Crunch was delighted by the autumnal colours of Winkworth Arboretum . This year I witnessed this gorgeous season at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh . It is hard to believe that this 70 acre haven is nestled in a city. What's more, it's free so everyone can enjoy the jewels of Autumn. As I wandered through the gardens, I passed through Scottish heathland, a peaceful Chinese water garden and towering trees from North America. They were all lovely but the trees stole the show with their vibrant yellows, reds and oranges. The glasshouses are also well worth a visit. For a small fee, I toured the Victorian greenhouses to see many wonders from delicate orchids to sinister Venus Fly traps.  No day out is complete without a trip to the tea rooms! I sampled a gorgeous double chocolate shortbread slice. Scotland is the home of shortbread after all and it did not disappoint! Whilst sipping my Lady Grey tea

Marshmallow eyeballs make a fun treat for Halloween next week. They are super easy to make as there is no cooking involved. I made a whole load while watching TV! Ingredients 1 packet of Marshmallows 1 packet of Maltesers  Red and green writing icing  Method 1. Use a chopstick to make a hole in the marshmallow. 2. Widen the hole with your fingers and add in a malteser. 3. Ice a dot in the middle of the malteser for the eye's iris and use red icing on the marshmallows to look like veins. It really is that easy!

Calling all cookie fanatics! Do you ever go to Millie's Cookies and want to spend a fortune on loads of fabulous flavours? Now you can create your own!  Sorted Food made a great video where you will never need a cookie recipe again!  The cookies are more crumbly than chewy due to the large amount of butter! This nifty recipe is based on a ratio developed by Micheal Ruhlman. All you need to remember is: 1 part sugar 2 parts fat  3 parts flour The measurements are done by weight not volume. Using this magic ratio as a guide, I rustled up scrumptious chocolate orange cookie adding 100g of dark chocolate and the zest of 1 orange to the mixture. Chocolate Orange Cookies My next marvellous creation was white chocolate and ginger cookie. I added 100g of white chocolate and 100g of chopped stem ginger in syrup. I loved the combination of silky chocolate and fiery ginger. White Chocolate & Ginger Cookies Watch the video and get cr

In the beloved children's book, Wind in the Willows , Ratty declares that: there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply  messing about in boats. The Crumb to Crunch sisters recently discovered this joy as they attempted to navigate the River Cam in a punt. As punting novices, we were excited yet a tiny bit nervous. Our more experienced punting friend set us off and then it was our go. We were so eager to unveil our secret punting abilities but this was not the case. Instead, hilarity ensued.  We both managed to block the entire river causing a huge punt traffic jam, annoying tourists and professional punters alike. However, their annoyance just got us in stitches! One sister was laughing so hard, she was unable to flex what little arm muscle she had to manoeuvre the punt. Thank goodness we had a native Cambridge girl in our party to save us!  A rare moment of success! Punting was surprisingly hard work so we had built up a hearty

As previously discussed, the Crumbs to Crunch sisters suffer from a clotted cream addiction . However I recently discovered that this addiction also extends to the animal kingdom... Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a good picture of the cat. Oh the perils of being a feline resident of a tea room! I did see the tubby cat lolloping in the garden at the fabulous Orangery Café at  Ham House in Richmond. I sympathised as this is the fate that occurs to many the cake lover! Ham House is a grand Stuart house overlooking the river Thames. It has an extensive art collection that dates 400 years. However my favourite part of the estate were the delightful gardens, a mixture of formal gardens and wilderness. The kitchen garden is still well tended 400 years later and is home to the tea rooms and thus the podgy cat.  The Orangery Café looks straight out of a fairy tale with the creepers curling around the building. I tucked into my white chocolate and raspberry ca

Our kitchen has turned into an orchard. We have so many pears from the garden, we are literally tripping over them!  Here is a recipe for the ultimate comfort food to solve the pear overload - pear and blackberry pie. Ingredients - 1 pack of shortcrust pastry - 500g (or you could make your own) - a handful of blackberries - 4  ripe pears - 1 tbsp brown sugar - 1 tsp cinnamon - milk - 9 inch/23 cm pie dish Method 1. Cut the pears into bite-sized chunks. 2. Put the pears in a saucepan. Add the sugar and cinnamon. Stew on a low heat for 5 minutes or until the pears become softer. 3. Roll out half of the pastry and put onto the bottom of a greased pie dish. 4. Put the pear filling in the pie dish and then add the blackberries. 5. Roll out the other half of the pastry. Put the pastry on top of the fruit to make a lid for the pie. Neaten up the edges and add some slits in the pastry to let the steam escape during cooking. 6. Brush some mil

It's no secret that here at Crumbs to Crunch, we love our ice cream . As summer draws to a close, we are very sad to see the beginning of the end of the ice cream season. However, as the Japanese summer lasts that little bit longer, I've been lucky enough to find the time to try a new ice cream flavour. Japanese is well known for it's love of green tea. As it's so hot at the moment, many people are serving cold green tea with ice cubes in it. However, some go the extra mile and turn their tea into ice cream. I was passing a speciality tea shop and noticed that they were serving soft serve ice cream. Although this is fairly standard ice cream fare (I've never met anyone who doesn't love a 99 flake), this ice cream has the edge with its unique flavour. Although undoubtedly sweet, the bitterness of the tea added a pleasing and unsual undertone. And for just 280 yen (about £1.40), who can say no? And if you're not a fan of green tea, why not try the brown

Japan has many exciting festivals, which are excellent places to try some local delicacies. The most recent festival was Tanabata, or the Star Festival. Tanabata is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. The story behind the festival seems to vary, but the one I was told involved two stars who fell in love, but are only able to meet on the day of Tanabata. To celebrate this festival, paper decorations are hung in the streets and people write their wishes on wishing trees. A lot of these are made and written by children, and half the fun of Tanabata is reading the hopes and dreams of the local kids. For Tanabata I journeyed to Sendai, a city which is famous for its Tanabata decorations. I was overwhelmed by the intricacy of many of the designs. Most of the decorations are covered in hundreds of tiny origami, and it must take their makers hours to perfect their designs. After a couple of hours of strolling through the city and lookin

I recently came across an unusual and not entirely appetising sounding snack. How would you like to nibble on some athlete's foot? Japan is well known for its unusual food, whether its wacky ice cream flavours (I've heard that squid ice cream is a thing...) or their gung ho attitude towards raw meat, fish and eggs. Therefore it should have come as no surprise to me that my local bakery's speciality is called Mizumushi, or athlete's foot. Fear not! Instead of munching on a diseased body part, I was relieved to find out that Mizumushi is actually a type of bread. Each bread bun is shaped like a foot, with a light dusting of bread crumbs and sugar, representing the diseased aspect! Inside there are a variety of fillings. I went for the peanut cream, and I was not disappointed. Half-way between custard and peanut butter, it was certainly delicious. So just as you would never judge a book by its cover, don't be put off if a sweet snack has a slight

Food and history are my two favourite things in the world. Put them together they make a killer combination. My recent visit to Henry VIII's palace, Hampton Court, did just that! To celebrate Hampton Court's 500 anniversary, a series of short plays about the well known inhabitants are being staged in the splendid rooms and courtyards. I witnessed Henry VIII composing some music, Elizabeth I interrogating a Scottish envoy about Mary Queen of Scots as well as Shakespeare's company rehearsing 'the Scottish play'. These sketches all took place in the rooms where their real counterparts plotted and schemed which made the whole place come alive.  Elizabeth I As you can tell from Henry VIII's rather large physique, feasts played an important role in court life. The kitchens where these vast banquets were prepared are still on show and even have a man operating a spit to invite tourists to get cooking! There is even a chocolate kitchen, one of the first o

One of life's simplest pleasures is fruit picking. There is something so relaxing yet satisfying about going out with your friends or family and collecting some of nature's goodies. I've just been on holiday in Alsace and I went for a lovely walk in a forest that had an abundance of wild blueberries. We picked so many of these little beauties, I was pondering what to do with them until I remembered Blueberry Grunt (yes, it really is called that!) My Canadian friend gave me the recipe a couple of years ago but I never got round to trying it till now. Blueberry Grunt is a traditional dessert from Nova Scotia invented by early settlers. Its unusual name comes from the sound that the cooking pot makes when steaming the dumplings. As far as I can tell, this dish is essentially dumplings in a gorgeous blueberry sauce. If you think that dumplings sounds too stodgy for summer, have no fear because they puff up a lot so are quite light. The hint of orange give them quite a fr

Hurtling through the air on a zip wire 660m in the air, trekking through a sweltering rainforest and settling for the night in an old ship container . I felt like a proper adventurer, actually I was beginning to believe that I was the female Indiana Jones...in England. Preparing for the Sky Wire England is not known for its rainforests so this adventure unfurled in the Eden Project in Cornwall. It is an absolutely fascinating place and a great one to seek adventure on your home turf. I hopped from one world to the next in the space of a couple of metres. I started off in the classic British herb garden, then found myself surrounded by lemons in the Mediterranean biome and finally I entered the tropical biome.  The herb garden and the lemon trees seemed fairly familiar but the jungle was so exciting with new sights, smells and sounds. Dwarfed by majestic trees, crawled on by ants and splashed by waterfalls, each turn of the

Sometimes, you get one of those days when everything seems to be going wrong. You've missed an important deadline, or your pet fish died, or aliens have invaded. Or something like that. If you've had a day like that, you need cake. Right now. There's no time for messing around with scales or accuracy and definitely not washing up. You need a cake fix. And Mug Cakes are your saviour. In the interests of research, we decided to try out a couple of recipes from the book ' Mug Cakes ' by Mima Sinclair. It's a lovely little book, full of innovative recipes and pretty pictures. I particularly liked the troubleshooting section at the beginning that helps your avoid exploding cake fiascos. As we were having a movie day, we went for the popcorn and ice cream cake. I think we can all agree it was a resounding success. Delicious and instantaneous. Others went less well. Our mixed fruit and outs cake still tasted nice, but exploded in the microwave ever

Are you looking for somewhere a bit different to have a coffee in London? How about underneath the hull of a 19th century ship? The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship built in the 1860s. Her job was to sail the world transporting tea, therefore the museum is jampacked with tea facts. For example, did you know that all tea is made from one single species of plant? Green tea is made by drying the leaves quickly after picking them, whereas for black tea the leaves are bruised and fermented before drying. After a recent fire, the Cutty Sark ship and museum have been updated and redesigned. The set out is great and really interactive, with little films, interactive games and even seats that move up and down to make you feel as if you are at sea! It's great for all ages.  And of course, after a bit of culture or history, it's always time for tea! The Cutty Sark's cafe is underneath the ship. Of course, we sat right in the middle. Knowing that there's a 963 ton shi

Gorgeously chewy cookies sandwiching a good dollop of icing, Biskies are a wonderful little treat. I'd never come across these cute cookie creations until I went to Cutter and Squidge in Soho. Such a huge array of Biskies were on display, it was impossible to choose one! In the end I decided to buy a box for my friends to sample lots of the flavours that were on offer, As it was such a lovely day, I decided to have a Biskie buffet on the roof top garden at the Southbank Centre. After having a cheeky bite of my friends' Biskies, I concluded that my favourites were the lemon meringue pie, the apple crumble and the salted caramel brownie. Even though there is quite a big proportion of icing to biscuit, I found that Biskies aren't sickly at all. So if you're looking for a posh pick and mix, why not indulge in a box of Biskies and share with your favourite people!

8 cream teas in 10 days... we think that we have a serious problem! We spent ten glorious days in the West Country where we binged on the local speciality - cream tea. Never have we seen such an abundance of piping hot scones and lashings of clotted cream. The cream was so thick and delicious, we never knew that we had been missing out till now. As we have clearly been doing our research, here is a list of our favourite cream tea variations in Devon/Cornwall.  Strawberry Cream Tea - Madeleine's, St Ives A perfect way to finish a beach day in St Ives. With lovely staff, this is a traditional homely tea room. The fresh strawberries that came with our fresh out of the oven scones got us in the summer mood. Savoury Tea - The Dwelling House, Fowey Has the incessant afternoon-teaing left you shunning sweetness? Never fear, for you can have your scone and eat it too with a savoury tea. Hot cheese scones with chilli jam and luscious salad can tide you ove