A Buche de Noel
I love baking. Love it! I find it such a meditative and rewarding way to spend time. I love being in a cosy kitchen with the oven humming. Pouring, measuring, sifting, rolling, whisking, kneading. Trying out new recipes I have found online or making happily familiar recipes that a friend, or usually Mum, has passed on to me. Mum is a great baker. Some of my most comforting memories from childhood are of sitting on the kitchen bench watching mum methodically create a cake. She had an old blue recipe book where she had handwritten all her favourite recipes that she had collected from friends and family over the years. Recipes cut from magazines were also tucked into the book, which was very well worn and felt at the same time delicate and enduring. Mum taught me a lot about cooking. She would explain as she was going what she was doing and why. I would help her by gradually adding spoonfuls of caster suga...