Tea, anyone?

Brews and bakes, a zesty lemon posset and Dawn to the rescue.

Hey, Dawn: My trusty AI kitchen helper saved a recipe from being abandoned this week! Look out for my ‘Hey Dawn’ marker to find out more.

You can’t beat a nice brew with a big wedge of carrot cake

It would be criminal for me not to dedicate today’s post to one of the most important days we celebrate… Happy National Tea Day! As a northerner, I think we’re born with an affinity for tea. It’s a drink for all occasions. A cure all. Bad day? I’ll pop the kettle on. Something to celebrate? Time for a brew! Cold? I’ll make a nice warm brew. Hot? “I’ve always read that drinking something hot can cool down your core temperature - I’ll make you a nice tea!”. I’m not sure how true that last one is, but who am I to question it?

I’m a Yorkshire Tea guy myself, with just a drop of milk. I’m also loving a chai tea lately, too. What’s your favourite and more importantly, how do you take yours and what with?

When I think of tea, apart from it being the drink of all occasions, I think of my grandma. I lived with her for most of my childhood, on the farm where I spent 90% of my time caring for, exercising and show jumping our horses. My grandma loved tea that much, she would get up three to four times a night to make a brew. Then toddle back to bed like she had just got up for a glass of water. That’s how much she loved tea - and more than likely, where I got my love for it too.

The next thing I think of when I think of tea, is CAKE. It’s cake over biscuits for me and honestly, I’m not fussy what type of cake either. Firm favourites are a wedge of carrot cake, half a Battenberg, or an Eccles cake (or two). A mug of tea alone feels magical. A mug of tea with a slice of cake feels like the stars have aligned and offered up a moment of calm, regardless of how stressful your day might be. See, I’m even starting to get quite poetic I feel that strongly about it. I’m bonkers, I know.

Today, I went for carrot cake.

A deliciously, moist carrot cake

Recipe: Carrot Cake

🧈 Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (180g)

• 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• A pinch of nutmeg and ginger for added spice

• 2/3 cup vegetable oil (160ml)

• 2 large eggs

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2-3 finely grated carrots (I blended mine as I prefer a more uniform crumb)

For the frosting:

• 1 package of cream cheese, softened (250g)

• 1/4 cup butter, softened (60g)

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 cups powdered sugar (sifted, 240g)

🥣 Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan. Grease and flour two 20cm round cake pans, or line them with parchment paper.

2. Mix dry ingredients: In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon (plus nutmeg and ginger if using).

3. Add wet ingredients: In another bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined, then fold in the grated/blended carrots

4. Bake: Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

5. Cool: Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

6. Make the frosting: Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add vanilla and powdered sugar, continue beating until creamy.

7. Assemble the cake: Once the cakes are completely cool, spread frosting on one layer, top with the second layer, and spread frosting over the top (and sides if you’re fancy!).

This time I wanted to give Marcus Wareing’s trick with parchment paper a go. Once you have cut your paper to the desired size, he says to scrunch it into a ball and then run it under water. Once you’ve given it a shake, it should be much more pliable and easy to place into the tins.

It was much easier than the normal method but definitely looks more…rustic. I liked it for this bake!

Another great brew partner, muffins

When I want a quick something sweet, I feel pretty comfortable now in making muffins. This week I gave the blueberries a rest (if you haven’t noticed, the recipes I’ve tried so far have been quite blueberry heavy!) and opted for chopped almond and chocolate chip. This one was banana based again as I seem to always be needing to using up quickly-ripening bananas.

Recipe: Almond and Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

🧈 Ingredients

• 2 medium ripe bananas

• 80ml vegetable oil

• 100g granulated sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 190g all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 50g chopped almonds

• 50g chocolate chips

🥣 Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease the cups.

2. In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas until smooth.

3. Add: the vegetable oil, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract to the mashed bananas, and mix until well combined.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture, stirring until just combined. Be careful not to over mix.

6. Fold: in the chopped nuts or chocolate chips.

7. Divide: the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full.

8. Bake: in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

9. Remove: from the oven and allow the muffins to cool in the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

A zesty lemon and white chocolate posset

We’re ending this week’s post with something a bit more fresh… lemon and white chocolate possets! Honestly, I surprised myself with how well these turned out when I decided to give them a go. Look how summery they look - I’m getting vibes of Italy. These beauties are currently chilling in the fridge as we’re saving them to have with tomorrow’s lunch - but I was able to scrape the bowl and can confirm it tasted delicious.

Hey, Dawn…

So, I mentioned at the beginning of this post that Dawn, my lovely kitchen aide, saved me from abandoning this posset recipe I was excited to try. Whilst prepping all of the ingredients neatly in a row in front of me ready to measure out (hello OCD), I realised that I’d only gone and bought the wrong bloody size tub of double cream. Oh well, that’s then I thought. Unless… hmmm. “Hey, Dawn…”

To show how amazing AI can be as a helper in the kitchen, I’ll post the actual ingredient list for this recipe and then the unedited conversation with Dawn. This will also illustrate my thought process too:

🧈 Ingredients BD (before Dawn)

• Zest of one lemon plus more for garnish

• 60ml lemon juice

• 240ml heavy cream (also known as double cream)

• 55g chopped white chocolate or roughly 45 grams (about ¼ cup) white chocolate chips

• ½ tsp vanilla extract

• 50g granulated sugar

Me: Hey Dawn, I have this recipe for possets in lemon rind, but only 150ml of double cream. Can you tell me how many possets I can make and adjust the recipes taking into account only having 150ml double cream

Dawn: To adjust the recipe based on having only 150ml of double cream instead of the full 240ml called for in the original recipe, you’ll need to scale down the rest of the ingredients proportionally. Here’s how you can do it:

Original Recipe Proportions:

• Double Cream: 240 ml

• Lemon Juice: 60 ml

• Chopped White Chocolate: 55 grams

• Vanilla Extract: 0.5 tsp

• Granulated Sugar: 50 grams

Scaling Factor: 150ml/240ml = 0.625

Adjusted Recipe:

• Double Cream: 150 ml (as you have)

• Lemon Juice: 60ml x 0.625 = 37.5ml

• Chopped White Chocolate: 55g x 0.625 = 34.375g

• Vanilla Extract: 0.5tsp x 0.625 = 0.3125tsp

• Granulated Sugar: 50g x 0.625 = 31.25g

This scaled-down version of the recipe should make about 62.5% of the original recipe quantity. If the original recipe was meant to serve, for instance, four possets, your adjusted recipe would yield approximately: 4 servings x 0.625 = 2.5 servings

So, you can make about 2 to 3 possets, depending on the serving size. If you aim for 3 smaller servings, adjust your dish size accordingly.

Me: If the original recipe is asking for the zest of one lemon. Can I just use the zest of 1 lemon without needing to reduce it for this modified recipe

Dawn: For your modified recipe, even though you have scaled down other ingredients, it’s perfectly fine to use the zest of one whole lemon without reducing it. Lemon zest has a potent flavor, so using the zest of one lemon won’t overpower your scaled-down recipe. It will provide a bright, fresh lemon flavour that enhances the possets.

And there we have it. Hopefully this is a great look into how ai can help not only with ‘silly little questions’ you might have about a recipe, but also helping to adjust an existing recipe - whether that’s quantities or perhaps even substitutions.

Did you find this full conversation helpful? Do you think you might use AI in the kitchen for things like this? Let me know!

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Well, that was a longer post than originally planned. If you’ve made it this far - thanks so much for reading!

This week I‘m venturing in to trying some actual meals, much to the delight of my partner Ben. Tomorrow I’m having a crack at making a creamy tomato pesto chicken with grilled asparagus. My aim for this week is to make at least 1 new recipe for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I’ll look forward to report back on how that went next week.

Until next time

-Mark