Fold in the Flour ...

This is another autumn pastry experiment that turned out to be a lovely lunchtime treat. The walnuts in this recipe are in the pastry. This gives a lovely nutty flavour, with a crunchy flakiness to the base. The figs are nestled into a savoury mix of eggs, cream, blue cheese, shallots and thyme. Warm from the oven this tasted great; sweet figs offset by the tangy notes of the blue cheese. It kept well and still tasted good the next day. The only thing that I thought was a  little disappointing was the pastry - texturally it was really nice, and while it was noticeably more flavoursome than pastry using all plain white flour, there was not much walnut taste. Plus, the nuts made it a little harder to work with than normal shortcrust. It cracked a bit when I was lining the tin, but it was actually pretty easy to patch it with a little ball of additional dough. I found the base recipe on the BBC  Good Food website, and it's available on line here .  ...

This month's entry for Alphabakes is a bit of an experiment. The challenge is organised by Ros, of The More Than Occasional Baker , and Caroline, of Caroline Makes , and is based on a different letter each month. This month's is 'W'. I decided to have another go at savoury muffins, using the classic walnut, pear and blue cheese flavour combination. I quite liked the result, as I love blue cheese in baked goods, and the crunch from the walnuts was nice. Mike was a little 'meh' about them though, as he felt the walnut taste was a little strong and he couldn't detect much cheese or pear flavour (with the pears this may be because I used tinned - which didn't have much flavour to start with). I definitely could taste the cheese, not so much the pear, but the cheese definitely balanced the walnuts. Maybe the difference was how the ingredients were distributed and then divided in the cases? The texture was moist, light and fluffy, although a little fir...

I love lazy Sundays. You know, when you get up late and read the Sunday paper, then just potter around the house, maybe not even making it out of your pyjamas. In our house that tends to be the kind of day that we graze as well, just sort of snacking on whatever takes our fancy rather than having a formal Sunday lunch. I made these muffins with that in mind, but also wanting to try another savoury recipe after the choc fest of Easter. These are lovely, and would be perfect for a weekend brunch (not just on Sunday). Or if you happen to be lucky and are having a lazy day during the week. The bacon and blue cheese gives that lovely savoury tang which is balanced by the sugar in the mix giving a sweet note. There is also a hint of basil which complements the flavour. Bacon and Blue Cheese Muffins (adapted from Muffins Galore by Catherine Atkinson) 80g smoked streaky bacon or pancetta, cooked till crisp and drained well on kitchen towel, then crumbled into small pieces ...

Perl Las is an award winning Welsh Blue Cheese produced by Caws Cenarth Cheese from organic cows milk. It's a beautiful creamy cheese, with its origins as a Caerphilly cheese, and which has delicate blue overtones which, while strong, are not overpowering. With St David's Day in mind, I fancied trying the Perl Las out in some savoury scone recipes.  After doing some research, nothing I found was quite right, so I decided to try and amalgamate some ideas to produce my own version. Although I used Perl Las, you could use any blue cheese, but you will get a slightly different flavour. I decided I wanted to add some bacon, after all blue cheese and bacon hold a natural affinity. To freshen the taste, I also decided to use some chopped spring onion. The resulting scone tastes gorgeous; lovely and cheesy with the bacon giving a salty bite and a background hint of sweetness from the sugar. If there was anything I'd consider adding, it might be to add in some ground bl...