Yes folks, this is the last post on the Princess and the Recipe. After two years, I just don't have the time any more, and have decided to focus on other projects. I've come a long way since I first started the blog. It all started when I was living in Hong Kong and, with a miniscule kitchen and more restaurants than you could shake a stick at, I was eating out more than ever before. I started

Yes, I know. It's January. We all should be dieting, exercising or being otherwise virtuous to purge ourselves of our Christmas sins. But when the weather's this cold and wintry, all I want to do is curl up with some sickly-sweet carbs, and this soft and luscious fudge ticks my boxes.  If you're on a diet, cut them small and share them with your friends! Ginger & honey fudge (from Life is

I am not a sprout lover.  Over-boiled, cabbagey, dull little bullets are really not my thing, but a bag of them turned up in my vegetable box this week and I was determined to make something tasty with them. The internet yielded some interesting recipes, all claiming to convert sprout-haters to sprout-o-philes in the blink of an eye.  Heidi Swanson's recipe involved both frying and cheese,

What makes a perfect meringue?  In my view, it's a light crispy shell leading to a chewy, teeth-sticking interior.  If it can look pretty too, then that's a bonus.  Meringues are great for pavlovas, or just to ladle fruit over, and are the perfect way to use up any left over egg whites that you might have hanging around after making custard or mayonnaise from the yolks. Meringues are not

The view from the stage I trekked up to Birmingham for the Good Food Show last week, and spent the morning navigating the hungry hordes before having a delicious three course VIP lunch with the Miele crowd.  After a quick meet and greet with the Hairy Bikers, we were whisked off for a cookery experience with Mark Lloyd, head chef at The Cleave Inn.  What Miele had neglected to tell us was that

I am a huge Domestic Sluttery fan, so when they asked me for a guest post I couldn't resist.  Especially as it gave me the chance to develop (or should I say devour) a deliciously boozy hot choco-cocktail!

The blogosphere has been buzzing with Blaggers' Banquet talk lately.  In case you missed it, last Sunday 50 food and wine bloggers took over Hawksmoor restaurant in London in a huge charity blogging event.  We blagged and blagged til our slippery tongues could blag no more.  All the ingredients for the dinner, the wine, the goodie bags and a fantastic selection of auction prizes were blagged

The Westerly is a bit of a local favourite. With a bib gourmand under its belt since 2008, it is a modern British bistro run by husband and wife team Jon and Cynthia Coomb. Praise has been heaped on the Westerly since it opened in 2007, with even Jay Rayner and Simon Majumdar trekking down from London to review it. Jay described it as “stunning” while Simon pronounced it “almost flawless”.

On November 15th, London's Food & Drink Bloggers will be taking over Hawksmoor, the revered steakhouse in Liverpool St, for the Blaggers’ Banquet.  The Blaggers’ Banquet will be an exciting 5 course dinner with matched drinks, created entirely by the bloggers, and using only food and drink that we have blagged. All proceeds will go to Action Against Hunger. Bloggers will be the cooks and the

Underground restaurants are definitely the latest big thing, although the trend actually hit British shores over 9 months ago when the mysterious MsMarmiteLover started her supper club in Kilburn. The scene seems to have really captured the media's imagination recently. Whether it be incompetent restauranteurs making a meal of it in their own homes or in front of Raymond Blanc, duff amateur

Gourmet San is the stuff of foodie legend. World class szechuan cuisine? Check. Gritty East London location? Check. Huge portions? Check. Rock bottom prices? Check. After a disappointing time at Polpo, it was a relief to find that budget food in London can be tasty and great value. Gourmet San is clean and simple, with service swift and as friendly as could be expected with little language in

Gordon Ramsay's latest book, launched to coincide with the new series of The F Word, is a whistlestop tour of ten of the world's cuisines.  The book starts in France (of course) and ends in the USA, via the Middle East, Thailand, China, India, Spain, Italy, Greece and Britain. It would be easy to dismiss this as the latest output from the GR marketing machine, 10 cuisines in 100 recipes is

What makes a great cupcake? Pink glitter and spangles or great-tasting all-natural ingredients? If you ask Bea, she'd say the latter. Bea's of Bloomsbury is built around the principle of taste over looks, although the cupcakes (just one of the many delicious treats Bea sells in her coffee & cake place near Chancery Lane) look pretty good to me. Last Thursday I tried a cupcake decorating class

The occasion: the award ceremony to distribute prizes from a disastrous food quiz way back in February; the attendees: Helen of Food Stories, Chris of Cheese and Biscuits, Su Lin of Tamarind & Thyme and yours truly; the venue: Polpo, the latest hot "Venetian tapas" restaurant opening in Soho. While Venice isn't exactly known for its food, our expectations of Polpo were high after its

After the recent excesses of London Restaurant Festival, the blogosphere has been buzzing with reviews of Koffman’s pop-up restaurant on the roof at Selfridges. However, your faithful correspondent here at Princess Towers decided to investigate the Gourmet Odyssey instead (or rather, couldn't get a table at Koffman's). The Odyssey consisted of a huge blow-out Michelin starred lunch, with each

Remember the Miele steam oven, which I raved about back in March after trying it out at their test centre in Oxfordshire? Well, it's now sitting proudly in my kitchen and helping me turn out dish after dish of perfect rice and veges. In order to test the oven to the max, Miele asked me to host a dinner party. A sort of steamy Come Dine With Me, without the snippy comments and £1000 prize money.

When James of Back to the Chopping Board and Julia of A Taste of Cherry Pie came up with the idea of a blogging event to honour Keith Floyd, I had to join in.  Keith was an eccentric character who really put the fun into food, and my earliest memories of TV cookery were of him and his frequent "quick slurps" of wine whilst whipping up something homely and delicious. I decided to adapt this

It's autumn, and with leaves falling from the trees and the nights drawing in I felt compelled to spend a few hours over the stove, stirring something sweet and comforting.  Jam is pretty easy to make - in this case you just take equal quantities of plums and sugar, and optionally jazz it up with some spices.  I used about 10 plums and filled two 500g Le Parfait jars, with a bit left over to

After a hearty lunch at the Hind's Head in Bray, we continued our drive down the M4.  Well, he drove and I slept - I was full of grouse and treacle tart after all. Our destination for the weekend was Hunstrete House Hotel, a beautiful country pile with a 2 rosette restaurant, hidden away south-west of Bath. No dinner here for us, as we were off to a wedding for the evening, but I couldn't

We had a long and dull drive down the M4 to Bristol on Saturday, and what better way to break the journey than by stopping for lunch in Bray?The Hind's Head is a pub. Heston Blumenthal's pub to be precise. An expensive pub, but still just a pub. It is charming and quaint, with beams and smiley waitresses and awkward family gatherings and Japanese tourists and screaming babies. We were seated