the untameable | orange + cardamom sherbet

orange cardamom sherbet 4-1.jpg
orange cardamom sherbet 1-1.jpg

So. Another new year. What people should’ve done last year, what they should do, the quickness of it all, things on people’s minds. Mine too, of course, but for now I’d rather linger on the end of last year. A trip, a place far away in so many senses. I didn’t have my camera with me in Bangalore and for some reason I’m averse to phone photography so I have no photos this year. Which is a shame. Because India does visuals so well. The pastel paintbox houses, each a shade from coriander to peach, stacked so geometrically. The saris drying on clothes lines, silver pots and pans heating up in the sun, dogs panting in the shade, motorbikes and rickshaws idling. 

orange cardamom sherbet 7-1.jpg

The ladies with jasmine woven into their dark braids; carrying chubby infants in expert hands, cows with flower garlands wrapped loosely around their horns, hand-painted trucks and tractors. In a small road in the village, teenagers chat. The cool boys on their motorbike with their snazzy collared shirts and slicked back hair doubtlessly inspired by a Bollywood hero. A girl carrying a puppy, the center of attention. Two old timers sitting on an iron balcony, presiding over it all, reminiscing. Heavy and rising afternoon heat. 

Inside the gated compound everything has grown. The tropical pines are thick and towering, the palms proud and facades of houses freshly whitewashed. Trees are dripping hibiscus onto the luscious lawns where nannies supervise the toddlers. There are cats prowling the boundary fences, the toms brawling in the evening as prayer bells ring and the smell of roasting spices floats out of every kitchen. 

orange cardamom sherbet 8-1.jpg

It is early morning. Airless and sultry, the day’s heat building after it barely subsided. Like so many things in India, winter’s changing. I’m out running, soon I’ll be joined by other neighbors, racing a tropical sun . There’s a gentle glow from street lamps where moths gather, a faraway crane is lit for the holidays, clouds hurry past the waning moon. There’s another person out, a grandfather. It’s more than 20 degrees but he’s wearing a white scarf wrapped over his head and face, cotton like his billowing shirt. He regards the morning suspiciously, seeing the high rises all around us like he was hemmed in, a look of passive disdain on his weathered face. Maybe he was thinking about the vastness of home, the untameable north of the subcontinent.  Miles away, a lifetime away. To him the year passing would be an inevitability, a grain of sand in the desert, or one of the thousands of stars that crowd the sky above it.

‘far and wide the vernal breeze wafts sweet odours from blossoming trees to distant lands’ Sanskrit Proverb 


orange cardamom sherbet 10-1.jpg

It seems we’re starting the year with sherbet. It is in a sense like a sorbet since it’s a frozen fruity thing (often citrus) but has dairy to make it smooth and creamy which sorbet doesn’t. You could also call this recipe frozen yogurt but I thought sherbet sounded nice. Anyway it’s a very simple recipe and if you don’t have an ice cream maker you could make cute yogurt pops instead. You can adjust the amount of cardamom according to your taste but if you leave it out altogether you might want to add some vanilla instead. It’s also kind of healthy so if you ever wanted ice cream for breakfast… like Drake said, you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning.
Happy New Year. Hope this one is what you want it to be. Love you xx


orange cardamom sherbet 11-1.jpg

Orange + cardamom sherbet

2c natural yogurt of choice
3T fresh orange juice 
3T honey
1/2 - 1tsp fresh ground cardamom 


Put all ingredients into a blender and blend to combine.
Pour into ice cream maker and churn according to ice cream maker’s instructions. Make sure you freeze the bowl-part of your ice cream maker in advance (it varies but often 24 hours before churning).
Make sure you use a freezer friendly container to let your almost-sherbet finish freezing. It will keep for a long time.

It may help to take the sherbet container out of the freezer a few minutes before serving so it’s less icy and easier to scoop.

orange cardamom sherbet 9-1.jpg

woodsmoke | gingerbread bundt cake

gingerbread bundt 4-1.jpg

I started this post a few days ago, well before Christmas Eve. In a quiet, dimly lit area of a fairly empty terminal in Amsterdam Airport. Before the boarding crush I could find a seat on tired, cracking vinyl, by the floor to ceiling windows that looked over the runways. The fields and the tarmac were dark, the bodies of planes loomed in gray shadow, brooding and immobile. Like the darkest clouds of a winter sky on the coldest days when rain would fall as snow, casting deep shadows, swallowing the moonlight. 

gingerbread bundt 5-1.jpg
gingerbread bundt 6-1.jpg

I wasn’t at a window seat but when the plane, enlivened in flight, dipped its wing, Amsterdam played out in lights far below us. The warm golds from street lights, the cheery red blinking of cars heading home for the holidays, white glow from illuminated buildings. Like the lights on a Christmas tree, with the colour from strands of tinsel, full of memories, familiar. 
I had a long wait in Abu Dhabi. A wait with a lot of anticipation, eagerly checking my watch, wishing for progress. It reminded me of the night before Christmas when I was very young and impossibly charmed by it all. Finding it so hard to lie in bed and wait for the morning, the expectation so palpable.

gingerbread bundt 8-1.jpg

It was early morning when I arrived in Bangalore. Warm, thick tropical darkness, loaded with fumes, throbbing with action, like how the thin winter air clings on to the scent of pine and woodsmoke. Something celebratory in how India does chaos, like everyone is waiting for something to happen. The taxi guys with their windows open played the morning prayers and Bollywood pop, some background similarity to it all, something different woven into each. Telling the same stories to different beats, like Christmas music. Dawn breaks, the red roofs echo the pinky streaks of hot morning sky, doves cry from deep in the clumps of bougainvillea. There’s a whispering breeze through the palms and the clearing night clouds are violet, indigo, pillowy. Someone is cooking in another house, something with spices. Chilli maybe, red and intense; turmeric, powdered gold; ginger, the rounded spice.
There were lights and anticipation; music, people on the move, heady air filled with spices. There was Christmas everywhere, and all the time. 

"and all my soul is scent and melody"  Charles Baudelaire 


gingerbread bundt 3-1.jpg

Wow. Christmas Eve already. A little last minute perhaps but if anyone is considering some Christmas baking, this cake is perfect. If you don't have a small bundt pan it will also look cute as a real gingerbread loaf in a regular loaf pan (just keep an eye on the baking time). This cake somehow encapsulates the holidays so I hope you try it.

Merry Christmas to you all. Much love xx

gingerbread bundt 2-1.jpg

gingerbread bundt cake

1 3/4c spelt flour 
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg 
Pinch cloves
1 tsp baking soda 
1/2 tsp salt 
1/4c olive oil
1/3c pure maple syrup
1/4c pure cane molasses
1 free range egg
3/4c milk of choice 
2T coconut sugar (or other dark type of sugar)


Preheat the oven to 180 c, 350 f.

In a large bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt and spices.
In another bowl beat together the egg, oil and maple syrup. Add the sugar, then the milk and molasses. If the molasses isn’t combining well it may help to heat the whole mixture a little.
Pour the wet mix into the dry and stir gently until just combined.
Prepare a 6 cup bundt pan: oil and flour it well so that the cake comes clean out with the beautiful shape. Prepping the pan right before baking means the oil won’t slide down the sides and pool at the bottom which wouldn’t help much for sticking. If using a different kind of pan, you can prepare it how usually works for you.

Bake 40-45 minutes, until the cake looks deep golden brown and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Allow the bundt a little time to cool in the pan, then gently release onto a cooling rack. It will be a little fragile to cut at first so if you can resist the ginger-y smells, it will cut cleaner after it’s cool.
This baby bundt will keep well for a few days in an airtight container and tastes as good (better?) with time. It will also frost and defrost nicely.

gingerbread bundt 1-1.jpg

daisies | apple & pear buckwheat crumble

bwheat pear crumble 2-1.jpg
bwheat pear crumble 4-1.jpg
bwheat pear crumble 6-1.jpg
bwheat pear crumble 7-1.jpg

We are fickle. We change our minds, we accept that very little about us is concrete and that's ok. It's the funny thing with dreams, they grow wildly, like daisies. There are some people that cling onto theirs - that childhood idea that's grown with them from just imagination into something tangible. The dream that's been riding the train through all the valleys and the peaks, the highs and lows. And there are so many others that never make it and are left lying by the tracks, bright and visible. Forgotten daydreams; filaments of childhood fantasy; wanderlust on cold, dark winter nights; or ecstasy from sunny Saturdays when anything seems possible. 
They leave a map, markers along the rail tracks, little pieces of who we are, how we’ve changed. How we’ll keep changing, how we’ll never really know what we want. And the seeds of those daisies keep growing untamed and unruly in our minds.

Update 2022: the text for this post used to be longer, but rereading it I wasn’t too happy with the earlier sections so I decided to remove them. Like I say, we keep changing :)


bwheat pear crumble 8-1.jpg

Happy December. Time for gingerbread everything and everything in gold, red and green editions. There is still some nice fall/winter fruit around, perhaps not the most photogenic, so perfect for fruit desserts like these. With the spices and the dark sugar it kind of has that apple pie vibe without rolling dough or such niceties.
You could use all one type of flour in the crumble if you prefer, this recipe isn’t super fussy.
Love xx

bwheat pear crumble 10-1.jpg

apple & pear buckwheat crumble

1/2c buckwheat flour
1/2c brown rice flour
1/3c oat flour
1/4tspn salt
1/4c coconut oil, melted and cooled
1/3c milk of choice, room temperature 
1/4c coconut sugar 
1/2tspn pure vanilla extract
1/2tspn cinnamon

//filling
600g-800g mixed apple & pear (I used more pear than apple)
1 tablespoon coconut sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tspn arrowroot powder / similar starch
1 tspn each cinnamon and nutmeg 
1/2 tsp ground ginger 


Preheat the oven to 180’C, 350’F. Prepare a baking dish with around 2L (2 quarts-ish) real estate, so to speak. An 8x8inch square pan would work.
In one bowl combine all dry ingredients for the crumble topping. Add the coconut oil, milk and vanilla and stir to combine using a fork. Continue until the dough reaches a sort of coarse-sand texture with some small chunks. Set aside.

For the filling: Chop the apples and pears - you don’t have to peel the fruit and the pieces can be chunky. In your baking dish toss together the fruit with the sugar, lemon, spices and starch. Using your hands is a little messy but effective here.
Crumble the topping over the fruit, by hand is again easiest. It should be spread relatively evenly over the fruit.
Bake for between 25-40 minutes, until the fruits have softened and the crumble is golden. This will vary depending on the shape of your dish and the juiciness of your fruit.

Serve as is, or with yogurt (or ice cream…) if you’re feelin’ fly. You really should try this crumble warm once. Not least for the smell.
The crumble will keep well in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days and also freezes and reheats well.

bwheat pear crumble 11-1.jpg