Homemade gift no.29

Can there be any greater gift than the gift of homemade baked goods? Well yes there can: a trip to Paris, a pair of Dinny Hall tiered smokey quartz earrings, dinner at The Wolseley ....... the list is endless. However, if funds are restricted and birthdays are booming, a tin of Nigel Slater's soft bake chocolate and hazelnut cookies, lovingly baked by you can go a long way. I like to half dip some of them in white chocolate for a few extra calories...........

200g dark chocolate at least 70% cocoa solids

75g butter

225g light muscovado sugar

2 eggsvanilla extract

50g skinned hazelnuts

150g self-raising flour

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 4.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a small pan of simmering water, with the base of the bowl not quite touching the water. Allow the chocolate to melt. Turn off the heat as soon as the chocolate has melted.

Cream the butter and sugar till smooth and creamy. Whisk the eggs lightly in another bowl just enough to break them up, then add gradually to the butter and sugar with a couple of drops of vanilla extract, beating constantly. 

Toast the hazelnuts in a shallow pan till golden, shaking regularly so they colour evenly. Grind the nuts coarsely to the texture of gravel, remove half and continue grinding the other half until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the flour, melted chocolate and both textures of nut to the mixture. Stop beating as soon as everything is combined.

Place large, heaped tablespoons of the mixture on to a baking sheet lined with parchment. You should get 12 large biscuits. The mixture can wait for a few minutes if you are baking them in two batches. Don't flatten the cookies, they will do so in the oven.

Bake for 10 minutes. The cookies will have spread and be very soft to the touch. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool a little. As soon as they are cool enough to move without breaking, slide a palette knife underneath and carefully lift them on to a cooling rack. Then try not to eat them all before you have handed them over........

Top tip: a little of what you fancy does you good....... it is still February after all.

Bonjour tristesse......

I'm cold. I have a sore throat. It won't turn into a cold and it won't go away. It fades in and out. Some mornings it's gone and then it comes back. Outside it's trying to snow but only managing to turn the world wet. Oh god I hate February......

And so, lest we forget.....

 I give you this.....

And this...... 

And this......

Top tip: Get out of the cold and into the warm, go see the Manet show at the Royal Academy and pretend you're in France.....

We need to talk about .....Jane

Jane Birkin that is. Now 66, she took the stage by storm at the Cadogan Hall last night, a fab venue incidentally, and sang Serge. Again. This time with a Japanese band of four: piano, violin, trumpet and drums, that she'd picked up a couple of years ago while doing a concert there in aid of the tsunami. And it worked a treat. Jane looked fabulous, hands deep in the pockets of her men's black trousers, a simple white shirt unbuttoned low, sleeves rolled up for the job in hand, a tousled bob and red lipstick ....tres chic. And as luck would have it, I got to get up close and personal after the show and I can report that pillowy pout is all her own, Jane is devoid of Botox and fillers and far more beautiful for it.

To say that Gainsbourg is a god in France is an understatement. According to Jane he is now considered the greatest poet living, dead, or ever likely to be born. And so this tour was to  commemorate ...... the 20 years since Serge's death ..... any excuse it would seem. Some of his songs do rather effuse the boombangabang ever popular in foreign pop, with some interesting lyrics, but Jane brings a certain je ne sais quoi to the ditties, most of which come in around two and half minutes. If you get the chance go see her and have an excellent evening. As Serge might have said, SHEBAM ! POW ! BLOP ! WIZZ !

Top tip: we should all move to Paris where women of a certain age seem to be more appreciated.... if it's good enough for Birkin, Rampling and Faithfull.....