Welcome

Reaching the final of Masterchef 2007 was a rollercoaster of emotion, with huge highs and lows, but I loved every minute and learnt a huge amount. I owe a great deal to John and Gregg who had faith in my ability when I did not believe in myself. Since competing on the programme my life has changed considerably. I now write cookery columns for two magazines, give cookery demonstrations and am just working on my 13th cook book - unlucky number for some but not for me!!! I love all forms of country cooking, using seasonal and locally sourced produce. This blog is to enable me to share with you a few of my recipes and baking ideas. Enjoy Hannah xxxx

Tuesday 23 October 2012

I am very excited to be able to show you the cover of my next book - Cheesecakes - which is being published by Ryland Peters and Small in spring next year.  It is available to preorder on Amazon already!  Gregg Wallace, Masterchef Judge Extrodinaire has given a lovely quote which is on the back of the cover “In my opinion, there is no greater cheesecake expert than Hannah.  It was the first thing she ever cooked for me on Masterchef and she continues to bring me one as a present whenever we meet.  Save to say, I love the girl and I love her cheesecakes.”  Can you believe he wrote something so nice!!!!  Anyway I really do love this book A LOT!  The pictures are just stunning inside and I can't wait to receive my first copy!
Look at all this food!  This was the aftermath of the first photo shoot for my Aga cookery book last week.  The photos were taken in my kitchen with my Aga getting a central role.  Mike Cooper the photographer was fantastic and very patient and by the end of the day we had managed 15 photographs which is pretty good going, plus some lovely incidental shots of chickens and dishes going in and out of the Aga.  After Mike had left, I packed all the cake into the car and took it up into the village for everyone to try which went down very well as you can imagine.  I then curled up and slept very deelpy as I was so tired!!!!   My favourite recipe is the ginger brulees (seen here in the pretty cream teacup) - the photo we took looked lovely!

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Last night was harvest supper in my village - roast beef and yorkshire puddings (so delicious) and apple pies.  Luckily my Mum was super kind and made my apple pies for me as I am in the midst of 3 books at the moment (eeekkk) - I am just finishing editing my Cheesecake book, next week is the photo shoot of my Aga book at my cottage (I am so excited about this although a little scared!!!) and Ryland Peters and Small have very kindly just asked me to write a sequal to the Gluten Free Baker with lots of lovely savoury baking recipes - yippee!  A sequal - I am THRILLED!!!  Anyway, back to last night - this was the ENORMOUS harvest basket I won in the auction - £9 for all these vegetables.  Actually the only reason I wanted this particular basket was for the bundles of corn which were nestled in it.  I thought they might come in handy for the photoshoot next week!!! But the apples, onions, rosehips and potatoes were an added bonus.  Not sure about the 4 marrows that were in the basket though - I hate marrow!!!!


Thursday 4 October 2012


This morning I played birthday fairy and delivered these cupcakes to my friend Lucy's school without her knowing!  I am not sure the caretaker will be too pleased at the happy birthday sprinkles that I covered the desk and carpet with.  The cupcakes are gluten free pecan and coconut with hints of cinnamon and orange with a creamcheese frosting.  The little house on top has a birthday candle in it and I used some very pretty white picket fence cake wrappers.  I accept that it is quite twee and totally kitsch but I am hoping Lucy will like it!  Tonight I am delivering another cake to Joshua as it is his birthday today as well - what a lot of birthdays this week!  I was very busy baking last night as you can imagine xxx


Tuesday 2 October 2012

 On Saturday I went to the Grandsden Show - what fun we had!  There was so much to see and do and definitely something for everyone.  Some many cute animals (am wondering if I could have an Alpaca or Sheep in my garden to keep the grass down!)  In the produce show there were giant marrows, seriously long parsnips and even bags of wheat and barley.  Amazing!