Four

Buttercup Days is four years old today. It's changed quite a bit over those years and good things have come from it. When I typed my first blog post I had no idea what my goal with it was: I still don't really. I started it while at home pretty much full-time with my then one year old son and five year old daughter. The blog served as a creative output in those stay-at-home days. Blog posts tended to be family centred. It was about being a mother to two young children, while also looking back at my own childhood. It documented those tiny but significant milestone and occasions that make up life. Food was always part of it and recipe posts were a fairly regular thing back then.

Every now and then, I have to stop and see where I am going with this blog. With both of the children very much settled into school life, I work those school hours 5 days a week. There's my daily task list for Seen and my Shopping Editor role at The Simple Things to fill the hours. The blog gets squeezed in as and when time allows, which isn't nearly as often as I would like, which can be frustrating. If only I had thought of doing this before having kids, back in the day when I had something called 'spare time'.

With the vast majority of my posts being recipes that I make, style and shoot myself, I couldn't have chosen a more time consuming blog to write. To keep a blog going it has to be about a subject you are passionate about, that much I've learnt. My passion extends further than just the food itself and I plan to share that with you in the form of content that won't require me to cook up a storm in the kitchen in order to achieve a blog post. I still want the recipes to be very much the core of the blog; these new elements I hope will support and compliment the recipes.

Over the coming weeks I will be introducing a few new elements to the blog as it enters its fifth year.  I will be posting about inspiring cooking and eating spaces, beautiful kitchenalia and simple ideas and thoughts on the act of cooking, sharing and connecting over food.

No matter how I write up and plan my posts in orderly subjects, there will still be a few random posts (probably children related) that will pop up. I've got to keep it real, as they say.

To all my family and friends, the people I've met through Buttercup Days, and those who may have just stubbled across this post today - thank you so much for your support. It means the world.

An Autumnal recipe for Tesco Home: Crumble {and Custard}

I love a change of season with its shift in seasonal produce dictating change in the kitchen. Mother nature has pretty much timed it to perfection. Just as the appeal of fresh crisp salads and strawberries & cream start to fade away along with warm summer evenings, along come the soups, casseroles, apples and blackberries to take us into the cosy season. It's the back-to-school and throw-a-sweater-on season, and one of my favourite times of the year.

Today, I am sharing my first autumn recipe of the year: Plum, Fig and Blackberry Crumble served with a White Chocolate and Cardamom Custard. It's a recipe that Tesco Home asked me to develop for their new autumn / winter 2014 kitchenware collection which launched this month. My favourite pieces, all of which I used in creating this recipe, include the nostalgically shaped porcelain milk bottles, the contemporary grey dipped crockery, baking dishes in a range of muted colours and a generous oak chopping board which is already earning its keep in my kitchen by doubling up as platter for serving food. These purse-friendly considered designs are as useful as they are good-looking - perfect for the home cook with an eye-for-design.

Credits: grey dipped sauce jug, £4; white porcelain bottle, £5; large ribbed mixing bowl, £8; large oak chopping board, £18; grey medium baker dish, £9; grey dipped cereal bowl, £4. All available now from Tesco Home.

For the recipe, please scroll down.

Crumble recipe, styling & photography: Buttercup Days

Custard recipe: Cooking Fror Real Life by Joanna Weinberg

#tescohome

@tescoliving

Plum, Fig & Blackberry Crumble with White Chocolate & Cardamom Custard.

The quantities given below for the crumble topping will make far more than you will need. Just place the leftover crumble topping in a freezer bag and pop into the freezer. You can add direct from the freezer to any fruit base you have to hand for an almost instant crumble. I have given rough quantities for the fruit base. It isn't an exact science, but you want enough to half fill your dish. I prefer not to add sugar to my fruit base as I think the sugar in the crumble topping and the sweet custard add enough sweetness. However should you wish to stir in a tbsp or two of caster sugar to your fruit, I will not judge you.

Ingredients for the crumble topping:

250g butter, diced

310g plain flour

350g soft brown sugar

85g oats

pinch of salt

2 tsp mixed spice

125g of nuts, roughly chopped if large (I used a mix of pistachio, pecan and almond)

Ingredients for the fruit base:

6 plums

2 figs

a punnet of blackberries

1 - 2 tbsps of apple or orange juice

Ingredients for the custard:

150ml whole milk
150ml whipping or double cream

50g white chocolate, grated

5 cardamom pods, shells removed, seeds pounded

2 medium egg yolks (free range please)

50g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 200℃ / Gas 6.

To make the crumble, lightly rub together the butter and flour until the mixture resembles coarse, slightly chunky breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, oats, salt, spice and nuts. Put to one side, while you prepare the fruit.

Stone your plums and cut into quarters or sixths if they are large. Cut the figs into similar sized segments. Add to your baking dish along with the blackberries. You want your fruit to fill roughly half the capacity of the dish. Add a plum or fig more if you need to increase your volume of fruit. Drizzle 1 - 2 tbsps of juice over your fruit. 

Top your fruit with the crumble, bagging up the left over crumble for the freezer. Bake the crumble for about 20mins, until the top is golden and the fruit is bubbling at the edges.

To make the custard, place the milk, cream, grated chocolate and cardamom in a pan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, so that the chocolate doesn't stick or burn, until the milk steams and tiny bubbles prickle at the side of the pan. Remove from the heat and cool a little.

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl, and slowly stir in the milk and chocolate mixture. Rinse out and dry the milk pan and return the mixture to it. Cook over a medium-low heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, being careful not to let it curdle. Serve immediately with the crumble. Enjoy.