In the circle game

Perhaps it's of poor taste to speak of viral phenomena during these times, but the hotel group Hilton recently released the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies that they give to visitors at their DoubleTree franchise locations and it has spread like an inferno over dry leaves. Now, I know that basing a post on these cookies sounds like I'm pulling this blog into some kind of bourgeoisie nightmare, but I promise that I have good reasons. Believe it or not, this cookie is worth sticking around for, and I hope that the story I'm about to tell is too.

Just under four years ago, prior to living in London, I had booked tickets to a music show (Kari Rueslåtten and Antimatter on a double billing) in the city. Friend-of-the-blog Keith, who was then boyfriend-of-the-(then-non-existant)-blog, had planned to tag along with me. We'd planned to meet at Canada Water station to drop stuff at the hotel we'd booked to stay the night at before moving on to Camden to catch the show. I won't go into the finer-grain detail here, but Keith was held up at work this day and it was too late to make it to the concert. As a result we decided to press on to the hotel; a slightly disgruntled me and a massively apologetic Keith.

As Canada Water is primarily a residential area of London, we were unsure of how to get from A to B, and if I remember correctly the usually-handy Google Maps proved to be just as befuddling. Our path to the hotel involved traipsing down shallow canals, through an ecological park and a woodland planted over several infilled docks; apparently in Canada Water there is no such thing as going "as the crow flies". We did eventually emerge on to a stretch of road running parallel to the River Thames, and lo and behold, the Hilton DoubleTree stood before us.

After a short lapse of confusion over the location of the entrance, we eventually made it inside. This sense of relief was quickly punctuated by receptionist informing us that there was no booking under my name; quite possibly the worst thing you could hear in this situation. I had reserved the room from a discount travel website (yes, this story isn't that bougie) which is a slightly humbling thing to have to point out, however a closer inspection of our booking details revealed that we were actually at a totally wrong DoubleTree. To this day, I don't have an explanation as to why I thought Canada Water was the right place to go, but it turns out that we were supposed to be at the location behind the London ExCel centre. The present-day gravity of this mistake absolutely slaughters me and I'm so impatient to tell you why but God DAMN it (apologies to my fundamentalist readers) I have to finish the story first.

After a collective "huh", the receptionist helpfully chimed in to say that there was a ferry service that operated from the back of the hotel (for some reason the DoubleTree has a docking station as part of the Travel for London network; this confuses me slightly). They gave us free tickets to take the boat closer to our destination and, more significantly, a cookie each for our journey. I'm sure we were somewhat caught off guard, as well as Keith having a mild aversion to waterborne travel, but we made our way down and sat ourselves on the boat.

Now, the cookies; yes, they were indeed the fabled ones, as described in the opening paragraph. I remember us both exuberantly gushing after taking our first bite. There must have been heaters in the reception desks, as the baked goods virtually glowed with warmth. I'm not known for being spontaneously articulate, but these cookies could have turned me on to the path of the troubadour, composing epic courtly romances fixed on the ardour I had for this chocolate-chipped confection. My feelings were certainly stoked to such an intensity that I forgot all about being kind-of-mad at Keith, and just let the city drift by in a spray of river mist and a haze of sweetness.

I can't really remember where the boat dropped us, probably because I surrendered the majority of my memory to preserve the cookie in a state of intact sensual recollection. We made it sometime that evening to the place where we were actually meant to stay the night with the dearest hope that another mistake hadn't been made. Mercifully the location was correct and we were presented with another cookie each to take up to our room. Yes, our hearts both exploded with gratitude and the receptionist probably thought one of us was having some form of traumatic episode. The tragic thing is, I had brought biscuits up with me (Nigella Lawson's Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti from Nigellissima) for us to try but they were utterly eclipsed by the DoubleTree's warm rounds of wonderment. To this day, Keith still maintains the blasphemous untruth that they were "just as good".

Between that moment and yesterday, my life had been totally devoid of DoubleTree cookies. After wandering this metaphorical wasteland, I could only act with utmost urgency upon seeing the release of the secret recipe (I don't know if it was actually secret, but it's way more fun to pretend that it was). This involved tagging Keith in the news article on Facebook with a profusion of exclamation marks, before getting around to making the cookies merely days after seeing the recipe. Most of the time when I find something I want to make, it takes me aeons to get around to making it; not this time. I tried the recipe, and with much hesitancy too. Could they possibly be as good? Maybe I was just delerious from the chaos of that fateful day. Not to mention my chequered past when it comes to cookie making. But, no! I followed the instructions and it worked, I tell you! There's a certain rapturous quality to having these in the comfort of your own home.

As an endnote to that story, I'd like to add that at the time of writing, I've been living in Canada Water for just over a year now. I started up this blog here, I finished my masters degree here and I have been quarantined here too. My 22-year old self would have been perplexed to have known he would have ended up in the city altogether, let alone the place he near enough got lost in with his then-partner. But, I had the canals in my mind when we were looking for a flat and suggested it without really thinking it would be taken seriously. Here I am though, and I'm still in love with the docklands, the river and the wildlife refuges that pepper the area (not to mention the lower-than-average rent prices). I'm grateful for the slip in logic that led me here. I guess this is what Joni Mitchell sung about us all being within the circle game, right?

So yes, my recipe today is going to be a slightly amended version (and converted into metric units) of the Hilton Double Tree Cookie, the original of which you can find here. I do feel weirdly corporatist about presenting you with something produced by a multi-national company rather than by myself or a food writer, but this cookie does represent a very significant slice of personal history to me. Plus, I stick by what I said a couple of posts ago about the centrality of the story. Anyhow, it would be pretty unconscionable to tell that story and post a recipe for some form of kale salad. I'm sure it's better this way for all involved.

Double Tree Chocolate Chip Cookie

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 20-23 minutes

Makes: 23-26 cookies

Ingredients

230g unsalted butter, softened

165g of granulated sugar

150g of light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract

1/4 tsp of lemon juice

285g of flour

45g of rolled oats

1 tsp of baking soda

1 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp of cinnamon

465g of chocolate chips

200g of chopped walnuts

Method

Preheat the oven to 150 C (130 C for fan powered ovens) and line a large baking tray with a sheet of baking parchment.

Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat. Once the pan has been warmed, add in the chopped walnuts and toast until they are beginning to brown. This should take around 3-5 minutes. Set aside to cool while you prepare the other ingredients.

Cream the butter and both sugars in a large mixing bowl until light. This should take around 2-4 minutes, depending on the type of mixer you are using.

Add eggs, vanilla extract and lemon juice into the bowl and continue to mix it in. Continue to cream the mixture for an additional 3 minutes or until the mixture becomes fluffy.

Slowly stir in the flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon until combined. Make sure you don't over mix at this stage, as this will produce gluten which can result in an overly chewy cookie. At this point, stir in the chocolate and the walnuts until combined consistently.

Take roughly 3 tbsps of dough for each cookie, and roll into a ball. Place each ball on the pre-prepared baking tray, spaced at least 2 inches apart and flatten slightly into a thick, circular shape. Place the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes prior to baking.

Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and the centre is still soft. Cookies will always appear very soft when they initially come out of the oven but will firm up quickly upon cooling. Take care not to over-bake at this stage as you want to ensure that there is still some softness.

Remove from the oven, and leave to cool in the baking tray for 10 minutes before removing on to a wire baking rack.

Notes & Adjustments

• I did half of this recipe to save on costs, and the recipe can be scaled to half quantities in this scenario.

• The original recipe doesn't specify to toast the walnuts, so this step is technically optional. However, I think it would be amiss not to given that toasting really does permit the nutty flavour to bloom. Actually, I did burn mine very slightly in the process, but even that is far superior to an untoasted nut.

• If you would prefer, I imagine that this recipe would also be good with pecans or macadamias substituted for the walnuts. Or you could also use a blend of the three.

• Instead of using chocolate chips, I bought bars of chocolate that I chopped into chunks. Have you noticed how much more expensive it seems to be to buy chocolate in it's chipped state? I can never seem to get past this. Plus, I prefer chunks, so I'm going to say that you could use whichever form works best for you.

• The original recipe doesn't specify to chill the cookies before baking. I did this simply to allay my own fears about cookies spreading into amorphous masses while in the oven. So, this step is strictly optional but I cannot guarantee what will happen if you were to skip it!

One last thing; Keith has a photography blog which you can find right here! Speaking as a total layman of the discipline, I can attest that he takes some incredible pictures with lots of various subjects, and I'm not just saying that because he's a friend-of-the-blog. Do give his work a look.

*Actually, lastly I'm thinking about making a page on my blog that mentions blogs that I read a lot (food or otherwise) as well as potentially some related YouTube channels and also songs I've mentioned throughout these posts. Do keep an eye out for that! I think as food writers, it's incredibly important for us to be open about our own sources of inspiration. Even if we do create a recipe ourselves, we pick things up and learn things from other writers/bloggers/chefs, and also people around us. In that case, I want to acknowledge some of my go-to sources and encourage people to check those out too.

Easter Sunday

08:50: Wake up. I look at my phone and note the time. It's earlier than I woke up the day before, but it seems like I'm becoming less of a morning person. I'm no longer setting my alarm to half seven or eight, I'm just letting myself sleep until my body decides to. I'm probably getting more of the rest I need, but I do wonder what 7 o'clock in the midst of April would look like, or even what it would feel like? Never to worry; it's time to shower, get dressed and put a saucepan of porridge on the stove.

10:15: With everyone awoken, Owen, Rebecca and I come to the consensus that we should paint rocks. Rocks that were collected a few years ago, on a beach in Penzance that none of us know when we will be able to see again. We decide that we will paint them to represent characters from the TV show Steven Universe, as was our plan almost three years ago now. Owen faithfully adheres to the theme and Rebecca begins to embroider some wildflowers, but for me this eventually devolves into smearing my arm in shades of pale blue and blistered red. As a result, I come out of this creative session resembling some form of wraith. Another shower it is then.

12:50: I load up the rice cooker for Owen and I to have lunch. Rebecca is having a cheese and bacon melt, and Owen resolves to have some bacon in his rice. It's not a bad idea, and I ask him not to clean the pan after he's done so I can use the surplus fat to cook some mushrooms and some beansprouts. It's not a bad thing if it's an unavoidable by-product, right? The hitch comes when Owen checks the rice cooker and finds that I've added too much water. He says he isn't angry, but his countenance is enough to unsettle me. When the rice eventually absorbs the additional water, I take my bowl and my chopsticks into the bedroom and eat there.

14:40: After I've washed the dishes from lunch, I take a "scratch art" kit which pictures a unicorn standing in a forest out to the balcony with the intention of spending a few hours outside. When I go to do this, however, it starts to rain. It seems as if the ground hasn't seen rain for weeks, so I put down my clipboard and go to lean over the edge, hoping to establish contact with the incoming cascade. It falls thickly, yet briefly and after ten minutes has passed from our home. I retrieve the scratch art kit, and take it out to the still-dry balcony and sit down with it, only to be phoned by my parents a couple of minutes later. Apprehensively, I answer and spend the next 40 minutes talking to them. I'm relieved to hear them keep discussion of internal conflict to a minimum this time.

16:30: It's time to go for a walk, something that seems to have turned into more of an obligation where it was once a pastime. It took me a while to work out why this was. Having to be fully conscious and alert to your surroundings constantly while walking means that there is no potential for zoning out, no matter how pleasant the surroundings. Before the quarantine, I used to go on day-long walks with no destination in particular; I cut this one short after 20 minutes, becoming overwhelmed by the consistent concentration and the renewal of the sunlight.

17:10: I get back to the flat. I prevaricate for a while, yet there isn't much I feel like doing so instinctively I take a look at ingredients for dinner. It's a lot earlier when we would usually sit down to eat, but this is not a time of normalcy. We have three carrots. We have ginger, garlic, spices. We have an oven and we have roasting tins. I make up a spice paste that could potentially be described as Persian (question: do we still say "Persian" because Iranian culture is somehow geopolitically problematic?), score the carrots in a criss-cross shape as if they were one of my scratch art kits, and spread the paste thickly atop the carrots, ready to be roasted. All of this happened in the most leisurely of paces.

19:20: The roasting has finished, and the oven is just beginning to cool down. I place the carrots into large bowls, and accompany them with some farro. I bought the bag in Rome almost three years ago, and technically the grains expired in January; they taste fine and blindly I go forward. We sit down, and we put on a comedy show that my father used to like (The Vicar of Dibley - newly added to Netflix!) and we eat dinner. The carrots are sweet, and the spices are sour. The air feels convivial again, if not a little humid.

21:30: We're still where we were a couple of hours before, with the TV playing the same series. Perhaps inspired by a festive episode of the prior mentioned comedy, we decide to prepare one of the small Christmas puddings as well as a saucepan of custard. Rebecca doesn't really like Christmas pudding, so we make her a bowl of "microwave brownie" which I hope was not poisonous; she ate it with ice cream, as one naturally should.

23:00: Everyone has gone to bed. The comedy show has been switched off, as have all of the lights save from one lamp. I'm still awake, in the living room by myself. I've found myself staying up later recently. I'm aware that I should be regulating my sleep a whole lot more, but without being able to zone out while walking, I find that this is the only time I feel fully free to decompress. I read a book, I play a game and I try to phase out as much as possible.

02:00: It's been a new day for a couple of hours now, and I think to myself that I should probably go to sleep. I brush my teeth, get into bed, and prepare to repeat the process yet another time.

Persian Spiced Roasted Carrots

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 50-60 minutes

Serves: 2

Ingredients

2 large carrots

2 cloves of garlic, crushed and minced

1 inch piece of fresh ginger, finely sliced

1 tsp fenugreek

1 tsp sumac

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp sugar

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp of fresh curly parsley, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 C (for gas) or 200 C (for fan).

Peel each carrot, before slicing each in half along their lengths. Carefully cut criss-cross patterns into the carrots without slicing all the way through.

In a small bowl, mix the garlic, ginger, spices, salt, pepper, sugar, lemon juice and 1 1/2 tbsps of the olive oil together. This should make a coarse, yet spreadable paste.

Use the remaining 1/2 tbsp of the olive oil to grease a baking dish (or two, if necessary) and place each carrot on the dish, making sure that they have at least a centimetre between them.

Spread the spice blend evenly across each carrot and place in the oven for 50-60 minutes. Check after 40 minutes that the spice paste isn't starting to burn. If so, cover the carrots with foil and cook for the remaining 10-20 minutes.

Check the carrots at 50 minutes, and if necessary, keep in the oven for the remaining 10 minutes.

Once the carrots have finished roasting, take them out of the oven and scatter them with the chopped parsley.

Notes & Adjustments

• I mentioned above that I had this farro. I don't have a fleshed out recipe for this, but just for reference, I sliced and caramelised quarter of an onion, before adding garlic, chilli and parsley and stirring in the farro. I added some paprika and some mace to the mix to give it a hint of *something* that I'm not really sure of!

• The spice mix is obviously very changeable here, so don't worry if there is anything you're missing. Sumac used to be harder to find, but now you can pick it up in many supermarkets, same with fenugreek. Similarly, if you have a spice mix that you like in particular, you could also use that here.

• Shockingly, you could also use a different vegetable to carrots. Sweet potato would probably be great, as would any kind of squash.

I think I should be with you

Back in 2014, Molly Wizenberg of Orangette fame published a blog post about lime curd. Although a tantalising prospect, it wasn't the curd that drew me in, nor the sugar cookies in the shape of Yorkshire terriers which acted as a grateful vessel for the smooth citrus spread; it was story that lay behind it. I won't repost it verbatim here, but when Molly was a teenager her mother used to make the lime curd in the recipe provided and visitors could spread it thickly on to accompanying sugar cookies. It's a totally innocuous tale (do people still say "cool story bro, needs more dragons"?), but the mental image of members of a book-club, huddled together and embellishing their pet-shaped biscuits is a very strong one for me.

Thanks to this story, I've had the fateful meeting of curd and biscuit lodged in my head virtually from the moment I finished reading the post. How could I take this concept and re-purpose it? I find myself in agreement with Molly's judgement that lime is "the superlative citrus", and therefore wanted to keep that part of the curd. Usually if I have limes in the flat, it's for one of two purposes; for garnishing a gin & tonic, or because I'm making Thai food. I use the latter purpose to adapt my recipe, but now I'm thinking; gin & tonic curd, would that work? I require answers.

Anyway, I tempered the sharp vitality of the limes with a dash of floral lemongrass, all to be spread over shortbread biscuits flavoured with the dry spice of ground ginger and the warmth of cardamom. I can promise you too that when I tried them together, I was emphatically not yearning for the potent scents of intoxication. The acuity of the lime is rounded out by the sweetness of the shortbread, and the slight fieriness ensures that this doesn't become overbearing. Admittedly, I'd never made or even eaten lime curd before, so this seemed a bit touch and go for a while but I was surprised by just how easy it was. I didn't even get impatient while grating the zest from the six limes, it's probably the closest I've ever been to being zen.

I mention all of this, because I probably would never have made lime curd without reading Molly's story; the simple act of contextualising and situating anchored it into the myriad recipes orbiting chaotically around my head. Though this aspect of food writing is crucial to me and countless other people who engage with the process, it is the part of the discipline that is the most widely mocked and even vilified among those who consume this media. I'd been aware of this long before I made my first post almost half a year ago, but it's on my mind now because of a tweet from Mindy Kaling which read:

"Why do all online recipes have endless pages of the chef's whole life story about the recipe and then on the 12th page is the actual recipe? I just want the recipe! I don't need the Modern Love essay on how you came up with it!"

Now, I'm totally reliant on you not thinking "she has a point" when you read the above; I'm gonna stop short of a deep deconstruction, but let's break this down just a little, should we? Firstly, I think it's so important to note that the vast majority of food writers/bloggers are not chefs. A chef is a professional cook, and while they obviously can write and blog too, the types of people you'll tend to find contributing online are home cooks who develop recipes outside of a controlled environment and therefore do tend to accrue stories regarding their provenance. They don't have a specific job description which orders them to transmit specific instructions to readers and nothing more.

It's not as if I don't get it; it is kind of hilarious to imagine the archetype of a food writer chronicling the lineage of a recipe which originated with their mother's friend's daughter's hairdresser's cousin's son's babysitter, but preserving this as a stereotype makes it that much harder for us to share our work. Sure, there can be a fair bit of pretension and elitism within the blogosphere, but that's a common denominator across the vast majority of modes of expression. Do I want to hear how so-and-so was deeply inspired by day-to-day life in their second home, a homespun villa among the vineyards and olive groves of Val di Chiana? Absolutely not. Does it get on my nerves that this experience is often written about as if it were somehow both aspirational and universal? Definitely. Do I believe that they have an inimical right to articulate that particular reality, no matter how obnoxious it comes across? Of course. I don't believe for one moment that food bloggers are largely defined by conspicuous consumption, but for where it does exist it is easily ignored.

I think the crux of this matter, however, is that we are essentially providing free content for readers to access. Some more well-established bloggers may be able to engage in revenue earning activities such as speaking events and publishing cookbooks, and so they should if they have the audience for it, but even then their blogs remain without cost to read. Doesn't it smack of entitlement to suggest we should refrain from writing to save the five to ten seconds that might have been spent scrolling past the prose and getting to the recipe? If it were somehow decreed that blog posts must be solely instructive rather than expressive, I would very quickly discontinue this blog. I've talked a lot about food always having a context (collective *ugh*) and having to suppress that would not be worth continuing on with this.

This post seems like it's been very negative so far. I lured you in with a charming story about shortbread dogs, delicious conserves and book club ladies from the 90's, before ladling on the frustration. I want to at least counterbalance this, so I've listed a few stories that are definitively stories that I like from food blogs below in addition to Molly's. I love the idea of an online blogosphere of compartmentalised micro-histories within which food has been the vehicle of anecdote. So, here are some of the stars which comprise that particular constellation:

• Deb Perelman's account of working in a local bakery in her younger years

• Luisa Weiss's visit to a Long Island nature reserve

• Jenny Rosenstrach prevaricating over what kind of tofu to make for dinner

• Sara Forte's coping mechanisms for the ongoing pandemic

What you'll notice about the stories above is that they'll range from idyllic childhood memories to the seemingly mundane aspects of day-to-day life. To me, this is all fascinating as it provides an insight into the individual forges of their cooking. With this in mind, it's difficult to see the maligning of such sincerity as being justified (sorry Mindy, I swear that I do usually enjoy your comedy). I'd really hate for us to get to situation where we know longer feel comfortable and safe enough to talk about our backgrounds, and how they evolve and influence as.

As a last note, I would be amiss to not mention how making curd was inspired by friend-of-the-blog Bee also making a delicious batch of curd (technically I didn't actually taste it because of the, uh, global pandemic, but I trust her enough to know that it was incredible). Also, I listened to a record by The Bangles when I started writing this last night that I'd bought back in November on a brunch trip with Bee and took almost half a year to play it. My title is taken from the song Be With You because it's truly sensational and why not give the post which was a partial excoriation a cutesy title? The curd and the shortbread just want to be together, and that's a story which will surely transcend the negativity! ... ugh OK.

Lime & Lemongrass Curd

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Makes approximately 400 ml of curd

Ingredients

4 medium eggs, beaten

180g of caster sugar

6 limes, juiced squeezed and zest grated

1 1/2 tbsp lemongrass puree

100g of unsalted butter, cut into cubes

Method

Add to a medium sized saucepan the beaten eggs, caster sugar, lime zest and juice and the lemongrass puree. Turn the stove on to a low heat, and slowly warm the curd making sure to whisk frequently.

When the curd starts to thicken (which, for me, took about ten minutes of languid maintenance), continue to stir until it clings to the utensil when you remove it. Once it has thickened completely, take the saucepan off of the heat and gently stir the cubed butter in until totally combined.

Don't worry if your curd currently looks like pond detritus; the appearance will be transformed upon straining. At this point, check that the curd is cool enough to strain into a jar. Mixing in the butter should have brought the temperature down, but it's good to check.

Take a strainer, and press the curd through into a glass jar or any other appropriate receptacle. Store in the fridge and leave to set somewhat.

Ginger & Cardamom Shortbread

Preparation time: 50 minutes

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Makes 10-20 biscuits (I know this is woefully imprecise, but I just happened to start "experimenting" with different cookie cutters before counting how many biscuits I had - I think I had about 18 relatively large ones)

Ingredients

180g of plain white flour

130g of unsalted butter

60g of caster sugar

1 1/2 tsp of ground ginger

2 ground cardamom pod seeds

1/4 tsp of salt

Method

Add the butter and the sugar to a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth. It may be worth using a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl after you've done this.

Sift in the flour and add the cardamom, ginger and salt. Stir until it has all combined into a smooth dough. When you begin stirring, it will look as if it's not going to all adhere together, but do keep going! As the butter integrates with the mixture while being stirred, it will form itself into a coherent dough in no time.

Lightly flour a work surface and place your ball of dough down. Carefully take a rolling pin and roll it out to about a 1cm thickness. Don't worry about being too stringent with this; I think mine were a little thinner, but use it as an approximate guide.

When the dough has been rolled out, take a cookie cutter (of your choice) and cut out as many shapes in the dough as you can. With the dough that didn't get cut into a shape, combine it all together and knead it into a coherent ball. Roll this out again, and get as many shapes from it as you can. Repeat until you have used as much of your dough as possible.

Chill the dough in the fridge for 20 minutes, and pre-heat your oven to 190 C or 170 C if using a fan oven. Allowing the dough to refrigerate will ensure that the butter doesn't melt in the oven and cause the biscuits to spread out.

Once the biscuits have chilled, place in the oven for 15-20 minutes (err closer to 15, and leave them in for the extra 5 minutes if needed). Once they are done, allow them to cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Serve with the aforementioned lime & lemongrass curd on the side.

Notes & Adjustments

• The total amount of butter across both of recipes equals to 230g, and most UK supermarkets tend to sell blocks of 250g, so just one will be enough for both recipes and you'll have some leftover to spread on toast or melt over popcorn, if you should wish to do so. I think it's important here to use butter, rather than a baking spread. I am guilty of using the interchangeably because a block of the latter is about £1 cheaper, and usually this works perfectly well. However, here the buttery taste is a lot more integral so I strongly recommend using it. If you do want to save money though, the shortbread will still be good when made with a baking spread; I'm not so sure about the curd.

• Some of the ingredients here are interchangeable between the two recipes. Want to add a tsp of lime zest into your shortbread? Go ahead. If you want to add some ginger into your curd (I seriously considered this before opting for lemongrass) I would suggest using a tsp of finely chopped ginger, either instead of the lemongrass or with it.

• I used lemongrass puree in the curd because I couldn't get hold of the fresh variety. Seriously though, who is stockpiling lemongrass? Anyway, if you do have the fresh variety do use that because it is cheaper and the result be more floral. Bruise one stalk, slice it into four pieces and throw it into the mixture. Remove before straining. I also think throwing a couple of lime leaves into the curd might be interesting.

• If you want to be really fancy, when you come to eat these you could try serving them with a small bowl of toasted desiccated coconut on the side to sprinkle over the biscuits.

• Also, a disclaimer: you can make these separately; they are not reliant on one another.

• Another disclaimer: if you are reading this during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, do not invite your friends over to spread curd on top of shortbread. I know that the mental image of the book club is incredibly alluring, but you'll have to keep this pleasure to yourself for the moment OR perhaps share this recipe with ALL of your friends and host a virtual curd spreading party over Zoom.

I think that's all folks. I know I complained a lot, but I want to thank anyone who does read and encourage me to keep writing; it means a lot. I raise a shortbread liberally spread with curd to you.

Ashe x