Acorn @ Demuths

In May this year I won a competition with Demuths and Meat Free Monday for a meal for 2 in Demuths restaurant and a day at the vegetarian cookery school. I was absolutely over the moon as I'd been to Demuths before and loved it and have always, always wanted to go to the cookery school! So Mr Hef and I booked a super cute B&B just outside of Bath (It was called Fern Cottage and run by the nicest couple I have ever met in my life!) and enjoyed a weekend of relaxation and amazing food! Since I won the competition the restaurant has been taken over by it's head chef Richard Buckley and is now called Acorns, but the amazing food and wonderful atmosphere is exactly the same as I remember it and if I didn't live over 100 miles away I would visit this restaurant as much as physically possible! 

Going to a vegetarian meal with Mr Hef is always a joy because he doesn't know which vegetable is which (really!) which keeps me laughing for the whole meal! He also never really knows what to pick, so I usually get to choose for him and (selfishly) pick things that I want so that I can eat them too. So for his starter he had carrot and cashew pate with spelt toast, seasonal leaves and herbs, ginger gastrique and tamari cashews.

I had truffled broccoli with cauliflower pannacotta, pickled Kohl Rabi and a thyme dressing. I definitely preferred my starter, but both of them were absolutely delicious! The cauliflower pannacotta was particularly yummy, with a caramelised top and a soft creamy base it went perfectly with the truffled broccoli.

For the main meal I went for the stuffed courgette flower with smoked Dorset red and ricotta, cannellini beans and chard, in a romesco sauce. I've always wanted to try a stuffed courgette flower, and it definitely didn't disappoint. It was full of flavour, and the courgette flower was litterally oozing with smoked Dorset red and ricotta goodness. So much so that Mr Hef got a bit jealous and wished he'd ordered it.

I also really liked the look of his white onion tatin with heritage carrots, runner beans and greens, rosary goat's cheese mousse and curried emulsion, so we swapped halfway through (which makes me seriously happy, I never get to do that in restaurants!) The tatin was also extremely yummy, half an onion in a delicious pastry case, what's not to like!

By this point I was feeling pretty full, but not too full to miss desert. There's always room for desert, especially if it's chocolate ganache with salted caramel, candied pistachios, raspberries and what can only be described as a chunk of chocolate on the side. I pretty much want to eat anything that has salted carmel involved, so this was the obvious choice. It was as rich and delicious as it looks, the perfect end to the incredible meal and enough to make me need a little lie down afterwards.

Mr Hef went for the vanilla pannacotta with plum gazpacho, seared plums and shortbread, which was equally delicious. Mr Hef particularly liked the short bread on the side, I can also confirm that it was amazing.

The restaurant it's self is so cute and comfortable, it literally looks like someone's front room. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend giving it a try! 

Read More

Vegan Apple and Blackberry Crumble Muffins

Last week wasn't the best week in Hef history. I lost my domain name to a horrible man who is trying to sell it back to me for a ridiculous price (which is why it's back to its old blogspot name). My car broke down after I told a story about my old car, and how it never broke down and it was only finally defeated by a tree in the road (even then it kept on going, it was just time for me to get a new car). After the car breakage I got home at 3.30am and tried to console myself with a pug cuddle, only to be wee'd on (but I can't really be too upset about that because I still got to cuddle a pug). Then after talking about how I'd never had any problems with my wisdom teeth, I got a wisdom tooth infection, which is pretty much the most painful thing ever (probably). So I was feeling a bit miserable and the only thing that could cheer me up is some good old baking. So that's exactly what I did. It's the time of year where apples and blackberries are literally falling off of the trees. And after picking some blackberries with my mum, I popped to my local community orchard and got some beautiful apples as well. I combined them with vegan muffin mixture and topped with crumble and ended up with these. Pretty, autumnal, fruity muffins.  

What you need for 12 muffins:

For the crumble:

15g vegan margarine

25g plain white flour

20g light brown sugar 

For the muffin

250g apples
100g blackberries

225g plain white flour

200g Billingtons golden caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
100ml soya milk
100ml vegetable oil
1 large ripe banana squished

1. Start by pre-heating the oven to 200 degrees and lining your muffin tins (I used lakelands parchment lined foil, it's amazing)
2. Then make the crumble topping by sticking all of the ingredients in a bowl and rubbing the butter and flour together to make a light crumb mixture. Pop to one side until needed. 
3. Then peel, core and chop your apples in to little chunks, mix with the black berries in a bowl and pop to one side. 
4. Put all of the other ingredients in to a separate bowl and mix until well combined, then fold the fruit in. 
5. Spoon the mixture in to the cases, filling it all the way to the top. Then sprinkle the crumble mixture over the top. 
6. Pop in to the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. 
7. Leave to cool (if you can wait) then enjoy! 

Read More