Recipe: Proper custard

Top your pie or crumble with this delicately f lavoured custard made with your own fair hands, from Vanilla by Janet Sawyer.

Serves 4–6

100g golden caster sugar
1 tsp cornflour
250ml whole milk
125ml clotted or double cream
4 egg yolks, beaten
1⁄2–1 tsp vanilla paste (or seeds of 1⁄2–1 vanilla pod)

1. Mix the sugar and cornflour in a bowl. Whisk in the milk.
2. In a heavy-bottomed pan, heat the cream gently, adding the milk mixture a little at a time. Slowly bring to the boil, stirring constantly, and reduce heat when it starts to thicken.
3. Pour a little of the hot milk mixture onto the egg yolks, stirring well, then gradually stir this back into the remaining milk in the pan.
4. Gently bring the mixture back to the boil and stir in the vanilla paste or seeds. Serve the custard immediately, or cover with cling film to stop a skin forming, and reheat gently when needed.

Variations: To pimp your custard, add the finely grated zest of half an orange, a pinch of saffron or a tbsp of toasted flaked almonds. 

The Simple Things on Instagram

After something of a hiatus, The Simple Things is back on Instagram! 

Snapping the simple pleasures in life, Team Simple Things will be sharing snippets of our days - whether that's putting together the magazine or the places, people and sights we see outside work, we're capturing the snapshots of life that make us smile. 

Follow @simplethingsmag and expect regular instalments of beautiful, bitesize pics.

Recipe: Buttered bourbon apple cider

Make two batches of our November cover recipe – one boozy, one kid- and driver-friendly – for a warming autumn treat.

Getting together with friends and family happens so easily in summer – good weather and that holiday feeling being the natural allies of socialising. Yet there’s plenty to celebrate come bonfire season: autumn’s fiery canopy, the crisp, cold air and fast-falling dusk lend themselves to gathering outdoors, wrapping up, wellies donned, and feasting around the fire. We’ll raise a glass of mulled cider to that.

Recipe: Buttered bourbon apple cider

Serves 6–8

500ml apple cider*
100ml apple juice
1 tbsp light brown sugar
Cinnamon sticks (one, plus some to use as stirrers)
Cloves
Star anise
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of ginger
Sliced fresh fruit (orange, apple)
3 tbsp unsalted butter
150ml bourbon

1. In a large pot add the cider, apple juice and sugar; heat until it starts to simmer.

2. Add all other ingredients except for the butter and bourbon.

3. Let the spiced cider simmer for 10 mins, then add the butter and bourbon, stirring gently until the butter has melted.

4. Remove from the heat, pour into glasses, add a cinnamon stick to each glass and serve. You can strain the mixture before pouring, if you don’t want ‘bits’.

* To make a children’s version, replace the bourbon and cider with apple juice (600ml in total).

Teasels and grasses

Don’t be defeated by the absence of flowers to bring in from the garden: embrace dried seed heads and grasses instead.

Their delicate filigree of stems and leaf skeletons look great in a rustic vase. Georgie Newbery ofCommon Farm Flowers used teasels*, dock, loosestrife, mallow, hogweed, willow, yarrow, marjoram and wild carrot in this airy arrangement, which will last all winter.

To keep it dust-free: “Hoover from a distance to avoid obliterating the arrangement itself.”

Tidy.

*Teasels are still used by some weavers to clean and raise the nap (tease the fibres) on wool. Their prickly nature makes them a natural comb and gentler to use than metal. (They’re handy for stroking a cat’s whiskers, too.)

Pottering in the potting shed: Leaf mould compost

In a new series, our garden editor Cinead McTernan, shares ideas for things to do in your plot. This month, make your own compost using leaf mould.

“As a child I loved autumn. As soon as the leaves started falling, friends and I would pile them up in our school playground to make jumps so that we could spend every lunchtime galloping around and around jumping over them as if we were horses. Oh happy days!

“As a grown up I’m just as excitable about the start of autumn and I still gather leaves in to piles. The only difference is that I now scoop them up and keep them in bin liners for a few years so they can slowly decompose and transform into the most wonderful, crumbly, nutrient-rich compost, called leaf mould. If you’ve got space to store a few bin liners (out of the way behind the potting shed is always good) then it’s well worth giving this a try. If you don’t have enough leaves in your own garden to fill a bin liner or two, nip out to the park or your local woods where you’ll have plenty of material to gather.

“Oak, beech and hornbeam are the ultimate leaves for this bit of garden alchemy – they break down easily and make a very good leaf mould. Sycamore, walnut, horse and sweet chestnut leaves are actually thicker, which means it’s a good idea to shred them before storing them (you can use a rotary lawn mower to do this – just scatter them on the lawn and go over them a few times). It’s best to avoid evergreens and confer needles, as they take much longer to break down and if you’re going to recycle your christmas tree in this way, keep the pine needles separate and use for plants that like an acidic compost, like blueberries, camellias and rhododendrons.

“If the leaves are very dry when you gather them up, sprinkle some water in the bin liner to help them start them to decompose. Tie the bag in a knot and pierce with a fork a few times to create some air holes. You will have to be patient, as the process takes a couple of years, but start now and do it each year and you’ll have a great supply of good quality leaf mould to use as a seed-sowing compost in the spring. If you can’t wait that long or have enough space to store several bags, you can use year-old leaf mould, that hasn’t rotted down so well, as a mulch and soil improver.”

Salted caramel toffee apples

Possibly the best Bonfire Night recipe ever. Salted caramel toffee apples. Sticky, sugary heaven for children – and a salt-laced caramel treat for grown-ups.

You can make them to eat there and then or they’ll keep in the fridge in cellophane for 2-3 days, ready for your weekend bonfire gathering.

Makes 10

10 apples (Granny Smiths work well)

Toffee apple sticks*

300g light brown sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup

6 tbsp golden syrup

220g butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 heaped tsp flaked salt

Note: Unlike traditional toffee apples, getting a caramel sauce to stick to the apples is a little more tricky. You need a sugar thermometer and to work really quickly when dipping the apples. It may require a little more effort but the result is worth it!

1. Wash apples, dry thoroughly, remove the stalks and replace with sticks. Place the apples in the fridge (washing and chilling helps the sauce to stick).
2. Line a baking tray with parchment. Into a large pan, add the sugar, maple syrup, golden syrup, butter and vanilla, and stir over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved – around 15 mins.
3. Add the thermometer, increase the heat, bringing the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring slowly but constantly until the temperature reaches 113 C/236 F (around 10 mins).
4. Carefully pour the caramel into a glass bowl, stir in the salt. Add the thermometer and allow the caramel to cool to 99C/210F (this should take around 10–15 mins).
5. Have your apples and baking tray ready and, working really quickly, submerge each apple into the caramel, twist, ensuring all but the top is covered and place on your baking tray.
6. Continue til all the apples are done. You can then go back and tidy up the bottom of each apple: either press into shape or scrape off excess caramel if you so wish.
7. If the temperature cools too much the caramel will slide straight off, so you may need to reheat and recool the remaining caramel to finish coating your fruit.
8. Allow the coated apples to set (2–3 hours) before placing in cellophane bags; store in the fridge.

* Toffee apple sticks are a seasonal supermarket buy, or surf for confectionery or lolly sticks; skewers work, too.

If you want more bonfire party inspired recipes, we’ve got pumpkin soup, vegetable skewers, chicken & chorizo jambalaya and buttered bourbon apple cider in the November issue. On sale in newsagents now or you can buy a print copy here and download the digital version here.

The Collector: Girl group records

Music writer Jeanette Leech’s record player is always spinning – especially with girl groups of the sixties.

In this digital age, where a ‘record collection’ often exists solely as a list of titles on a phone or a playlist on Spotify, it is satisfying to get your hands on an actual, physical object, lift it up and declare that you love it. No one appreciates this more than music writer Jeanette Leech whose North London flat is lined with orderly collections of LPs and singles, particularly by girl groups from the 1960s and 70s. “You have to get up, find a record, put it on, put it away, look after it,” she explains, doing exactly that. “You can’t just key one up on iTunes. There’s something about the effort you go through with vinyl that reduces the distance between you and the music.” The difference between the sound quality of vinyl and other media, she says is, “the warmth – which doesn’t sound very technical and it’s not meant to be.” Listening to records is also sociable, she says as she slips ‘He Knows That I Love Him Too Much’ on to the turntable. “You want to share them. This single, sung by a British teenager, Glo Macari, was released in 1965 and wasn’t a hit at the time but it’s really good.”
Jeanette has been collecting 60s girl groups since she was a teen. Her interest was fired up when she discovered CD compilations ‘Dream Babes’ and ‘Here Come The Girls’. “They had a lot of the more obscure stuff on them,” she says, “and they opened up a whole new world to me. I bought the CDs, then I bought the original singles from record shops, fairs and off eBay.”

For more of Jeanette’s collection, turn to page 110 of November’s The Simple Things. Buy or download your copy now.

Want to hear the best of Jeanette’s sixties girl group collection? Have a listen to her Spotify playlist.

November - in the mood

How we love autumn... You are invited to put on your party shoes and join us under the stars. There’ll be fire to warm your hands; soup to warm your toes, and music to warm your heart. Oh, and parkin. Familiar faces include duffle coats and dried flowers. Then there are the surprise guests – Danish smørrebrød and buttery baked medlars. And don’t we all love a toffee apple? RSVP The Simple Things.

Out now, The Simple Things November issue is available from all good newsagents and supermarkets, or you can buy online or download an issue now.

Starry night stopover

We ran this pic from Galloway House Estate  in our stargazing piece in November issue but forgot to say you can stay there! Off-grid, wood-fired hot tubs, starry skies. There are four cottages on the organically farmed estate, which is near Wigtown, Scotland's book town. And did we mention it's in an International Dark Sky Park, recognised for its spectacular night sky.

How to make a pumpkin bird feeder

Don't ditch the Halloween pumpkin just yet... Give it a new lease of life in the garden as a pumpkin bird feeder. Pumpkins spend all summer ballooning into huge, majestic,super-squash, then come autumn, most are either made into soup or carved into a lantern at Hallowe’en. These heavyweights of the fruit world – they often reach 35kg – have a rigid shell that’s great for hacking into. This year, why not carve out a new purpose for your pumpkin, as a bird feeder?

Here’s how:

1. Cut a 2kg pumpkin in half across its equator, scoop out the seeds but leave behind a wall of pumpkin flesh, around 2cm thick.

2. Cut a 1.5cm deep groove in the rim, then push the pumpkin seeds into the rim, making an attractive and edible border.

3. Create perches for robins, blackbirds and sparrows, which like to sit and eat, rather than hang, off a feeder. Poke holes into the pumpkin skin using a skewer or sharp knife and push twigs and sticks into them for perches.

4. Knot two lengths of twine or string together in the centre, then tack the knot of both lengths to the bottom of the pumpkin feeder, using a drawing pin. This creates a hanging basket effect.

5. Fill with seed and watch your birdie friends tuck in.

Want more Halloween reads? Take our Wicca quiz and find out which witch you are, or preserve your pumpkins with pride.

Two ways: the jam tart

November's The Simple Things features Alice's favourite bake - the jam tart. Want two more ways to make them? Try these alternative methods fit for a Queen (of Hearts).

The Lattice jam tart

This effect is achieved by criss-crossing strips of pastry over a tart filling. These strips can be plain or decorative, laid flat or twisted, or even woven. Use cloves to anchor the pastry strips together where they overlap. Neaten the edges of the tart by laying a pastry rim over the ends of the strips. Brush the pastry with milk syrup and bake.

Slits Tart

Cut a covering strip of pastry for neatening the edge of the tart; set aside. Roll an oval the width of your pie plate, using the remaining scraps. Cut lengthways down the middle then cut a slit lengthways down the middle of each half. Pull the pastry apart to create the shape of a capital D. Moisten the pastry with water and then lay both D-shaped pieces of pastry back to back, with a small space in-between. Your tart should divide into 5 crescents. Glaze and bake blind. Fill each section with a preserve of a different colour.

From Great British Bakes by Mary-Anne Boermans (Square Peg)

Image: Pinterest

Dark sky thinking: stargazing events

Astronomical societies across the country regularly hold talks, events and ‘Star Parties’. Go stargazing with some of these dark sky events.

Wordsworth’s Winter Stars at Allan Bank and Grasmere, 15 November 18.30-20.00, £5

This National Trust event allows you to learn about the universe with local astronomer Stuart Atkinson, as you gaze at the night sky from the grounds of Allan Bank, as Wordsworth once did. In his words, ‘ the loveliest spot that man hath ever found’.

Practical Observing for Beginners at The Royal Observatory Greenwich. 4 November 19.00- 21.00, £78

An expert introduction to practical astronomy, but perhaps one you might not consider investing in until you’ve made sure it’s the hobby for you.

Swansea Astronomical Society Star Party at The National Botanic Garden for Wales, 28 November 18.30-21.00, £3

Given clear skies, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Moon and many other fascinating stellar objects will be visible. Includes a talk on comets.

Pop-up astronomy club is an informal astronomy club set up by East London science collective Super Collider. They have binoculars and a telescope for guests to use, and meet whenever the sky is clear and there’s something to see - follow them on twitter for updates.

Turn to page 68 of November's The Simple Things for more stargazing. Buy or download your copy now.

Competition: Win £250 to spend at Surface View (closed 20 December 2014)

Win £250 to spend at Surface View - choose an image from Surface View’s extensive archive to make into a mural, a print, ceramic tiles, even a lampshade. Sometimes wallpaper just doesn’t cut it. Certain rooms need something special – perhaps a wall covered with an enlarged poster to add colour to a child’s room, or lined with a giant photograph of trees to turn the living room into a leafy bower. Which is where Surface View comes in...

Over the years, its owner Michael Ayerst has collected and curated images from many different sources. Some have been retrieved from dusty attics or museum basements – others found among the pages of vintage manuscripts. Many are from well-known designers including Ella Doran and Hemingway Design, or from the V&A and the British Library, among other institutions.

One shortcut to help you choose from their rich archive is Surface View’s Edits Collection. This newly introduced series features new home decor products, including an exclusive range of cushions and wall charts, plus a limited selection of framed matt art prints. Go to www.surfaceview.co.uk to discover the enormous number and variety of images available, such as this County of London mural (above). Choose your image and then select your print medium, from canvases to murals, wall hangings to window films. Alternatively, go for the ready-made option. The only trouble will be knowing where to stop.

What you could win

One of two £250 vouchers to spend at Surface View. Choose from their new Edits Collection and hundreds of other designs, which can be printed as a mural, on tiles, canvas or on a birch ply box. You can even get an image printed onto a blind, window film, or Formica.

How to enter

Go to www.futurecomps.co.uk/surfaceview to enter and for full terms and conditions. Closing date: 20 December 2014.

Competition: Win a KitchenAid mixer worth £429! (closed 6 November 2014)

As the days get shorter and the air gets colder, it feels good to get into the kitchen and bake. Comforting and cosy, it’s no wonder baking is one of the most loved of British pastimes. Create culinary masterpieces with a KitchenAid Food Mixer - we have one to give away courtesy of our friends at Housemakers.

The First Prize

The KitchenAid Mixer is a highly desirable, professional-grade piece of kitchen equipment that is loved by chefs and bakers worldwide. Designed to enable true kitchen creativity, it has 10 speed settings, chic curves and functions that allow you to mix everything from cake, bun and bread mixes through to eggs and cream, achieving perfect results every time. This highly functional piece of equipment is also ideal if you like to do large batches of baking at once.

The lucky winner will be even be able to choose the colour of their prize from the standard mixer range at Housemakers (please see T&Cs). The design is an instantly recognised classic, and the latest range of autumnal colour shades are the perfect finishing touch for any kitchen.

Runner-Up Prize

One runner-up will receive a Circulon Baking Set from Housemakers, which contains:

1 x 12 Cup Muffin Tray

1 x 9” Springform Cake Tin

1 x Loose-Base Flan Tin

1x 9”x5” Loaf Tin.

How to enter:

Visit: www.futurecomps.co.uk/kitchenaid

Closing date: 6 November 2014

About Housemakers

Housemakers is an established family business that sells a broad range of home, garden and leisure items, stocking the best brands at the lowest prices. Housemakers has been in business for more than 40 years and operates from three retail superstores, as well as through its online presence. The business prides itself on offering exceptional customer service combined with value-for-money prices and a carefully chosen and extensive product range. View the entire range by visiting http://www.housemakers.co.uk/

Terms & Conditions

The colour choice of the KitchenAid Mixer must be from selected from the standard mixer range only. This excludes pink, chrome and satin finishes, as well as the later commercial mixer models which are denoted as being 6.9l in size.

Recipe: Garibaldi biscuits

Lia Leendertz, our regular Seed to Stove columnist, remembers forgotten foods in the November issue of The Simple Things. Here, she shares her delight in the Garibaldi biscuit, plus a tried and tested recipe. “The garibaldi is one of the oldest biscuits on the block, and is mentioned in Mrs Beeton’s original ‘Book of Household Management’ in 1861. It has stood the test of time, and I thought it might make a lovely fruity addition to the savoury biscuits on my cheese board. I was right.”

Garibaldi biscuits

110g self-raising flour Pinch of salt 25g spreadable butter 25g golden caster sugar 2 tablespoons milk 50g currants A little egg white, lightly beaten A little granulated sugar

A large baking sheet, with a non-stick liner

1. Put the flour, salt and butter into a mixing bowl and rub to the fine crumb stage. 2. Then add the sugar and after that enough milk to mix to a firm dough that will leave the bowl clean. 3. After that transfer it to a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a rectangle 20cm by 30cm. 4. Now sprinkle the currants over half the surface and then fold the other half on top and roll everything again so you end up with a rectangle 20cm by 30cm. 5. Then trim it neatly using a sharp long-bladed knife, so you end up with a shape about 18cm by 28cm. 6. Cut this into 24 fingers approximately 3cm by 7cm. 7. Now place the biscuits on the baking sheet, brush with a little egg white and sprinkle with granulated sugar. 8. Bake near the centre of the oven for 12–15 minutes, then cool on a wire tray and store in an airtight tin.

Recipe from Delia's Cakes by Delia Smith.

Image: Pinterest

Passing on traditions: New boots

So shiny, not a mark on them. And all that leather, suede or, for the extrovert, patent. Your little bitty strappy sandals are all very well but with a pair of boots there’s far more shoe to show-off and tell. New boots are reassuringly expensive. Guilt-free, too: Fashion maths dictates that boots x per wear = good value. Is it the knowledge you’ll soon be in so-cosy woolly tights again or the fact that you can wear them every day till March that sends us skipping to the shops? Ooh, and that big box to take them home in. Nice.

Shallow, us? This is a seasonal ritual to be undertaken alongside harvest festivals and leaf kicking – maybe not in your splendid new boots though.

Our favourite winter boots, clockwise from top left:

1. UGG Kensington 1969 boots, £120, John Lewis

2. Horrigan boots, £150, Hudson

3. Nautical knee boots, £98, Office

4. Chelsea boots, £120, Timberland

5. Peu boots, £155, Camper

6. Grace ii boots, £90, Red or Dead

Cake in the house: Sticky toffee loaf

Gooey, gingery and cockle-warming, this sticky toffee loaf is comfort on a plate.

Sticky toffee ginger loaf

Serves 6–8

200g pitted dates, halved 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 75g unsalted butter, softened 115g soft brown sugar 2 tsp ground ginger 3 eggs 80g (about 4 balls) stem ginger, finely chopped 225g self-raising flour, sifted

For the caramel glaze: 110g caster sugar 40g butter 225ml single cream

1. Line a 900g loaf tin with baking parchment and grease it. Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/350F.

2. Put dates and bicarbonate of soda in a large mixing bowl, cover with 330ml boiling water, stir and set aside for at least 20 mins.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar until thick and pale. Add the ground ginger, then the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

4. Stir in the soaked date mixture, the stem ginger and flour and mix until well combined – the mixture should be quite loose. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 50-60 mins until a skewer comes out clean.

5. Remove from the oven and let the cake cool in the tin for 10 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

6. To make the glaze, choose a pan large enough to ensure the sugar is no more than 2mm thick over the base, otherwise the heat won’t distribute evenly through the sugar. Set the pan over a gentle heat and add the sugar and 1 tsp water. Shake the pan rather than stir it with a spoon to avoid the sugar hardening before it liquifies – this will take around 15 mins and you want a deep, golden caramel. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter until melted and well combined.

7. Heat cream in a separate pan over a gentle heat, then whisk it into the caramel until smooth and glossy. Set aside to cool and firm up slightly so that it has a good spreading consistency. Spread over the cooled cake and serve.

Recipe taken from Café Kitchen by Shelagh Ryan (Ryland Peters & Small, £17)

Pottering in the potting shed: Spring harvest sowing

Sow seed now to enjoy an early spring harvest! In a new series, our garden editor Cinead McTernan, shares ideas for things to do in your plot.

“This time last year I was busy planning the transformation of our small, urban backyard plot into an edible paradise. Though there was plenty of hard graft to be done outside - we had to take down a dilapidated shed, dig up shrubs from the two narrow borders and lift the lawn - I didn’t want to miss the chance of having veg ready to plant out in early spring and produce early crops. Autumn is a great time to sow some types of vegetables that can cope over the cold, winter months and are ready to put on a growth spurt once the warmer weather arrives in spring.”

“Seed catalogues are the best place to start if you’re looking for inspiration or need a guiding hand about what can be sown and grown in each month. I’m well aware that while lots of friends fold down corners of pages in clothes catalogues, promising themselves they’ll go back and hone down the order to one or two choice items, I do this with pages showing fruit and vegetables. It’s not that I couldn't do with a nice chunky knitted jumper and a new pair of jeans, but I just get more excited about an ‘Earth Chestnut’ from Thomas Etty that produces delicious edible roots that taste like sweet chestnuts, seeds that can be used a substitute for cumin and leaves that taste much like parsley, or ’Egyptian Walking Onions’ from Otter Farm, that quite literally take a stroll through your plot over the growing season!”

“Broad beans are an excellent crop to sow now, either outdoors in the plot, or, as I did, indoors in pots. Try varieties like ‘Aquadulce Claudia’and ‘De Monica’ which cope well with an autumn sowing. Sow one seed per 9cm pot filled with peat-free multi-purpose compost. I use Carbon Gold’s GroChar seed compost, which is a fantastic growing medium and kind to the environment. Don’t let the compost dry out and keep somewhere that’s cool but frost-free. I don’t have any windowsills and didn’t have a greenhouse, so had to claim a bit of space in our kitchen. It wasn’t ideal - as my husband and son kept telling me - and also meant I was fairly restricted with what I could sow. I managed to do a few sweet peas and a couple of pots of garlic cloves, but there were lots of other varieties I’d loved to have tried.”

“This year is another story: I have a gorgeous potting shed and it’s made all the difference. It will provide a great environment to get seeds off to an early start so they can produce a crop as early as May. If you have windowsills, a patient husband and children, or a greenhouse or potting shed, here’s my list of seeds you can sow now. I look forward to swapping notes in the spring!"

Garlic

Plant individual cloves in 9cm pots or a modular tray, with the tip just below the surface of the soil. Place in a cool, dry spot and don’t let them dry out over the winter. Plant out in spring, about 10cm apart and keep well watered. Hard-neck types are thought to have stronger flavour but only stores until mid-winter whereas soft-neck types can be kept in the ground until mid-winter (if autumn planted) and produces, smaller tightly packed cloves.

Par cel

New to me this year, I loved the sound of it being a combination of parsley and celery. It’s a winter hardy perennial, which according to Sarah Raven can be sown undercover until September. Given our warm weather, I think it can still be sown over the next week or so! They need light and a frost-free spot. plant out in spring.

Wild rocket

I haven’t had much luck direct-sowing it this summer, so i thought I’d give it a go in a seed tray. A great leaf to sow and grow all year round, it’s going to feature in  autumn suppers I hope – with chilli on spaghetti or as a pesto with gnocchi – yum! It needs a sunny spot and shouldn’t dry out.

Pea shoots

Another all year round crop, which I grew outside in the raised beds this summer. Delicious and so fragrant when you pick the tips. Like the rocket, another great way to get some fresh, lively greens into home cooked autumn and winter dishes. In theory ready to eat in 3 weeks – will be interesting to see if this is in summer, or a mild autumn too.

Recipe: Tangerine and nutmeg hot chocolate

There is a spectrum of hot chocolates. At one end, the instant and saccharine; at the other, chunks of the real deal – melted and laced. This warming number sits at the luxurious end, with hints of citrus and aromatic nutmeg lifting it onto an altogether cosy, autumnal plane.

Tangerine and nutmeg hot chocolate

Makes one small cup 20g plain chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) 1 piece dried tangerine or orange peel 100ml cold water 1–2 tsp icing sugar, according to taste and quality of chocolate

To serve: 1–2 tsp double cream Extra nutmeg

You will need: Nutmeg grater Small skewer or cocktail stick

1. Put the chocolate and tangerine peel in a non-stick pan. Add the water and gently bring to simmering point on a low heat, stirring to melt the chocolate. 2. Add sugar to taste, simmer and stir for 5–10 mins until the mixture just begins to thicken. 3. Remove the peel and pour into a small cup or tea bowl and float cream on the top, swirling or marbling using a cocktail stick or small skewer. Serve sprinkled with a grating of nutmeg.

Tip: For a comforting bedtime treat, add 100ml milk to the pan and, once the chocolate has thickened and heated through, pour into a mug to take to bed.

Variation: Try adding a 1cm piece of vanilla pod and a pinch of ground cinnamon or chilli in place of the tangerine and nutmeg.

Hot chocolate recipe from Artisan Drinks by Lindy Wildsmith (Jacqui Small, £25)

Wordless Wednesday

  El Golfo, Lanzarote. By Linda Lashford for Inntravel.