Fresh fig fancy

Freshly picked figs, chilled and served with Parma ham, basil, a drizzle of olive oil and black pepper.

Wonderful Copenhagen

Lunch in Copenhagen couldn't get much better than a selection of smorrebrod from Aamanns. Opened by Adam Aamann in 2006 he has since received a honorary diploma from the Danish Academy of Gastronomy for his elevation of the traditional open sandwich to the level of gastronomic artistry. 

In Denmark there is a real sense of eating with your eyes. Like the Japanese sensibility, flavours and textures are combined whether fresh, raw, cooked, pickled, preserved to give a harmonious delight to both eye and palate. Our selection featured the most succulent, melt in your mouth sirloin beef with home made tiny crispy onions, a remoulade of root vegetables and fresh horseradish. A wonderfully subtly smoked mackerel with dill pickled cucumber. A vinegar pickled herring with super sweet green tomatoes, shallots and sour cream, and finally sliced new potatoes with sour cream, chives and radish all served on the most delicious home baked rye bread.

Sandwiches have rarely tasted so good.

Transform me into a handsome fish

Si Dio mi transformasse in un bel pesce
E mi gettasse nel mare piu profondo
Potesse giungere un pescatore a pescarmi
E a vendermi in una piazza d'amore
Potesse venire la mia amante a comprarmi
E mi friggesse in una padella d'oro
Non avrei alcuna pena di bruciare
Basa che potessi entrare nel suo cuoro


Should God transform me into a handsome fish
And throw me into the deepest sea
Perhaps a fisherman would catch me
And sell me in a place of love
Perhaps my love would come and buy me
And fry me in a golden pan
I would have no trouble burning
For that would be enough that I could enter into her heart


Traditional Sicilian folk songs focused upon the themes of life - love, work, food, celebration and death. According to Sergio Bonanzinga, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Palermo, "This song is based on a 19th century romance model which filtered with significant adaptation into the rural milieu. The text is one of the most moving love poems of Sicilian repertoire." The poetic imagery clearly indicates depth of feeling but also connectivity with the sea, fishing and of course food. 


Fish here in the UK is unfortunately a luxury both in terms of procuring it and in the variety that we are offered. Of course there are exceptions to the paltry, dried up offerings on sale at the supermarket. A few wet fish shops survive and in doing attract people from far and wide. On the whole our relationship with fish, as with so many fresh food products, has been reduced to the abstract. No longer do we want to approach a fish with its head and bones intact. Integrity and with it flavour has been sacrificed in favour of convenience. To ask for whole fish singles you out, according to a fishmonger in Gloucester Avenue, as not being British! If that's the case I am a happy alien who will continue to buy, cook and savour whole fresh fish.




Music courtesy of:  Sicile: Musique Populaires/ Sicily: Folk Music, November 2004, Ocora
Image: Visual Athletics Club


Places to buy fresh fish in London:
Granville Arcade, Brixton Market, Brixton
Le Petite Poissonnerie, Gloucester Avenue, Primrose Hill
Fish Works, Marylebone High Street

Why not...

Risotto is smooth and creamy - the most comforting of comfort foods and with endless variations. My parents are partial to rocket and taleggio. I like to vary and use whatever's lurking in the fridge or cupboard - grated courgettes, added at the last moment with pecorino, fresh broad beans and asparagus, or like last night fresh peas, smoked salmon and a slug of Ricard. The flavour is robust but complimentary - wonderfully fresh, fragrant and fishy with a hit of aniseed to enliven the taste buds.

Food, fashion and photography

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2001, Perishables

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2003, Perishables

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2002, Perishables

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2007, Maria

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2007, Maria

Pinar Yolacan, Untitled, 2007, Maria

Without biography or the marketing speak of a gallerist or curator we are free to engage with work on our own terms, resonances are often visceral, although there is little neutrality as we approach everything with a set of learned ideals and preconceptions. Location and situation, the where and how, of our encounter is another element worth considering.

The work of Turkish born, London Art School educated, New York based artist Pinar Yolacan came to me in the reading rooms of the British Library as I worked my way through the entire back catalogue of Gastronomica magazine. A research project may start with one very particular set of questions but the end result often tansmutes into an entirely different thing. 

As I flayed amongst the limitless possibilities of my chosen subject (the visual representation of food) her work hit me with the same intensity as the accosting smell of rubbish truck does. A shiver as I imagined the cold, dead, raw meat draped on these women - an emotional response. Entrails sewn into the fabric of the design, intergrated to become bespoke items, beauty in the profane. 

Yolacan's work is not about food, fashion or photography - they are merely the mediums that she incorporates into a collaborative performance with her subjects to articulate her own underlying autobiographical narratives. In her photographs food is reduced to its material element, it is given agency through its incongruous inclusion, it demands attention in its own right.

All images Pinar Yolacan courtesy of Rivington Arms Gallery, New York, USA. Images taken from the exhibition catalogues "Pinar Yolacan 'Perishables'" 2-28 March 2007, and "Pinar Yolacan 'Maria'" 20 March-4 May 2008 at the Yapi Kredi Kazim Taskent Art Gallery, Turkey

Fruity flan

If I tell my father I like something this is a green light for a generous offering - this week it was two punnets of fresh apricots. Now I can only eat a certain number of apricots in one sitting - so it was really a toss up between jam or a fruit flan.

This is an adaptation (what recipe isn't?) using Skye Gyngell's sweet pastry recipe. She leaves the fruit with little embellishment besides lemon and sugar. I wanted to add almonds and a little alcohol and felt that a glaze and more toasted almonds would add another layer of flavour and texture.

Apricot and almond flan

Ingredients:

For the pastry

250g plain organic flour

1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk

2-3 drops  vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of caster sugar

Pinch of sea salt

125g unsalted butter - cut into the cubes

For the filling

15 apricots - halved and destoned

4 tablespoons ground almonds

2 tablespoons caster sugar

Large glug of brandy

Juice of half a lemon

For the topping

2 tablespoons of apricot jam

Juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons of toasted flaked almonds

Add the cold butter to the flour + salt - crumble to resemble coarse sand.

Add remaining ingredients form into a smooth ball - wrap in cling film and refrigerate for half an hour.

Put apricots and all other filling ingredients in a bowl, mix together and set aside.

Roll out pastry to fit a 9 inch flan tin (with a removable base), prick all over and return to the fridge for 30 minutes.

Heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade

Blind-bake for ten minutes.

Remove from oven and add filling - stack the apricots like dominoes, spoon over any remaining mixture.

Bake in centre of oven for approx 35 minutes, turning half way through to ensure even cooking. The apricots should be caramelising slightly and the pastry a light biscuit colour.

Put the apricot jam and lemon juice in a pan over a gentle heat and mix together. Pour over the apricots, sprinkle with toasted almonds and leave to cool slightly.

Serve with Greek yoghurt.

Ginger Pig lamb leg steaks

Another cut of lamb from the Ginger Pig, ideal for the small family or those who do not want to exercise the time and labour needed for a whole roast leg of lamb. Lamb leg stakes with enough fat to ensure a succulent (as always) piece of meat. Pierce the meat with a knife and add slivers of garlic and thyme. Rub the meat with salt and pepper then...cook as per Tom the butcher's instructions:

Heat oven to 180 degrees centigrade.

Flash fry starting in a cool, dry pan with fat side down - let the fat render off and the meat will brown in that.

Pop in the oven and roast - 12 minutes will give you lovely pink meat.

Take out, leave to rest, then carve. 

Delicious with slightly overcooked potatoes with lots of lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and a medley of tender carrots, fresh peas and broad beans.

Let the food speak for itself

Sicilia in Bocca by Franca Colanno Romano

The page spreads of Sicilia in Boca  are an abject lesson in the possibilities and inspirational quality of cookery books without photographs. The highly mediated and stylised images produced for most cookery books set an almost unachievable bar for most cooks to reach. The images can indeed inspire but they can also alienate as the high production values used to create them are not the criteria followed by most of us in the kitchen. Food is manipulated to please the publisher and sell books as opposed to being a "true" representation of how a particular dish appears. How many of us have followed a recipe to the letter only to be sorely disappointed that our food appears nothing like the beautiful image in the book?

Illustrated cookery books do just that - they illustrate an element, convey a feeling, an essence of the recipe - they leave the end result to the cook. Experience and practice are two key elements to cooking - as with any other craft you hone your skill and develop your technique to create your own highly personalised version and so let the food speak for itself, the images tell another story.

Spinach and ricotta tortelloni

Perfecting a classic dish is the first step towards experimentation. Once you've mastered the technique then you can broaden your horizons and experiment. Making fresh pasta is one thing but filled pasta is another entirely. My first attempt was OK, my second was a disaster and one which I unwisely attempted to foist upon my parents. My mother was wonderfully forgiving, my patriarchal Sicilian father less so. He withheld any verbal comment but the manner in which he approached his plate spoke a thousand words.

So this is my third attempt and this time I have followed a recipe and used a snazzy device that cuts and crimps the tortelloni together - tonight I will serve them with all arrabbiata with basil and parmegiano - tomorrow I may try and tempt my father!

Lavender and blackberry fairy cakes with lemon icing

Visual Athletics Club: Gehry Roof, Serpentine, 2008

I remember eating some fairy cakes at Frank Gehry's Serpentine Pavilion a couple of summers ago - three now actually. Amazing how the memory of a flavour combination stays with you quietly remaining in the background until one day you finally get it together and work it out.

So this is my version - blackberry and lavender fairy cakes with lemon icing. Memories are good but the real thing is even better.

Heat the oven to 180 C and prepare a baking tray with twelve fairy cake papers.

100g caster sugar

100g unsalted butter

100g plain flour mixed with +

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 tablespoon of organic lavender

12 blackberries

Unwaxed lemon

2 tablespoons of icing sugar

Cream together the caster sugar + butter until light and fluffy.

Add a spoon full of sifted flour + one egg beat well, add another spoon of flour + second egg - beat well.
Add the vanilla essence + the lightly chopped lavender - mix well.

If the mixture does not drop off your spoon easily add a little bit of milk.

Take a teaspoon of the batter and drop it into each of the papers - smooth down, add a blackberry.

Spoon more mixture on top + smooth down.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 18 minutes.

Remove and leave to cool.

Grate the zest + the juice of half the lemon add to the icing sugar, add more sugar/lemon juice to get required icing consistency.

When cool spoon over cakes - leave to set.

The blackberry and lemon add a wonderful zing to the subtle perfumed flavour of the lavender.

visualathleticsclub.com 

Foraging in a suburban garden

Visual Athletics Club: Down the bottom of the garden, 2009

I've been foraging - unfortunately without my camera to share the specific spoils of my labour. But this is the garden wilderness where the riches are recovered. This week my exploits include stepping gingerly to avoid nettles and bumble bees to pick fat, juicy, wild strawberries, also claiming the last tender shoots of broccoletti a taglio which has sprouted on an a recently cleared bramble patch, and climbing high to gather elderflowers.

We picked enough flowerheads for three litres of elderflower cordial and left the rest for later on in the summer when we will combine the berries with vodka and sugar to make a wonderful hedgerow liqueur.

The sterilisation of the natural landscape to make way for new housing developments where trees, shrubs and even grass have been usurped by decking, and paved driveways means that wild food grows in increasingly inhospitable spots - coerced by this onward march of  progress. Overstretching on a step ladder to reach the best flowerheads, the desire to just gather that little bit more and the knowledge of when to stop is all part of foraging. But the rewards are incomparable to those of the soulless exercise of visiting the supermarket. 

The simplicity of the process of combining the gently fragrant flowerheads with water, sugar, lemon and citric acid - the alchemy of an infusion to provide a homemade cordial is a wonder to practice and a joy to behold.

Would you like a cup of tea?

Visual Athletics Club: A nice cup of tea, 2010

Tea is a panacea - a cure-all that we defer to in times of stress. Emotions are mollified by a cup of tea. In hospitals it's an indication of bad news, and if biscuits are produced you know you're really in trouble. Sweetened tea is an alternative to a shot of brandy applied to steady the nerves and becalm an emotional tsunami. As we work hard to control our unspiralling lives we turn to certain crutches to see us through - a cigarette, a large drink but a cup of tea is the anywhere, anytime solution.

Rituals and symbolism that surround tea may be a hangover from the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The UK Tea Council describes its nascence  as coming from 'the Taoist idea of trying to find beauty in the world combined with the Zen Buddhist belief that the mundane and particular were of equal importance with the spiritual and universal. Thus the ritual of tea making expressed the quest of greatness in the smallest details of life, and the formalised acts of graciousness and politeness that are integral to the Ceremony are an outward form of an inner belief in the importance of peace and harmony.' 

By serving tea we could subliminally be tapping into an ancient culture that put tea at the heart of a meditative, highly contemplative ritual, thus lending stability to crisis. A cup of tea remains a fail-safe, a gesture, an acknowledgement of our inability to alter the situation but a remedy seeped in empathy.


www.tea.co.uk
www.visualathleticsclub.com

What's for lunch?

A faded photograph of a universal scene mother and daughter, birthday cake - the anticipatory moment before the candles are blown out. The cake, the choice of a favourite meal, maybe steak and homemade chips with rosemary, a chance to influence on your own special day. 

Food is the ritual through which we mark celebrations - the sharing and coming together of friends and family united by occasion and appetite. A special meal where all are suitably grateful but what about all the other meals? Not the grand gesture of the occasional cook who breezes in to announce in a tone of simultaneous self-congratulation and sacrifice that - "Tonight I'll cook you supper" but the every day provisioning of a family. My mother cooked day in day out, usually for eight - four children, grandma, nonno, my father and herself and then there were the pets - three dogs, a cat or two, hamster, canary...but that's another story.

My father, as the Sicilian, is often seen as the inspiration behind the family's love of food but my mother whose unsung invisible hand provided the endless meals is the true influence. Food is far more than sustenance and keeping a large family fed is a task which many of us rarely have to contemplate as the extended family has become more rarefied. 

Now as I shop for my family of three I'm constantly amazed at the quantity of fresh food we consume, the endless trawling home of food procured from market or local shop. My mother did not drive, she had some help managing a large back garden planted with a variety of fruit trees and vegetables, peas, broad beans, strawberries, gooseberries and an especially large dual use apple tree, a Mary Barnett, outside the back door.

In a family kitchen helping hands are seconded to peel vegetables, clear away, wash and dry up. But the real task requires a sophisticated imagination and logistical organisation to deal with the complex dietary foibles of an octogenarian nonno, an orthodontically challenged grandma and four small children, and of course a rather exacting patriarch. My mother was fortunate in some way that at school we had very strict ascetic rules regarding food - whatever was taken on your plate had to be eaten - this set us in good stead for home where the same exactitude was in play.

My mother soon adopted a wide Italian repertoire, taking on the more time consuming dishes my father would not consider. Traditional English was also included as were a variety of her own variations of continental classics. Her only respite from the grinding monotony was on a Saturday when father would cook lunch, usually a plate of pasta, and grandma would bake.

The egocentric nature of children meant we took the care bestowed upon us for granted - the hours they spent toiling to keep us healthy and satiated. So now, when opportunity arises they sometimes let us return the compliment. My father is still exacting in his likes and dislikes but my mother is wonderfully gracious, complimentary, delighted even - just have someone else take care of what's for lunch.

Cookie's crab celebration

 

Derek Essex: Cookie's of Salthouse, watercolour

 

Crab Royal Salad

The highs and lows of any trip are usually accentuated by the successes and failures of the food enjoyed. Norfolk, like Cornwall, profits from its geographical remoteness and the propensity of its own locally produced fresh food. Serendipity can play some part in hitting upon a particularly pleasurable meal but recommendation is usually your best bet. This was the case with a recent visit to the North Norfolk coast. A friend and long time Norfolk resident had pointed me in the direction of Cookie's Crab Shop at Salthouse near Holt.

Cookie's opens 9am-7pm every day except Christmas day and has been doing so for more than fifty years. This monumental undertaking is truly a labour of love on the part Suzanne and Peter McKnespiey, the third generation to run the shop, and guarantees for any visitor the freshest of ingredients. 

The intimacy of the surroundings is summed up in Derek Essex's watercolour - tables and chairs spilling out for those who want to take in the spectacular view of the salt marshes, a small garden gate separating diners from the back of the McKnespiey's house, local vegetables and of course a full selection of all that is on offer for those who wish to relive something of the pleasure of lunch at Cookie's on their return home.

Cookie's Crab Shop

I Camisa & Son

I Camisa on Old Compton Street in Soho is the place to get the tastiest sandwiches in London. 

Fresh bread, meat and cheese cut to order, all you have to do is choose - focaccia or ciabatta, mortadella or prosciutto, provolone or mozzarella, the list goes on. 

In a city where time is a premium the pace is positively southern Mediterranean - with an easy banter and leisurely pace, ten minutes wait gives opportunity for a perusal of the prodigious stock, and a delicious lunch for two at only £6.30 - truly, time well spent.

Fish cakes with bite

Smoked mackerel and sardine fish cakes with beetroot, carrot and blood orange salad and a caper and cornichon tartare sauce.

This is an easy option if you've got some smoked mackerel lurking in the fridge.

4 potatoes boiled and mashed

1 packet of smoked mackerel remove skins and flake

1 tin of sardines in olive oil

a cup of fresh breadcrumbs

a good teaspoon of smoked paprika

1 tablespoon of capers and 4 cornichons roughly chopped

juice of 1 lemon

bunch of parsley finely chopped

black pepper to taste

Mix all together well and then make into 8 balls and flatten down a bit.

Breadcrumbs help bind the mixture together and keep the fish cakes nice and light, the smoked paprika goes particularly well with mackerel and adds a bit of bite, while the capers and cornichons give texture.

Chill in the fridge until ready to cook - cover a grill pan with foil, lightly oil with olive oil and pop under hot grill until brown.

The beetroot, carrot and orange salad with a lemon and olive oil dressing makes a refreshing accompaniment.

The tartare sauce

2 egg yolks with 1/2 a teaspoon of English mustard powder blended together and olive oil slowly added until required consistency. Juice of half a lemon and 1 heaped teaspoon of capers and 2 cornichons finely chopped.

www.feedingtheeye.com 

Wrapped

Once again you hide your secrets.

Enclosed in the discarded and unread sports section -

Sunday supplement supplying a loving shroud in print. 

Your cork indicates your readiness to avail your contents.

You are a manifestation of the loving hand that replenished you, 

wrapped you, gifted you, secured your safe passage -

from one kitchen to another.

Three of a kind

                                Burpees Golden, Candy Stripe and purple Beta Vulgaris

Breakfast, lunch or dinner

Edo eggs, watercress, rocket and tomato salad with a slice of 

The Old Post Office Bakery's Three Seed bread.

oldpostofficebakery.co.uk 
Anne Loriot on Vimeo 

V&A Connects - The Past and Future of Food and Experimentation

Chanel Pop: Pop Bakery www.popbakery.co.uk/gallery

V&A Connects is billed as "an exciting new programme for practitioners and professionals  working in the Creative Sector", an opportunity for inspiration, networking and discussion. Under the lofty auspices of the Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre, the mood was set for some serious debating on "The Past and Future of Food and Experimentation" as presented by the Experimental Food Society.

Lots of branding so far. Layers of reference through association - surface highly glossed reflecting back on the audience their own cultural capital. The speakers would cover the history of food since 9,000 BC to the future, which is apparently, according to food futurologist Dr Morgaine Gaye and her crystal ball (yes really), about eighteen months from now.

Our obsessive compulsion with fashion and trends makes the British highly suggestible in their capacity for food experimentation, especially in comparison to our more traditional European neighbours. Professor Roland Rotherham's double act with Simon Smith, butter sculptor and Master Chef, was more a live illustration of their collaborative book Simmering through the Ages, than an historical tour de force. Rotherham, although knowledgeable, lampooned himself as well as every other racial, social and national stereotype you would care to think of and in so doing detracted the focus from expertise to farce.

The recipes prepared by Smith lacked any real surprises and considering they were meant to demonstrate the diversity and modernity of ancient cuisine they failed to thrill. Limp parsley, coriander and pine nut salad and cold poached chicken with orange, lemon, capers and marinated anchovies. Admittedly Smith was limited by the health and safety regulations of the V&A but nonetheless, in such an arena one expects the food being prepared to at least look fresh and appetising.

Following on from them was Morgaine Gaye, food futurologist and senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University. Her talk concentrated less upon the future of food and more upon the development of branded products and marketing. Food as commercial consumption as opposed to sustenance and pleasure, with a dose of Big Society ideology thrown in. Communal farming projects were seen as a reflection of our need for some form of ceremony in a deeply isolated and alienated world, this may be true but what about the genuine desire for provenance and authenticity spurred on by the suspicion of food manufacturing and its questionable processes?

By reducing her talk to a series of captions which appeared in a crystal ball on the video screen, the future Gaye predicted was more about trend forecasting, than any serious debate on the implications of future food security and sustaining levels of production for an ever increasing global population. Citing the demise of the cupcake with the imminent rise of the Alfajores, a processed biscuit from South America, could have been used as a metaphor for the demise in US global hegemony but economics and politics were the missing ingredients.

The speakers complimented each other and perhaps this is the remit of the Experimental Food Society, to keep it all content light, a ready meal of fast ideas intent on providing easily digestible entertainment as opposed to a slow, thought provoking, ideological critique of the past and future of food experimentation.

By ignoring the wider cultural and social implications of food history past and future - food remains, like fashion which it is so often compared to, ephemeral, superficial, and subject to the vagaries of our neomaniacal desires - that is our seemingly insatiable appetite for commodified novelty. The consumer is rendered as little more than a passive dupe, seduced by the powers of capitalism and unable to initiate any individual thought or action. 

The paying audience at the V&A were no dupes but articulate thinkers with an avid interest in food - this was a wasted opportunity to tantalise their thoughts and stimulate debate. Ideology may be unappetising but over statement just as over sweetening leaves one feeling unfulfilled.

Umami?

Is it umami or just weird? 

My sister introduced me to this curious combination many moons ago - few have been converted.

Take a piece of buttered toast, spread with a thin layer of Marmite and then top off with marmalade.

It satisfies that need for both sweet and savoury in one neat hit.

Try it...if you dare.

Saucy Sicilian

I made this sauce to go with the homemade pasta. The Sicilian influence is strong - with the agrodolce, sweet and sour of the sultanas, capers, anchovies and pine nuts giving a three dimensional flavour to the sauce.

Slice 4 cloves of garlic gently fry in olive oil with 4 anchovy fillets 

Add 4 small dried, crushed chillies (as hot as you like)

Add a heaped tablespoon of golden sultanas + capers - chopped

Add a tablespoon of pine nuts - toast lightly

Add 2 cans of plum tomatoes - chop them up, simmer down until thick and tasty -

Meanwhile whilst the sauce is cooking...

Cut 1 large aubergine into 10mm slices

Place on a foil covered grill pan, brush aubergine with olive oil and put under the hot grill, turn when brown and cook other side.

Chop a generous handful of flat leaf parsley + fresh basil, cut up grilled aubergine into bite size pieces and add to cooked sauce.

The heart of Italy - homemade pasta

Homemade pasta is a slow food process. The making of it is methodical and time consuming. But like most repetitive actions it allows the mind the luxury of unfettered imagineering. From kneading the dough into a smooth, fragrant mass to the seven stages of rolling, each of which tempers and softens to create a silky, gossamer pasta - to the final cutting and laying out to dry. Homemade pasta is the embodiment of a labour of love, and a fitting gift for those who are hardest of all to please - parents.

5 eggs

500g grano tenero - literally "tender grain" meaning very finely ground flour 00 grade

pinch of salt

Shortbread - meltingly yours

Slightly salty and utterly buttery, thin and meltingly light, sprinkled with demerara sugar.

Shortbread is a delight and homemade biscuits are a well kept secret.

No one could be disappointed to be served one of these with a nice cup of tea.

The recipe is a version of Felicity Cloake's in the Guardian but taste is definitely aided by a really good quality butter and sea salt.

115g of room temperature butter beaten with a wooden spoon until really creamy.

Add 55g of caster sugar and a good pinch of sea salt, beat in.

Sieve in 130g of plain flour and 40g of ground rice.

Draw together with the spoon and then dive in a make into a lovely smooth ball of dough.

Roll out to about 5mm and cut. Lay on a greased tray lined with baking parchment. Cook at 150 celsius for 25-30 minutes - turning the tray half way through.

Cool slightly, sprinkle with demerara, transfer to a cake rack, leave to cool and then store in a biscuit tin.