Those of you who read our wee blog with fanatical fervour may recall that I am a lover of tea.  Tea of the lose leaf variety.  So when I learnt, on the eve of my most recent overseas travels, that Hong Kong plays host to one of the worlds most famous High Tea destinations, it [...]

At the moment I am really into eating bits and pieces, like little tapas or Japanese style izakaya dishes. There are always two great components to this style of eating – sharing the experience with friends and trying many different flavours.

To me, ‘High Tea’ conjures up images of dainty tea cups, held with pinkies extended.  Delicate sips of the finest Earl Grey (loose leaf of course!) in between the twitter of polite conversation.  Fresh scones with jam and cream served on the finest china.  There is something very floral and ladylike about the whole experience.

There is a new kind of baking on the block that would make your grandmother drop a stitch. That new kind of baking chiefly involves using healthier alternatives in some of the old favourite baked recipes. One might surreptitiously slip pureed black beans or canned apples in chocolate brownie for example, or courgette and beetroot in chocolate cake, or replace the staples with ingredients such as

With summer finally gracing us with her presence, I am eagerly anticipating spending several afternoons, when the sun is shining, gathering elderflowers to make cordial and hopefully elderflower champagne, which our colleague Simon (of Simons lemoncello cake ) has very kindly given us a recipe for.

A few weeks ago the industrial design team in Dunedin had a shared morning tea to celebrate a couple of birthdays.  Annie made this beautiful cheesecake; it was so good we persuaded her to share her secret recipe with everyone!

Kate, one of our very talented cooking product evaluators, shares with us this amazing pecan pie recipe, along with a little tale of her experience of Thanksgiving: “Having spent a good portion of my twenties living and working in the USA I was lucky enough to be a guest at many family gatherings.  The most memorable [...]

Every week, twice a week Lauren (fellow blogger) and I bake for the Dunedin office; the population of which is predominantly male, which worked out perfectly for this months’ theme of ‘blokes’ food.  In the past our efforts to create beautiful cupcakes, and slightly adventurous spinach and feta parcels, didn’t go down too well. The [...]

When I sent word out to our Product Development team gently persuading them to share with us their tried-and-true recipes, I wasn’t sure how many, or exactly who would respond.  I have to admit that the majority of recipes ended up coming from the males in our office, though just how many of them sought [...]

Once again it’s time to celebrate one of our many colleagues who is passionate about baking. Linda, one of the technical writers, is particularly skilled in the art of home baking. Linda shares her thoughts with us. “Louise slice evokes the image of ladies’ afternoon tea, lace tablecloths, and bone china, the soft tinkling of [...]

Custard squares are a bit of a Kiwi tradition, you are always lucky to find them in a café as they don’t normally last long. There can be some technique involved in eating one, if the custard filling is too soft then when you bite into the pastry top and bottom, the custard squishes out [...]

This post has been a long time coming! I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to put it up. The first time I had ever seen or tasted this cake was in Japan although its origins are German.