Something to make: Anything Cookies and the Perfect Banana Cake
Recipes for tired, hungry people who need to use stuff up
I have a deeply patchy record when it comes to desserts. I’ve managed to make brownies that have effectively fried in their own fat (how?!), leached a rhubarb crumble of all its colour (disgusting), handed over a range of not-set panna cottas (just a small dish of sweetened cream, not so bad), and served a raspberry ricotta birthday cake for Andy’s birthday that was probably still raw, or at least very rubbery. (Everyone lied and said it was fine.) Time to crack out the pint of ice cream and call it a day? I could never.*
So, from experience, I do not fuck around. I trust River Cottage, I trust Nigella (always trust Nigella), I trust the Australian institution that is the Cornersmith books, and I trust a small number of Ottolenghi recipes that don’t get too crazy. If I’m lacking confidence, which I usually am, I just go for a homemade no-churn ice cream.
There’s also another kind of dessert I do—super low-stakes, home baking, Sunday baking, baking to use stuff up. Browned bananas, almost-off eggs, half a pint of yoghurt, some random nuts and seeds. And here I turn to a regular and reliable rotation of recipes, which, even if you’re not a confident baker, you can’t really mess up: what I call Anything Cookies, and a perfect banana cake.
Following on the heels of the iconic “Use It All” Loaf Cake which I recommend once per quarter, these are the “Clear Out the Pantry Cookies”, from Cornersmith. They are purposely endlessly adaptable, endlessly riffable, and produce a light, fluffy, cakey cookie—a shortbread cookie with lip fillers.
My preference is for a mix of coffee grounds and white sesame seeds, plus chopped walnuts and maple syrup. The gargantuan quantities are so you can make two batches, and stash one in the freezer. Don’t forget a pinch of salt.
You could use almost anything. I’d love a double-choc miso cookie, or a mixed sesame cookie with a little swirl of tahini. A café I loved in Toronto used to do white choc and pink peppercorns, which I have not tried but I’d be willing to risk it. If I’m feeling nostalgic, I’d go for that iconic baked good of the early 2010s, Milk Bar’s Compost Cookie (what a time to discovery that savoury goes with sweet!), and consider crushed pretzels, plain crisps, and peanuts.
Second, there’s this River Cottage Banana Chocolate Cake, a yogurt and oil cake that has never let me down: soft, moist, not-too-sweet, but also—triumphantly—very much a cake. It’s not a cake that pretends to be bread. It’s not a muffin that pretends to be a nutritious breakfast. (If you want some nutrition, the Use It All cake will take your carrots, and gratefully.) The cookbook version laces the batter with a little cardamom, but I prefer to add in the zest of a lime. (It gives it a little complexity.) It would be happy to accept your whipped cream cheese frosting, but a dollop of creme fraîche will also do just fine.
More recommendations:
I went to see The Years recently, during which—as advertised!—someone fainted, or at least was so disruptive they had to stop the performance. The famous abortion scene is visceral and intense, but the play itself—which has five actors playing the same woman, at different times in her life—feels like it is entirely about women, and for women, without concessions for male squeamishness or purity. Of course, that means it’s also extremely funny. I loved it—Gina McKee’s character rediscovering herself in her fifties was my favourite.
I’ve also snagged a ticket tomorrow to Kyoto, a play that apparently answers in the affirmative: can a climate change play be good? (God knows it’s hard, but multiple people have told me it’s brilliant.) It was so booked up there was one single ticket left this week—so I threw Andy under the bus and am going by myself. (Don’t feel bad for him. I’ve just bought him Hercules tickets for his birthday.)
Also, I did not expect the Bridget Jones movie to be that good, or hit that hard. While crying into my enormous container of popcorn, I—a hardcore Bridget fan—kept thinking, with astonishment, “is this movie like, quite deep actually?” It’s about grief, btw.
We watched Adolescence, or I watched the last three episodes—I claimed I wasn’t going near something on teenage murder (I assumed it would be “gritty” in an unwatchable way, and the world is dark enough, maybe you’ve noticed). And then I found myself gawking from the kitchen. If you watch any of it, watch episode three, which is essentially a two-person play featuring the young offender and a psychologist (Erin Doherty, brilliant.) The whole show is designed to not let you ever feel too smug, but I did wonder: how have so many of these adults not heard of incels?!
Girl Friends by Holly Bourne is one to read. Her baby shower thriller was compulsive and traumatising reading, but I think this one is even better—it’s a painfully relatable story about a teenage friendship, and how rivalry, competition and the sleaze of mid-2000s misogyny shaped how girls saw themselves, and each other. (The OG Bridget Jones came out around this time, and though it is a classic, the fat shaming rankles. Justice for Bridget!!) If you read it right after you watch Adolescence, you may need to take a shower, unfortunately.
I bought a quilted Indian-style, poppy-printed jacket at a street market in DC in September, and it’s so soft, cosy, and cheerful I pretty much wear it constantly. (It’s this exact print, just with sleeves.) I’ve never received so many compliments on any item of clothing in my entire life, and it cost $45 at a push. Now quilted jackets are “in” without being aggressively fashionable—at a climate event last week women of all ages were wearing them. You can get them in about a million different prints, and wear them with anything.
I consider Georgina Hayden’s spanakopita fritters to be the single most delicious thing on earth, and made them as recently as last night. Then today, I wrapped them in a tortilla, with sriracha and spicy Doritos. True luxury.
My favourite new cookbook is BBQ Days, BBQ Nights by Helen Graves which can—thankfully—be cooked even if you don’t have a BBQ. There is virtually nothing in this book I wouldn’t eat (or drink, lots of great cocktails), from a marmite butter BBQ’ed cabbage, to charred crumpets with pineapple, to a charred tomato seven layer dip, and broccoli with tamarind and grapefruit dressing.
If you feel smug for knowing who Andrew Tate is, but still aren’t sure how much the internet bleeds into real life, I enjoyed Tell The Bees’ “Who gets to be annoying?” (or as one conversation recently went: “Well, one side is fascist. The other side is just annoying. Why are we acting like those two things are the same?”) Or check out Haley Nahman’s sharp think piece on the “Purity Vortex” including the Miranda July leave-your-marriage discourse. (I was truly distressed to realise I did not like All Fours, and this made me feel marginally better. Though I never liked Sheila Heti’s How Should A Person Be, either, so it’s possible I just don’t like quirky autofiction, not that I’m close minded and out of touch.)
For a total and complete change of pace, here’s me in the Globe and Mail on the weekend, talking about geodesy, clocks and maps. It’s a little taster of my book, culled from explanatory sections spread out over about three different chapters. (The actual book has people in it.)
*I didn’t serve my friends Eliot and Josh dessert the other day, which was when I realised I was so ill I shouldn’t have made dinner for anyone. I had made a dinner that comprised only of two (2) dips and a tomato salad, and immediately panicked—I came across Nigella’s anthem, “never knowingly uncatered” around 2017 and have treated it as gospel ever since. So I ordered an entire chicken from Nando’s on Deliveroo, plus peri-peri chips. To be honest, this was kind of a genius move.