Summer Rocky Road (white chocolate, apricot, sour cherry, salted pistachio and marigold)

Week 2 of no oven in the Dickson house....things are taking their toll....NO BAKING!

I was prepared this morning to bake a cake, I found a recipe to adapt, was just about to line a tin and preheat the oven when, wait, what oven? 
You might have seen my post on instagram about the new oven arrival and how there shall now be no more BBQs and cakes galore! And it doesn't fit.
.....But it's terrible, I can not survive another day without cake! Fine, soon it'll be fixed, hopefully in time for my Mum's Birthday next month (7th) ! 

So how's this summery? Well rocky road reminds me of Christmas and edible homemade biscuits, cookies and fudge wrapped in tissue paper in little boxes eaten within a day, sat around an open fire with family and the smell of a spiced cinnamon in the air..... I CAN'T WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS (149 days to go!)
So for this I replaced dark chocolate with white and added dried apricots and sour cherry, more summery fruits and oaty biscuits for a different texture to digestives. I did want to add amaretti biscuits and Turkish delight but I only got back from Scotland yesterday so the cupboards are bare. My Mum thought that adding turkish delight might make it too sweet as white chocolate is very sweet so I didn't add it and added a few salted pistachio nuts for the salty sweet combo instead. 
secondly I also thought that some marigold petals (which are edible don't worry!) because they don't really add a taste but look very pretty, if you're going to add them though make sure you eat the rocky road within two days or they'll wilt.

And thirdly a word of warning.....melting white chocolate is the bane of my life!, it always seems to go gritty when I use a bain marie, this is because white chocolate has a lower melting point than other chocolates so it seizes sooner. Another thing about white chocolate (I know it sounds awkward to cook with but lets be honest it tastes beautiful) is that it can hold it's shape really well so take it from the bain marie just before it looks completely melted and the outside of the chocolate is just a little soft. If the chocolate does go gritty in the end it probably won't affect the taste too much, just the texture so it'll still taste like delicious!

Peach and Green Tea Ice Cream (no churning needed!)

So I'm back from the 30 degree, sunny and insanely hot place of Paris back to the cold, wet and raining surprisingly sunny and hot land of Cumbria. Cumbria and hot and binary opposites :D

So because it's so hot I desided to make some ice cream. Also because the aga is now turned off it's so hot and the electric oven decided to break at the same time, we only have two gas rings and a BBQ to cook food with!

So while I was in Paris, it was so hot that you constantly needed to be drinking so it was a challenge to find the cheapest coldest drink you could. I managed to find a can of Lipton's iced peach tea, and it was beautifully refreshing and just what I needed! This ice cream tastes just like it and is a no-machine ice cream!

Honey, Pear and Pistachio Cake

I go to Paris in 2 hours, so I thought, 'what better time to do a blog post?'

Silly me...... please bare with for all the pictures!

These pears below tastes amaazing, J'adore pears..... just brushing up on my French skills there.

I tried to pick my favourite, but out of 300 it was pretty difficult (mental not, take less pictures), I also didn't have time to edit them really (second mental note, DON'T right blog posts 2 hours before you have to leave for France!)

Speaking of France, I am very super excited indeed, I just wanted to get this post out of the way before I go. The itinerary sounds great, we're going to the Eiffel tower, notre dame, arc de triomphe, pompidou (I love to say that pom-pid-ooo), the louvre and some other places I've never heard of.

What am I looking forward to? THE FOOD OF COURSE! 

Picnics everyday for lunch, boulangeries, patisseries, croissants, freshly baked baguettes, croque monsieur (they are not just a cheese toastie!), macaroons! And maybe not steak tartar.... I've never seen the attraction in raw steak. Do you have a favourite French food or meal? I can nae pick one! Or even a place in Paris you could suggest for me?