I probably should be telling you about how good these crackers were. How easy they were to make, and how thrilling it was to pull them out of the oven, puffed up like little pillows for chipmunks. How, after they were assembled, you could bite into one and warm cheese would flood instantly into your mouth, caressing every single tastebud. Yes, every tastebud. Even the ones that usually only perk up in the presence of panfried brussel sprouts with chestnuts, or brownie crusts. Personally speaking, that is.

I should be telling you that these crackers, with their bellies full of cheese, were equally good topped with homemade carrot and orange marmalade. The marmalade, being eye-catchingly orange in colour, textured and vibrant in flavour, was one of the most simple but astonishingly good things I had made of late.

I should be telling you about these crackers, but what stuck in my mind most was the bit of effort it took to talk B into buying a syringe from the chemist for me, on his way home from work. How reluctant he was to do it at first, because, I mean, a syringe? What would people think!

(Tell them it’s for injecting cheese into crackers, I told him. I’d rather say it’s for drugs, he replied dryly. At least they won’t look at me as strangely.)

After a bit more cajoling, he finally acquiesced, but oh, how embarrassed he was when the chemist gave him a disapproving look, saying, “We don’t do that sort of thing here”, when he asked for a needle that would fit the syringe.

I could be telling you all these things, but I think all you really need to know is, yes, thank goodness, there is a recipe :

Cheese in Cracker :
(from Grant Achatz’s Alinea)

Cracker Dough :
215g warm water
13g fresh yeast
4g sugar
470g plain flour
4g kosher salt
55g melted butter
kosher salt

In bowl of stand mixer, stir together water, yeast, and sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes to proof yeast. Add flour, 4g salt, and butter. Attach bowl to mixer, fit mixer with dough hook, and beat on low speed for about 6 minutes, or until dough comes together and forms firm ball. Remove bowl from mixer, cover, and let dough rise in warm place for 25 minutes. Then refrigerate bowl overnight.

The following day, transfer dough to warm place. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Line sheet tray with parchment. Preheat oven to 230′C. Using rolling pin or pasta machine, roll out 1 piece of dough about 2mm thick. Save remaining dough for another use. Cut dough sheet into 8 2.5cm squares. Transfer squares to prepared sheet tray. Season squares liberally with salt.

Bake for 6 minutes. Each cracker will puff in center and turn golden brown. Let cool on wire rack to room temperature. Using needle of syringe, punch 1 small hole in each cracker. Reserve in airtight container.

Cheddar Cheese Sauce :
150g aged Wisconsin Cheddar cheese
150g whole milk
6g kosher salt
4g sugar

Grate cheese on large holes of box grater. Transfer cheese to blender. In small saucepan, bring milk to a simmer. Remove from heat and pour into blender. Add salt and sugar and blend on high speed until cheese has melted and liquid is very smooth. Pass through chinois into small container. Cover and reserve in warm place until ready to fill crackers.

To assemble and serve : Fill syringe with 30cc of cheese sauce. Using hole made with syringe needle, inject sauce into cracker. Do not overfill or cracker will burst.

[Notes : For the cheese sauce, I used what I had - a mixture of aged Cheddar and Parmesan. In the absence of a syringe needle, a sharp skewer works well to create a neat hole in the cracker large enough for the nozzle to transfer the cheese sauce. The sauce does not leak out once cracker is filled, but the cracker will start to soften over time.]

Carrot and Orange Marmalade :
(by Dan Hunter; from V.EAT Sept/Oct 2008)

850g carrots, peeled, coarsely grated
Juice and finely grated zest of 2 limes
Juice and finely grated zest of 2 lemons
200ml orange juice
820g caster sugar

Combine carrots, 60ml lime juice, 160ml lemon juice, lime and lemon zests and orange juice in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

The following day, transfer the mixture to a heavy-based saucepan, add sugar and cook over medium heat for 1 hour or until syrup is reduced and sticky. Transfer to an airtight container and cool. Marmalade will keep, refrigerated, for up to 2 months. Makes 2 1/2 cups.

Being an avid baker ever since I was a kid, I have attempted making many things over the years, often with varying degrees of success and failure. I have impatiently attempted filo pastry from scratch, struggled through bagels and crumpets, pulled a triumphant pan of slightly singed flapjacks out of the oven, fried cinnamon donuts, cannoli and churros, made apple tarte tatin, and watched my thighs swell with pride at the sight and taste of sticky date pudding, pineapple upside down cake, banana bread and carrot cake. I have also baked scones (some heavy like rocks, some light as a feather) and chocolate chip cookies (repeatedly!), and slathered homemade strawberry jam on homemade bread. However, there are still some things that manage to slip past my radar, whenever I find myself in the kitchen.

I recently compiled a mental list of things I have yet to make, and that I would consider a crime if I never got round to attempting at least once in my lifetime. Things on that list include :

- Portuguese tarts
- Seville orange marmalade
- a marble or chequerboard cake
- panettone
- Michel Bras’ chocolate coulant
- a salad bowl of ice-creams (I bought some Dodoni feta the other day and am now obsessed with the idea of making a frozen Greek salad. Tomato sorbet, cucumber sorbet and black olive sorbet with Dodoni feta?)

(If anyone out there has very good and authentic recipes for any of the above (especially the Portuguese tarts), feel free to share! Please. )

So with that list in mind, you’re probably thinking, what on earth am I doing making yet another apple crumble? Actually, this crumble is a little different, and does feature something I’ve been meaning to try.

I used to work with a French Canadian waitress who apart from being a fantastic waitress, also had a great love for food (it seems only fitting that she now runs her own cafe). I still recall her stories about the best maple syrup she would get back home, about the feasts she would have with family and friends and how she loved eating apple pie with a big slice of cheddar cheese. Serving apple pie with cheese was a new thing to me then, and I screwed my face up at the thought of it, having grown up with apple pie and nothing else but scoops of vanilla ice cream. Over time, I kind of warmed to the idea, so when I saw Elizabeth Falkner’s recipe for Apple of my eye, featuring tarte tatin apples, cheddar crumbles, cinnamon ice cream and a balsamic-apple reduction, I knew I had to try it. After making a few alterations (I included blackberry in my balsamic-apple reduction, and used a macadamia ice-cream instead of the suggested cinnamon one), I ended up with the dessert as pictured above.

The verdict? The balance of flavours is great and the resulting dish isn’t overly sweet. The cheddar crumbles, which also has bits of chopped pecan through it, is very tasty, even on it’s own, and I especially love the balsamic reduction which I foresee myself incorporating into other desserts in the future. In other words, I now know that I like apple pie (or crumble) and cheese as a combination, but I also know that it’s never going to replace the heavenly combination of apple pie and vanilla ice-cream that I have loved so much, ever since I was a kid.

A beautiful New Year’s Day. An opportune moment to rediscover the art of couch-potato-ing, and the perfect time for recovery. Not from the excesses of the night before, but from lack of sleep, due to the fire alarms going off at 4-5 o’clock throughout the whole of our apartment building this early morning. It’s cause remains a mystery still. All I know is that one alarm went off, and the other felt lonely so it started screeching too. Just like a koel.

Foggy mind notwithstanding, you can’t possibly go wrong when putting together these Cheddar biscuits. The recipe comes from Baking with Passion by Dan Lepard and Richard Whittington; a cookbook from an artisanal bakery in London. I spied this book several months ago in a discount bookstore and bought it on a whim. The Benedict Bar and Oatmeal and Raisin Cookie recipes alone, have made the purchase worthwhile. These cheese biscuits, originally Parmesan (but mature Cheddar is an acceptable substitute), are delicious : crispy, buttery, lightly salty. The food processor virtually does all the necessary work and all you need to do after that is pour yourself a glass of tipple (Port, in this case, if it’s not too “last year” for your tastes).

Cheddar Biscuits:

335g plain flour
300g mature Cheddar, freshly grated
300g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons Maldon salt, ground fine
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1-2 Tablespoons cold bottled spring water

1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tablespoons white sesame seeds
2 Tablespoons black sesame seeds

Put the flour, freshly grated Cheddar and chilled diced butter in a food processor with the cayenne, salt and black pepper. Whiz to a crumb, then slowly add the cold water through the feeder tube until the dough forms into a ball.

Scrape out on to a lightly floured surface and roll into a cylinder. You will cut the biscuits from this, so size the roll accordingly. Cling-wrap tightly and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Brush the cylinder with beaten egg and roll in the mixed sesame seeds to coat all over. Wrap and chill for a further hour.

Preheat the oven to 180′C. Cut the cylinder into 5mm slices and lay these on non-stick baking trays, leaving at least 2cm space around them. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.