So last week I decided to give up sugar for a week. Initially my plan was to go sugar-free for two months, but The Boyfriend rolled his eyes and suggested I first try it for a week before launching into any unrealistic, grandiose statements. He was right of course. He knows me too well!

In case you’re wondering how it went, well it’s not easy coming to any healthful conclusions after only being sugar-free for a mere week (the primary instigator for this little experiment was a few articles I read recently about why we should eat less sugar). I have however learned a few things, mostly about myself. Firstly, that I love fruit. Despite expecting cravings for cake and chocolate during my sugar-free week, it was actually fruit that I missed the most. After one week (or six days, if we need to get all technical and judge-y) I panicked at the thought of missing out on the trailing end of what has been a great stone fruit season. The first piece of fruit I bought and ate, albeit a slightly underripe white nectarine, tasted absolutely heavenly.

Secondly, food tastes especially good when it has that balance between all the elements we associate with flavour; a little bit salty, a little bit sweet, or bitter, or sour. Which explains why nuoc cham and teriyaki are some of my favourite sauces. It also explains why I’m unexcited at the thought of continuing this experiment for another week, let alone two months.

Our household already tries to eat as few additives as possible and it’s pretty much standard practice for me to reduce the sugar content in the recipes I use. As Ellen Degeneres once said, “Life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina and the colada.”

Trail-Mix Oatcakes :
Not too long ago, I happened to make these not-very-sweet oatcakes topped with some trail mix. They were the perfect segue into my sugar-free week.

125g plain flour
125g stone-ground oatmeal
pinch of sea salt
pinch of baking soda
40g sugar
60g butter
water

to sprinkle on top : your choice of a mix of dried fruit, toasted nuts, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds

Place all the dry ingredients (except for the trail-mix) in a bowl. Rub in the butter, then add enough water to form a soft dough. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to roughly 5mm thick. Sprinkle the trail-mix over the dough and lightly press to ensure they adhere. Use a pastry cutter (size of cutter is up to you; I used a 5cm diameter one here) to cut round circles of dough. Scraps of dough can be rolled again and cut. Arrange the cut circles on a lined baking tray and bake in a preheated 190′C oven for 10-15 minutes. The oatcakes will be lightly golden and tender.

Tip : You can decrease or omit the sugar in this recipe for a more savoury oatcake to enjoy with cheese or as a platform on which to build a quick snack – maybe sliced avocado with sprouts and herbed yoghurt cheese!

Recently while trying to reduce the clutter in our house, I found the coin pig which B keeps his change in. He has a thing for not carrying spare change around. I have a thing about clutter. We don’t actually own that much stuff (aside from (ahem) cookbooks) but the truth is, my brain has a crazy way of coping with stress. When stressed, some people shop. I declutter.

So I made it a mission to get rid of every single coin and for the past week have been walking around with an extremely heavy wallet, slightly fearing that I would be caught out on a lie if anyone were to ask me for spare change. Interestingly, I’ve discovered that :

1) A friend will hear of my plan for total spare change dissipation and call it crazy. Why don’t you just take it to a bank? Well I could.. but how boring is that?

2) Twenty 10-cent pieces buys you a pretzel from the Swiss Bakery on Oxford Street. But I have a strange propensity towards apologising when paying in small currency (why? It’s still legal tender) so I’ve given up buying pretzels for the time being.

3) The local newsstand seems to welcome spare change, so I guess I’ll be getting the newspaper from them more often.

4) When a scruffy lady approaches you with a request for a donation to a charity you hadn’t heard of before and you offer her your 5-cent pieces, she will say no thanks and walk away. B says this only further confirms his theory that carrying too much spare change makes you a social leper.

5) Twenty 5-cent pieces also buys you bag of rolled oats from the supermarket. But the lady behind the counter will inspect every single coin closely and hand back to you the rogue New Zealand coin lying innocently in the pile. Once you’ve gotten over the embarrassment however, you can use the bag of oats to make Dan Lepard’s halva flapjacks. Trust me, after you make these, you’ll never use or want another flapjack recipe ever again.

For my flapjacks, I used roasted cashews and whole dried bananas (chopped) instead of the dates and walnuts. The lovely sesame flavour and chewiness of these flapjacks reminded me of Jupiter Caramel Bars (for those of us who are of an age substantial enough to remember those..). Spare change never tasted so good.

Wow, this is awkward. I’m sorry we had to meet under such circumstances, but it’s not often I come across a recipe that I’m so unsure about.

When Richard says this honey and stout tart is similar to treacle tart, I wonder if the stout had gotten to him. Should the idea of a tart conceived on St. Patrick’s Day have rung alarm bells in my head? Mind you, it’s not that it’s bad. It’s just that I don’t quite get it. It’s rib-stickingly moist, and tastes like it’s trying really hard to be a treacle tart, so then why ruin it by adding a mountain of oats? Don’t get me wrong, I love oats. I just don’t see the appeal of having this much of it in a tart. Why Richard why?

“Richard Corrigan?” B chimes in, “Didn’t he make what the judges considered to be the worst dessert ever, on Great British Menu?” Did he? I must have a short memory for such things. I offer a spoonful to B. He chews, nodding thoughtfully, and finally, this man who normally quite happily eats anything I put in front of him, admits that he doesn’t really want any more.

So anyway, I’m including the recipe, for anyone to whom the combination of pastry and porridge sounds particularly appealing. Or, rather than make this, I’m offering a free tart (minus a few tasting slices) to any person who is willing to come pick it up from where I live. Add some whipped cream spiked with whisky and a handful of fresh raspberries, and you have crannachan in tart form! I also highly recomended this tart for people requiring more fibre in their diet.

Honey and Stout Tart :
(serves 6-8; from The Clatter of Forks and Spoons by Richard Corrigan)

Pastry :
250g plain flour
a pinch of salt
125g butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
50g caster sugar
2 eggs, plus 1 egg beaten, for eggwash
sweetened buttermilk or double cream, to serve

Filling :
4 Bramley apples [I used Granny Smiths]
1 x 330ml bottle stout, such as Guinness
200g rolled oats
250g golden syrup
250g honey
250g stale breadcrumbs
6 eggs beaten
4 dessertspoons lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange

To make the pastry: Put the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter with your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and mix well, then mix in the eggs a little at a time, bringing the mixture together with your fingers until you have a dough. Alternatively, put the flour, salt, butter and sugar into a blender and pulse until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the eggs and pulse again until just combined, then turn out into a bowl or on to a clean work surface and mould into a ball. Try not to work the dough any more than you have to in order to bring it together. Cover the pastry with clingfilm and chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes to make it easier to roll.

Preheat the oven to 150′C. Have ready a 25cm, loose-bottomed flan tin, greased with a little butter.

On a floured surface, roll out the pastry into a circle about 5cm bigger than your tart tin. Roll the pastry loosely round your rolling pin, then drape it over the tin and gently press it in. Trim carefully round the edge with a knife.

To bake ‘blind’, line the pastry with greaseproof paper and scatter over a layer of dried beans – this will stop the pastry from rising up. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes until pale golden, then remove and turn the oven up to 180′C.

Immediately after taking the tart tin out of the oven, remove the greaseproof paper and beans and brush the whole of the inside of the pastry case with eggwash. This will seal it and prevent it from cracking as it cools – it may still crack a little, but don’t worry.

Peel and grate the apples. Pour the stout into a saucepan, add the apple, bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and let the liquid reduce by about half. The apple will go brown but it’s natural. Take off the heat and allow to cool until just warm.

Add the rest of the filling ingredients and mix well.

Pour the mixture into the pastry case and bake in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes until set. Serve with sweetened buttermilk or double cream.