While I’m still trying to review some of the best cookbooks of 2024, I’m sprinkling in other cookbooks that I run across. I had no idea about today’s cookbook before I took advantage of some sort of Kindle deal. It’s safe to say that I paid $1.99 or less for Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul by Diana Henry.
About the book:
From critically acclaimed, multi-award-winning author, Diana Henry, a new edition of the hidden gem at the heart of her cookbook repertoire. An irresistible collection of cold-weather recipes that celebrate the unique pleasures of autumn and winter, featuring seven new recipes and a foreword by Nigel Slater.
“Roast Figs, Sugar Snow has been in my kitchen since the day I first opened it. Here is a book that celebrates not only the ingredients of the winter shopping bag, the pumpkins and pomegranates, chestnuts and soft, sweet spices, but the heart and soul of the season. Each paragraph is a carol to what makes the cooking of the cold months something to cherish.”— Nigel Slater
Diana Henry’s classic cookbook, Roast Figs, Sugar Snow, is now revisited, revised, and refreshed nearly 20 years after its first publication, with a new foreword by Nigel Slater and seven new recipes. Full of comforting delights from cold-weather climates, it features recipes gathered from Diana’s travels to Scandinavia, the French and Italian Alps, Scotland, Ireland, and New England. This is irresistible food you’ll cook over and over again. Choose Alpine dishes of melted cheese; autumnal pies and substantial winter salads; pastries from Viennese coffee houses; festive snow biscuits and – closer to home – Diana’s definitive recipe for warming Irish stew. Of course, there is also a recipe for Sugar-on-Snow as well. These recipes will bring warmth to your heart as well as your home. And Diana’s evocative writing about both place and food make this a book well worth reading, as well as cooking from.
New recipes to this edition include:
-Hazelnut, espresso and chocolate shortbread
-Crimson leaf, black lentil, roasted grape and walnut salad
-Beetroot and blackberry soup with walnut relish
-Pasta alla norcina
-Ham and haddie pie
-Swedish apple, almond and cardamom cake
-Plum and cardamom galette
About the author:
Diana Henry is one of the UK’s best-loved food writers. She has a weekly column in the Sunday Telegraph and writes for BBC Good Food, House & Garden and Waitrose Weekend, as well as being a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4. She also has a series of popular podcasts, in which she interviews other prominent names in the food world.
Her journalism and books are multi-award-winning. Diana’s last book, How to Eat a Peach, won the André Simon Food Book of the Year for 2018, while A Bird in the Hand won a James Beard Award in 2016. Her other titles have won book of the year at both the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards and at the Guild of Food Writers awards.
What I thought…
So, for those of you as ignorant as I am…. Diana Henry is a much loved British personality (apparently). The original Roast Figs cookbook came out in 2005. In 2023, she updated the cover (and isn’t it lovely) and added eight new recipes and edited out a few older ones. In her opinion, the changes make this her favorite edition. (I listened to an interview with her here.)
In the interview, she mentions Laura Ingalls Wilder and her record of surviving. It is more than children’s literature. These Little House books left a mark on her and she opens her book with a quotation from Little House in the Big Woods: “Pa came in, shaking the soft snow from his shoulders and stamping it from his boots. ‘It’s a sugar snow,’ he said.”
Nigel Slater writes the forward. He continues the love of winter (and autumn). This is a cookbook all about the cold months and taking solace in them.
After listening to the interview, I went back to revisit the recipes. The book contains the kind of cooking that comforts and feeds people. I bookmarked so many lovey gems.
- Pecan and Pear Upside-Down Cake with Cranberries
- Pumpkin Tarts with Spinach and Gorgonzola
- Red Cabbage with Cranberries
- Tagliatelle with Roast Pumpkin, Sage, Ricotta and Smoked Cheese
- West Country Pot (Roast Chicken with Apples and Cider)
- Soured Cream Apple Pie Muffins with Pecans and Brown Sugar
- Pot Cheese
- Chocolate, Blackberry and Rosemary Brownies
There’s only so much blackberry jam one can make. After three batches (Blackberry-Mint-Pepper, Blackberry-Lime, and Blackberry-Bourbon-Cinnamon), I decided a needed to bake. I have a great cobbler recipe but I wanted again to make something with a twist.
While I took inspiration from the flavors Henry combined, I just took my basic brownie recipe and added blackberries and rosemary. I used some of Henry’s instructions but my brownie is cocoa based. Hers uses 70% dark chocolate and cocoa both.
Blackberry-Rosemary Brownies
This is just an old standard brownie recipe with berries and rosemary sugar stirred in.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks butter
- 2 c. sugar, divided
- 1 T. fresh rosemary leaves
- 2 t. vanilla
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 c. cocoa
- 1 c. flour
- 1 t. baking powder
- 1/4 t. salt
- 3/4 c. of whole blackberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- In a large glass measuring cup, melt the butter in the microwave.
- Place 1 cup of sugar in a mini-food processor (or blender). Add the rosemary leaves and process.
- After butter has cooled a bit, add the vanilla. Stir in the eggs one at a time.
- Carefully stir in the cocoa.
- In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the mixture and stir until just incorporated.
- Add the blackberries and carefully fold in.
- Place in a 13 x 8 x 2 ” prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Yield: 12 servings
I was a little skeptical because a little rosemary goes a long way. The taste was perfectly subtle. I will make these again during blackberry season next year. Even if it’s not blackberry season, I just might make Rosemary Brownies using the herbed sugar.
I will be revisiting more of Henry’s recipes, especially during the winter months.
I’m linking up with Foodies Read for July.
Your brownies look scrumptious! I’m always surprised at how food personalities often have a limited audience — there are British ones (like this), Aussie ones like Donna Hay, and American ones, though I don’t know which of ours have also succeeded elsewhere. A few cookbooks are successful in more than one place but so many are limited — I think the home cooks in these three English speaking countries really are different from one another.
best, mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Agreed.
The recipes you mentioned sound as though they would be delicious, no matter the weather! It doesn’t get too cold here in Hawaii, but I could do with some of those brownies immediately!