It’s Jeanne here this week. I have a sweet treat for you, as Wimbledon is underway and every supermarket has enough strawberries to sink a battleship. On top of that, it's World Chocolate Day on Tuesday (7^th July), so if you’re already fed up with strawberries and cream, I’m going to offer you three alternative ways to enjoy them this summer, starting with my own brownie recipe with strawberries. I have been told I am the 'Brownie Queen', so I hope the recipe doesn’t disappoint.

Before I go onto that, I'll talk about a few items that I use whilst I make my brownies. 

Demeyere Saucier

The first one of which is the Demeyere Saucier. It is one of the best things that Demeyere have ever made and is much copied. When I made brownies as a child, I didn't know what a 'bain-marie' was, as I learnt that you can melt chocolate directly into this saucier without the risk of overheating it. Mum taught me that when the pan is on the lowest heat on the hob and if I can touch the bottom of it, then that is warm enough for the chocolate to melt. If it was too warm to touch, then it’s the same for the chocolate. With its conical sides, it is the best shape to use when making sauces or when a lot of stirring is involved, like risotto. A typical saucepan has straight sides and therefore has a 90 degree internal base to side. This means you have to lift your elbow up higher and it’s harder to get into the angle. Consequently, there is a higher chance of lumps forming. So, this saucier will mean silky smooth sauces, as well as easily melting chocolate (without separating).

Wusthof Cook’s Knife

My next item is a Wusthof Cook’s Knife. My everyday knife that I use to prep dinner is actually a Japanese brand called Tojiro and I am absolutely in love with it. However, Japanese knives are designed for soft and delicate prepping and chocolate is pretty hard, so this is when I get my 20cm Wusthof Chef’s Knife out, as it has a thicker, heavier blade, and is designed for western style cooking.

If you are tall like me (5’11” and a bit) and therefore have quite big hands, this is where I recommend Wusthof, as it has a chunky handle that fills and sits comfortably in bigger hands. It does have a decent weight and when I give a Wusthof knife to someone in the shop, the comment I get about 95% of the time is “oh, it’s quite heavy!” as if it’s a bad thing. There is actually a great benefit to a knife being “heavy” and that is, the weight does quite a lot of work for you, as it cuts through food. When the knife is very light, and especially for our western cooking, where we use a lot of dense ingredients, we have to use more strength and energy into pushing the knife down, to cut. With a heavier knife, it almost glides through. I do say 'almost', as it wouldn’t with butternut squash or if your knife is blunt. Anyway, the moral of the story is, if you are lucky enough to find a cookshop, like us, where you can handle the knife (I hear we are one of the very few that allows this) don’t automatically dismiss the heavier knives. And remember, if you are buying online and can’t do this, we will always take it back, or swap it, all you have to do is pay the postage!

KitchenAid Artisan Plus Stand Mixer

The last item is a KitchenAid Artisan Plus Stand Mixer. It’s a very handy machine to have if you are a baker or a cook. It’s not just for sweet things, mum used to use it for mixing mince meat with veg and spices to make homemade burgers and I even use it for making mashed potatoes.

The great thing with KitchenAid is, you can buy various attachments for both sweet and savoury recipes, so it is quite a multi-use machine.

Now KitchenAid have come up with a new, upgraded stand mixer! It looks like any of their ordinary mixers, but when it’s plugged in, an LED light illuminates the contents of the bowl! Snazzy or just way over the top, I will let you decide. My, maybe cynical, thinking is that we all have windows and lights in our kitchens already!

What is very clever, and quite cool, is the speed selector. If you own a KitchenAid Stand Mixer, then you will be aware that speed control can feel a bit agricultural. With the new mixer, if you turn the knob by 90 degrees, it changes from click, click as it goes up the gears, to a seamless, smooth, gliding motion. This gives, I think, better control over the speed as you can go from, say, 2 to 2½ with ease, rather than having to step up a whole speed level .

Right, onto the recipe.

Sale Table

Changing topic a bit, I’d like to add that if you are local to Reigate or Cobham, then both shops have some scuffed, marked and discontinued lines on their sale table, at great prices. There are lots of pans, some electricals, crockery and other bits and bobs. So, if you have some time to visit either shop then we welcome you with a bright smile and a free coffee, from a KitchenAid K8 coffee machine, as well.

Last Word

Right, by the time you read this email, I will not be in England. Would you like to take a wild guess where I have gone off to this time?

I’ll give you a hint.

Long time readers may recall a two-part email a few years ago, about an adventurous journey I didn’t quite sign up for. Click here to read my story if curiosity has got the better of you. If you guessed Sri Lanka, then well done, that is exactly where I have returned to. How is dad doing? He took the news with the quiet dignity of a man who has learned that arguing with me is a low-return activity. He didn't smile, but he didn't hide my passport either, which I'm choosing to read as progress.

One final note (I promise) if you'd like to respond to me, as you may have done previously when I’ve written the newsletter, then please email me directly Jeanne@artoflivingcookshop.co.uk. I am away for a couple of weeks and when I’m back, I will reply but I'll be playing catch up.

I hope you all can stay cool with all the promised heatwave. Food for thought ... warm / hot drinks help cool us down better than iced ones!

Warm regards

Jeanne