The virtues of Bircher muesli with vanilla-infused honey

At the risk of plumbing the depths of blogging banality, I decided to post a feature on bircher muesli: a breakfast cereal which originated at the start of the 20th century when Swiss physician Dr Maximillian Bircher-Benner advocated soaking oats and grated apple with a teaspoon of lemon juice in lots of condensed milk, then eating it the next day. If the thought of condensed milk with your breakfast cereal makes you feel a little nauseous, then remember these were the days before dairy pasteurization was widespread, and fresh milk carried rather severe health risks such as tubercolosis...

Anyway, bircher muesli is my summertime breakfast favourite, a welcome ersatz for winter's oatmeal porridge. Plenty of other people have written extensively about the health benefits of oats: a source of slow-releasing energy seemingly capable of preventing all sorts of illnesses from diabetes to cancer. Be that as it may, I just love the taste of oats, so if you're a breakfast fiend like me, try this muesli during warmer summer months - not only is it full of fibre, but the soaked oats are more digestible so you're not left with a bloated belly after breakfast. 

Make sure you use large, rolled oats though, not the quick-cooking kind for instant porridge which will turn into a unpalatable, gloopy mush! Some people like to use apple juice to soak their oats, others use yoghurt or plain old milk - in Germany I had bircher muesli soaked in cream, a decadent treat, but perhaps too filling early in the morning. The best way I've found is to follow this simple formula: rolled oats, grated apple, and milk. This is your bircher base, and then you can top it with fruity things such as summer berries, bananas, nuts such as almonds or walnuts, and seeds such as linseeds, sesame seeds, etc. 

Makes 5 servings (weekends are reserved for pancakes, waffles and other brunch treats!)

• 225g oats (ca. 3 tbsp oats per day)
• 2 grated granny smiths (or similarly tart apples)
• enough milk to cover

Place the oats and grated apple in a large bowl or tupperware container, stir through with a spoon, and then cover with milk. The oats will swell during the night, so make sure you don't fill the bowl/container all the way to the top! Cover with clingfilm

In the morning, take your portion out and top with whatever you have available. This morning I used a dollop of plain bio yoghurt, some rather crimson-coloured strawberries and a few squirts of my favourite sweet treat: acacia honey infused with the seeds (and pod) of half a vanilla pod, the perfect foil for nutty oats and slightly tart grated granny smiths...breakfast bliss!

Strawberry Snow

It's July, it's hot and you're wilting under the summer sun. The perfect midsummer treat, Strawberry Snow is cool, refreshing and as Norwegian as it gets - in fact the Johansen family fruit farm in western Norway is currently awash with plump, crimson strawberries, not to mention delicate wild strawberries. Summers as a child at the farm meant hours spent in the strawberry patch, growing fat due to unrepentant gluttony - admittedly it wasn't the strawberries contributing to an expanding waistline, grandmother Johansen's baking took care of that. Thankfully I grew outwards, and eventually upwards

Every year I have the same thoughts about strawberries - the less adulteration, the better. But it's hard to resist this take on 'strawberries and cream', so give it a go, and start looking forward to the joys of raspberries, sour cherries, peaches and plums...

Serves 4 disciplined people, or 2 greedy Scandinavians...

• 300g ripe strawberries
• 150ml fresh orange juice (ca. juice of 3 small oranges)
• 1-2 tbsp Grand Marnier
• 1-2 tbsp caster sugar
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• 1 small pot (142ml) whipping cream
• 1 small pot (142ml) sour cream
• 250g mascarpone cheese
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or seeds of 1/2 vanilla pod
• pack of mint (small handful)

Start by dividing the strawberries in two batches. Take one batch, quarter the berries, and place them in a bowl with the fresh orange juice, Grand Marnier and a light sprinkle of sugar - this will macerate the strawberries, and the orange juice really enhances strawberries in a most peculiar way

Set the macerating strawberries aside. Put the mascarpone in a medium bowl, and sift in the icing sugar, and vanilla extract or seeds. Using a spatula, start beating the mascarpone, not too much,  just enough to soften it slightly so there are no major lumps left. Then add your whipping and sour creams. Gently fold these through until the whole mixture looks light and fluffy. If you beat it too much, the cream will start to split and you'll need a lot more Grand Marnier in the strawberries to disguise this error

Finally, taking the second batch of strawberries which you haven't macerated (or gobbled up in the process of making this), whizz them in a blender with the mint, leaving a few sprigs for garnish. This will look like a red, minty mess, and you should fold this through very carefully in the 'snow', creating a swirly effect

Your strawberry snow is ready, so refrigerate in little glasses, or if you're twee like me, in tall martini glasses, for an hour and then when you're ready to serve, put a couple of spoonfuls of the macerated strawberries on the side of the snow, and the sprig of dainty mint - a winning dessert for dinner parties...