Food news antipasto

The famous Bonne Maman advent calendar is back – hurry before they are gone. There are 24 delicious flavors in mini jars featured in this year’s edition, including new Cherry with Hibiscus Flower, Sweet Orange and Passion Fruit, Peach with Jasmine, Wild Blueberry with Lemon Balm, and Raspberry with Rose. The fresh styles are included along with the classics everyone loves, like Strawberry, Cherry, and Wild Blueberry. Bonne Maman also has smaller sets and jam spoons available for gift giving.

Your eggs, butter, and milk and other ingredients are all at room temperature, just like the recipe says. You cream the butter and sugar, and carefully crack in the eggs, one at a time…and despite your careful planning and attention to detail your cake batter curdles. Sound familiar? The intrepid bakers at King Arthur Baking have the solution, and it is so easy you’ll wonder why you didn’t think of it. They add a tiny amount of the recipe’s flour when adding the eggs – discover why this works and how it makes for a better crumb in your cakes.

To help beat the heat, I recently bought a watermelon – eating chilled melon is super refreshing for me. After my husband and I ate slices until we felt like we were about to burst, I noticed that there was still 3/4 of a watermelon left. Therefore I was happy to spot Epicurious’ 35 best watermelon recipes for ideas on what else to do with the gigantic melon. If you are facing the doldrums of winter instead of basking in the summer sun, Australian Gourmet Traveller has you covered, with lamb curry recipes to add to your winter cooking repertoire.

Tired: wine pairings. Wired: beer pairings – especially for a barbecue. The number of beer offerings can be overwhelming to comprehend, so The Evening Standard turned to Joe Thomson, the founder of Firebrand Brewing Co, for his advice on which beers to drink with common barbecue foods.

Before avocado toast, there was stuffed avocados. The fruit’s natural cavities are the perfect size to house a few bites of anything from chicken salad to coddled eggs. Over at Taste Cooking, Peruvian native Nico Vera takes us through the history of stuffed avocados (known as “palta rellena” in Peru). It turns out that this simple dish has a complex colonial past.

Photo of Watermelon gazpacho from Bon Appétit Magazine