Fudge Kitchen

There is a place in Canterbury near the Cathedral, at the top end of the Kings Mile, that smells devilishly divine.  As you walk past you are hit with wafts of warm caramel, indulgent notes of toffee, vanilla drifts of superheated sugar and sinfully rich hints of melted chocolate.  What makes this a real test of will is the sign outside that tempts you in with the promise of free samples.

I'm talking about the Fudge Kitchen

The hunter green shop front gives way to a business that has been perfecting its fudge recipes for over 30 years, using traditional techniques and methods that are nearly two hundred years old.  All the fudge is made in-house in the great bronze fudge cauldron and on the marble slab where, if you get lucky with your timings, you can watch the fudge artisans doing their stuff.

If watching isn't enough for you, then you can always get down and sticky with the fudge yourself in one of their fudge making experiences!  For the cool price of £60 for two people, you can learn the basics of fudge making, put yourself into a sugar coma on free tasting samples and walk out with 4 slabs of fudge to take home.  Not bad value to be honest!  They also do the Fudge At Home kits where you can get scientific in your own kitchen with your very own sugar thermometer and fudge tools and a lot of cream.

We will get onto the fudge itself in a moment, I promise.

For now, let me tell you a little bit more about fudge in general.  Fudge was originally 'born' at a female college in Virginia in the States, not in Cornwall or Devon surprisingly.  Apparently a college lecturer was taking a class in toffee making when the temperature of the concoction was not taken high enough. The end product was called ‘fudge' and in one fell swoop two things were invited; a creamy, delicious treat and the term to 'fudge' something.  

The Fudge Kitchen specialises in American style fudge, using a recipe that relies on the creamiest of cream instead of butter to give their fudge its distinctive, addictive texture and help the vanilla flavour maintain its creamy colour.  They must be doing something right as they now have Fudge Kitchens in Canterbury, Bath, York, Cambridge, Windsor, Edinburgh and Oxford (all of which, coincidentally considering the origin story of Fudge, are towns and cities with major Universities present).  They are a proper Kentish company; their head offices are in Lyminge, not far from Canterbury.   Can't get to a store and currently clawing and the screen to get your paws on some?  Don't worry - they deliver.   You may even get really lucky and find them at a stockist near you.

They don't just do big slabs of fudge. For those of you who prefer your fudge in liquid form, they also do sachets of drinking fudge in a multitude of different flavours, from Tangy Orange to Gorgeous Ginger (I married one of them) and the original Sea Salt Caramel.  You can have these hot in the winter or as a seriously different milkshake in the summer.

Then there are the fudge sauces.  Pancake Day is admittedly behind us, but I'm a firm advocate for pancakes throughout the year and these would make an amazing topping.  They would also be awesome in a sticky toffee pudding, poured over ice cream, in a bread and butter pudding (the chocolate and ginger would be especially brilliant for this), baked into cakes and cupcakes or as an indulgent icing or as a fudge fondue with marshmallow and fruit skewers. 

So that's all the little added extras that the fudge kitchen specialises in.  Now onto the main event - the fudge itself.

The first thing to note is the variety of fudge you can get - from your traditional toffee and chocolate flavours to seasonal classics (at the moment Hot Cross Bun and Lemon and Ginger are on the menu for the spring time). 

You can try a sliver of any of the fudges before you buy one of the enormous, 175g slabs that they have for sale in the the window.  We had come in to build a box to take to the pub for my birthday for everyone to share - a little goes a long way.

We got a 6 slab box for £22 to take home and filled it with Traditional Toffee (very sweet and warm), Vintage Vanilla (pure white with a warm vanilla taste that comes from pods and not essence), Caramel Swirl (made from the Vintage Vanilla fudge which has homemade caramel swirled through it), Chocolate Classic (my favourite, dark and velvety and most definitely not for children - it has an almost bitter edge that cuts through the sweetness of the fudge), Double Trouble (dark chocolate fudge with great chunks of white Belgian chocolate running through it) and Belgian Chocolate Swirl (dark Belgian chocolate and the classic Vanilla fudge swirled together). 

The flavours are like no fudge you have tasted before.  All of them are decadent, rich and creamy; a small morsel goes a very long way and will satisfy even the strongest of sweet tooth cravings. Our box lasted for ages. Half of the box fed 8 people as a dessert, the other half we took to rehearsal with 15 people there who gradually munched their way through it.     

Why not consider something a little bit different from your traditional Easter eggs this year, and go for a box of fudge for the family, or a home kit so you can make your own fudge at home with the kids over the Easter holidays (supervised closely of course!)  They would absolutely love it!

You can find the Fudge Kitchen on facebook and twitter and they have a blog so why not say hello?

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

Wild Goose

There are a lot of pubs in Canterbury.  It is whispered that you can visit a different watering hole every day of the year and still have more to visit.

Despite this, there actually aren't that many bars.  There are a few good ones; Bramleys, The Shakespeare Wine Bar, Abode Champagne Lounge and the newly opened Pound that I have yet to visit, but very few decent cocktail bars.

Wild Goose is a much needed addition.

Located inside one of my most favourite places in the world, The Goods Shed farmers market (amazing food, brilliant drink and the most wondrous butchers, greengrocers and fishmongers, general store, restaurant, cheesemakers, charcuterie, wine shop, bottle shop and much, much more), Wild Goose is a brilliant addition to an already impressive local lineup.  The Goods Shed itself is an old railway goods shed, next to Canterbury West Station and is the place that is, in my mind, solely responsible for making Canterbury the foodie paradise that it is today.

I have bought my parents, grandparents, friends and random strangers I met on the train back from London here for a bite to eat and a drink.  Steve has stopped off to pick me up a pork and pear sandwich (my favourite sandwich in Canterbury) from Jonny the sandwich man and dropped it off to me in the theatre in Whitstable before now for my dinner during a get in.  For years, we always got our Christmas turkey box from the Butchers, until it occurred to us that there were only two of us eating, and a whole turkey plus all the trimmings may have been a little excessive.

 

I get excited from the moment I pull into the gravel crunching driveway and scout for a parking space.  Sometimes you get lucky and there are masses to choose from; other times less so and you need to circle around the block and come back.  Keep circling, it is worth it.  You climb up the ramp through the sage green great shuttered doors into the hall and are bowled over by a complete onslaught on the senses.

The first thing that hits you is the smell; the bouquet of a thousand good things mingling in the air, creating an ambrosial perfume that is unique to the Goods Shed.  Next there is the colour; natural woods, vibrant vegetable greens, reds and oranges, dried hops hanging from the ceiling and whitewashed paint.  Finally the people, people of all ages and backgrounds browsing the goods, eating food that was plucked from the market stalls minutes before by the restaurant chefs, laughing at the high tables over locally brewed artisan ales from Murray's or agonising over which cured hams to choose from Patriana Charcuterie (always choose the ham that is cured and cooked in the Goods Shed - its one of the many reasons the place smells so good!).  In the spring and the summer the doors are flung open to the side and people sit at tiny tables out on the terrace hobnobbing with the world. 

One cold evening, Stella, Sinead and I met up for cocktails and prosecco at Wild Goose.  By this time the market had closed for the day, and all that was left were tables of people munching their way through the fresh food offering.

Wild Goose is owned by Lucy Proud, a local Kent girl who trained and worked as a chef in London before setting up home in the Goods Shed.  The menu is tapas inspired, perfect for sharing, and they also serve (I'm told) a mean lazy weekend breakfast.

We were there for cocktails and a catch up.  We slung our bags on the convenient hooks under the counter, debated snuggling into one of the fleecy blankets available and grabbed three high stools at the counter.

All the cocktails are Lucy's own creation, including the Hay Fever, a delectable mix of Jim Bean, elderflower, mint and honey and a concoction she conjured up especially for the Canterbury Players when we were performing the play of the same name after Sinead promised to drink her own body weight in gin to say thank you (Shay is already a massive fan - she blogged about it aaaages ago.  I'm just a bit slow on the uptake).  I chose a Gosling (gin, dry vermouth, elderflower syrup and lime) whilst the other two got started on a light, sparking prosecco.  All the cocktails are based on floral, quintessentially English ingredients; indeed, Lucy designed the cocktail menu around the idea of an English garden with the use of herb infused spirits and flower syrups.  It works wonderfully and reads like a dream.

The cocktail was lovely, fresh, well balanced and lightly tart (although I would have liked a little extra lime juice as I like my cocktails to have a real sour kick behind them but that is just personal preference).

The waiting staff were, for the most part, attentive.  There was the occasional slip up with a forgotten order, but it was quite busy and all the cocktails and food orders are made from scratch, so you must expect a bit of a wait.  In all honesty, the setting is divine, so why would you want to rush?

The liquor cabinet is well stocked.  I would quite like a lot of those gins in my own stash! The eagle eyed amongst you will recognise the Anno Gin distillers that I featured in my Canterbury Food Festival post nestled on the shelf.  I'm drooling just thinking about that gin, it is so nice!  That is a marmalade gin right next to it, and Ciroc and a Chase.  I approve, heartily.

There are lovely details about this bar that make it really stand out for me.  Firstly, the location (with the exposed brick work, rafters and the great, ornate Victorian windows that rattle with the passing trains) is just my idea of heaven.

Lucy has added some art deco touches to Wild Goose, particularly with her glass work and counter lamps which add a touch of elegance to the place.  It has an utterly relaxed vibe about it, you would be equally as comfortable in a pair of jeans, hunters and wax jacket for a post hack pick me up, or a little black dress for pre-dinner and theatre cocktails. 

Wild Goose is open until 9pm from Tues-Sat and until 4pm on Sundays (closed on Mondays), so it is a great place to come for a quietly one (or a raucous one if you are anything like me on a couple of drinks) and get your evening off to the best possible start.  It's a blissful assault on the taste buds and senses.  Why not visit it this weekend and try it out for yourself?

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!

Canterbury Food and Drink Festival

A couple of weeks ago an email pinged into my inbox.  It was Charlotte from the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival, asking if I'd be willing to do a bit of photography and reporting on this year's festivities.  Well, I ummed and ahhed and made it sound like it was a really tough decision when in reality the Festival has been in my diary since the beginning of the summer! 

This year the Festival was huge - bigger and better than I have ever seen it.  Over 120 independent traders were plying their wares and the result was a barrage on the senses.  It took place over three days and the sheer scale and variety of fare on offer just blew previous offerings out of the water.

We rocked up with our entourage of Charne and Peter, Richard and Claire and John and Ellie and after a frantic dash around Canterbury's limited cash points (most of which were drained), we entered a pure feast for the senses in the Dane John Gardens.  This is a good tip if you are going to the Food Fayre in the future; a lot of stands will take debit or credit card payments but not all of them, and the signal can be very patchy.  If you bring cash with you, you won't find yourself needing to leave the Fayre half way through to try and find a cash point, which are thin on the ground in Canterbury!

The first thing that hits you is the smell - a thousand burgers and sausages, marshmallow and curry, paella and strawberries all wafting through the breeze.  Then you see the colour - a vibrant mix of hues from the stands and people alike.  Finally there is the noise - thousands of people laughing and talking, stall owners shouting instructions and over the top of it all, music drifting in from the band stand and buskers stage.

We stood and drank it all in for a few minutes before starting our explore.  The original plan, as always, was to complete a full lap of the Faye before deciding what to buy.  We made it 10 feet before John spotted the duck fat chips at Simply Duck.  I turned my back for 30 seconds and when I turned around everyone had their hands in a portion.  These chips were beautiful - crispy, fluffy and the most amazing flavour lightly dusted with sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. 

I had a different tactic this year - instead of going all out on one main item, I decided to try small items from loads of different stands, to get the fullest flavour experience.   Next on the list was a chorizo and paprika scotch egg that Steve had picked up.  This was nice - not the best scotch egg I have ever had, but the chorizo added a nice counterpoint to the sausage meat.

We moved onto The Great British Cheese Co. where I sampled their Whiskey Mac whiskey and ginger cheese - RV may have returned for some of this later on as we both loved the warm sweetness that the ginger gave the cheese.  I wandered around the Fayre for a good 30 seconds looking for Steve so he could try the bit I was holding in my hand before giving in and eating it myself.  I did try - 30 seconds was a good effort I thought!

There were plenty of places to grab and dunk bread and crackers in dips and chutneys and chilli sauces.  This spicy mango dressing from The Cherry Tree was sweet and delicious, while, after working my way through all the offerings on the 'hot' end of Hot Face Sauces and having a fab chat with the guys on the stand about each of their offerings, I walked away with a bottle of the Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce (the Caribbean in a bottle) for the bargain price of £3.50.  It was a toss up between this, the Killer Ketchup (with naga chillis-  I already have naga based sauces in my cupboard) and the Scorpion Scorcher (with Trinidad Moruga Scorpion chilli's). 

By now I was getting thirsty, so stopped off for a half pint of the Canterbury Pale Ale from the Canterbury Brewers.  Charne tried some of mine and pulled a horrible face, so went in search of something a little more ladylike from the Bland's stand in the form of the sparkling strawberry cider, John and Ellie were on the Biddenden's sparking wine whilst Steve had managed to track down a horrific concoction of raspberry and cream soda which had me pulling the disgusted face.  Just goes to show there really is something for everyone at the Food and Drink fayre!

The queue for The Devil's Pantry was huge and the smells coming off it were divine - but I was after something a little different that I had spotted earlier.

I headed back towards the entrance to Raastawala, an Indian street food stand that was doing Khati sliders.  These looked (and smelt) amazing, so despite the size of the queue, I dutifully joined and awaited my turn.  Oh my it was worth the wait.  I was given a soft, fluffy side of Naan bread that had been fried off in egg, topped with spiced lamb meat and crowned with red onion, coriander, cucumber, mint yogurt, lime juice and tamarind.  I'm drooling just thinking about it, it was that good!

Ellie and Charne had both made a beeline for Pork and Co's Porky Mac (after staring open mouthed at the vats of mac and cheese at the Pork and Co stand!).  The 14 hour slow cooked pulled pork pork was moist and smokey and the mac and cheese was exactly how you want a good mac and cheese to be - rich, viscid and the epitome of comfort food.

Hunger sated for the moment, we set off in search of goodies to take home with us.  First stop was Nip from the Hip.  Most of us had drained the last remnants of our bottles from the previous year and we needed to restock.  We sampled the Gooseberry Gin and the Rhubarb Vodka and left laden with our supplies for the winter months.

We strolled around the rest of the Fayre, listening to music from the bandstand, bopping along to fusion reggae, chatting to friends we bumped into and munching on as many free samples as we could lay our grubby little mitts on.  I tried out the pina colada and the lemon meringue marshmallows from Marshmallow Heaven, whilst Steve stocked up on fresh coffee from Red Bean Machine, coming home with four huge packets filled with vanilla, costa rican, spanish and caramel fudge flavoured coffee.

Claire and I also discovered a new local Gin company, Anno Distillers.  Based in Marden, this young company are the first Gin distillery to be based in Kent since the Maidstone distillery was active in the late 1700's.  The gin is unique due to the blend of Kentish hops, Kentish lavender, Kentish samphire, Kentish elderflower, Kentish...you get the idea.  The result is a smooth, floral, sophisticated and highly unique tasting gin that is going straight onto my Christmas list!

For pudding we searched out the last of the summer strawberries from Simply Strawberries in the form of tarts, strawberries and cream pots and strawberries and chocolate pots.  I'm always a bit wary of strawberries at this time of year, but these were sweet, plump, juicy and just perfect.  I also love the old English vibe from their stand, just point me at the Pimms and tennis!

Steve meanwhile was waiting for the churros lady to start serving her plates of churros with liquid chocolate dip.

The rest of the Fayre was spent in a stupor of sights and smells as we wandered the corridors.  I bumped into Jess from Briar Rose Beauty who was taking her family to the Kids Zone for a bit of a play.  Poor thing has been laid up seriously ill recently so it was great to see her on her feet and out and about.

Post food fayre, Ellie, John and I headed back up the street to the Marlowe Theatre, where we had tickets for Matthew Bourne's Lord of The Flies, leaving the others to finish their shopping, ready for the house warming drinks RV and Claire were hosting that evening at their new pad.

One of the things that is so amazing about the Fayre is the fact that so many of the stands are small, family run businesses that rely upon events such as the Food and Drink fayre to promote and reach out to the local communities.  The produce is local, the food is lovingly made with real passion and often recipes have been handed down through generations.  The food and drink here is pure Kent, and that makes the Canterbury Food and Drink Festival pretty special in my book.

 If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my Facebook group or Twitter or Instagram!