A Well-Read Tart

A Food and Book Lover’s Blog

Easy Dundee Cake (Recipe Inspired by THE WINTER SEA)

Allow me to introduce you to the palest Dundee Cake you'll ever meet. Pale, but delicious. Since The Winter Sea is saturated in all things Scotland, I wanted to make a Scottish book-inspired recipe. In order to avoid making a Scotch egg or haggis *shudders* I decided to forgo the savory route by making something sweet. After flipping through some recipe books, this Dundee Cake was calling my name.   The photos you see here are actually my...

Bara Brith (Recipe Inspired by THE BONE HOUSES)

How did I go all these years of my life without ever tasting Bara Brith? This Welsh tea bread is a little like a scone, a little like a fruitcake, and a LOT like something I want to eat everyday for the rest of my life. The Bone Houses is steeped in Welsh folklore, and one of the first foods mentioned in the book is Bara Brith, a traditional Welsh teatime treat. Bara Brith is literally a tea cake – you steep dried fruit in tea and mix it into...

Sticky Toffee Pudding (Recipe Inspired by A SINGLE THREAD)

Who loves Sticky Toffee Pudding? THIS GIRL. You will, too, after you taste this amaze-balls recipe for one of the most decadent and delicious desserts known to man. Yes, this post absolutely needed all that alliteration. BECAUSE THAT IS JUST HOW FANTASTIC THIS STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING IS. *Takes deep breath and calms down * Welcome, Tartlets, and let me introduce you to my book-inspired recipe for A Single Thread. As a "surplus" woman in 1930s...

Cheese Scones (Recipe Inspired By THE ENDLESS BEACH)

Holy. FREAKIN. Cow. These cheese scones are amazing. Jenny Colgan is the woman who inspired me to make scones. I had been smack in the middle of The Café by the Sea, reading about how Flora was making scones from her mother’s recipe book, when I was suddenly overcome with the need to make scones myself. From scratch. For the first time. At 6AM on a Saturday. That is what this woman’s writing does to you. Colgan’s wonderfully descriptive...

Lavender Honey Cookies (Recipe Inspired by LYING IN WAIT)

Lavender Honey Cookies are my ode to the small bits of loveliness found in Lying in Wait. There’s so much that’s ugly in this book that it’s a surprise when you stumble upon something beautiful, which can range from the simple, like pretty lace curtains hanging in the window of a drab, grey house, to the more complex, like a happy relationship between two suffering people. Or, y'know...a lovely garden in the back of a manor house...with a...

Blueberry Almond Scones (Recipe inspired by THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING)

While I didn't love The Road to Little Dribbling, author Bill Bryson's time in England did inspire me to make some delicious English treats. I'm a huge Anglophile, and I appreciated his enthusiasm for English culture with all its delightful quirks, gorgeous landscapes, and elegant teatime traditions. One of my favorite things to do in London is have afternoon tea at a luxury hotel. I try to visit a different tea salon each time, but I'm also...