0 Is tha comin t' Wigan Food and Drink Festival ?

Wigan holds a special place in my heart as I spent several years studying on a day release basis at the college in my youth. Home to honest a goodness folk who love their town, Wigan is the land of the pie, home to the legendary Uncle Joe's mint ball and the "pier" of George Orwell fame, its also a town where rugby is still the number one sport, in other words a grand Northern town.

The town holds an annual food festival celebrating its food culture and great local food products and produce, in this its 7th year the theme is Baking and Beer. 

Here's the link to the website with all the details here

A packed programme is planned starting on 27th February and running through to the 9th March 2014, there are chef demo's, theme dining events, baking challenges, beer festivals in fact something to tickle everyone's taste buds.

Of special note local lad and baking hero and 2012 Winner of the Great British Bake Off - John Whaite will be hosting on Saturday 8th March a "Baking with the Best" masterclass and then hosting an afternoon tea. (More details can be found in the programme)

The festival - sponsored by Euromark - kicks off with the 27^th Wigan CAMRA Beer Festival, offering 60 real ales, 35 real ciders and perries and a great selection of foreign draft beers, plus live music and food. Plus also a special bus tour has been organised of Wigan's three famous micro breweries, Allgates, Prospect and Problem Child.

Also in town for this event will be none other than former "Corrie" star Sean Wilson, soap star turned award winning cheesemaker at The Wigan Wine Festival, he will talking all things cheese and signing his book "The Great Northern Cookbook". Which coincidentially we have a copy for you to win, just complete the widget below to be in with a chance of winning this fab prize.

So things are shaping up for a great festival and I for one will be booking my tickets for the events very soon as I am sure they will be popular. A full copy of the festival guide is downloadable via the festival website.

                                                    

Please enter our giveaway below, the prize can unfortunately only be mailed to UK addresses, sorry !

                                    

I was fortunate enough to be invited to the press launch for the festival and was treated to a lovely local afternoon tea and goody bag by the promoters. This included some How's yer Farther cheese from the Saddleworth Cheese Company, some Silvertally beer from Prospect Brewery and some Uncle Joe's mint balls from Santus and also the signed book for the giveaway.

Detail: Is tha comin t' Wigan Food and Drink Festival ?

0 Also this weekend !

Wow, its been another busy week in food in Lancashire, what with Lancashire Courting cake being featured on Great British Bake Off , this week end sees in addition to the normal fabulous range of farmers markets there are several other food festivals taking place in the county.

The Great British Food Festival comes to Stonyhurst College, near Clitheroe on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, check out our earlier post on whats on offer, including oneself judging cakes on the Saturday.

                   

Bolton Food and Drink Festival - Friday to Monday featuring demonstrations by many TV chefs and cooks and other events all around Bolton.

Its also Aughton plum pudding festival, this is only held once very 21 years and is being incorporated in Aughton village festival on Bank Holiday Monday.

And lastly if you are a fan of John Whaites Winner of last years Great British Bake Off you can catch up with him locally at Avant Garden Centre on Sunday for their Cake Festival along with BBC Lancashire's John Gillmore, who's show I regularly appear on.

Detail: Also this weekend !

0 Almond, amaretto and blueberry torte

This bake is inspired by the great Jo Wheatley - winner of the Great British bake off in 2011, I love making her raspberry and almond torte as featured in her book and also on the daily mail website here, I suggest if you are interested in baking you buy a copy as it contains some great no nonsense family recipes.

My variation on a theme is to pimp the cake by adding booze, in this case amaretto (thats inspired by a book Flavour Thesaurus - but thats another post) and to use blueberries rather than raspberries, obviously blueberries when cooked are more moist so the resultant cake is  slightly different in texture than Jo's version,  but very delicious all the same.

Ingredients - these were my additions and substitutions to the original recipe

• 2 tbsp amaretto
• 1/2 punnet blueberries
  
                               

Jo is regularly on twitter and facebook and seems to be one of life's genuinely nice people despite what life throws at you, I tend to find most bakers are like that as when you bake you really are putting you heart and sole out there on a plate.

So buy her book , its fantastic . I purchased my copy and in respect for Jo, I am not publishing the recipe, just linking to where it is available in the publish domain.



Detail: Almond, amaretto and blueberry torte