Bob - Steps Toward Meal Inspiration

Bob - Steps Toward Meal Inspiration Small steps towards building a wholesome life
🥬 Whole food meal inspiration
🌎 Conscious consumption

04/25/2026

Shortcrust Pastry recipe 👇🏼

Ingredients:
2 parts plain flour
1 part butter, cubed
1/2 part water

For example:
200 g plain flour
100 g butter, cubed
50 ml cold water (you may not need all of it, or you may need a little extra if it’s too dry)

In a large mixing bowl, rub the flour and butter together between your fingers until it resembles fine crumbs. Add water, little by little and mixing each time, adding just enough until the mixture comes together and forms a dough. The dough wants to be smooth and pliable, but not too dry so that it’s crumbly, or too wet so that it’s overly sticky. If you add too much water, you can add a little extra flour.

Gently tip out the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and bring together with your hands to form a ball. From here, you can roll out and shape the pastry depending on what you’re using it for.


04/04/2026

Easter Hot Cross Bun recipe 🐣👇🏼

600 g bread flour
90 g caster sugar
2 teaspoons mixed spice
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
finely grated zest of 1 lemon (I used a lime as that’s all I had!)
1 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons dried yeast (or 2x 7 g sachets)
360 ml milk
50 g butter, melted and cooled
1 large egg

DRIED FRUIT (feel free to swap out with 250 g of any dried fruit you have on hand!)
150 g sultanas
50 g dried cranberries
50 g mixed peel

TOPPING
80 g plain flour
2 tablespoons golden syrup,
to glaze

Combine the flour, sugar, spices, lemon zest, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. In a small saucepan, warm the milk until lukewarm. Add the melted butter and egg to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Gradually add the milk, stirring until you’ve added just enough milk to bring the mixture together into a soft dough ball (you may not need it all).

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 mins, place into a clean bowl and leave to rise until doubled in size, which can take up to 2 hours depending on how warm your room is.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 2 minutes.

Roll out to a large rectangle and sprinkle over the dried fruit. Fold to cover the fruit and knead it into the dough until fully incorporated. Divide it into 12 portions, roll them into balls and transfer to a large baking tray lined or sprinkled with flour. Place them close together but not quite touching, then leave to rise until doubled in size, which should take about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC (200°C fan-forced). When the buns have finished rising, mix the flour with 100 ml water in a small bowl to form a paste. Add to a piping bag, snip a small hole in the end and pipe crosses across the tops of the buns. Bake for 15–20 minutes or until golden brown.

While they’re still warm, melt the golden syrup in a small saucepan over low heat until runny, then brush it over the buns to make them shiny.

hotcrossbuns

04/02/2026

Ad Giveaway 📦 and Carrot Cake recipe 🥕

Like Pyrex cookware, carrot cake is a long-standing classic for a reason — it just works.

📦 Giveaway - If you’d like to win some of your own Pyrex cookware, they are very kindly sending one lucky person a box of their goodies. To enter, just…
• Have a UK postal address
• Make sure you’re following pyrexukofficial
• Leave a comment below saying the first thing you’d cook with your new set of Pyrex cookware (closes 4th April)

I used the pyrexukofficial 2.6L glass storage dishes. They double up as a baking dish so you can take them from the oven to the fridge by popping on the glass lid.

Ingredients
450g self-raising flour
280g dark brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
80g walnuts or pecans, chopped
300ml melted butter or oil
4 eggs
220g grated carrot

Frosting
200 g very soft butter
100 g cream cheese, at room temperature
400 g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan). In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, spices and nuts. Pour in the melted butter, add the eggs and carrot, and stir well until combined. Grease your glass dish with butter then dust lightly with flour so it will become non-stick. Spoon the cake mixture into the dish and spread out, then transfer to the oven to bake. The cook time will depend on the size and depth of the dish you are using. I cooked mine for about an hour, but just keep checking back until the cake is firm to the touch, and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Once the cake is cooled completely, make the frosting. Beat the butter in a bowl for 2-3 mins or until light and fluffy. Beat in the cream cheese, then gradually add the icing sugar until you have a smooth frosting. If you’d like to pipe little carrots onto your cake, add two tbsp of frosting to a small bowl for the orange, and two tablespoons to another bowl for the green. Add food colouring, then transfer to piping bags with a small nozzle. Level the top of your cake then slice and place back into the dish. Pipe or spread the cream cheese frosting over the top of the cake, decorating with the orange and green icing if you wish.

03/17/2026

Baked beans 🫘🧀 recipe 👇🏼

1 tablespoon olive oil
½ brown onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
200 ml tomato passata
1 tablespoon brown sugar
30 ml apple cider vinegar
½ tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
400 g tin beans (such as haricot, cannellini, butter, or a mix), rinsed and drained

Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan-forced). For the baked beans, heat a small flameproof, ovenproof casserole dish over medium heat. Add the olive oil, onion and garlic and fry for 2–3 minutes until golden brown. Stir in the paprika and mustard and cook for a further minute. Add the passata, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and beans. Stir well, then measure out 60 ml water and add it gradually, stirring until you have a glossy sauce that coats the beans – you may not need all the water. Bring to a simmer, season well with salt and pepper, cover and bake for 15 minutes.


(🎶 Alan Silvestri - Snow Scene)

03/12/2026

Lemon curd recipe 🍋🧈⬇️

In the grey of winter, making the little thing nice for yourself is all the more important, and lemon curd does just that. It just hits the spot every time, in yoghurt, between sponge cakes, or especially on crumpets. In the video I made 5 times the recipe below, but this quantity is nice for a normal batch!

Ingredients:
4 large eggs
5 unwaxed lemons
280g caster sugar
230g butter

Method:
Finely zest and then juice the lemons. Into a saucepan, add your eggs and beat lightly. Add in the sugar, butter, lemon zest and lemon juice. Place over a medium heat and whisk continuously until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts. Do not allow it to boil as it may split. When it has all combined and the mixture coats the back of a spoon (this may take about 10 minutes and if you have a thermometer is about 77°c) remove from the heat. Place it through a sieve to catch any zest or seeds. Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Store in the fridge.

03/10/2026

Lemon Curd Rolls 🍋

If you made the lemon curd from my last video, this is one of the most delicious ways to use it!

Dough
250 ml milk
7 g or 2 tsp dried yeast
50 g caster sugar
550 g plain flour
2 eggs
90 g soft butter, chopped

Filling
250 g soft butter, chopped
300 g caster sugar
300 g lemon curd (if you want to make this from scratch, check the caption of my last post)

Lemon icing
250 g icing sugar
Zest and juice of 1 lemon

For the dough, heat the milk in a saucepan until just lukewarm. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and warm milk. Whisk to combine and set aside for 5 mins or until frothy. Add the flour, eggs and butter and mix with a wooden spoon to combine, then use your hands to form into a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 mins until smooth. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

For the filling, add the butter and sugar to a bowl and mix with a wooden spoon to a smooth paste. Set aside for later.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced) and grease a large (30 cm) skillet or round baking dish with butter. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a square of roughly 50 x 50cm. Spread with the filling, then the lemon curd, leaving a 1 cm border around the edges. Roll up the dough from the edge into a log shape. Use kitchen string or unflavoured dental floss to trim off the ends of the roll to make them even, then slice it into 8 equal rounds. You can also do this with a knife – just take care not to squash the dough as you cut it. Transfer the rolls to the baking dish, cover and set aside to rise again for 30-40 mins, then bake for 25 mins or until golden brown.

To make the icing, mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Drizzle over the rolls, sprinkle with lemon zest, then leave to cool for at least 30 mins before serving.

01/25/2026

Eggnog recipe 👇🏼🎄

Eggnog feels like something you only see people drinking in 90s Christmas movies. But let me tell you, when I made this batch and took my first sip, I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to try it for myself. Don’t let the ‘egg’ in the title put you off — it doesn’t taste eggy in the slightest, and in this version you make sure the egg is cooked, like you would with a custard.

Eggnog
6 eggs
100 g caster sugar
750ml milk
250 ml cream
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick or 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

Meringue
180 g caster sugar
Pinch salt

Separate the eggs yolks from the whites and place the yolks in a large bowl with the caster sugar. Whisk together until the eggs are pale and fluffy. Add the milk, cream, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla to a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring well until the milk is hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat and discard the cinnamon stick. Next, temper the eggs — pour the milk little by little into the eggs, whisking well between each addition. This ensures the eggs don’t scramble! Once you’ve added all the milk, pour the mixture back into the saucepan and return to the heat until its nice and hot but not boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside.

To make the meringue, add half the egg whites to a mixing bowl with the caster sugar and set over a pan of gently simmering water, whisking until the sugar is dissolved and the egg whites have reached 70ºC. This should take about 4-5 minutes — it’ll be hot to the touch. Remove from the heat and beat with an electric mixer for about 10 minutes or until it looks glossy and holds stiff peaks.

Pour the warm eggnog into mugs, spoon with meringue and finish by caramelising it with a blow torch (this is optional to give it that toasty flavour).

01/21/2026

Beetroot Battenberg 🫜

2 raw beetroots
juice 1 lemon
225 g soft butter
225 g caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
225 g self-raising flour
120 g apricot jam
400 g marzipan
icing sugar, to dust

Preheat the oven to 200ºC (180ºC fan). Grease and line a 20 cm square cake tin. Take a strip of baking paper, fold it in half so it’s rigid and place it across the centre of the tin, so that you can bake the two colours of cake separately.

Wrap the beetroots individually in foil and bake for 45 mins or until soft. Remove the foil, then cut gently peel off the skin – it should come away easily. Add the beetroots to a food processor with the lemon juice and blend until smooth, adding a dash of water if needed – the acidity of the lemon helps the colour to stay vibrant when cooked.

Turn the oven temp down to 180ºC (160ºC fan). Beat the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl for 2 mins until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat again, then add the flour and beat until smooth. Spoon half the batter into one side of the tin – this will be your white sponge cake. Weigh out 100 grams of the beetroot puree, stir it into the remaining batter and add to the other side of the tin. Bake for 45 mins, then allow to cool completely in the tin.

Heat the apricot jam in a small saucepan over low heat until runny. Remove the cakes from the tin — they should separate easily. Trim the cakes into rectangles that are even in shape and size, then cut each one in half lengthwise so you’re left with 4 long rectangles, 2 of each colour. Next, stack the pieces alternately in a checkerboard pattern, brushing them with apricot jam so they stick together.

Roll out the marzipan on a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar until you have a large rectangle shape large enough to wrap around the cake. Brush the outside of the cake with apricot jam, then drape the marzipan over it. Fold the edges neatly underneath and trim any excess marzipan, exposing the checkerboard pattern at each end. Use the remaining marzipan to decorate however you like.

11/22/2025

Choc Chunk Shortbread Biscuits 🍪

400 g plain flour
100 g caster sugar
300 g butter
150 g dark or milk chocolate, roughly chopped
Pinch sea salt

In a large mixing bowl, rub the flour, sugar and butter together until it resembles breadcrumbs, then press together with your hands until it starts to form a dough. Add the chocolate and salt and mix it through with your hands until well combined.

Tip out the dough onto a lightly flowered surface and bring it together with your hands. Roll it into a sausage shape, then cover and chill for 30 minutes. Chilling will make it easier to cut, and stop the cookie dough spreading out too much as it bakes. If you are short on time, however, you can skip this step.

Remove the dough from the fridge and slice it into circles, any thickness you like. Place onto a lined baking tray and bake at 160ºC for 15 - 25 minutes, or until slightly golden on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray before carefully transferring them to a plate.

(🎶 Synod, Simple Life - from Uppbeat)

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