Fair enough.......

The joy of a Cornish summer is the sheer amount of events to go to. There's always a food festival or a farmers market somewhere. The car parks overflow, the shorts come out and towns are filled with the smells of outdoor food stalls. This week it's the Fal River Festival.




And there was baskets of homemade pasties on sale.......

My biggest regret was not bringing home some crab. As soon as the sun comes out I start craving crab and strawberries (not together). I think it's that cold texture of both that screams summer to me.

We were almost tempted with steaming bowls of spicy paella...

But settled for a shared portion of fish and chips which we ate, legs outstretched, leaning against the railings in Falmouth marina.

The trouble with events like this is that you have to bring something back from them. And today I didn't. (It should have been the crab!) So what better to make now I'm home that Cornish Fairings...traditionally a biscuit people brought back from the fairs......

Cornish Fairings (makes 10 to 15).............

200g/8oz self raising flour

a pinch of sea salt

4tbsp caster sugar

2 lumps of ginger (preserved in syrup)

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp mixed spice

100g/4oz butter (salted)

2 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp syrup from the ginger jar

Preheat the oven to 200'c. Put the dry ingredients in a food processor and mix. Add the butter and mix until you have fine breadcrumbs. Chop the ginger into rough lumps and add that and the syrups until you have a type of dough.

Dust your hands with flour and roll the dough into small balls the size of ping pong balls. Then, between your palms squash them a little. (Not so they are flat more so they look like mishaped ping pong balls!)

Put the balls on a lines baking tray about 2 inches apart and bake for 8 minutes. When you take them out of the oven tap the tray 5 times on your sideboard to create cracks across the top of the biscuits.