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ckbk.com – Spotify for cookbooks

October 2, 2020 Leave a Comment Filed Under: Baking, Books, Desserts and sweets, Food, Food history, Interview, London, Recipes

Ceo of ckbk.com Matthew Cockerill pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com
rose, pistachio and saffron bread and butter pudding pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Are your shelves groaning with cookbooks? Have you been banned from buying any more? Is it difficult to find which recipe is in which book? (I’ve colour coded my collection, approximately 500 books, which makes them look prettier on the shelf but requires a photographic memory of the colour of the spine.)

Cookbooks are unique as both instruction manuals and beautiful aspirational show-off books for your coffee table. However on average we only cook one recipe from a cookbook and most people have about six off-by-heart recipes in their regular repertoire.

North London-based entrepreneur Matthew Cockerill, 49, seeks to change all that. He lives between Crouch End and Highgate, a view of Ally Pally from the top of his vertiginous back garden where he cultivates wasabi plants. (Coincidentally, Ham and High columnist and food writer Frances Bissell used to live in the same house.)

Matthew, having spend 15 hugely successful years creating the open access model in scientific publishing, is attempting to haul cookbooks into the 21st century. He’s transitioned from traditional science to domestic science.

“Back in 2015 I contacted hundreds of chefs and food writers asking for their top ten cookbooks for a site called 1000cookbooks.com. We’ve seen the revolution in the music industry with musicians now streaming their music on platforms like Spotify. Nobody buys CDs anymore and artists earn money from downloads and live concerts. The same is happening for filmmakers and documentary makers on Netflix, I wanted to create the same concept for the food publishing industry. For a monthly or annual subscription fee you can have access to hundreds of cookbooks.”

You could spend hours perusing 1000cookbooks! How do publishers feel about your service?

“At first they were resistant, but increasingly they realise this is the way forward. It leads to diversification, rather than the latest trends in publishing or whoever has a show on TV at the moment. People want to access cookbooks online AND have a hard copy. So I crowdfunded ckbk.com, as a Spotify for cookbooks. It’s a way to discover new voices, rather like the serendipity involved in finding books you hadn’t originally intended to buy in a book shop. We have expert recommendations from chefs and food writers, who have an interesting take on the world of food. You start to go in other directions. We hope to broaden your tastes. For instance, if you are a fan of Ottolenghi, here are the ten books that most influenced Ottolenghi, which include MFK Fisher and Claudia Roden. The world of streaming is good for discovery.”

You want to be the food world’s IMDB? 

“Yes. We are at the beginning. It’s worked in other countries – in Japan Cookpad has two million subscribers. This year VAT was removed for online books, so it’s cheaper than hard copies and you get access in perpetuity to cookbooks. In the future we will have ‘smart kitchens’ so we are working with e-grocers (the well-known one ) and brands like NEFF, Bosch and Siemens.”

How has lockdown affected your  business?

“It’s been good for home cooking. NEFF told me that they are selling more cooking equipment than ever. People have the time to make their own sourdough for instance. In the long term, city centres have emptied, people are no longer surviving off sandwiches from Pret in an office. We are spending less time commuting. Fortunately our office lease in the centre of London came to an end in February so we’ve all been working from home.”

What’s the most popular recipe on your site?

“At the moment people are interested in the Eight- Texture Chocolate Cake recipe by Peter Gilmore in his book Quay. It’s not an easy recipe.”

Chocolate cake is always top of google food search trends. What’s your favourite recipe or cookbooks? 

“I’m very into puddings, such as bread and butter pudding. For a savoury dish, I’d choose roast chicken. Currently I’m a fan of Stephen Raichlen’s ‘Planet Barbecue’, there is a fantastic grilled tuna recipe with wasabi. I like slow cooking, new methods for brisket for instance.  I grew up on a farm in Yorkshire so I like carefully reared, small scale, high standard meat. In terms of vegetarian cooking, I love tofu stir fry. ”

 

rose, saffron and pistachio bread and butter pudding pic: Kerstin rodgers/msmarmitelover.com

Print

Rose and pistachio bread and butter pudding

Bread and butter pudding is Matthew's 'death row' pudding. Here I've done my own take, adding some Middle Eastern exoticism to the supremely English comfort dish.
Course Afternoon Tea, Afters, Dessert, High Tea, Pudding
Cuisine English, Middle Eastern
Keyword Bread and butter pudding, Cherry pudding, Rose recipes
Serves 6

Ingredients

  • 8 slices white bread, crusts removed, cut on the diagonal
  • 50 g salted butter, softened
  • 200 g Rose petal jam
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 300 ml whole milk
  • 50 ml single cream
  • 25 g caster sugar
  • pinch saffron
  • 2 tbsp pistachio nibs
  • rose petals for garnishing

Instructions

  • Grease the baking tin with butter. Preheat the oven to 180C
  • Butter the bread slices, spread with rose jam and cut into triangles, overlapping the slices on the baking tin.
  • Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, sugar and saffron. Pour over the bread.
  • Scatter with pistachio nibs and bake for 30 minutes until golden. Serve immediately, garnished with rose petals.

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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