The Bluffin Loaf

Last week's Big Food Story was that Starbucks launched a new bakery item, a doughnut/muffin hybrid they were calling the "duffin". Only problem is that Bea's of Bloomsbury have been selling duffins for almost three years. Starbuck's described their duffins as "filled with a raspberry jam; we’ve added just a hint of nutmeg to our buttermilk base and then covered it in sugar once baked". Bea's ingredients include nutmeg, buttermilk and raspberry jam - she published the recipe in her cookbook in 2011. Even that seemingly-blatant appropriation wouldn't have been a big deal necessarily, except the factory who supplies Starbucks trademarked the name, claiming they couldn't find a prior use.

The outcry was swift and loud. It got a lot of media coverage (each of those is a separate link). Starbucks adopted the position that they never said Bea's would have to stop using the name. Which I suspect means that they just hadn't got around to sending her the cease-and-desist letter yet, because they definitely have form for going after the little guys. And anyway, why would you register a trademark if you had no intention of protecting it?

So Starbucks manages to look even worse than usual and Bea looks like a plucky but modest hero for standing her ground and wanting the name duffin to be available for use by everyone.

I don't patronise Starbucks, making a boycott from me a bit of an empty threat, but I was pretty keen to be on the side of the angels for this one. I popped into Bea's on Thursday to buy a couple of the controversial cakes. I was actually a bit surprised they had any left, but the young woman who served me said they were on their third bake for the day because they are so hot right now. And I tell you what, they are absolutely delicious. The subtle hint of nutmeg and crunchy sugar coating makes them taste doughnutty, but the texture is like the lightest, moistest muffin and the raspberry jam gives a good tang.

So over the weekend when I felt like baking, Bea's duffins came to mind. I don't actually have her cookbook, but I do have Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess, containing a doughnut muffin recipe. I read Nigella's recipe and was unsatisfied by the lack of buttermilk and nutmeg. I flicked through the rest of the book and saw Nigella's blueberry buttermilk muffin recipe.

Conveniently, I had a punnet of blueberries. I stuck the two recipes together, reducing the raising agents, adding a good grating of nutmeg, and baking it in a loaf tin and created... The Bluffin Loaf. Which was a great success, although I could have been more heavy-handed with the nutmeg. I will not be attempting to register the trademark.

There is a great disturbance in the blogosphere

I'm a bit late jumping on this bandwagon, but this is outrageous. To summarise, a blogger called Melissa made a potato salad, inspired by a food site's potato salad. She modified it in a few ways, wrote it up her own way and gave them credit. Then she got a notice telling her to take it down because this mob don't give permission to reproduce recipes because theirs are tested and perfect.

How ridiculous. Is there a cook in the world who hasn't used almonds instead of hazelnuts because that was what was in the cupboard? Or used basil because their family doesn't like coriander? Or stuck the pot in the oven instead of stirring it on the stove? And then decided they preferred it that way. We all have. My cook books are littered with handwritten amendments "takes longer", "use half water half lemon juice", "good with beef as well". When my mother sends me recipes for things she usually tells me what the recipe says as well as what she did differently. That is how cooking works. You taste stuff, you change stuff and you share it.

The cooks I don't like are the mean-spirited ones. The ones who won't tell you a recipe, or who leave out an ingredient because they don't want you to get it right, or who tell you they followed x recipe without telling you that they used 3 different ingredients and a totally different method.

So leaving aside the patronising tone the PR person took with Melissa, or the legality of copyrighting potato salad, the approach they have taken is terribly miserly and entirely against the whole spirit of generosity and love that underpins cooking. Have they not read Like Water For Chocolate? I'd never even heard of these people before, but I am determined that they will not undermine the way I do things - eating the way I like to, taking inspiration from wherever I can find it and passing on everything I learn.