Jane Middleton

Jane Middleton

Editor and writer

https://www.cinnamon-toast.co.uk
Jane Middleton is a freelance cookery editor with over 20 years’ experience in publishing. She has worked for leading publishers including Fourth Estate, Bloomsbury, Dorling Kindersley and Ebury Press and edited books by authors ranging from Michelin-starred chefs to campaigning food journalists and TV cooks. After completing a course at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, she started developing and testing recipes for many of the books she works on. Besides editing she does occasional ghostwriting and has written for the Guardian. Her blog can be found at www.cinnamon-toast.co.uk and she contributes occasionally to the political blog, radicaltub.com. Jane also reviewed for national restaurant guides for many years, including The Good Food Guide, and won a Glenfiddich competition in 2008 for restaurant reviewing. For several years she ran a cake business called Cinnamon Toast, specialising in macaroons and decorated biscuits. She currently lectures part-time on food writing and editing at Bath Spa University.

Most popular

Jane's favorite cookbooks

The Kitchen Diaries

The Kitchen Diaries

Nigel Slater

Pretty much all Nigel Slater's books are outstanding but, if pushed to choose one, I'd go for this. It perfectly captures the rhythms of his cooking and every recipe simply demands to be eaten.

The River Cottage Year

The River Cottage Year

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Not as well known as Hugh's other books but the recipes are among his best. It's a brilliant guide to eating with the seasons, which, as he points out, is 'the best and quickest solution to the never-ending question, what shall I cook today?'

Konditor & Cook: Deservedly Legendary Baking

Konditor & Cook: Deservedly Legendary Baking

Gerhard Jenne

Gerhard Jenne's small London chain sells the kind of cakes you've always dreamed of eating. He's been remarkably generous with his recipes and they work beautifully - a tribute to all the effort he put into adapting them for domestic kitchens.

Available on ckbk now
A Passion for Vegetables

A Passion for Vegetables

Paul Gayler

Such a talented chef, who was creating what became known as fusion food years before anyone else ever thought of it - and doing it much better. Paul Gayler also pioneered top-class vegetarian cooking and, although this book is not completely vegetarian, it offers a superb mix of classic and innovative vegetable recipes.

Available on ckbk now
Hot and Spicy

Hot and Spicy

Marlena Spieler

A prolific, UK-based Californian writer, Marlena Spieler has a gift for describing the sensual aspects of food. This book covers spicy dishes from China to Chile, Poland to Portugal, and is just the thing for when your taste buds are feeling a bit jaded.

How to Survive in the Kitchen

How to Survive in the Kitchen

Katharine Whitehorn

Some are born cooks; some achieve good cooking; and some have cooking thrust upon them.' Katharine Whitehorn wrote this book for the latter category and, although it was published in 1979 and is inevitably a little dated in places, it's still an invaluable guide for beginners. What's more, it will have you laughing out loud as you cook. Her advice on everything from bains marie ('relax - you do not have to bath the au pair') to washing up ('more to do with the national masochism than actually getting anything clean') is well seasoned with wit.

The River Café Cookbook

The River Café Cookbook

Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray

The quantities are ridiculous, the instructions sparse but nonetheless this book is brimming with charisma, and it contains some of the finest dishes of the last 50 years. Halve the quantities for the desserts and they'll work just fine (even the infamous Chocolate Nemesis) – without being so heartstoppingly expensive.

The Cinnamon Club Cookbook

The Cinnamon Club Cookbook

Vivek Singh and Iqbal Wahhab

The Cinnamon Club is a pretty near perfect modern Indian restaurant. Layering flavour upon flavour to sophisticated effect, Vivek Singh's recipes hold up beautifully in domestic kitchens, without ever losing their professional polish. Top marks, too, for the highly seductive cocktail chapter.

Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food

Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food

Arabella Boxer

The Mediterranean influence on our cooking has been so overwhelming that we've almost forgotten what English food is. This book examines country-house cooking between the wars, when a 'discreet revolution' took place – only to be overturned by rationing. It's surprisingly light, graceful food (quails with grape salad; green pea mousse; ice cream of roses) - though a chapter on Picnics and Shooting Lunches bucks the trend rather splendidly.