Pudding for breakfast? Latest internet fad is a dream for those with a sweet tooth

The idea of pudding as a sweet finale to lunch or dinner is being inverted by the rise of the breakfast pudding. This topsy-turvy food trend includes everything from chia seed puddings designed to taste like cookie dough, overnight oats that resemble tiramisu and Weetabix biscuits transformed into what could be mistaken for vanilla cheesecake.TikTok is the main instigator of the trend, causing dieticians, fitness influencers and homecooks to do battle with viral recipes. The process tends to involve soaking base ingredients such as oats and chia seeds overnight with natural plant additions such as dates and cacao powder or somewhat less healthy, processed items such as melted chocolate bars and spreads including Lotus Biscoff, a brand of caramelised biscuits. There are recipes inspired by Snickers, Kinder Bueno and Bounty bars alongside others modelled on cinnamon rolls and matcha lattes

Ravneet Gill’s recipe for apple souffle and hazelnuts | The sweet spot

Take souffle to the next level by baking it inside an apple. This retro dessert is easy and a bit of fun, too. The result is a soft, tender apple shell filled with light, airy souffle, perfect with lashings of vanilla ice-cream (which will hopefully form a delightful puddle when served with the hot pudding). Ideal for entertaining – it’s like eating the filling of an apple pie, but lighter.Prep 10 min Cook 1 hr Serves 44 eating apples, such as braeburn20g softened unsalted butter45g caster sugar, plus extra for dusting1 tsp cornflour2 egg whites20g blanched hazelnuts, roasted and chopped, plus extra to serve, if you likeIcing sugar, to dustVanilla ice-cream, to serveCut the tops off the apples and very carefully scoop out the flesh with a small spoon or melon baller, leaving about 4mm of flesh all around the edges of the shell

Taking the biscuit: for 100 years we’ve been eating chocolate digestives wrong

Whether dunking, nibbling or munching a chocolate digestive, it seems common sense to keep the biscuity side down.But we are getting it all wrong, according to Anthony Coulson, general manager of the McVitie’s factory in Stockport, Greater Manchester.He insists that the chocolate should be on the bottom and the biscuit on top.“One of the very first things I learned when I got to join McVitie’s was chocolate side down to eat the digestive,” he told the BBC. “Up until then, I’d always eaten it the other way round

Michelin reviews have star quality | Brief letters

Re your article on Michelin stars (‘It was very difficult to hold on to’: are Michelin stars a blessing – or a curse?, 21 April), wherever I have been in Europe, Michelin-recommended restaurants have been reliable and often memorable. Not just at the upper end, but especially in the lower ratings. Recently, in Ireland, the only restaurant we really enjoyed was one we found on its easy-to-use app. I would far rather use a guide that uses professional assessors, whose consistent and unbiased views are a better indicator of quality than the vox pop approach of Tripadvisor and others.John Summers Abergavenny, Gwent Determined to speak to a human being, I telephoned the Halifax bank last week (The death of customer service: why has it become so, so bad?, 17 April)

What’s the secret to the perfect spring breakfast? | Kitchen aide

Breakfast normally means porridge, but what are the alternatives in spring?It’s a truth universally acknowledged that most breakfast binds can be solved with oats. But when porridge doesn’t float your boat, it’s got to be bircher muesli or overnight oats. “I have always been a bit rude about overnight oats,” says Will Bowlby, co-founder of Kricket, whose Shoreditch arm recently launched a breakfast menu. “But when the weather is warm, soaking oats in coconut water, mixing them with jaggery, then throwing in things like fresh coconut, rhubarb or raspberries is a really nice alternative to porridge.”And it’s those extras that will set your oats apart, says Nia Burr of Esters in north London

How an American businessman lost his job and found himself in an old French vineyard

One Friday night 24 years ago, Peter Hahn was sitting in the back of a cab to Heathrow, sleepless after yet another 48-hour work bender.“My computer’s on my lap,” the American-born organic winegrower from France recalls, the spring sun lighting up the deep pink walls of his study in his ancient manor house in the Loire Valley, his beloved vines outside, “and I’m doing a spreadsheet.“My boss is giving me shit because I hadn’t stayed at work – I’d promised my French girlfriend after I don’t know how many promises that we’d go away that weekend – then she calls and starts yelling at me because she knows I am going to miss the flight to Paris.”Moments later, “something was inside of me and just going like this” – he does a vice grip with his right hand – “crunch crunch crunch.” Paralysed, unable to breathe, the 36-year-old corporate strategy consultant was having a panic attack