Cranachan recipe

A cranachan? "What on earth is that?" you may ask. Well it's a delicious Scottish dessert made with billowing whipped cream, raspberries, honey, whisky and toasted oats? Not convinced? Try this breakfast version (and there's also a regular version here too) made with yogurt in place of cream. After this, I promise that haggis will be the last thing you'll think of when you think of Scottish food.

Dear Reader, what is your favourite form of social media? For me I love twitter, instagram and Pinterest the best. I love catching up on what friends are doing through their Instagram feed (which is really what they're eating or wearing). But recently when I upgraded my Instagram I noticed a feature. It was a feature that had been there all along but I had never made use of. It's where you can see what the people you're following are liking.

You see I've been delving a bit further into it. While someone's Instagram feed might represent a person's carefully curated image, what they actually hit "like" on offers a better glimpse into them - hey you can even profile people!

Take my friend Nick. From his Instagram feed he likes watches and food. But if you take a peek at the photos that he likes...well there are a lot of young, cute girls and a couple of bottoms thrown in too! Another friend has started profiling her potential dates. I have found most women fairly straightforward in what they liked but men seemed to have a dichotomy liking photos of scenic travel views and food but that there was a whole new category for the scantily clad, boobs and bums. I asked Mr NQN about these two sides and he answered straight away, "Yup pretty much!".

I can't profess to know what will be popular on Instagram although photogenic people and healthy food/fitspo seem to be really popular. One thing that I didn't expect to be that popular was this breakfast cranachan. What is a cranachan? I first learned about it when attending a Visit Scotland lunch. It was served as dessert; similar to an Eton Mess sort of dessert with whipped cream, raspberries, honey and optional whisky with toasted pinhead or steel cut oats added to it for crunch.

If you were following me on Instagram (and please do! :)) a few weeks ago when Eurovision was on we went to our friends Louise and Viggo's house for a Eurovision breakfast. Most Australians watched it that evening but as fervent Eurovision supporters they held a breakfast. I picked Scotland as my country (let's just forget how the UK did this year) and I decided to make a breakfast version of Cranachan.

The breakfast version uses natural yogurt instead of cream but the raspberries and oats fit the healthy breakfast profile. It's up to you whether you want to use whisky. I didn't add any because it was breakfast but I'm sure that for some whisky is a perfectly fine breakfast tipple. I also added something extra to these in the form of some delicious demerara sugar shortbread that I bought in Edinburgh just to add some more crunch. Thankfully it was a hit at breakfast, even with all of the food that there was to choose from!

So tell me Dear Reader, what is your favourite form of social media? Which ones are you on? Do you profile people through their Instagram likes? How much time do you spend on social media nowadays?

Breakfast (or Regular) Cranachan

An Original Recipe by Not Quite Nigella

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 0 minutes (except toasting of oats)

Serves: 4 people for breakfast

• 1 cup frozen raspberries, thawed (don't buy the ones that will kill you)
• 1/2 cup icing sugar (you can omit this or use 1/4 cup if you are using cream)
• 500ml/1lb. natural yogurt or cream
• 3-4 tablespoons honey plus 2 tablespoons extra
• 2 tablespoons whisky (optional)
• 4 tablespoon toasted pinhead or steel cut oats* (you can also use your favourite nut in its place if you can't find pinhead oats)
• 2 shortbread biscuits, crumbled
• 125g/4ozs. punnet fresh raspberries

*To toast oats place in a dry frypan and toast until fragrant. You can also lay them out on a baking tray and bake in a 180C/350F oven for 10 minutes or so (be careful they don't burn).

Step 1 - Crush or blend the raspberries with the icing sugar to form a sauce. In a separate bowl mix the yogurt and honey and whisky if using. If you are using cream, whip until you get soft folds (definitely stop before you get stiff peaks) and then stir in honey and whisky if using.

Step 2 - Layer some of the cream or yogurt mixture in clear serving glasses or a serving bowl. Place 3/4 of the raspberry sauce on top and spread out so that you can see it from the side. Sprinkle the oats and then add another layer of yogurt or cream. Add the remaining raspberry sauce and then crumble the shortbread cookies on top. Add fresh raspberries and final drizzle of extra honey.