Puddings for one: The ultimate quick fix for a sweet tooth

Telegraph

4 days ago

'There is joy in spending hours making a cake, or proving dough,' says Remi Idowu, 'but it's not something you can do every single day.' Even less so if you're cooking for one. 'Having a sweet treat every day is what it's all about.'
The 25-year-old food writer and social-media star has an unashamedly sweet tooth, and she's found a delicious way to satisfy it, if not quite every day then in moments of need – with her one-person puddings.
Her single-serve brownie pie, which calls for only five ingredients, is ideal all year round. 'You can have it in the winter when you need something comforting, or with ice cream in summer to cool it off,' she says. Then there's a single-serve strawberry crisp (a spin on the beloved crumble), and a cookies and cream mug cake – a nostalgic nod to the popular food craze of the late 2000s.
Idowu has also perfected a speedy cinnamon roll, which she pulls off with a dough of just Greek yoghurt and self-raising flour. She admits it took a little time to get the swirl just right, but that's half the fun.
Idowu's baking experiments began in earnest in 2018, when, thanks to the encouragement of her sisters, she began sharing the results on Instagram. What started as an account filled with mouth-watering brownies, cookies and cakes (with a spell selling her creations to the public), quickly evolved into something broader. When she posted a dinner recipe and noticed a spike in engagement, she quickly realised there was an appetite for both. 'It just kept growing.' At the time, Idowu was balancing content creation with a full-time job as a web developer. 'A completely different lifestyle,' she admits, but her boss encouraged her to pursue her dream in food.
The social media handle @FoodbyRemi was born, and Idowu has since racked up 1.2 million followers across TikTok and Instagram. 'My main ethos is teaching people how to cook, and removing the fear from baking and cooking.' She encourages her followers, showing that they can 'make really delicious food, very easily'.
Now, she's publishing her first cookbook, Sugar & Spice (Ebury Press, £26), which showcases her favourite savoury and sweet recipes, including a chapter dedicated solely to dishes from her childhood. The daughter of Ghanaian and Nigerian parents, Idowu says some of her proudest moments are related to recipes rooted in her heritage. 'I grew up in England but my mum was always making African food,' she explains.
That influence continues today. 'I once dropped a jollof rice recipe [on Instagram],' she recalls, inspired by voice notes sent by her mother, who would talk her through each ingredient and recipe step. She later added those voice recordings to her videos, and the result went viral. 'Mum's best jollof rice' can be found in the book.
But much of the inspiration behind Sugar & Spice comes from the dishes Idowu made when she moved out of the family home – and her craving for something sweet after dinner. She believes almost any dessert can be turned into a single serve, although not every experiment has worked first time. 'A carrot-cake cheesecake became quite tricky,' she admits, 'so I ended up adapting it to be a no-bake cheesecake' – a recipe one hopes will appear in the follow-up book that will surely come. 'I like to think anything's possible, but maybe just not the way you imagined.'
Ever creative, Idowu has just one rule when it comes to baking: 'Never compromise on taste. Never.' And once you've tried her recipes, you'll see she never does.