Never too young….

It was my sister-in-laws birthday a few weeks ago  and on a suggestion from my own, ever wise Mum, I embarked on making her an apron…and a matching one for my seven month old baby niece. I cannot even begin to convey to cuteness of seeing a pic of the two of them together in their aprons.  I also think this particular project is getting me some way towards my mission to make my niece a baking and crafting genius. Start them young, I say!

 Making the aprons was really simple. I used some provincial rose fabric in green from Cath Kidston for the main apron pattern and then some of the Clarke and Clarke sage green spotty fabric for the pocket (off cuts are perfect for this). I used one of my own aprons for the shape for my sister-in-laws apron (I simply drew around it with pencil onto the back of the fabric leaving an extra couple of centimetres to fold over and stitch) and then scaled hers down to make a pattern for the baby size. The straps for the baby apron were made from sage green bias binding, folded and stitched along the edge and I bought some apron ties from my local haberdashery for the big apron.

This was so simple to do, great fun and a lovely present for the mini bakers in your life!

The incredible healing power of chocolate cake

You know one of those days? It’s dark and cold (January, ugh), you seemingly encounter every grumpy person in THE WORLD, everything you try to do is just not quite up to scratch (despite your best efforts, all you are good for is a duvet day), you yearn for just a speck of the positive, a ray of light into the hundrum…. Yep, yesterday was one of those. I think it is partly a delayed reaction to the naffness of the last few weeks and the overwhelming feeling that nothing is easy at the moment. There are unending tasks, unending dark evenings, mountains to climb ahead. I think I have the January blues.

I don’t know about you but when the blues really set in I reach for the cook books. When I discovered Lorraine Pascal’s recipe for’ I don’t give a damn’ Chocolate cake last night I realised I had found my food antidote to a dark, dull, depressing Monday night in January. Just the making of the cake was cathartic. Chuck it all in, blizz for three minutes and pour the gloopy, chocolaty mixture into sandwich tins (not forgetting to lick the spoon). Much as I am convinced fruit cake is the cake of company and natters over cups of tea, chocolate cake is the cake of sitting under your duvet, watching re runs of the Gilmore Girls and feeling just a bit sorry for yourself.

I didn't eat all of that, honest

  

So in case any of you are suffering from a case of the January blues too I thought I’d share a slightly adapted version of the recipe from Lorraine’s Home Baking Made Easy.

‘I don’t give a damn either!’  or ‘Stuff you January Blues!’ Chocolate Cake

Oil and baking paper for the sandwich tins (just line the base)
140g half fat creme fraiche (it is just after Christmas after all!)
130g butter or stork (I always use Stork for cakes!)
230g golden caster sugar (or whatever you have in)
2 drops of vanilla extract
4 eggs
180g plain flour
pinch of salt
40g cocoa powder
10g baking powder

Chocolate Buttercream:
80g good dark chocolate
130g unsalted soft butter
A couple of drops of vanilla extract
250g icing sugar

• Put all the cake ingredients into a bowl and beat it like a maniac with an electric beater until all combined. That’s it!
• Pour the gloopy mixture into the prepared tins, bake at 180 degrees for 25-30 mins of until an uncooked piece of spaghetti inserted into the centre of the cake comes away clean.
• Leave to cool for five mins before removing from the pans and peeling off the baking paper carefully.
• For the frosting, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over some boiling water and set aside to cool. Meanwhile beat together the butter, vanilla and icing sugar until fluffy (this will take a while). Add the melted chocolate and beat until combined.
• Spread frosting on one of the cakes and sandwich them together. Cover the rest of the cake with the remainder of the frosting.
• Depending on how glum you are top with chocolate buttons, chocolate shaving, crumbled flakes – the world is your oyster.

And look, you just did something VERY well! Take that January blues!

A slice of fruit cake and a cup of tea

One of my favourite books of all time is the Number One Ladies Detective Series by Alexander McCall Smith. Reading them is like returning to a favourite place. It is comforting, brings you back to yourself, restorative. There are a few things that readings these books makes me want to do, as I mentioned in a previous post, being in the African sunshine being one of them but also eating a fruit cake and drinking bush tea which is much easier to achieve! 

In the books the Matron of the Orphanage Mma Potokwani always coerces people into helping her and the orphans by giving them fruit cake. The main character and chief detective, Mma Ramotswe, often goes to visit Mma Potokwani and has a slice of fruit cake, a cup of tea and a lengthy chat. In the books, and as I’ve experienced on my own visits to Africa, there is a lot of sitting on verandas, drinking tea and thinking about the world.

The TV series of Number One Ladies Detective Agency

 As a tea drinking and cake baking nation, and the founders of afternoon tea, I like to think that we in England used to do this very well - but not so any more. There is so much rushing around and even social arrangement are scheduled into our diaries like appointments. I know a lot of people aren’t a fan of the spontaneous visit but I’m always happy when someone pops round to my house and even more so when they settle in for a cup of tea, slice of cake and natter. I’d go so far as to say that work places would be much improved with the introduction of regular, sanctioned tea breaks. How much productivity is lost over little grievances bemoaned through lengthy email chains that could be sorted out through people getting to know each other over a cup of tea?

When I read the Number One books it reminds me of my desire to be someone who dwells over tea. Someone who has real conversations with people and nowhere to rush off to. The act of baking a fruit cake in itself causes you to slow down. The one I made on Monday was three hours in the baking and the cake itself is so rich and big that it will take many, many days of cups of tea and lengthy chats to get through. So my fruit cake, and the tales of Mma Ramotswe, are reminding me what I value most. The miraculous things that a good cake can do!

I made my cake using Kirstie Allsopp's recipe which you can find here.

Baking with Guinness

Have you ever baked with Guinness? If not then I wholeheartedly advocate that you get on board. There is something about the rich bitterness of it that when baked with chocolate or spices (and even better topped with cream cheese icing) that is truly fabulous. Another hidden bonus is the sneaky half pint you get after you’ve measured out what you need and must dispose of the rest!

So here are two of my highly recommended Guinness baking recipes that do particularly well for any birthdays of the men in your life. You won’t have leftovers!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Guinness Cake (nom, nom)

Guinness Gingerbread (For Kings)

The best chocolate brownie in the world

There are two things in life that I like to think I know a lot about. The first one is tea. The second is chocolate. In particular, chocolate cake. I am not one of these weak people who can be overcome by the richness of a chocolate cake. Oh no. I am a trained cake eater, practiced over decades. I am Olympic level. There is a restaurant near us that boldly announces that it has the ‘chocolate nemesis’ on its menu. Eating that was like a walk in the park for me as a true chocaholic. I blame my mum for this as when we were kids she would make us a big chocolate pudding and pour a melted mars bar over the top of it. THAT is a chocolate nemesis.

My chocolate brownie with a cup of tea pigs chocolate flake tea

Being a self-confessed chocaholic and a keen baker there is nothing I am more fussy about than chocolate brownies. First off all the chocolate has to be good, it must be dark and it must be good quality. Second of all it has to be slightly goo-ey and slightly cakey. Too gooey and it feels like eating chocolate flavoured butter (a bit wrong) and too cakey and, well, it’s a cake not a brownie.

As a chocolate purist I never add nuts to my brownies. You may well disagree, that is your prerogative, but this is my way! Baking your brownies is the real make it or break it moment. They should be thick so quantities and correct tin size is important. They should come out of the oven when the top is hard and just starting to crack a little at the edges. I insert a piece of uncooked spaghetti into the edge of the brownie first. From here it should come out pretty much dry. I then insert it into the centre of the tin where it should come out gooey but should feel firm as the spaghetti goes in - not like a big sloppy mess. A big sloppy mess is not cooked and will fall apart when you cut it. Unpleasant.

Now for the moment of truth, my brownie recipe. What you are about to receive has been honed over years of struggle. You are lucky people, standing on holy brownie ground. Enjoy it. And use it wisely.

150g dark chocolate

150g butter (unsalted)

25g cocoa powder

3 eggs

225g caster sugar

1tsp vanilla extract

100g plain flour

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/Gas Mark 4.

Line your tin with baking parchment and grease.

Melt the chocolate, butter and cocoa powder in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.

In another bowl whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Continue whisking as you add the slightly cooled chocolate mixture until well combined.

Sift in the flour and fold in using a spatula.

Bake for about 25 mins using the advice above for pefect brownie consistency.

Cool in the tin, cut into square and enjoy!

Things to do with blackberries

It’s officially soft fruit season and if you value your finances and enjoy the odd berry or hundred then get ye to a bramble bush and get picking! Once you’re there you will likely find yourself overcome with fruit pickers enthusiasm as you survey your potential bounty. Never again will you be tempted by the sorry punnets on offer in the supermarket, a painful price for minimal fruity goodness. You may even find yourself cackling with glee in the fruit section as you remember your well-stocked freezer gained from just one delicious afternoon's fruit picking.

 

There are several fabulous things about blackberries:

1. They grow everywhere
   I'm a bit fussy when it comes to where I pick. I prefer some rambling rural landscape rather than by a polluted roadside but hey-ho, each to their own. You can find berries in surprisingly urban settings though where you won't be putting car fume blackberries on your cereal. Try local parks or go for a walk by the river and have a hunt. Once you've discovered your patch you will return year on year, guaranteed. When picking go for the plump, soft but not squashy ones. Try as you go to make sure they are sweet and ripe.
2. They freeze really well
   When you get home with your blackberries wash them really, really gently and then spread them out into a single layer on a baking tray. Pop them in the freezer for about forty minutes until they are hard. You can then scrap them off and bag them up and they won't stick together. This means you can take out handfuls as and when you need them. Perfect!
3. You can rustle up amazing puddings all winter at the drop of a hat (or scarf)
   Grab some cooking apples, peel, core and slice them and drop them in a dish, sprinkle in some golden caster sugar and a couple of handfuls of frozen blackberries and top with crumble. Pop in a medium oven until the topping is golden and you have a delicious bubbly crumble. Domestic goddess status in no time at all!
4. You can make smoothies from frozen
   If you put frozen berries in a blender with some yoghurt you will get a cool berry smoothie. No defrosting required.
5. Cakes - many, many cakes
   My favourite cake to make with blackberries is upside down cake. Upside down cakes always remind me of being at my Grandma's house, stuffed and satisfied. Give it a go:

Blackberry Upside-down Cake

About 200g of blackberries (enough to cover the base of your cake tin without them being squashed in together, if they are squashed in it will be a nightmare to get the cake out of the tin in one piece)

220g golden caster sugar

200g plain flour

1 tsp of baking powder

½ tsp salt

120g unsalted butter (I use Stork for cakes)

2 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract

Zest of a lemon

100ml of milk 

• For this recipe you will need at 22cm cake tin with a loose bottom. Grease the tin and put a round of baking parchment in the base. Butter this as well and dust the whole tin with flour. Shake out the excess
• Lay the blackberries on the base of the tin (see the note above) and sprinkle over a tablespoon of caster sugar.
• Cream the butter and remaining sugar together until light and fluffy.
• Beat in the eggs one at a time with a spoonful of flour to prevent curdling. Add the vanilla extract and zest.
• Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Sift it into the creamed butter and sugar alternating with adding some milk. Fold until just incorporated. Add enough milk to have a smooth, thick batter. If it is starting to look runny then leave the rest of the milk as this will also lead to a cake that falls apart and you need it to flip successfully!
• Pour the mixture over the blackberries and bake in a 180ºC/gas mark 4 oven for forty minutes.
• Leave the cake to cool in the tin then flip it over onto a plate, peel off the paper and you have a delicious, blackberry speckled cake for tea. Dust with icing sugar for a pretty finish.

The only downsides to blackberries that I can see is the inevitable scratches you will acquire as you throw yourself enthusiastically into hedgerows in search of the plumpest fruits. There's something nice about war wounds for your food though, well earned dinner.

  

Happy blackberry season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Grey and Lavender Biscuits

The weather may not be quite the glorious summer we hoped for just now but the garden is enjoying the rain, and never fear, you can create that summer feeling inside with this week's Tea of the Week - Lady Grey, and its delightful accompaniment, lavender biscuits. You'll feel quite the laydeee, or man, whatever..!

This combo is dedicated to a very dear friend and fellow Windsorian @ladytaylorgray who came to my house recently requesting a lavender biscuit recipe. If you have a lavender bush at home it is likely to be growing like there is no tomorrow just now and let's be honest there are only so many lavender bags a girl can make. These biscuits are a great use for your excess lavender, are very yummy and so easy to make like so!

150g butter

90g caster sugar

225g plain flour

1 egg yolk

1 tablespoon fresh lavender leaves, chopped up.

1 teaspoon of lavender flowers removed from the stalk

Preheat your oven to 160ºC and line two baking trays with parchment. Cream the butter and sugar together until it is light and fluffy and then mix in the flour, egg yolk and lavender leaves until the mixture comes together into a big ball. On a floured work surface knead the dough until it is smooth and then roll into a sausage shape that is a couple of inches across. Chop your sausage into between 15-18 disks (just under a cm in width) and place on your baking trays. Put a lavender flower on the top of each biscuit and pop them in the over for 20 – 25mins depending on your oven speed. They won't go brown (a bit like shortbread) but should be firm to the touch. Leave them on the tray to cool for five minutes before moving onto a cooling rack. Pour yourself a cup of tea, savour your biscuits and make it summer inside even if it's tipping it down!

These really do go great with Lady Grey, which is black tea with oil of bergamot and lemon and orange peel. Lady Grey is a Twinnings Trademark tea so the only place to get it is from http://www.twinings.co.uk/ or if you are in London pop into their shop on The Strand. It is amazing and they let you try before you buy. There are also some other variations and with my lavender biscuits I enjoyed a cup of Empress Grey for good ol' M&S which contains white tea instead of black. It is delightfully refreshing with just a nice zing of citrus.

Summer has arrived!