The best of excuses

It was Mr. P's birthday yesterday.  So of course that could only mean one thing...

I first made this cake in my teens and made it so often I copied it into a notebook (hard to believe I was ever that person).  But then for some reason I stopped and haven't made a chocolate fudge cake for years and years.  It was always going to be something chocolatey for Mr. P.  I tried to push the idea of Nigella's chocolate and ginger as recommended by Annie of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows but Mr. P was having none of it.  (Sorry Annie, but I will doubtless find another reason to bake that soon...)   And it being his birthday, I couldn't really say no.

It's a simple recipe (see below), which is really just an excuse to make the icing...

... which is oh so sweet, but somehow just perfect.

The cake stand was put to work again, and this is just the cake it was made for....

The weekend wasn't all baking though.  I tried to make an ipad case with this lovely fabric that I mentioned here...

I will post about the disaster that followed another time when I've stopped sulking and figured out how to fix it.  I may be some time.

My head was full of sewing on my way to brunch when I came across this:

I was running late so didn't have time to go an investigate.  I suspect it was for one of the local hairdresser, but what if it was the sewing fairy come to tell me how to fix my fiasco?

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

C.x
Chocolate Fudge Cake
6 oz butter or marg
6 oz dark brown sugar
2 large tablespoons cocoa blended with 2 tablespoons boiling water and left to cool
3 eggs
6oz self raising flour
2 oz ground almonds

Icing
2 oz marg
3 tablespoons milk
1 rounded tablespoon cocoa
8 oz icing sugar

Cake:
Mix all the ingredients together until smooth.  Divide between two 7 inch sandwich tins.  Bake for 25-35 minutes at gas mark 4. (Simple!)

Icing
Place milk, marg and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat until marg melts (do NOT allow to boil).  Cool a little.  Sieve icing sugar into bowl and add cooled mixture.  Beat until smooth  Leave to go completely cold before icing.

Enjoy!

A tale of two cakes

Inspired by my fab new cakestand, I decided to have a go at baking some cakes.  This isn't something I would normally do.  There are two of us in the house of NKK.  Even if I bring some cake in to work, that still means way too much cake around the place calling to me (just a wafer thin slice more...).  But we had a visitor come and stay for a few days, which somehow provided the perfect excuse. 

I decided to have a go at one of Bill's afternoon tea cakes from Bill's Open Kitchen (more about Bill here) ....

... a nutty cake...

... with lots of proper icing that would look good on a cake stand...

It turned out quite well and had an unexpected lightness to it.  The icing, made with lime juice, had that delicious tangy sweetness that I love, and had Mr. P and I bickering over the drippy bits on the cakestand.

Here then is the recipe for Coconut and Lime Macadamia Cake:

200g macadamia nuts
40g self-raising flour
a pinch of salt
6 eggs, separated
165g sugar
finely grated zest of a lime
45g desiccated coconut

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Place the nuts, flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and process until the nuts are ground.  Place the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and beat for 3 minutes, or until the mixture is pale and creamy.  Fold through the zest and coconut, then the nut mixture.  Place the egg whites in a clean, dry stainless stell bowl and whisk until stiff peaks form.  Using a large metal spoon, fold lightly through the nut batter.

Spread the batter evenly into a 23 cm greased or non-stick springform cake tin.  Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake is lightly golden. Remove from the oven and leave to sit for 10 minutes in the tin. Turn the cake out onto a serving plate. Spread the lime icing over the warm cake, allowing it to drizzle down the sides.

Lime icing:
125g icing sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth and glossy.



Spurred on by this success, I decided that I needed a cake with rhubarb.  I could (and perhaps should) have made a rhubarb tart.  But I wanted something a bit more adventurous.  So I made this instead:

Nigella's rhubarb cornmeal cake. 

I think the kindest thing to say is that this did not end prettily.  There will be no slice shot. All the fruit sank to the bottom.  I have since learned on the internet that this is because the fruit bits were too big and that I should have coated them in flour before going in the cake mix.  And I took it out of the tin before it was cold so it's a bit saggy...

Not quite Nigella...

But despite its many flaws, I have to tell you that this cake is delicious.  Moist and juicy and tasty.  Of course it would be better with the fruit all the way through, but even all collected at the bottom the rhubarb is there in force.  I'd definitely make it again.  I'm sure that even Nigella didn't get everything right first time....

C.x
Recipe for rhubarb cornmeal cake:

500g rhubarb
300g caster sugar (please remember to split into 100g and 200g portions and not pour the whole lot over the rhubarb and get in a panic about rescuing it...  Yes indeed.)
150g plain flour
155g fine polenta or cornmeal
1tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g unsalted butter
250g plain yogurt, preferably bio

23cm springform cake tin, greased with butter and base lined.
Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 / 180C.

Trim the rhubarb and cut into 1/2cm slices. Place in a large bowl with 100g of the sugar and leave aside whilst you prepare the rest of the cake. Don’t leave for longer than 30 minutes, otherwise too much juice will leach out of the rhubarb.

Mix the flour, cornmeal/polenta, salt, cinnamon, bicarb in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, cream the butter and remaining sugar until light and fluffy. In a small bowl or ramekin, beat the eggs with the vanilla extract and then slowly add this to the creamed mixture. Beat well until mixture is fluffy again.

In alternating spoonfuls, add the flour mixture and yogurt to the creamed mixture. Mix these in very slowly to preserve the fluffiness of the mixture. Finally, fold in the rhubarb and all the sugary juices.

Pour into the tin and smooth the top. Bake for approximately one hour until the top is springy and a skewer comes out almost clean. Check after 40 minutes and cover with foil if the top looks as if it is going to overbrown. Let it cool, in the tin, on a wire rack until just warm or leave to cool completely if not eating immediately. It can be reheated in the oven if wrapped well in foil.

Packages (2)

Like most people, I do love a parcel.  And when I got home the other night, there were not one but two cardboard boxes waiting for me.  Mr. P is very good and doesn't tell me when such parcels come so as not to spoil the surprise.  I have to say I would not be so disciplined, and would likely rip into them to have a good rummage inside before ever he had the chance.  But anyway, these parcels were both ebay purchases.  I have not mentioned this before but I love ebay.  We used to live in the desert in North Africa before we came here, and before every holiday, I would go onto ebay, with the result that I always had parcels waiting for me at my sister's house when we went home.  Most of it was stuff I now don't have (what does this tell you...) - summery things and jumpers (who knew you needed jumpers in the desert).  But not housey stuff.  No point in carting housey stuff back to the desert only to ship it on to, well, wherever we were going next.

But now.... Now is an entirely different ebay experience.  Which leads to purchases like this...

... and this...

I am now the proud owner of a pink milk glass cake stand...

...with a beautiful, intricate lacey pattern which will be so easy to clean...

... and which stands elegantly on a pedestal adorned with patterns that look like musical instruments (I gave up piano when I was nine)...

Really I don't know how I have limped along in life without this until now.

AND, a sewing basket....

... with pretty faded fabric on the lid...

... and more shouty fabric inside.  Of course now that I am a seamstress, I will definitely have use for this.  And I haven't a single other box or tin or cupboard or drawer where I could store my sewing things.  No, I'm sure I don't.

Do you ebay?

C.x

Busy bee

My weekends are normally sloth-filled affairs.  Speaking frankly, Mr. P and I are idle creatures.  But this weekend has been a shining exception.

On Friday, we went to a cocktail party on HMS Gloucester, docked in Manhattan for a few days and due to be decommissioned shortly.  This sounds more salubrious that it was, and involved me trapping myself in the ship at one point when I went to the loo instead of sipping cocktails on deck.

On Saturday, I went to my first sewing class at Purl Soho.  I can't tell you enough good things about this shop.  Like being dropped into a rainbow.

There's so much inspiration wherever you turn, whether it's baby bibs...

...or felted figurines...

... or cashmere scarves...

... or these exquisite Liberty Tana Lawn samplers...

(such a simple idea, but such a lovely display just inside the front door).

They have a blog (Purl Bee) with regular project ideas (the quilts next to the cashmere scarves in the photo are some recent examples).  And the staff are friendly and helpful (but I think I've mentioned that before).

And best of all, there's a woman who's going to teach me how to sew.  Those of you who have read this blog before will know that my New Year's Resolution includes the Merry Christmas project  (to sew letters and stuff them).  But I actually want to get a bit beyond that.  So I signed up for sewing classes.  I haven't quite decided yet if I want to make clothes, but I definitely want to learn how to use a sewing machine, and maybe make cushion covers or simple curtains.  After that we'll see.  Mostly, I just want to conquer my fear of sewing machines.  Yes indeed.  Now, I am afraid of spiders and dark alleys and the usual list of panic-inducing bogie- men, but I must also confess to a fear of sewing machines.  Now, admittedly, I haven't used one since I was thirteen, and it's not like I lost a digit, or sewed my hair to the apron I was trying to make.  I have no traumatic memories to justify this fear.  But I think  it's to do with the noise and the feeling that it and not I am in control of the process.  As though it will literally run away with itself if I don't sit rigidly paying attention to what's happening.

I haven't told this to my teacher yet.  And I was relieved to see that yesterday, she took her time and explained everything six times, and gave lots of snippets of interesting information.  And although she took a sewing machine out towards the end of the lesson, she didn't actually let us loose on them.  Instead, she talked soothingly of feet and soles and ankles and arms as though the machine was a friend of hers who could be our friend too.

We are going to make bags.  I knew this before the class, and I had a vision of a simple rectangle of fabric sewn on three sides with the extravagance of a handle to finish.  A bit like a pillow case with a string attached.  I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about this as a project, but had put it down to wanting to run marathons before I could crawl.  But the bag we are to make is a bit more presentable than that.  I will let you know how I get on, but in theory it will be reversible, and have pockets inside and out with a magnetic clasp.  This is the fabric I've chosen:

As you can see, I have even acquired the tools of the trade.  Of course, I have no clue what to do with them...  Anyway, we spent most of the class cutting our cloth.  This involved a self-healing mat (I LOVE this concept and want to apply it to all sorts of things...).  And a rotary cutter.  Hmmm.  Not at all sure about this contraption.  I'm sure I will come to love it, but for now, I can't seem to be able to cut through four layers of fabric at a time.  And I am left-handed so I kept having to flip everything around.  I am used to this.  But my right hand is weak and kept allowing the rule against which I was cutting to slip around.  Not great if you're trying to cut a straight line.  But I am determined to master it all and will be back for more next week.  Stay tuned.

Having been out and about so much yesterday, I wanted to hunker down today.  Mr. P demanded scones.  So I obliged.  (They are fast becoming a staple in the house of no knitted knickers.)

I have mislaid the scone cutter that's the right size, but have discovered that a wine glass is just as good.  My ulterior motive for making these is this beauty...

... purchased on holiday and carted back across the world by hand in the manner of ancient traders.  So, I decided to do it right and have afternoon tea.

And then, because I was on a roll, I made stewed rhubarb.  I LOVE rhubarb.  I think it might be one of my desert island foods.  But I digress....

I use a thumb of finely-grated fresh ginger and the juice of half an orange as well as the sugar.  It gives it depth (and besides, I love ginger, so any excuse...)

And to cap it all, while rooting around in the freezer for some worthy fish, Mr. P unearthed some bangers that he'd TOTALLY forgotten about....  So, we had bangers and mash for dinner.  Which was really just a base for Nigel Slater's onion gravy with marsala.  Heaven on a plate.

Oh, and I made two more granny squares.

(And if you hadn't already guessed it, the abundance of foodie photos in this post is down to the fact that I am learning to use my tripod.  The one I've had for 10 years and never learned how to use.  It's amazing what blogging drives you to...)

So, you see really, I am glad the weekend is over and I can return to work for a rest.

Have a good week.

C.x

Treat

Good morning!

Normally I eat worthy porridge for breakfast but today I couldn't resist.

Hope you have a lovely day.

Claire

Scones

These are my new favourite thing to bake.  And I got home tonight and needed to be domestic.  So a flurry of activity in the kitchen just as Mr. P was trying to cook dinner. 
 

 But the raisiny/nutmeg/bready smell as we sat down to eat was worth it.

We're trying to watch what we eat at the moment.  Well, really trying to lose a bit of post-Christmas belly.  So we're following the GI diet.  And these scones fit right into the plan.  AND they're delicious.  Honest.  Glad I made a double batch.

Happy Monday.

Claire