Simnel Cake

We spent Easter on the Isle of Wight at my parents' home. Lovely sunny days and catching up with family. My husband is still suffering with a slipped disc but we were able to manage a short dog walk together along the beach which was a small thing but so nice after five weeks of walking without him.

My Mum asked me if I'd bake the Simnel Cake. I was marginally disappointed as I absolutely LOVE my mother's Simnel cake and knew instantly that mine wouldn't match up. However, as I've never made one and it is possibly my favourite kind of fruit cake, I was up for the challenge.

Oddly, despite owning an entire library of cookery books, recipes for a traditional Simnel cake were few and far between. I found a few 'modern' versions including Simnel cupcakes and Delia's version which houses lumps of marzipan rather than the traditional disc in the centre. But I wanted a totally traditional version. This is what I've grown up with and this is what I wanted. I finally found a suitable recipe in Nigella's 'Feast'. I followed the recipe precisely and you can find it here.

Cake batter, then a disc of marzipan and then more cake batter

Originally the Simnel cake was baked to celebrate Mothering Sunday but, over the years, has become synonymous with the Easter celebrations. I like mine to be a good deal lighter than a Christmas cake and for it to have plenty of sweet spices. In an ideal world, I would make my own marzipan. It is so much better than the bought version. My mother usually makes her own and it makes all the difference to this cake. It sort of 'melts' into the cake whilst I found the middle layer of marzipan remained a little firm in this version. I also found the timings to be out - my cooker is usually pretty accurate but this cake needed a good 15 minutes longer. In fact, it needed longer than that. I took it out a little early and it sunk in the middle. If this happens, do as I did and simply turn the cake upside down before topping with marzipan. That way you have a nice flat surface to work with!

Take a little time witht the top of the cake. Roll out the disc of marzipan and glue onto the cake with some apricot jam. It looks nicest if you 'crimp' the edge by pinching all along the edge with your thumb and forefinger. Next, score a grid pattern on the top of the marzipan - the uneven texture on the top helps the marzipan brown when the blowtorch is applied. Arrange all the balls (apostles) on top of the cake before 'glueing' in position. It takes a little effort to get them all evenly spaces. Pick them up one at a time and glue into position. Sounds obvious but if you start glueing immediately, you may get to the end of your circle and still have two balls to fit in! Finally, brush the top of the marzipan (and the balls) with beaten egg and carefully brown with a blow-torch or under a hot grill. Go carefully as it is easy to burn the top!

However, despite these few niggles, the cake was delicious and well received. I'd make it again but next time would definitely go to the extra length of making my own marzipan.

The fluffy chickens are, in my mind, absolutely obligatory. I can't imagine Easter without them. You may feel different. In which case a little pile of chocolate eggs or perhaps some sugar flowers would look more.... tasteful!

I am entering my traditional Easter bake into Julia's 'Easter Cake Bake 2011' over at 'A Slice of Cherry Pie'. I hope that she likes it!

Chilled avocado soup

I've probably said this before but, if given the choice between living somewhere permanently hot and sunny and spending the rest of my days here in damp and murky Britain, I'd choose the latter. Don't get me wrong, I love a hot sunny day as much as the next person, but what I love best of all is an English summer's day. So rarely do we get a spell of perfect sunny weather over here, when we do, we really make the most of it. I think the unpredictability of the British summer makes it all the more appealing. Today, the sun is out and my spirits are immediately lifted. I feel energised and spontaneous and excitable. If it was like this all the time, I'm not sure I'd feel the same.

Outdoor events are something that the British do rather well, I've always thought. Come rain or shine we put our best foot forward and enter into the spirit even if we are soaked through the skin. There is a certain British pride in gathering together and making the best of an unkind summers day. We shall wave our flags, even if we have to do so wearing head-to-toe ponchos.

Fortunately, my latest evening of flag-waving was blessed with good weather. Last weekend, I headed back home to the Isle of Wight for a thoroughly British evening of picnics, Rule Britannia, classical music and fireworks. The 'last night of the Proms' type event took place at wonderful Osborne House, holiday home of Queen Victoria.


We were blessed with a perfect English summer evening although there was a bit of a nip in the air! I just love to eat outdoors - the food always seems to taste better somehow. Picnics are a real favourite of mine and like Julia over at A Slice of Cherry Pie, I like to do them properly. With linen napkins and proper knives and forks. Fortunately, so does my mother as it was her who made the preparations for this particular event. I am proud to say that I am fairly sure that we were the only ones to have a properly ironed linen tablecloth!

Sadly, we were slightly outdone by a neighbouring table who had bought a candelabra. We were the ones who were smug though as they couldn't get theirs to stay alight in the breeze - our pretty glass holder sheltered the nightlight from the wind.

Anyway, earlier in the day, we (..or rather my mother..) prepared a delicious chilled avocado soup for our starter. It is superb and a real summer favourite of mine. I know some people are hesitant at the idea of a chilled soup, but I think there is nothing more refreshing on a hot day. Gazpacho is another favourite of mine. The recipe is one I've grown up with - just one mouthful makes me feel all summery. I think the recipe came originally from our old milkman, believe it or not. But I could be wrong.

It needs to be made a few hours in advance so that it has adequate time to chill, though you can speed it along with a few ice cubes. It is the simplest of soups to make - you chop everything up and whizz it together in a liquidiser. I like to serve this for summer suppers or lunches in the garden. I have some pretty glass bowls that set it off perfectly. For our picnic, we transported in in a thermos with a few ice cubes and then poured it into mugs. Not to be outdone by our fellow diners, my mother even snipped a few chives and wrapped them in clingfilm ready to sprinkle on top. Now that is what I call a civilised picnic!

I'm entering this cooling soup into an event called 'Beat the Heat' hosted by A Southern Grace. Grace is compiling recipes from the blogosphere that do not require us to fire up the oven during these hot summer days. Do take a look at her lovely and entertaining blog and, even better, why not submit one of your own heat-beating recipes.

Chilled avocado soup
Serves 4-6 (4 as a lunch dish, 6 as a starter)

Ingredients

150ml single cream
2 large ripe avocados
2 tbsp lemon juice
575ml cold chicken stock (well-flavoured) You could also use vegetable stock, of course.
300ml milk
2 spring onions
Worcestershire sauce - a few drops to taste
chives - to garnish
Salt and pepper

1. Chop the avocados into chunks and slice the spring onions. Do not throw away the avocado stones.

2. Place everything into a liquidiser and whizz until smooth. Taste the soup and season well. You may want to add more Worcestershire sauce.

3. Cover and chill, placing avocado stones in the soup until ready to serve to prevent discolouration.

Incidentally, having enjoyed our soup, we moved onto an array of Marks and Spencer's goodies - looking around at the other picnics, I'd say that good old M&S did pretty well out of us concert-goers. The strawberry tarts were particularly good!

In August I am lucky enough to be going, for the first time, to Glyndebourne. I have been charged with bringing dessert so am searching for good ideas. It needs to be easily transportable yet impressive. And, as it might be a hot evening and we won't get round to eating it until late, something that won't melt/fall apart. A tall order and I have a few ideas, but I would welcome any ideas or suggestions that you may have...

A Birthday Buffet (and a leek, bacon and mustard quiche)

The past couple of days have been entirely filled with my favourite activity. What is my favourite activity, I hear you ask. Cooking, of course! I decided to throw a lunchtime buffet party for friends to celebrate my birthday. Twenty-five or so people descended on my small London flat and I thanked him upstairs for the dry weather. Once the first eight guests were installed in the garden with a glass of fizz in hand, I decided that the garden was full and that perhaps inviting so many people was a mistake. Bit to late to decide that.

Fortunately no one seemed to mind the squash and it was extremely good fun. Modesty aside, I think I laid on a pretty impressive feast. I cooked my first ever ham (by candlelight, the night before - the kitchen light bulb blew at precisely the worst moment and I didn't have a spare), made quiches, chicken liver paté (I've forgotten how to do those accents again...), smoked trout paté, Kate's special broccoli salad, cucumber salad, other salads. And not to mention puddings. The divine Green and Black's Chocolate Mousse Cake (the first recipe I posted on this blog) and a delicious crunchy raspberry ripple semi-freddo. Recipes will all be posted over the next week, but first up is the quiche. It may not sound exciting. Anyone can cook a quiche. But I have had more comments on this quiche than on almost anything else I have ever cooked...



I am unable to comprehend the enthusiasm for this quiche. Don't get me wrong, I think it is absolutely delicious. A very good quiche with a lovely combination of flavours. But it is just a quiche. There are more exciting things in life, surely. Such is the demand for the quiche that several attendees refused to come unless I promised to produce the quiche. One person even confessed to having a dream about the quiche the night before (the dream also apparently involved a former Russian President). I made two enormous specimens but still had someone complaining that I hadn't made a third!

I feel duty bound to reproduce the recipe here (I personally think the secret of its success lies in the large quantity of double cream and the mustard spread over the base). It is no great secret as it comes from one of my favourite culinary resources - Leith's Cookery Bible. The recipe serves four, but is easily doubled or tripled.

A note on pastry now. Whilst I am capable (and often willing) to make my own pastry, I am not proud. Call me a heathen, but I am only too happy to use ready-made pastry when time restricts. With so many things to cook, I was happy to embrace this time-saving device. No doubt, people will tell me that I am creating a vastly inferior quiche this way, but let me let you into another secret. More than one person complimented me on the quality of said pastry. How I would have loved to bask a little in the glory but I'm too honest.

'How do make the pastry so good?'
'...(slight pause from me)...umm...I buy it in the supermarket'.

To be fair, nothing beats really good homemade shortcrust pastry, but there is certainly no shame in a few shortcuts!

Leek, Bacon and Mustard Quiche

Ingredients (serves four)

170g shortcrust pastry

15g butter
3 large or 5 small leeks - white part finely chopped
55g rindless bacon - I prefer smoked
2 egg yolks
140ml double cream
Grainy mustard - good quality, enough to cover base
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

1. Pre-heat oven to 190C. Roll out the pastry on a floured surface. Line a loose-bottomed flan tin (20cm/8in). Pop in fridge to relax for half an hour. This prevents shrinkage.

2. Bake the pastry case blind to prevent soggy pastry (line case with foil, pour in baking beans or dried pasta/rice, bake for approx 15 minutes, remove beans and continue to dry out the pastry). Lower oven to 170C when you remove from oven. (Get on with making the filling whilst base is in the oven - step 5).


3. Spread the base of the pastry case with a generous quantity of mustard.

4. Melt butter in a frying pan and cook the leeks until fairly soft. Fry bacon until brown in separate pan in its own fat. Drain well.

5. Mix egg yolks and cream together and the add the leeks and bacon. Mix and season well. Pour into the pastry case.

6. Sprinkle with Parmesan and bake at 170C for 30 minutes or until filling is just set and the top nicely bronzed.

Wine Notes - This would be perfect with a dry white such as a Pinot Blanc from Alsace. Alternatively, a slightly oaked Chardonnay would marry well with both the rich creaminess of the filling and the slight smoke from the bacon - Burgundy is a safe bet. A restrained New Zealand Chardonnay might be good too.

Taste of London

Just returned from a gastronomic trip to Alsace. More on choucroute and other such joys later, but for now a few words on a tremendous event that takes place annually in London and which I was lucky enough to attend last Thursday. Taste of London is (according to the blurb) 'a stunning celebration of the best cuisine the city has to offer'. Dozens of foodie stalls line a large section of Regents Park, with producers touting their wares. Everything from tasty chutneys and spicy nibbles to flavoursome English cheeses and Isle of Wight garlic...

But the main attraction are the restaurant pavilions. Dozens of London's best restaurants are represented with top chefs cooking up their signature dishes for the punters to sample. All this comes at a price, of course. After a handsome entry fee, you then have to buy 'crowns' at 50p each in order to exchange for mini-portions of food cooked on the spot for you by world-famous chefs. Dishes cost from four to ten crowns and cover all corners of the world with restaurants as diverse as Boxwood Cafe, Fino, Tamarind, Le Gavroche and Nahm all making their presence felt.

On arrival we decided the best course of action was to get a drink and then make a battle plan. With 41 restaurants each offering 3 dishes, deciding was certainly a challenge. Some choices were easy (Wagyu Beef on hot rocks from Cocoon), others were more tricky (Signature Crisp Pork Belly from Fino or Scallop shumai from Yauatcha?). The evening resulted in many a treat for the taste-buds. First stop for me was Fino for the Pork Belly. The fact that Sam (or Eddie - not sure which is which) Hart actually carved this off with his own fair hands gave an added frisson of excitement as the meltingly tender meat and contrasting crisp skin hit my tongue. Divine - totally lived up to expectations!

Meanwhile, back at base-camp, friends were tucking into the first of three scallop based dishes - Griddled scallops with pea puree and mint vinaigrette from Kensington Place...

Next up was a spot of fish from Gavin at Windows. Seabream served with soupe au pistou was divine. Never mind the fish (which was cooked to perfection - a miracle when considering how many were being dished out), the soupe au pistou was the thing dreams are made of. Oh to re-create that soupe au pistou - all vegetabley, life-giving, comforting and wonderful. Here's to Galvin.

Whist we made short work of the fish (we decided sharing dishes was a cunning way to make the crowns go further), another friend sampled an intriguing dish of Papdi Channa Chaat - whole wheat crisps and spiced chickpeas with sweetened yoghurt, mint chutney, tamarind chutney and a sprinkling of blueberries a pomegranate. It was... interesting (and very pretty).

From the same stall (Tamarind), I tried the Malabar kingfish curry - a winning concoction incorporating onions, tomatoes and ground spices tempered with mustard, fenugreek and curry leaves. All served with steamed rice, haricot beans with lentils, red chillies and coconut. A superb mouthful.

After a breather (aka a wine re-fuel), I headed to Cocoon for one of the night's favourite dishes - the Wagyu beef. Served simply on hot rocks so you could cook it to your liking, it was unbelievably tender and hugely flavoursome. It was so good that when I was unable to offer any to my friends and when I ate the last mouthful, I was so upset that I even considered eating the rocks!


You'd think by now that we might have eaten enough. Oh no. You are under-estimating my stamina! Having brushed shoulders with Angela Hartnett and Aldo Zilli, I carried on. A tasty Tandoori guinea foul with peanuts and mango from the Cinnamon Club was fairly good, a very fiery lamb curry from Zaika was spot on too. Puddings were a little disappointing, unless you like panna cotta (which I don't). In most cases these were 'make in advance' creations that were slightly predictable (lemon tart, chocolate brownies, strawberry and champagne jellies etc). I was too late for the scrummy Boxwood Cafe chocolate fondue but luckily had a tiny taste from a friend...

It would have been nice to see a few more ambitious puddings in line with the ambitious savoury offerings, but maybe I'm just being picky!

At the end of the evening, feeling rather full but still buzzing from the party atmosphere we set off on a quick mine-sweep of any leftovers. With all the food cooked fresh to order, some kindly chefs took pity on our now crownless state and off-loaded some of their leftover wares. A true highlight came at the Theo Randall stand, where Theo himself whipped up a great scallop dish from scratch for my friends and hunted out a rather good chocolate pud for yours truly. He was so obliging, he even posed for a photo...

One Champagne jelly later and it was time to hit the road. A superb way to spend an evening - I was so impressed to find so many of the chefs on site, actually doing the cooking and talking with the dreaded GP (general public). And tremendous that they stick it out for a whole four days. A great opportunity to sample foods from restaurants you might not otherwise afford too. I, for one, shall be back with bells on next year.